The Sacrificial Lamb – baaaaaaaaaaaah!

He might as well of dolloped a large spoonful of mint sauce on my head and stuffed a spring of rosemary where only very niche market pornography would stuff it, that’s what his ‘I have a new challenge for you’ statement translates to as far as cynical old me is concerned.
I have been volunteered (reminiscent of my old army days volunteering was mandatory and the only choice I had was whether to say yes or nod ) to move in to another team to help them ‘deliver a cutting edge product’ ‘ to challenging deadlines’ and if I’m successful it will be ‘good for my profile’ which for those of you not conversant in managementise roughly means this product is totally crap, we have no hope of ever meeting the promises we have made to our clients and it will take a hybrid of Alan Sugar and Superman (weird mental picture there I am sure you agree) to fix any of the huge list of problems associated with this mess. In summary to be associated with this project is akin to juggling chainsaws blindfolded, you will end up losing vital parts of your body and you won’t see it coming.
So its the first time I meet the rest of the team, I’m the new guy remember and it’ll be interesting to see what these guys are like, first impressions really do count in my experience, you pick up more from what’s not said that from what is, like a spitfire pilot in the battle of Britain you should always go with your instincts, you don’t know why but those voices are always right (NOT those voices, the other less mental ones….). The first thing I notice is the smell, its not something you can actually tangibly smell but its there none the less, the Hun from the sun I was worried about, its the malodorous stench of fear and defeat that hangs over this lot like a big black (sorry, ethnic) rain cloud! you can see it in their eyes, this isn’t a thousand yard stare its so far past one of those the curvature of the earth is getting in the way of the daylight! This is not looking good.
Ok, lets lighten the mode, time to crack a joke, lets see if this lot really are as far gone as they look, time for an old classic!

‘2 goldfish in their tank, 1 turns to the other one and says ‘ you drive I’ll man the guns!’

Tumbleweed roughly the size of the isle of Wight has just somersaulted past the window, if you connected this lot up to a heart rate monitor it would make that annoying noise that generally means someone is having a worse day that me (although not today, today I am the one having the bad day, they are only flat lining once, I feel like I am dying a thousand times) a group of pale wane faces, like that of a corpse are looking past me, totally drained of spirt and emotion. I’m glad I haven’t watched any zombie films recently (I hate horror films!) other wise I’d be compelled to start laying about this lot with a spade, cricket bat or other handy instrument of death (looking round I’m bloody glad this not aren’t flesh eating living dead, the only viable weapon in the room is a marker pen and as Peter Sucliffe found out in Broadmoor a marker pen in the eye might be sodding painful, blindingly in his case but its hardly instantly fatal!)
I can feel the pressure already, building up inexorably, rather like the feeling you get on an airplane in your ear drums when you are coming in to land, if this room had a pressure sensor the dial would be in the red and steam would be starting to whistle from the nearest vent (in this case me!)I now know how the cattle class passengers on the Titanic felt, if we are sinking then this lot are looking distinctly rodenty and although my ears might occasionally have me mistaken for a mug, I’m not, and as the actress said to the vicar ‘its time for good old fashioned cover your arse mode!’

More to follow………assuming I haven’t been commanded to commit Hari Kari with my desk tidy