Evil Trackers

Like any large organization, after a while, process becomes more important than product.  Same here.  There are those of us who get out and interact with our partners, and there are those who don’t.  Those that don’t get out either support the ones who do (food, cars, housing), or worse, scheme up tasks for everyone else to do.  An insidious subset are the “Trackers” who document, assign and track tasks.  They develop, manipulate, and nurse their colorful “chicklet” chart matrices of all the tasks everyone else has to do.  Hi George, I hope all is well……oh no, I think to myself as I stand at the urinal.  I see one of your tasks is moving from yellow to magenta, and if not attended to might lead to a deep hue of burgundy.  We can’t have burgundy you know.   Hmmm, why, I ask?  (Watching to see if a blood vessel pops in the Tracker’s head).  I’m sorry, what did you say?  Well from the coordination I have done, this task is no longer relevant.  We have moved on and are now on this new path I tell him gleefully.  Wonderful!, He sates. So how do we close out the tracker I ask?  Well, says Tracker Man, write up a memo on the new plan and get leadership to approve it.  In the meantime I’ll track that in a new entry in the Tracker.  Ugggg.  His world is now back to perfect and I have a new line in the tracker matrix.  One of my peers here merely disconnected two of her four computers months ago and has far less tasks.  Genius!!!!