Jeeeez Relax !

One of my early memories has my daddy saying " dhaa.. ee kocchu ippo karayum " ( watch, this kid's gonna cry now !) and I don't know what magic those words have, everytime he said it I have cried. Usually, there never was a reason for me to cry, so it was followed by the routine teases for being a cry baby by my brother with the special ritual poem " Azhuda ponnu sirichidaam , kazhudhai paalu kudichidaam " . ( Crying missy's smiling now , donkey's milk is what she drank).

It makes no sense, but it took almost 15 years for me to think of it as 'no big deal' and actually not get offended with my brother's poetry. Ah ! well, that seems like it was a long long time ago.

Whole of this week, I was busy attending conferences and meetings all day long trying to dot the i's and cross the t's. And that is all we have been trying to do all day and it still isn't complete. I had only heard of professional goof ups but recently I was lucky enough to be a significant part of it.

So it goes,

Original Business requirement - Remove just the core from the apple and give the apple back as it is with little or no wastage of fruit.

Pre-sales understanding and response - Remove the seeds inside the core and give 'it' back to them. ( The 'It' is still something everyone is unsure of)

Sales Team presentation and proposal to business - Ability to remove the seeds, core , peel of not just the apple but also bananas, jack(ass) fruit, orange, mango, tables, chairs etc . Thats not it , they also provide their 'valuable and esteemed ' clients a free "home grown" environment friendly core-peel-seed recycle processing machine.

Changed Business Requirement - Remove ' peel and seeds' and yeah the core too from apple and also from grapes, a critical component identified after sales team presentation and of course the free environment friendly core-peel-seed recycle processing machine.

Pressure on upper management - As we now have one successful customer , now use this as a case study to sell our core-peel-seed recycle processing machine to multiple clients. And yeah don't forget to remove some stuff from the apple and was it grapes ?.

Solution Delivery Management - Make sure that our core-peel-seed recycle processing machine is inline with the stuff you make to remove the core and peel and seeds from apples.

By the time the requirement is finally handed over to the technical team, everyone has forgotten what the original customer requirement was and everyone is trying to work on a totally different project.

Issues faced by technical team - We cannot remove core from one of their critical component grapes because it doesn't really have one. It is also hard to remove the peel from apples as they are waxed.
So, the core-peel-seed recycle processing machine is not really useful for this particular client.

Upper Management - Totally Unacceptable. If grapes don't have a core, then create a core and then remove it. Remove peel from soft side if you cannot remove from the hard side. Why is this so difficult or is the management making no sense ?

Project /Financial Management Team - Your team has 17 members to remove core from grapes that don't have any and to remove peel only from soft side. So, this project has fallen in 'very easy project' hence removing 12 people for cost cutting.

Final Solution Delivery to Customer - Apples that look like they are bitten from one side ( result of peel removing from softer side) , core successfully removed but seeds left over. Work in progress for grapes as core still unidentified. The input for core-peel-seed recycle processing machine is way too less for the machine to keep running..

Customer - What did I ask and what did I get ? Someone pls explain.

During a heavy debate at a meeting on such scenarios, there are characters that eventually attempt to calm the situation by saying the words - " Cool down ! " or " Don't get excited" or even " Jeez Relax "
I have always been happy for the person who is saying that to me in a meeting room because, (a). I don't have weapons to kill him (b). I don't have instant hot or cold water to pour on their faces.

*****I wonder if its just me or anyone else who shares similar sentiments of getting ticked off completely when someone tries to calm them down amidst an intense debate. *****