FlukeMan2 your very right those in D.C. put it under the Good and Plenty clause in the Constitution.

They don't understand the terms but they still have an expectation. If you just do whatever, then they will say you did it wrong (against their expectations). Then you won't be able to defend yourself with the specifications they set out. The only thing to do is change the spec (with their approval) or refuse the job.

EXPERT=ex(has been)..spert(drip under pressure).

Reminds me of the first big company I worked for. After a while, a lot of us engineers realized that management was doing their planning around inventions and breakthroughs that they'd apparently scheduled into their timelines.

Alice in Wonderland had nothing on those guys.

Monty Python meets Dilbert. Hilarious Euda.

Got the t-shirt, got the hat and the scars to boot!

Yep, LMAO too. Unfortunately it reminded me of any number of actual design meetings I've attended in the past. It was usually marketing that came up with all sorts of interesting and contradictory requirements.

Where's your sense of challenge to give up so easily? Look at my post below for a possible solution: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/6c...

It's the customer's problem if they can't visualize it. There is a story about defense contractors making an airplane for the government. When they completed the contract, they were accused of not meeting specs. The contractor pointed out the specs stated the fighter had to fly X amount of miles, it didn't specify it had to be able to return from that distance! Absurd as that sounds, it's the world we live in today. ;-)

Thinking outside the box expands our minds. Since space-time is a fourth dimension, adding 4 more gives you 8 total. If I were the expert, I would make the lines out of words, like microprinting on a check, which would meet the criteria of the lines being read (red), then you can color them green or blue or red or put saran wrap over the ones that had to be transparent. I still can't figure out what to do about the animal balloons but I'm working on it. ;-) I actually LMAO the first time I watched it and immediately thought of Common Core in schools today.

Since they don't understand what the terms involved mean, all the "expert" needs to do is to draw lines any which way, and rename them to suit the specs. Or, just get the hell out of there before he gets as looney as the rest of them.

everyone except the expert was trained in Common Core. If meetings like this aren't Entrepreneur-makers I don't know what are...
#beentheredonethat

The "customers" were suffering from a very recognizable aversion to reality problem. I have been contracting for a while now. Its nice since if a place sucks I can leave. But I have seen almost too much incompetence born from avoiding reality. So these are folks who could save themselves by learning objectivist principles.

The humor is pretty old. I could not even laugh because I was empathizing with Anderson. I did send this to four of my Objectivist friends who also will not laugh. If you are looking for deep reasons to explain the committee, you will find them in _The Fountainhead_ and _Atlas Shrugged_. You can follow the branches of that theory in many directions. For one thing, the Nazis were dedicated users of public opinion polls. Opinions were reality to them. In the remake of "How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying" called "The Secret of My Success" starring Michael J. Fox, the pretty girl insists that there are no facts, only opinions.

"William H. Whyte, Jr. coined the term in 1952 in _Fortune_ magazine:
Groupthink being a coinage - and, admittedly, a loaded one - a working definition is in order. We are not talking about mere instinctive conformity - it is, after all, a perennial failing of mankind. What we are talking about is a rationalized conformity - an open, articulate philosophy which holds that group values are not only expedient but right and good as well. -- Wikipedia article on "Group Think" It is Anderson's own employers who insist that he do what the client wants.

Accountants know an old joke about the three bookkeepers in a job interview. Each is asked "How much is 2 plus 2?" The one who is hired is the one who asked back, "How much do you want it to be?"

Also, on the plus side, you know Anderson was fairly succinct and cogent. He explained everything well and even switched contexts to offer different reasons for the same failures. If there is a parable here (see khalling above), it is that Anderson needs to work for himself -- he will still have the same customers, of course, but at least he will be unburdened of the sales manager and project manager.