02 October 2005

Information overload in the office

Does this scene look familiar? What are these people saying?

I'm having a contest to see who can write the best words/caption for this picture.

If you win you can choose between two prizes: a free copy of my book, Selling to the VP of NO, or a free deck of Discovery Cards. What are Discovery Cards? If you win, you'll find out!

If you comment on this post I'll consider it a submission.

Updating this on Monday 3 October: Check out some of the responses, they're a riot -- d

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13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Man: When we were wringing our hands over retaining IP, did we give a thought to how to make it accessible?

Woman: Hey, I can access these papers just fine! Finding anything in them, on the other hand...

soggysstag said...

Woman - Hey, has anyone seen my hairbrush?
Man - Never

Anonymous said...

Woman - Isn't there a better way to find what you are looking for?

Man - Yes.

Graeme Watson said...

Man: So, are we all following our corporate style guide.

Woman: Yes, everyone one of these peices of paper is identical 12 point Helvettica.

R. Kobe said...

Woman: We were trying to find a way to help the user understand how to use the application, because it's such a usability nightmare. Since the user's manual was a monster we made these quick reference guides.

Man: There's nothing wrong with our application! I've been using it for years, and it's the best on the market.

Mateo & Mikah said...

Woman:They were collated, with colors and a title page like you asked. I did this last night!

Man:PowerPoint Johnson, ever heard of PowerPoint?

Christian Spatzierer
PLMEDIA

Anonymous said...

Woman: The 30,000 foot view is that the low-hanging fruit appears to be in the wood pulp vertical.

Man: NO! Er... I mean GO!

Zing said...

Woman: As you can see from the reports the paperless office initiative has saved the company nearly $.18.

Man: Outstanding work, Smith.

Anonymous said...

Woman: Well Jack as you can see I've documented my life down to brushing my hair.

Man: Wonderful work Janet, now let's talk about our recycling initiative. How are we doing?

Roland Jones said...

Manager: Sue, here's all the system documentation created during programming. We've got 5 days to go live and need you to create a one-page system overview and ten-page user guide. Keep it simple and use lots of pictures, our customer's don't like to read.

Technical Writer: How big can I make the pages?

Unknown said...

These are hilarious! It's going to be hard to pick a winner.

Roland Jones said...

More options--

Project Manager (woman): Are we continuing this project or not?
Executive (man): We need more information.

Project Manager (woman): The PMBOK said you need all this documentation.
Customer (man): I just want a prototype.

(man): Pretend I'm five and give me the short version.
(woman): Because I said so.

(woman): Option nine...reducing our investment by 5 percent will have an adverse effect on production capability in the areas not served by our secondary vendor and...
(man): What were the top three options again?

(man): No...
(woman): Why?
(man): ...because you put my CPA to sleep.

(woman): ...but we spent weeks on this. Why not?
(man): I wont authorize what I can't understand.

(woman): No? Why not?
(man): Communication means you present something I can understand.

(woman): You said we needed more information.
(man): Maybe I should have said we need better information.

thambi said...

Man: Is it there?
Woman: Somewhere here!

Woman: I had paused indexing on my desktop search tool.
Man: Aah!

Woman: These are some of our customer complaints, our flagship product, Shredz didnt work on them apparently
Man: Ahem!!