When Connor said I wouldn’t be able to do the job, I was offended on principle, but I have to begrudgingly (and privately—never to him) admit that he had a point. I have no idea how to do any of this and it’s really hard.
Which brings me to the other thing I spent most of the last week doing: staying up late into the night hanging out with my good friend Brian the Dinosaur.
I caught him untold butterflies in his little net. He and I also went on a long walk across a field, picked flowers, and built a charming log cabin where—I presume—he’ll live out the rest of his days in peaceful solitude.
Since this is more of a secret project, I have no one to brag to about the fact that I graduated the game and have moved on to the next age bracket, where I now gamely assist Stegosaurus Julie on a—frankly insane—quest to find her lost turtle. I didn’t set out intending to lose hours on a kids’ coding game, but as it turns out, it’s pretty fun. Whoever invented Brian the Dinosaur is an absolute genius. And probably a millionaire.
“Important question for you, Annie,” Martin says, once Connor and Ben have joined their call.
“Um,OK.”
“Would you rather…” He raises his brows meaningfully. “Smell like rotten egg for a year, OR have to carry an egg in your hand every day for a year without breakingit?”
“Such a good one,” John says. “It took me ages to decide.”
“Is this…something you discuss often?”
“It’s would-you-rather,” Martin says. “The best game ever.”
Not sure I’d call it a game, exactly, but sure.
“I guess I’d have to say carry the egg for a year?”
“Lies,” Martin says. “I don’t believe you. Think how annoying that would be. And if you drop it…you get fined a million bucks.”
“Who is finingme?”
“Are you sure, Annie?” John asks anxiously. “I chose smell like egg, in the end. It just seemed easier.”
“You would beholding an egg,” Martin stresses, pretending an egg is cupped in his hand. “For three hundred and sixty-five days, everywhere you go. Even when you sleep. You seriously think you wouldn’t drop that thing?”
I let out a laugh, which alerts Connor’s attention, and sends the three of us hastily logging on to our screens.
—
It takes me no time at all to identify how I will become indispensable to my new teammates. From now on, my role, as I see it anyway, will be getting everyone in this company to leave them the hell alone.
Formally speaking, the objective of Data Strategy is to improve data quality across the business and introduce a standard set of metrics that (in theory) will make our reporting more consistent.
In practice, however, Data Strategy seems to operate like a little team of internal handymen.
People from every department come to them with a range of different questions at all hours of the day, interrupting whatever they’re supposed to be doing and crashing into the DatStrat inbox with subject lines that all riff on some variation of:URGENT request for [insert request that is definitely, definitely not and has never been urgent here].
If someone needs something from Data Strategy they’re supposed to raise a support ticket. The DatStrat inbox exists so Data Strategy can follow up on official ticket requests. This is an outbound-only situation. There should be no inbound messages.
Andyet.
Every time I open this inbox, it’s overflowing. And I’m chagrined to learn that many of the worst offenders are from my old department.
“John,” I say, waving my hand above his screen to capture his attention. All I can see from behind the monitor are curls.
He reminds me of a gopher, the way his head pops up over the screen. “What’sup?”
“What’s the deal with that email Brandon just sent you, to the DatStrat inbox?”
“Oh, sorry,” he says. “I’ll get toit.”
“No, I mean—what’shisdeal?” I amend. “Are you working with him on something specific, or is he just being a freeloader?”
