My friend and fellow writer Tom described a meeting he attended yesterday for his day job. In fact, it was a call-in affair. While he was wandering a wind-swept university campus waiting to go into class he was also speaking to co-workers in London and Silicon Valley. The conversation made him glad of his new-found vocation. His plan to become a writer has left him partially protected from the language of corporate politics, of euphemism and hierarchy, which once drove him insane.
“Bob wants this by November,” someone said.
“It’s important we use best practices as defined by Simon’s Knit Your Own Cloud memorandum.” said someone else.
“I think Mary and Joe have a different timescale for their deliverables, so perhaps we should make their sign off retrospective”
(That last bit was code for “Jesus! Let’s route around the consultants, or they’ll tie us up in meetings for three months then stab us in the back. Laughing.” And on both sides of the Atlantic several people nodded quietly to themselves.)
Although he performs his duties conscientiously, Tom has realigned his career goals. In fact he threw himself from the ladder entirely, gave up his seniority and returned to pure code slinging. Partly that’s because he enjoys code slinging, but mainly it’s so he can put his heart and soul into writing.
So, while he listened to plans laid and games played yesterday, it was with the detachment of a drone who’ll happily do the work and collect the pay however good or bad the decisions turn out to be.
He even permitted himself a moment’s feeling of superiority. These guys are all talking in code, he thought. They’re deluding themselves. They’re going to launch yet another doomed Big Push, and then a year later they, or people very like them, will find themselves at a near identical meeting. They’ll agree Mistakes Were Made. But, they’ll say, Bob’s new plan, or Harry’s make-it-so agenda, or Alex’s Project: System Do-Over will really get the job done this time (so long as they remember to route around the consultants).
Tom, on the other hand, is going to be a writer.
When I ran into him at the cafe this morning, though, he looked much less serene. He was staring at his laptop with a slightly crazed glint in his eyes.
“I can’t believe I thought they were foolish,” he told me. “At least they’re doing real things in the real world. I mean look at this.” He spun his laptop and showed me a fragment from his work in progress.
“I see your problem.” I told him. “You appear to be writing about a barn-sized beef sandwich.”
“I do, don’t I?” he agreed. “The thing is, sometimes that seems a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing. And then other times…” he shook his head.
I patted him on the shoulder and left him to it. And I think he’s still there.
