My Plate Runneth Over...

When discussing workloads, we often invoke the analogy of "the plate," and we talk about how "full" our plate is. In this context, we've been consistently reminded of the lessons of youth regarding the need to "clean our plate" at every meal; leaving the merest morsel of work uneaten is one of the few cardinal sins at the dinner table of employment. We're discouraged from over-committing ("take what you want, but finish what you take"), but the illusion that we have control over what we "take" repeatedly breaks down -- especially during "special," or difficult, times. (For now, we'll neglect that "difficult times" tend to become the norm when "Management by Crisis" is the foundational culture of the organization. This management technique, while outwardly easy -- because humans naturally seek leaders in a time of crisis -- is most often really a sign of a "crisis of management" caused by an endemic, and apparently irrevocable, lack of foresight.)

Allow me to extend the analogy of the plate, as it applies in "special times" -- regardless of whether such times have become the rule rather than the exception: Today is a special day, say, your birthday... Your family has taken you to a certain Amarillo steakhouse with a particular penchant for excess. Because you've been raised to "take what you want, but finish what you take," you order the 8 oz. sirloin. Your doctor would advise you to only consume 3-4 oz. of red meat during the course of a meal, but this is a "special day," and this particular steak is the 2nd-most humble slab of beef on the whole menu -- you wouldn't want to disappoint your family, after all. Well, it turns out that your family maintains their traditional values, and therefore can't pass up the opportunity to save some money ("waste not, want not"); so when you get up to wash your hands, your father calls over the wait staff and substitutes the *FREE* 72 oz. steak for your already-slightly-too-robust sirloin. Your meal arrives, and you protest that there clearly must have been some mistake, but your father calmly explains how much money you'll be saving for the family -- if only you can polish off four and a half pounds of beef in under an hour. Even though what your ordered would have cost $16 at the end of the meal, and this abomination costs $72 up front (refunded only if you complete the "challenge" successfully), your father smiles about how much money he is saving for the family, and encourages everyone to "dig in" to their meals. At that point you stop staring at your own plate for a moment and look around the table for the first time; you see that all of your siblings are facing a similar quandary. Since you're not alone, you feel obligated to try; since the clock is already inexorably counting down what remains of your precious hour, you suppress the urge to protest further and start cutting, piercing, shoveling, and chewing... Needless to say, there is an intrinsic -- but unstated -- requirement that you (and all of your siblings) rise to this challenge, lest the whole family should be forced to suffer as a result of your gastronomic ineptitude...

At least that's what seems to happen where I work...