The Analysts

Craig:
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. My portable is making this awful grinding noise, and there's this smell, like valuable proprietary data going up in smoke.

Tech Support:
Don't worry about that, it's a common problem on the portables.

Craig:
When it catches on fire and the sprinklers go off, we really will have a common problem.

Tech Support:
Oh, if you want the sprinkler system disabled, that's going to be facilities management.

Craig:
What? No!

[Hold music plays. Craig glares at the phone.]

Mary:
What's that on the order-of-magnitude scale?

Craig:
I don't think the scale applies here, Mary.

Paul:
Craig, stick to the methodology!

Mary:
I'm putting you down as "Very Hard".

Craig:
I would say twenty thousand very hards, plus or minus fifty percent.

Mary:
I'm afraid each change request can only be assigned a single difficulty rating. What about you, Dave?

Dave:
I'm also "Very Hard."

Paul:
We're going to fit this into our current release schedule, Bob.

Dave:
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to say that's impossible.

Mary:
Nothing's impossible.

Dave:
This is.

Craig:
I think what my dear colleague, Dave, is trying to say is that this is beyond our capabilities as an organization to complete.

Dave:
Please, listen to him. This could destroy Synergy Wireless as a corporation and take us with it. We'll spend years working 80-hour weeks out of our cubicles, reeking of BO, sleeping between system builds and, when it fails, the rest of our shattered lives will be spent wandering the desert from headhunter to headhunter, begging for one last chance at a project with a rational budget and timetable, or at least one that doesn't violate basic tenets of space-time!

Dave:
Synergy's going to hell because we have inept leaders, no direction, we can't make difficult decisions and, since we pay sh*t, we hire any moron that walks in the door, regardless of their qualifications.

Craig:
Yeah... What's your degree in?

Dave:
Comparative literature... (beat) You a**hole.

Dave:
There's an agenda?

Craig:
You know Bob, I can't think of one good reason for you to request this tool. You must know it's impossible to build. I understand that marketing's taking over your workload and your department's facing layoffs.

Business Customer:
Uh...

Craig:
Yeah, so if you start this project it'll become such a huge disaster that you'll be promoted so quickly for your vision and we'll be canned for failing to implement it and wasting shareholder money, yes?

Business Customer:
Ah, coughs, um...