Glug…Glug…Glug… Part 2

Posted on February 13, 2007 by Jeff Muir

Here is the second instalment of “Glug…Glug..Glug…”. In this section of the story, things are looking fairly bleak as the Citrix engineers struggle to produce things quickly in the hopes of selling more product to the market. Most of this happened in 1992.
Part II: (WRITTEN SOME TIME IN 2Q-3Q 1992)

After Puce-briefs left, the rowers felt better. They began
to prepare for the really big race (race 2.0). Even though
they were competing with the IBM team, they had to depend on
the IBM team for the shell of their boat that they then put
all of their special changes on (including the plank). To
make things even more complicated, the IBM team first gave
it to their arch-enemies, the Microsoft team, who then gave
it to the Citr!x team. This made getting vital pieces
difficult and it usually took much longer than planned.

The basically lazy captain and Two-hats went to the chief
rowers (also called the team leaders) and asked them when
they thought they could have the boat ready for race 2.0.
One of the team leaders (the one who had to discourage
Puce-briefs from shampooing his leg-hairs) said,

“Well, IF this is what you want the boat to do, AND IF we
get more rowers, AND IF we get more oars, AND IF we get some
testers to make sure the boat floats properly, AND IF we
don’t have to do other things, AND IF the IBM and Microsoft
teams get us everything they’ve promised us ON TIME, AND IF
there are no problems, AND IF you don’t decide to add
other things to what the boat does, AND IF everything works
EXACTLY right the FIRST TIME, AND IF a miracle happens, I’m
80% sure we can have it done by this date.” Everything he
said was true based upon the information he had at that
time.

Unfortunately, Lazy and Two-hats only heard the last eight
words of Leg-hairs’ statement, and immediately cast them in
stone (and cast all the other words away). Two-hats and
some of the people charged with selling tickets thought of
things they wanted added to the boat (a stateroom,
lazarette, flybridge, tuna tower, and bow pulpit). The
Chancellor of the Exchecquer decided they couldn’t really
spend any money on more rowers or oars. The testers were
young and inexperienced with this type of boat, or
hospitalized with strange rashes. The rowers found they had
other things to do, like helping the people who had bought
tickets to the first race, frantically scrambling to do
ULTIMATE EMERGENCY IMPERATIVE RUSH RUSH RUSH special
marlinspike work for people who might nearly buy a ticket
and then send it back, and other things. The IBM team was
late getting the shells to Microsoft, who had problems
getting all the required material to Citr!x. Citr!x was
forced to use an older and slower boat from IBM to get into
the race on time.

The rowers struggled mightily to get the
boat done, working around the clock. At least one of the
rowers got sick but kept right on working away. The
subcaptain of all rowers was very sad; both the captains and
the rowers were constantly complaining to him or beating him
up or both.

Finally, the boat was decreed to be done. Some of the
rowers did not think so, but the ticket sellers clamored to
the captains that they needed a boat to sell tickets for.
Citr!x got their boat in the water almost exactly the same
day that IBM did. The ticket sellers began to frantically
sell, and the rowers went back to work on the REAL 2.0 boat
(now called boat 2.01), using the final boat from IBM. Many
of the rowers were very tired, but they kept rowing.

Even though the rowers rowed until their fingers bled, the
captains felt that the rowers had screwed up. They ignored
all of the IFs that Leg-hairs had said, saying: “Don’t
bother me with facts; look forward at your shoes and feel
bad, real bad”.

At this point, the subcaptain of all rowers got tired of the
daily keelhauling and decided to jump ship. The rowers were
sad, but hoped that the captains would wake up and realize
that things needed to change. They also hoped that the
people sitting on the plank would notice and help them.

(to be continued)