BOFH: Eight pints of a lager and a management breakthrough
The Boss has been on a retreat, which means he needs a factory reset ASAP
Episode 2 The office is in a mild panic after the Boss's PA revealed that he's been on a management retreat for the past three days and is excited to share what he's learned with us.
ASSUME MANAGEMENT-FAD BRACE POSITIONS!
The thing about management fads is they're like turds in a sewer – a new one will be floating by before you know it – and they all generally stink.
Having been through a colored hat debacle, a colored belt cult, a one-minute mismanagement trial, a 360° feedback death spiral, some Core Incompetence groupings, Management by Objections, Matrix Management, and finally, agility training for couch potatoes, we've had enough changes in direction to require a Dramamine prescription.
...
The Boss is positively glowing with an abundance of goodwill to all men – because he now knows the solution to our problems.
Or rather this month's solution to our problems.
"We need to go Agilely Lean!" he sighs benevolently.
"I'll let the cafeteria know," I reply. "Quickly."
"No, I mean lean business – rapid delivery."
"Like pizzas?" I say, tapping away at my phone.
"No. I mean yes, rapid delivery, but not food. We want to stop getting bogged down in trivia. We want to get things done fast, in sharp focus, no side-tracking from the main task!"
"So... I shouldn't have ordered pizzas?"
"I didn't ask you to order pizzas," the Boss says. "I... uh ... What sort of pizza was it?"
And that's all it takes. I've reset the Boss with fast food.
"Meat lovers," I lie.
"Oh. How many did you order?"
"Three," I say.
"So... only enough for..."
"Three of us. Sorry, should I have invited the office?"
"No. I'm sure they'd rather... have cafeteria food," the Boss lies.
And the latest price check on staff loyalty is a meat lovers pizza...
The problem with soft resets, though, is that like glitched RAM they don't fully clear the memory. To be on the safe side, we really need to give the boss a full factory reset.
"Apparently there's free ice cream down the road at 5pm," I say.
"Free ice cream?" the Boss asks, looking up keenly.
"Oh, is that at the model train display?" the PFY asks, seeing where I'm going.
"Model train display?" the Boss echoes, even more keen.
"Yeah, and I heard Claudia Schiffer is opening it," I reply.
"Claudia Schiffer?" the Boss whimpers, mentally reaching back in time for a PDA to cancel his afternoon meetings.
I'm cautiously optimistic that we're on the road to success, but to make the reset permanent we'll need a catalyst...
"Who fancies a pint?" the PFY says, adding: "On the way to the train display."
"I... uh..." the Boss says, indecisively.
"I'm in!" I say.
"Well, I guess we could put it down as a team-building exercise to go through the course material."
And that's another gnawing frustration. Boss types are always spending up large at the merch table, buying eye-wateringly expensive paraphernalia they think will invigorate others.
"No need!" I cry. "The PFY put that into the shredder when the carton arrived this morning."
"THE SHREDDER?!"
- BOFH: Every computer system eventually serves ads
- BOFH: The Christmas spirit has run dry – time to show some chiller instinct
- BOFH: All through the house, not a creature was stirring except the homicidal vacuum cleaner
- BOFH: If another meeting is scheduled, someone is going to have a scheduled accident
"Yeah, it'd end up there in a couple of months anyway, so he just cut out the middleman. Anyway, let's get that pint and chat about it."
Seven pints later, the Boss has stopped asking about Claudia Schiffer and I believe we've completed the factory reset. Now all we need to do is to apply our customized settings to his ROM.
"See, what the company really needs," I say to the Boss, "is a mantra – like doctors – to do no harm."
"Yes, yes. I see that," the Boss says after a significant delay for processing.
"And often, in bad situations, doing something can make things worse."
"Mmmm," he agrees, nodding slowly.
"So, if we limit our activities, we limit the situation to a smaller sphere of influence," I explain.
"And we also ensure we can't get blamed for making things worse," the PFY says.
"Mmm, yes," the Boss says dully, seeing the upsides.
"And so our motto should be 'Make the situation better by limiting the impact of your activities which might make it worse.'"
We pause for several seconds while the Boss runs this through his beer-impaired processor.
...
"It's a bit of a mouthful – for a mantra," he mumbles.
"True. But how could you trim that down to a couple of words that mean do nothing?"
...
"Why not that!?" the Boss blurts.
"Why not what?"
"Why not DO NOTHING?" the Boss says.
"DO... NOTHING..." I say, as if contemplating the resounding significance of it.
"Amazing," the PFY says. "We should do something about that..."
The next day the Boss is piling all his personal items into a cardboard box. It seems that eight is an unlucky number of pints to make business decisions. Not right next door to a two-hour printing outfit, at least.
Still, on the plus side, everyone in the building likes their coffee coaster and pen saying "DO NOTHING."
And the posters on the inside of the lift door were a nice touch...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
