Motive for mayhem

I’ve been working with an organization that’s trying to help people shorten the job transition time & consequently lower the economic & emotional cost of being out of work. I mostly like it because what I’m doing as a product manager has a visible effect on the service, & I think it’s a worthwhile effort.

But it’s not without its challenges.

I’ve described the executive director as being like a puppy at a barbecue—always running off after another scent. When I mentioned this description to a person in the psychology business, she commented, “Sounds like he has attention deficit disorder.”

Well—I guess that would be the clinical definition of being a puppy at a barbecue.

Those who know me will get a laugh out of the karmic kick of me having to continually bring another CEO back to the topic at hand at every meeting, & having to continually make the same case for something he’s agreed to in the past but wants reconsidered within the intervening 48 hours.

But I’m thinking it’s hard to top the three-hour meeting I had with him the day before Thanksgiving, when I mapped out some new functionality by filling up a wall-to-wall whiteboard three times (draw it out, photograph it & erase it) with functional flow & arrows looping all over the place for a new feature set he wants in place by the end of December.

As I was working on the last layer, trying to see what might be missing, & continually asking, “What happens then?”—he suddenly chirped: “What is your degree in?”

“Hanh?”

“What’s your degree in?”

“I have a bachelor’s in European studies & a master’s in US history.”

“It’s just that you have…such a logical mind.”

“Well—the whole point of having a liberal arts education is that it teaches you how to think.”

“Yeah—but you think so logically. For not being an engineer.”

Yes, I, too, am wondering why I even bother.