Deadline Free

AcMo doesn't have to worry about project or publication deadlines, or the consequences for missing those.  We don't have a problem when we miss an estimate for the return of a customer's vehicle because we never specify a date.  We do this so we can have more testing time with the car, and because problems always develop that take more time than we would have estimated to rectify.  That's assuming we can rectify them, which is a dangerous assumption.  We also don't have to pull a CNN and report false news as breaking stories to get readers.  The best part of being at AcMo is that there is nothing to recover when a judgement goes against us.  Haha, suckers!

The previous management personnel who were also under my control were overbearing, boorish, and downright pedantic.  They complained about my failure to use periods, commas, actual sentences, and even had the nerve to suggest I step down when I asserted my 32nd amendment right and refused to submit my own performance evaluation.  A lot of people don't know about that amendment and the protections it offers, but then most people don't have a Law & Order law degree either.  I had the board vote to remove that management team and I replaced all of them with myself.  Everything is more efficient as a result.

Unfortunately, I learned about research the other day that has suggested that our no deadline policy may be counter-productive.  This is disconcerting because our whole organization was built upon deadline eradication.  The fact that there is no slowly descending harbinger of doom in the form of a deadline hovering over our heads may let us lapse into complacency. Complacency results in a reduction of our will to complete projects.  That cloud of death from that Volvo dealership may qualify, but it doesn't seem to descend.  It stays high above us, raining misfortune without getting too close.

The logical next step would be to reinstitute a deadline for all projects, but with an added twist:  the deadlines will not correspond to an achievable timeframe.  Each deadline will be calculated to be approximately 38% shorter than necessary.  The amount of pressure this will cause should be enough to spur some real action within the organization.

This would have been accomplished sooner, but I spent the morning fixing a plumbing issue (I am not a trained or licensed plumber) and researching vacuum cleaners.  This wasn't because I needed to have a deeper understanding of their magical cleaning powers, but rather due to a mishap the cleaning crew had with our former vacuum.  Even the cleaning staff likes to get involved in destructive testing.  The difference is that we do our testing using our customer's vehicles, while the cleaning crew is destroying products we have to purchase.  That isn't cool.  It turns out that it is possible to destroy a vacuum cleaner by submerging it in water. This is not covered in the operating manual.

I was mentally exhausted by the time I had finished my morning tasks that stretched into the early afternoon hours.  The results of those efforts won't be available until next week at the earliest.  We are now searching for a replacement cleaning crew.  Whatever crew we interview must be capable of passing a thorough background check, and must understand proper vacuum cleaner operating procedures.  

Since the phones don't ring any longer, I decided to take a mental break and not think for the rest of the day.  That is much easier than I had expected to be.  My mind may in fact be an empty space that only fills when incoming signals can reach it.

My mental break lasted less than ten minutes since I fell asleep and started dreaming.  My dream, since you asked, put me in a NYC subway station waiting for my train when a beautiful woman emerged from the incoming car.  Her beauty stunned me to the point I missed boarding the train and fell onto the tracks.  That fall corresponded with me falling off the couch again, but I didn't wake up.  Instead, I struggled to return to my feet to save myself from being hit by the next train, but I couldn't.  When I was about to succumb, a gang of rough looking subway rats transported me to safety.  My faith in humanity's genetic engineering capabilities was restored.

BREAKING NEWS:  I couldn't get the image of the rats saving me out of my head.  I decided to talk to someone who knows something about NYC subway rats.  This expert informed me that NYC rats will not rescue you if you fall onto the subway tracks.  This was a shock to me as I understood that these rats were a special breed that were engineered to be heroes.  Once again my dream research has failed me.