Not just the stupid are morons
I am a Unix systems bod for one of the biggest IT companies in the world and I specialise in very big systems for multibillion blue chip customers. I was working on a project for a very large investment bank. The installation, the application, everything was unique and being done from scratch. We're talking millions and millions and hundreds of people.
Needless to say it was a complete and utter mess and years behind schedule. The customer was jumping up and down (despite being 50% responsible for the mess), management were proving themselves less and less able. The answer - Americans!!!!! Over they come, rejig the solution they do, fat they are. All that. After three months we have loads of things to do, and a new plan. But the plan had taken so long to write that we had already used part of the time and it wouldn't get completed in the timescale that the customer had already been told. So we techies are asked to make up numbers to help management come up with a new plan, which immediately goes wrong. So round we go again, and again, and again. Every month for two years. Finally, after avoiding court for the nth time - senior (all thirty of them) management go on a replanning emergency retreat.
My third line manager (who was merely the flip chart guy at this heady gathering) says:
We have been replanning for two years and nothing has worked. How about examining where we are going wrong before starting again?

The ultimate boss (American): That sort of thing is not constructive and is not what senior management are here for. Now lets get on with replanning this programme to the dates I have decided.

Apols for no laugh out loud, and also to all of our shareholders.
(I am the infinite monkey!, Mon 10 Jan 2005, 16:56, Reply)