Boondoggle

boondoggle (boon 'Da gl) noun. 1) work of little or no value done merely to look busy 2) do useless, wasteful, or trivial work wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

"'Boondoggle,' ... a term for a project that wastes time and money"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boondoggle_%28project%29

One of the reasons that I love my job is the frequency in which I find myself in boondoggles. It's hard to keep a straight face when a customer or client tells you "this is a high profile project" or that the project is on a tight schedule, etc. The number of times I've heard that since I've started "doing what I do" is nearly 1:1 proportional with the phrase "They (upper managment) decided to not utilize this (option)."

This is not, in anyway, a condemnation of those for whom I do the work, either individuals or companies as a whole. It's so consistant it's hard to believe it's anything but procedure. The people who hire me or my company to do work believe the words they are telling me, and my focus in completing the task for which I was hired is no less than it would be if the project were real and destined to make a product. I care about the work I do, and I care very much that the customer/client gets what they want even if it's not strictly defined in a contract. This is a small reason as to why I get repeat business, but one nonetheless.

I've just learned that it's not worth getting frustrated over doing work under a tight deadline, only to have the work tossed out at the end, or even in the middle, of the project.

The latest boondoggle had to do with my last project. The project was for an average piece of industrial equipment, a capital asset but nothing on the lines of a huge air conditioner or such. I was to "work my magic" and make it acceptable for use. The customer is someone with whom I've worked many projects before, and have even driven home when they were drunk and puking out the window of the car. It was business, of course.

The job involved a trip to Europe to start the testing. I used the opportunity to get in a few extra days of vacation around the trip (using personal funds and days, of course) and was ready and acclimated when the rest of the team arrived. The testing was under a tight schedule, and didn't happen in the prescribed time. I had to extend my trip at the site to complete the project at the client's request; they paid for the extension because the problems weren't my fault, but with the equipment.

Deadlines started to shift, and I found myself waiting for periods in order to continue the job when I returned. This wasn't a problem because I had plenty of other work to do- but the delays are the first sign of an impending boondoggle. When someone is driving a project with a whip, saying it needs to be done "now, now, now," only to see the deadline slip a couple of times... it's not a telltale sign but it is one piece of the deductive puzzle.

I conducted the first round of testing at the facility in the States and as I went to wrap up the conclusions- everything was fine with the equipment- I was told that the equipment was no longer the desired option for moving the project forward. To put this in perspective, the customer authorized $60k for my work, figuring at least $200k for the company's individuals involved with the project, and $100k on the equipment itself... all for something that would sit in a warehouse to collect dust until a suitable use is found, at which point it would require another $250k to get it up and running again.

All I could do was laugh.

You may be sitting there thinking, "Where does the money for that kind of foolishness come from?" Well, it comes from two places- one is the deep pockets of the client, who needs to bank on multiple options in order to move forward with the best single option. The other is you, the purchaser of products. If you need to purchase their products, you give them the money to fund boondoggles. And all of these boondoggles born of options that never panned out exist because my clients fear lawyers and the government.

You can try and fix it, make it more efficient- ironically enough, part of our service is the implementation of cost-cutting measures- but lawyers always win in the end. Oh well. At least I'm getting paid.