Frank Patrick

On Performer Over-Utilization

There are still too many project organizations that put emphasis on keeping everyone busy, due to the erroneous assumption that “an idle resource is a major waste.”

Someone on one of the discussion groups I participate in recently suggested one way to get managers to think about the error of these ways…

Ask “If your people are 90% utilized, how long would it take (without overtime) to recover from missing a day of work, or of running into Murphy’s Law to the tune of a day? How about 95%? 99%?” With a little bit of thought, the dangers to speed and throughput quickly become evident.

Voicemail Transcription FAIL

One of my best sources of laughs recently has been Comcast’s phone feature in which they [try to] do a voice-to-text transcription of incoming voicemail and forward it to my email.

Here’s one from the Golden Corner Diner, letting us know that they’ve got a batch of Galaktoboureko (greek pastry) available.

“Hi this is Amy from the going(?) the corner diner. I’m calling to let you know that the we have like a like a booty call picnic-place(?) thank you.”

I wish my wife didn’t erase the message before I found out what “picnic-place” was about, but Galaktoboureko becoming ”like a like a booty call” was good enough for me. 

Boom “like a like a”.

Roll Up! Magical Mystery Tour

Watched restored 1967 Magical Mystery Tour on PBS’ Great Performances. Never saw it before, despite knowing the album well. (Fool on the Hill and I Am the Walrus among my favorite Beatles tunes and instrumental Flying among my very favorites.)

Surreal. 

The “Flying” sequence, heavily color-filtered and solarized, reminded me of a simpler version of trippier effects of the next year’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. (I might be reaching here to think it had an influence, since the original 1967 broadcast on BBC was in black and white.)

Lush orchestral rendition of All My Loving as backdrop to a brief “romantic” scene worked well.

Loved Ringo’s simple response to unintelligibly ranting sergeant (frequent filmic Beatles collaborator Victor Spinetti) in the recruiting office scene: “Why?”

Understated Brit subversion.

Wonder to what extent it might have influenced Monty Python a couple years later. There feels like a direct line between John’s smarmy waiter shoveling spaghetti in the dream sequence and Michael Palin’s similar character, not to mention the explosive dining scene in Meaning of Life.

Also spotted Angelo Muscat from The Prisoner (also from ‘67-68) in it among the wrestling midgets.

Found myself smiling broadly during the on-the-bus sing-a-longs of old tunes.

All in all, an entertaining hour from four amateur filmmakers, some of the musical segments of which would have felt at home on MTV 20 years later.

Goo goo g’joob.

And if all this wallowing in my youth is too much before your time, “your mother should know”.

Haiku (this morning)

a steel-grey morning
brightened by a scarlet flash.
cardinal in flight.

Autumn Haiku

not burning but still
crackling, dry autumn leaves scrape
across the asphalt