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We're industrial designers. We're supposed to be a step away from artists, a bunch of freewheeling right-brain creatives. And while some of us have gone corporate--that's where the money is, for Pete's sake--it is often difficult for us "different thinkers" to fit into a corporate culture where we have to deal with marketers and engineers.
Following are two actual quotes your correspondent heard uttered in corporate design meetings:
- "[The project] was top priority, but then something came along that was more important, so it became low priority."- "The answer to your question is that I cannot answer your question."
Frontiernet has compiled a similar list of "Dilbertisms" that puts my overheard quotes to shame:
- "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."- "One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said 'If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!'"
Click here to read the rest, unless you're already corporate, in which case...just go to your next meeting.
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Comments
I don't mean to appear the apologist, but the first quote represents smart business thinking. Imagine the opposite scenario. There's an in-flight project that is top-priority. You identify a new business opportunity that wasn't identified when the first project was prioritized. Your project promises enormous benefit. You want funding. But, all projects have been funded already.
The business person says, "Your project would be a top priority, but we've already got a project that's top priority."
Full disclosure, I work for a company that provides software so that business people can identify projects that used to be high-priority, but now should be low-priority.