Humour

Proving Murphy’s Law

T A Balasubramanian on why things go wrong all at once, and at the worst possible moment

It is time to join Bobo Jitter, the eternally restless CIO of Bazooka Company once again, as he paces around, cracking his knuckles and muttering, in the office of Dr Don Jong. Dr Jong, of course, is called The Oddfather by those looking for a semblance of peace and balance in their hectic lives. It is an honorary title that befits his unusual skills in deciphering the maladies of technology.

“You seem to be touchy today, Bobo. So what seems to be, ah, gnawing at the edges of your mind? Your eyes are red and your face looks 10 years older. You have not stopped walking ever since you came in here, wearing this grim expression!”

“I am not able to sit still, Doc. There’s so much going on in my head. And all I have been doing is working on this huge project.” “Hmm. For how long have you been like this?

“For many weeks now, and I have to get it all done by this week. I am like a house on fire when I’m away from my screen and mouse.”

“Well, Bobo, let us face it, you appear to have what seems to be a bad case of work addiction, my boy.”

“Work addiction?

“Nothing less. And it seems to be costing you your beauty sleep as well.”

“But I am all charged up, Doc. This is what I like to do. It makes me happy.”

“Exactly. That’s what an addiction is all about. And you certainly do not look happy, Bobo. Let me give you a related observation: I have a good friend who exhibits an addiction to television viewing. He may watch something he wants to see, but then he gets ‘hooked’ on continuing to watch whatever may be on, whether it has any intrinsic interest to him or not. And he has a hard time tearing himself away from the tube. He recognizes this behaviour, resents the time it costs him, but when I suggest that it may be better to give it up, he says he is happy—although it is clear that he is not.”

“You mean that I could be addicted to work and do not realize it?”

“Think about it—it is possibly a side-effect of being in the technology business. It seems to make the victim believe he is happy though anyone can see that he is miserable. But that does not make it all bad. You know how addictive computer games can be? Well, that addiction has been found to be useful. It is even being applied to get work done from willing victims. I was reading an article recently about how elite computer scientists are using highly addictive games to trick unsuspecting Web users—possibly including teenagers—into toiling without pay for some of the world’s richest companies on amazingly dull grunt work.”

“That’s different. They are games, Doc. And kids love games, anyway.”

“True. But what’s common is the pull of the screen and the mouse. In your case, you are well past your teens, so you may well say that you enjoy those 14 hour days week after week, but despite your claim, working like that all month, all the time is not going to be sustainable. When the burnout crash comes—and I promise you that it will—it could hit all the harder and according to Murphy’s Law, it will arrive at the least convenient time. When things go wrong, he observed, they go wrong all at once, and at the worst possible moment.”

“Who was Murphy?”

“Let’s just say he was a genius in predicting the way the world actually works around organizations and people. Another caveat from the same stable—people who are work addicts are likely to attempt to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at the problem. If you are dealing with people working with anything creative—such as programmers—that is an impossibly stressful and uphill way to get great work done. To quote Murphy again—‘everything takes longer than you think.’ ”

“Ah, this man must have been a computer project manager at some point in his life.”

“Quite close. He was one of the engineers on the rocket-sled experiments that were done by the US Air Force in 1949 to test human acceleration tolerances. One experiment involved a set of 16 accelerometers mounted to different parts of the subject’s body. There were two ways each sensor could be glued to its mount. Of course, somebody managed to install all 16 the wrong way around.

It was at this time that Murphy then made the original and unknown form of his pronouncement, which the hapless test subject paraphrased at a news conference a few days later.”

“I am sure he must have been quite fed up with work, Doc.”

“Maybe. You will also find that people who always work late hours—attempting to stretch time beyond the elastic limits, so to speak—will makes those who do not (work late) feel inadequate—even though they are merely working reasonable hours. That will lead to guilt, misery, and poor morale, among other things. Worse, it will lead to a mule-like mentality where your project staff will ‘stay late’ out of obligation, being present in body, but absent otherwise. So they will fill up the time by making unnecessary work plans for themselves—making needless changes, for example. Murphy observed that ‘anything that can be changed will be changed until there is no time left to really do anything.’ ”

“Quite true, Doc. Even so, I have to get the job done with my teams, no matter what Murphy says.”

“Of course. His was the original jaundiced eye, passing comments with a grain of recognizable truth. But he never prescribed corrections for the conditions he expertly noticed and wryly spiked.”

“It seems Murphy had my kind of deadlines, too. My teams are hard at work. They spend late nights huddled over keyboards, and they are tired when they troop in next day. The projects we do demand mental application—which is, metaphorically speaking, all blood, sweat and tears, Doc.”

“So they will be irritable, have little creative sparks for the day and generally lack concentration? Well, Bobo, think of these costs you incur when not getting enough sleep—none of them are attractive, eh? Yet somehow it seems that the IT industry has developed a masochistic sense of honour about sleep deprivation. At times it sounds like bragging rights. Blood, sweat and tears, you say. For what, if I may ask? For glory?”

“Well, Doc, if not exactly glory, we do want to shine in Bazooka.”

“Ah, but is it worth it? If all you do is work till you drop, your value judgements are unlikely to be sound. Making good calls on ‘is it worth it?’ is absolutely critical to great work. Missing out on life in general to put more hours in at the keyboard for an elusive project is like chasing a mirage. You would do well to heed Murphy again, my boy—‘the likelihood of success is inversely proportional to how important the project is’—which means that when you stress yourself out for glory, it will stay at a maddening distance.”