Thursday, February 10, 2005
A funny meeting
This post is neither a rant nor sage counsel; just something funny that happened in a meeting last Friday. The Four Developers, Scott (the "product manager" or something like that), and Jim the Consultant were talking (at length, naturally, and somewhat aimlessly) about how we're going to implement this massive credit card processing system over the next few years. At one point somebody asked Scott if any applications built for this sytem were going to have to support the briefcase model.
"Talk about 'briefcase model,'" Scott responded.
Yes. He really said that. "Talk about 'briefcase model.'" He did not say, as any other reasonable human being (including me, since I'd never heard of it either) would have said, "So, uh, what's a briefcase model?" He said, "Talk about 'briefcase model.'"
Of course, the critical question to be asked at this point (but which, I regret to say, I failed to do), is "Has Scott seen What About Bob?" Because of course, that's where that's from. Dr. Leo Marvin "psychoanalyzes" Bill Murray (Bob) at the beginning of the movie by simply saying "Talk about" whatever the last thing was that Bill (Bob) said.
If Scott has seen What About Bob?, then why in the world would he try to emulate the guy that the movie mercilessly lampoons as a pretentious, over-credentialed windbag, especially when Scott's job title is one that is particularly prone to allegations of being filled by pretentious, over-credentialed windbags? "But Williams," you say, "he was trying to funny!" Ah, but he was not. Scott is a funny guy (even "ha-ha" funny), but I know him well, and he was not trying to be funny. Particularly in meetings like this, he takes himself very seriously.
If Scott has not seen What About Robert?, then where did he get it from? Do people actually say this? If so, then what's wrong with all those people, that they've never seen What About Bob? And how come the have-seens don't tell the haven't-seens? In any case, how could such a transparently pretentious verbal tic survive for so long? Is it one of those things like "dude," where you start out saying it because you're being funny, but then it works so well that eventually you're just saying it out of habit, even when you're being serious?
So what we end up with, here, is Two Americas. On the one hand, you have people who have seen What About Bob?, and on the other, you have the people who haven't seen it, and so they still say "Talk about 'X'," and the former are secretly snickering at the latter, who are going to very angry when they find out about it, I can assure you.
As you can see, Scott's saying this completely blew my mind. I still don't know what to think.
Anyway, the conversation went on. Dave offered an explanation. Apparently it's an application where you can work offline for a while, and then later on come back online and the data automatically syncs up with the centralized database, or whatever.
"In other words," said Dave, "can the user still work on the application without any connection to any network at all--with his ethernet cable completely unplugged."
"Or any wireless access or anything like that," added Alan.
Again: Yes! He really said that! He actually thought it was necessary to specify: oh, by the way, and no wireless network access either. As if he was afraid that Scott was going to come back a couple of days later and say, "Hey guys, I figured out a way to get this briefcase model thingie to work without an ethernet cable. You just configure all the computers with wireless access! Bahda-bing bahda-boom!"
Oh, my. Hilarious. Perhaps there will be more entertainment in this new job than I'd thought. And by the way, I'm using a new, wrong spelling for Alan, for, uh, privacy purposes.
"Talk about 'briefcase model,'" Scott responded.
Yes. He really said that. "Talk about 'briefcase model.'" He did not say, as any other reasonable human being (including me, since I'd never heard of it either) would have said, "So, uh, what's a briefcase model?" He said, "Talk about 'briefcase model.'"
Of course, the critical question to be asked at this point (but which, I regret to say, I failed to do), is "Has Scott seen What About Bob?" Because of course, that's where that's from. Dr. Leo Marvin "psychoanalyzes" Bill Murray (Bob) at the beginning of the movie by simply saying "Talk about" whatever the last thing was that Bill (Bob) said.
If Scott has seen What About Bob?, then why in the world would he try to emulate the guy that the movie mercilessly lampoons as a pretentious, over-credentialed windbag, especially when Scott's job title is one that is particularly prone to allegations of being filled by pretentious, over-credentialed windbags? "But Williams," you say, "he was trying to funny!" Ah, but he was not. Scott is a funny guy (even "ha-ha" funny), but I know him well, and he was not trying to be funny. Particularly in meetings like this, he takes himself very seriously.
If Scott has not seen What About Robert?, then where did he get it from? Do people actually say this? If so, then what's wrong with all those people, that they've never seen What About Bob? And how come the have-seens don't tell the haven't-seens? In any case, how could such a transparently pretentious verbal tic survive for so long? Is it one of those things like "dude," where you start out saying it because you're being funny, but then it works so well that eventually you're just saying it out of habit, even when you're being serious?
So what we end up with, here, is Two Americas. On the one hand, you have people who have seen What About Bob?, and on the other, you have the people who haven't seen it, and so they still say "Talk about 'X'," and the former are secretly snickering at the latter, who are going to very angry when they find out about it, I can assure you.
As you can see, Scott's saying this completely blew my mind. I still don't know what to think.
Anyway, the conversation went on. Dave offered an explanation. Apparently it's an application where you can work offline for a while, and then later on come back online and the data automatically syncs up with the centralized database, or whatever.
"In other words," said Dave, "can the user still work on the application without any connection to any network at all--with his ethernet cable completely unplugged."
"Or any wireless access or anything like that," added Alan.
Again: Yes! He really said that! He actually thought it was necessary to specify: oh, by the way, and no wireless network access either. As if he was afraid that Scott was going to come back a couple of days later and say, "Hey guys, I figured out a way to get this briefcase model thingie to work without an ethernet cable. You just configure all the computers with wireless access! Bahda-bing bahda-boom!"
Oh, my. Hilarious. Perhaps there will be more entertainment in this new job than I'd thought. And by the way, I'm using a new, wrong spelling for Alan, for, uh, privacy purposes.
# posted by Bruce Hansen @ 1:52 PM 
