So it's about 13 hours into hell day 5 of our massive push to meet a development deadline. The first 9 hours of my day were spent on a production support call for another project that would have been complete two weeks ago if our vendor (who is neither Romanian nor Canadian) had half a clue. The Chinese food arrives for dinner and I gather the troops for our evening repast.

Spirits are dragging a bit. Everybody is still trying to wear a game face but you can feel the tension. People are getting tired and grumpy and all they have to look forward to is a weekend of 12 hour plus days followed by a week of the same or worse. My brain is still somewhere in the UK on that support call and I notice that somebody has passed me a fortune cookie.

I open it up and toss the cookie. I can't stand those cardboard vanilla things. Pure nasty. Ever walk into a Chinese bakery? That's because there aren't any. Stick with rice and MSG, damn it!

Anywho, I get a juvenile kick out of reading the fortunes and adding "...in bed" to the end of them. So the typical milquetoast "The honest man earns great riches" becomes "The honest man earns great riches...in bed". It always works.

So I read this thing and "...in bed" doesn't work. I'm stunned. My QA lead asks me what my fortune says. This is the set up I would have been waiting for. This is where I put on my serious face and solemnly utter "You will find great friends...in bed" or whatever mildly humorous thing the cookie has rendered. People smile. Spirits are restored a bit. But this one doesn't work.

Then I got an idea!
An awful idea!
THE PM GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!

My serious face in place, I stretch out the paperlet and cleard my throat. "It says", I solemnly utterd as I look down at it "You are only half as popular as you think you are."

"NO WAY!" she replies. My eyes crinkle a bit. Our Graphic Artist catches on right quick. He cracks his cookie and reads out "Your friends talk about you behind your back". Others start to get it.

"Everybody knows you masturbate."

"My lucky numbers are ... Don't bother, you're a natural born loser."

"Your mother masturbates to your yearbook picture."

We almost had to give the Heimlich to one of our analysts after that last one. Spirits were suitably restored.

The project manager's job is so much more than charts and schedules.