GENIUS IS AS GENIUS DOES
But you can’t fix stupid.
I was an upper-level financial and administrative manager of a large manufacturing concern. I also developed and wrote our application software.
I called the customer service supervisor, the inventory control guy, the production foreman, the head of shipping, and the boss into the conference room. I needed a lot of input from the first four and concurrence from the fifth in order to run with my new idea.
“As you know,” I said, “we manufacture special order goods whenever a customer wants product A but wants it with a particular component change, like ordering a Big Mac with mustard instead of ketchup. We have to stop the flow of the assembly line and make that product separately. And if the special order doesn’t get flagged, or somebody’s not paying attention, we end up making it to the original specs. Then it ends up in finished inventory, can’t be shipped, and it takes up valuable floor space. There it sits waiting for a dealer to order it that same way, which could be never, and, if they do, we make another one instead of pulling it from stock.
“I’ve come up with an idea for a computer program that will solve this problem,” I went on. “It will save time, money, floor space, and aggravation. I’m calling it ‘the change order program’ — one where the customer service clerk can enter a product order into the company’s computer system and then enter any one, or more, one-time component changes to the product’s original specifications. The revised component(s) will then be listed in the generated list of required parts for that day’s production so that the assembler will pull the exact components needed to fill that specific order. The finished product will be made as requested without any change in the order of goods being produced and without a permanent change to the product’s component specifications. But you will each need to provide me the precise details of your processes.”
They stared at me like I had brightly colored kool-aid all over my face. They shook their heads almost in unison, but the boss said, “If you can do that, you’re a genius.” Shamelessly, I told him I believed I could. (I am a classic over-achiever and my determination can make me annoyingly self-confident.)
My office was in the huge state-of-the-art facility we had just built in a large industrial park. It was, however, in an area where crime was not a stranger, and the property was surrounded by a high chain link fence. The electronics were not yet in place, so at the main entrance to the property there were two twenty-five-foot-wide gates on rollers, one on either side of the main entrance. The gates were pulled together at night, and a heavy padlocked chain was wrapped around the frames of each so that no one could get through. The gates were ten feet high and had barbed wire coiled along the top.
It was Saturday morning and I had come to the building to work on the new program. The factory manager typically opened and closed the gates, but I was the only person working and, because I often worked outside of normal business hours, I had a key for the padlock.
I was excited about the new program, had some of it already written in my head, and could think of little else. I drove up to the gates and got out of the car, padlock key in hand. I inserted the key and unlocked the padlock.
The gates were heavy and unwieldy, and I struggled to pull each one by its galvanized steel posts across the bumpy tar and gravel entrance . Eventually, I managed to push one gate open and then the other. I got back in my car, put the key in my purse, drove through the gates, put the car in park, and got out of the car, leaving the engine running, the radio playing, and the door ajar.
I pushed one of the two unwieldy gates back to the center of the drive and steadied it so it wouldn’t roll back. I went to the other side of the drive and grabbed the other gate, but I couldn’t get it to line up in the center with the other one; the extraordinarily heavy gates kept rolling in one direction or the other of their own accord.
By then I was gasping for air, using all my strength as I tried to hold the heavy gates in place and wrap the chain around the posts, struggling, pushing and pulling, stopping, then starting again, and I thought that if I faced the other way I could do it because my right arm was stronger and that’s the side I was having trouble with and I was so totally focused on this damn chain right then and locking the gates together that I slipped between the gates and, from the other side, I pulled them together, linked the chain through both, and slammed the padlock neck into its hole.
Finally, it was locked! I let out a huge sigh of relief.
But… I was on the outside.
I stared in disbelief at my car on the inside, its engine running, its door wide open, my purse, the key, my phone, my everything in it. I was paralyzed. I raised my eyes to the barbed wire. There’s no way I can climb this fence, I thought. I could only mutter, “Oh, my God!”
I walked down the street in the industrial park until I saw a car behind a building. I went to the back and pounded on the locked, heavy metal door. I let out an audible sigh when a man opened it, and I felt like a horse’s ass when I told him what happened and asked if I could use his phone.
I called the boss, as his was the only number I knew by heart, and I woke him. Woke him on a Saturday morning! I cringed when I asked him to please get out of bed and drive to the building, thirty minutes away, and please don’t forget to bring the gate key. He’ll come, he said, but he wasn’t happy.
The boss arrived in time for my car not to have run out of gas, thankfully. He opened the gate as I apologized profusely for ruining his morning. He told me, with mild exasperation, to just leave the gate open when I left.
I worked on the computer program in my office for most of the day, intent on finishing it and, hopefully, making my infringement on the boss’s weekend less painful.
I tested the software multiple times. Success! I couldn’t wait to show everyone how well it worked when we were all back in the office.
On Monday, I was giddy with excitement, so much so that I took the long flight of stairs to the second floor of the building, where the offices overlooked the factory floor, instead of waiting for the elevator.
I was surprised to see some of the staff, including the boss, milling around, laughing, chatting among themselves, not at their desks.
I turned the corner to walk toward my office, and I stopped dead in my tracks. There was a large banner hung across my office door.
The boss had to have gotten up very early that morning.
I read the sloppy red letters painted across the banner.
“G — E — N — I — U — S — !”
