Shitshow Circle Jerk

One of the things that truly amazes me is the event I like to call the Shitshow Circle Jerk. This can be thought of in terms of our political process where politicians simply sit around and praise and compliment each other for the "great jobs" they are all doing and they all just return compliments to each other over and over again. Let me give an example, in my current lab there is a project lead and functional management who oversaw a large program with a budget of $5 million dollars and a schedule of 6 months to complete. The project took 1.5 years to complete and upwards of $15 million dollars which most people would consider to be a total failure. As it turns out, the same project lead and functional management are now in charge of a new program that is turning out to be equally as screwed up and over budget. Instead of finding the real causes of the problems, the functional management and project lead sit in meetings and make comments to each other like "these new processes have really streamlined the project" and "your execution of the project is fantastic and lean" when in reality it is a total train wreck. I like to call this the Shitshow Circle Jerk which is when functional and project management sit around and volley praise and compliments back and forth to each other for no apparent reason but to flatter each other. These people often get promoted and are thought of as "experts" when in reality they are the same people who have screwed up projects over and over again for decades.

Isnt the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Apparently this is not true at the Shitshow. Instead of rewarding people who execute to cost and schedule the Shitshow simply rewards people who flatter management and Circle Jerk each other.

Because the Shitshow is doomed to an eternity of failure and terrible management is forever entrenched, I throw rocks.