Twisted quotes

Evan, our boss, and Norm (see One more funny story) have built a system for calculations of some kind. Stephen and I are helping them out every now and then if the workload is too much for them. We improve the system and write short internal memos describing the changes, in case someone would want to adjust them in the future. Norm was assigned to teach Stephen and me how the system worked, but he did a lousy job: he narrated lengthy stories about the history and the people involved, but he forgot to inform us about the caveats of the system. Nevertheless, we were about five times as fast as Norm. All finished projects are to be reviewed by at least one colleague though.

Norm: Jack, I don't know if Evan told you already, but you have to make an improvement to the system and if the deadline is already in five weeks. I hope you can start with it as soon as possible, because it will be about two weeks work, but it may be more as you are of course still learning. I can tell you a bit about the requirements if you want.

Jackdaw: Oh, yeah, Evan told me about the improvement yesterday, so I started immediately and I'm almost finished with it now. Do you have time to review it in the afternoon?

Norm: But, do you know that you should also write a memo about it and label everything?

Jackdaw: Yes, that's what I'm doing now, using your memos as a standard. I finished the actual improvement to the system yesterday.

In the afternoon Norm reviewed my work in great detail. He didn't have any comments about the system improvement, but he did about the note: "See, here you use the standard quotes around that word, but we always use quotation marks from another font because they look more curly. You gotta change that." "Change the font of the document?" I asked. "No," explained Norm, "only the font of the double quotes." The memo is a very technical document, and if anyone will ever read it, it will be someone from my team. No one cares about typography.

Norm agreed with the content, but had about thirty more typographical remarks. He didn't just summarise them, but instead he was talking to me for over an hour, boring me to death. I didn't agree with most of his criticism, but it wasn't worth a discussion so I politely thanked him for his extremely thorough review. I submitted the corrections and Norm wanted to review it again. This time he had some other typographical remarks. I made the proposed corrections and this repeated another three times, until Norm said, "I think it is good enough now to wrap it up. In the end, you cannot be too perfectionistic."

I've been writing these memos for other systems long before Norm was hired, and none of them took me longer than a few hours to write. Several other colleagues have reviewed my work and only rarely they noticed a mistake, and when they did, it had to do with the content. With Norm reviewing my work, the memo took me four full days to finish. I noticed how Stephen had the same problem with him.

At a personal evaluation Evan praised me for the combination of high quality and high speed of my work on their system, which was new to me. Indeed, I work about five times as fast as Norm, who's the expert on that system. However, Evan told me that Norm had complained about Stephen and me: he didn't get his own work done because Stephen and I had continuously asked him to review our unfinished memos. "I never gave Norm anything I didn't consider finished," was all I said.


Labels

Stephen and I have complained many times about the inconsistency in the labelling scheme on their system. Norm couldn't explain the logic behind it and told us to just use our own labelling scheme, ask him afterward how it should have been done, and then relabel.

Norm: Relabelling only takes about ten minutes.

Jackdaw: Ten minutes for each of us, every time... Why not use a labelling system with some logic behind it?

Norm: I told Evan the same thing a while ago, but he didn't want to change things.

Jackdaw: Why not?

Norm: He didn't say. He 'just' didn't want to change it. He's very stubborn and he doesn't see that the longer we wait, the more work it'll be. He just doesn't listen to my arguments.

Jackdaw: Evan is in tomorrow, so let's talk to him together then. He obviously doesn't realise who much time and data is lost because there is no logical labelling scheme. Whatever choice you two make is fine with me -- after all the system is your baby -- as long as you do make choice.

Norm thought it was a good idea, sat down behind his computer and a few minutes later he sent me an email saying, "I'm very grateful that you are backing me up on this. I hope Evan will finally be convinced."

The next day I asked Evan if he had time for a short discussion with Norm and me... but Norm suddenly said he had no time. In the afternoon he suddenly did have time, so we sat down in a meeting room and Norm started, "Jack has a problem with our labelling scheme..." I was on my own and Norm fully agreed with everything Evan said. I gave up. After all, it was not my problem but theirs.


Relabel

This week Stephen made another improvement to the system and labelled all his calculations,so they were easy to find. Then he asked Norm a question. Norm walked to Stephen's desk and kept on talking without saying anything useful, until he suddenly raised his voice in horror.

Norm: Your labels are all wrong! This way we cannot find anything back...

Stephen: Yes, I was using my own scheme as you told me to. So, tell me how to relabel them.

Norm: You will have to relabel everything!

Stephen: There's no logical scheme, so I just used my own and asked you how you want it afterwards.

Norm: Yeah, it's not your fault. Evan doesn't want to change a thing. He's so stubborn!

Jackdaw: Norm, there are two people backing you up on this. Talk to Evan!

Norm: I'll try and talk some sense into him during lunch. It's becoming more and more annoying that no one can find anything back due to our labelling scheme.


I went to the gym during lunch time and afterward I had a meeting with Evan about one of my own projects.

Jackdaw: By the by, Evan, did Norm and you speak about the labelling scheme in your system during lunch?

Evan: Briefly. He said Stephen fucked up by putting his own labels on everything, and that he found out and ordered Stephen to use the right ones.

I fucking hate Norm!