I've discovered a new engineering team phenomenon
I have seen this happen at probably 5 separate jobs now and it happened twice in one week.
The Setting
Picture this: it’s 9:23 am on Monday.
Disaster strikes. A bleary-eyed engineer has mistakenly smashed the coffee carafe into the side of the sink.
Panic ensues. 9:30 am meetings are canceled. The people feel their headaches coming on. How will the team survive?
Chapter 1: “It’s a simple replacement right?”
The initial hurdle is overcome quickly. The local Panera can easily DoorDash a weird cardboard box of coffee. Whew, the problem was solved by the quick thinking of the office manager.
They sit down at their desk and quickly google the model number of the Mr. Coffee machine someone dug out of their garage when you moved into the office.
Oh no… discontinued. Frantically they hop to eBay…
Nothing.
They send a bad news message after 14 minutes of googling. This will not be simple; a new machine must be had.
Chapter 2: “The possibilities are endless.”
The office manager just finds a basic machine that looks essentially identical to the old one and drops it in the Costco cart to be part of the daily sparking water deluge.
That’s when the real trouble starts.
Engineer G has proposed that they upgrade the system slightly. “Let’s go with something bigger,” they say. The old one was always running out.
That puts the entire engineering team into brainstorming / R&D mode. The office is buzzing as the cardboard coffee has arrived and an endless design space has been opened to a group of humans united by common trauma.
Managers bemoan: the morning is lost to an infinite Slack thread
Chapter 3: “This will take weeks!”
At lunch, it becomes clear the scope has radically increased. Every option is on the table. The list of “must haves” now includes a 14-stage IoT water filter, a part-time barista/massage therapist, and a new room to hold everything that replaces Jim’s office (he retired last week)
The espresso vs ground coffee wars are in full steam.
The office manager sheepishly keeps mentioning they are already over budget for office improvements this year but no one listens.
Most of the managers are now involved as it severely impacts their KPIs today. Project managers have created a Gannt chart.
The data team has no fewer than four different weighted session matrixes.
There is a small, but outspoken equity fraction pushing for equal tea representation making everyone else feel bad.
There is no end in site.
What is clear is that the team needs a professional. Quotes start flying from plumbers, robot coffee services, YouTube baristas and the like. All of them have service times of weeks or months.
Chapter 4: “We didn’t start the fire”
The C suite is involved. The coffee debate has now shifted the company’s budget scenario planning into the red and several projects that were tracking yesterday are now somehow 3 weeks behind according to Jira (no one knows why)
“I didn’t start this, but I am ending it, “ says the COO with extreme dad energy.
They do a quick lap getting the rundown from all the new beverage project team leads that were elected right after lunch.
They make a decision. Type a quick email and ask the EA to make it happen.
Chapter 5: “ Bunn to be wild”
The decision is not creative or interesting. The COO has elected to follow a time-honored tradition known to every Waffle House and short-order cook around the country: the Bunn coffee experience.
It’s not pretty or cute, but it is reliable and the ROI can’t be beat.
The machine has been purchased and will be here on Wednesday. Notably, the COO didn’t listen to the team and just decided to ask people to fill the machine from the top since that saves the cost of the plumber running water to it. That decision will be reversed 3.5 days after it arrives when the coffee carafe is broken in the sink again when Sharon has to stand on a chair to fill the tower-like machine.
Fin.
Reflections
What does it all mean?
Honestly, no idea. There is probably some deeper reflection a better writer than me might make, but I just find the whole saga entertaining.
Did I exaggerate some things? Yes, but only a little, and I have seen each element play out individually in at least one company.
Hope you enjoyed it and curious to know if this has happened to you?
Haha I was waiting for a big grand reveal about how to make a company more productive, or a hardware adage about always having a spare, but I guess sometimes a story is a story