The Breakthrough That Broke

Well, cube dwellers, His & Hers decided to pay a visit to Cube City yesterday. They gave us half a business day's notice and expected us to juggle our calendars to meet with them.

It was the longest day of my life.

They wanted to spend a few hours with us, in person instead of by phone, to tell us about a breakthrough they'd had during a long plane flight together. They said they had figured out what their company really was and what they wanted it to be. They also said they wanted to start promptly at 8:30.

My fellow cube dwellers and I busted our tails to get to the office on time, on a Monday, only to wait for 45 minutes or more for them to show up. (I think it was more and I just lost count after 45 minutes.) I felt like I was waiting for a doctor's appointment. A rectal exam, maybe. Yeah, that's it.

Once they finally showed up and hugged all of us (gross...and he smelled like he had slept in his clothes), they sat down and started bickering at each other. Seems like old times. It was clear that they had not had a breakthrough of any kind. He told her that she was making him crazy because he thought they were in agreement on things, and she was siding with us lowly cube dwellers -- you know, the ad agency they'd hired to help them out with this stuff? Maybe he was finally clarifying what he wanted, even though what he wanted was a really bad user experience.

We spent the day getting nowhere but pretending like we'd gotten somewhere, which was something we could have easily accomplished by phone. It's probably the typical client experience, but I have to say that a rectal exam would have been less painful and a lot more productive.