Essays and ephemera
I build a lot of demos for customers. To keep things interesting for myself and also for the customer’s keen eyes, I like sprinkling in little Easter Eggs. In this case, for a customer in England, I couldn’t help but create a New Order / Madchester reference on the account hierarchy.
I was once eating lunch at a financial services client, with whom I’m a customer. The entire customer and consulting team shared a table. The client bragged about how their lunches are free. And there were right to brag; there was an impressive spread of food: a salad bar, sushi bar, pizza bar, sandwich station, and more. It was one of the best stocked cafeterias I’ve seen in my career and also had some of the best natural light I’ve experienced in a cafeteria. But I soon had the realization that I, as a customer, made this lunch possible. I did everything to control myself to not retort, “My policy holder dollars paid for that pizza and Diet Coke – you’re welcome.”
But the food spread and my jealousy of said spread were not the most interesting part of the conversation.
Masters At Work saved my life one night. One Sunday several years ago, I forgot that I had to create a deliverable for work that was due Monday morning. At 9pm at night I fired up my laptop, made a cup of coffee, plugged in my headphones and got down to business as I burned the midnight oil.
Training is hard. When I ask users to come up with demo content, a lot of the struggle coming up with something as simple as a headline for a news article.
That was not the case for one client.
I walk to the curb. The car’s windows are down and music is blasting. I step in.
“Need to get a coffee?” he asks.
“Nah – I’m good.”
“You like salsa music?”
“Sure.” I’m not sure if I’ve ever really listened to salsa music before.
The best Uber I ever took involved being in the seat of an Acura SUV as we blasted salsa music going down Wacker Drive during morning rush hour.