Thursday, June 25, 2009

Jabberwocky

One of the first books I unpacked in my recent move was my copy of The Annotated Alice, which comprises Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. So I reread them both.

I used to say of my previous employer that I’d fallen down the rabbit hole, but I admit that where I am now is definitely looking-glass world. Everything is distorted, nothing is as it seems, in order to get somewhere you must go in the opposite direction, and the shortest distance between two points is never a straight line.

In fact, there may not be a connection at all between the two points, so you’d better not set your heart on that.

I’m working on a product that’s been in “development” since March and the configuration of v1 still hasn’t been anointed.

That’s because we’re still taking guesses at who the target market is and what use they might get out of this.

(And, no—that’s not how you’re supposed to build new applications. But this only came up because management made a deal with a data source and then we had to dream up something to use the data on.)

Unsurprisingly, launch date keeps being pushed out quarter by quarter.

I have to say that knowing things aren’t going to make any sense doesn’t make it particularly easier to navigate the landscape, but there it is. A slithy tove is a slithy tove, wherever you encounter it.

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