Who's Your Data?

The Cleaner juggles resources and keeps projects on track. He has a saying that I think helps him cope with the day-to-day turmoil. His catchphrase is, “It is what it is.” He has been laying that one on me for about six months now. The other day I was talking to our Recruiter and in response to a mistake I had made regarding the qualifications of an engineer needed for a project he said, “It is what it is”.

And then, this morning I was talking to my wife about some tragedy and her concluding comment was, “It is what it is”. This phrase is getting around a bit. It is today’s version of “sh*t happens”, “as if”, “you go girl” and the ambiquous “Not!”.

I don’t want to go all Andy Rooney on you, but it seems that there is a purpose in all this phrasing. Some defense mechanism that helps us cope with our collective human foibles. If I had studied psychology in college instead of philosophy and theology I could probably tell you what that underlying purpose is, but since I didn’t I don’t know. Instead I will tell you a story.

A week ago The Cleaner was trying to find an engineer for a project. The project was to last two months. It required a very specific, highly technical skill set. We had the skill set on staff, but the engineer was committed to another project that started the same day. The two month project was for a high profile government customer. The high profile customer begged us to free up our qualified engineer. The Scheduler worked tirelessly to change almost every engineer’s project to accommodate this important customer. As The Wolf said in Pulp Fiction, “That’s thirty minutes away; I’ll be there in ten”.

The schedules were completely changed by late Thursday night. The project started the next Monday morning. Travel arrangements were re-done. Fences were mended. The Scheduler was ecstatic. Monday afternoon the important customer called him and said, “We don’t need your guy after all”. The Scheduler was professional about it, but clearly in a mood to use his catchphrase. He asked if he could call the important customer and say something impolitic. I decided to play Manager and call myself. The customer was semi-apologetic. He did say that they might need our engineer the next Monday if things didn’t work out. I said, “Sure, and monkeys might fly out of my b*tt”.