Tuesday. ...
Wednesday. ...
Of all the various CYA political ploys, side-stepping stratagems and decision-avoidance tactics employed in the perpetual management bun-fight, the one that really, really gets up my nose is "if in doubt, maintain radio silence." If it's tricky, ignore it. Pretend it never arrived...
Now, I have no doubt that in the gazillion messages that whiz around the Internet a few get eaten by the gremlins (they could even be the same ones that hid Jay's linen ;-). But the truth is the delivery rate must be as close to 100% as makes no difference. And it's funny that it's never the emails with humourous youtube clips, or the Ebay purchase confirmations, or invitations to lunch that go astray. Nope, it's only the ones that contain specific, important, urgent requests for decisions or action that seem to mysteriously fail to arrive. Even though I can see it sitting there in my Sent folder...
At the Super-Kamiokande detector in Japan physicists have spent billions of dollars and 12 years trying to find evidence of nucleon decay - proof that things can simply and spontaneously cease to exist. They should try working here.
Dr: "Who's the patient, nurse?"
Nurse: "Herr Gitschleimer. Middle-manager at a medium-sized investment bank."
Dr: "I see. Contusions and laceration to the side of the head... requires surgery for foreign body extraction... What happened?"
Nurse: "Apparently told one too many porkies. Tried to bullsh+t a slightly unstable spot monkey that he hadn't received an important email. Had a wireless bluetooth headset ripped out of his ear and brutally inserted.."
Dr: "Thanks, nurse. I get the picture."
