An interesting piece of fallout fell out of the Mr Red and Mr Blue situation recently.
Mr Red, as you know, is my former boss – a great guy but so focused on getting there that he never made plans for how to get there. Mr Blue was the polar opposite: he is a man who could use the phrase “we must make a plan for a plan” with no sense of irony at all. Mr Blue doesn’t come into this story though.
The other day I was talking to a Higher Up who said something along the lines of “and I know you like project managment” and I said “???” and we stared at each other in surprise.
“Not me”, I said. “Some other person called Aphra”, I said. “I don’t want be a Project Manager”, I said.
“But Mr Blue said …”
Ah. Well.
“That was just because someone had to stop Mr Blue floating off into the sky”, I told him. “I like to know where I’m going and how I’m getting there, so I like to have a plan but I don’t want to be a PM”.
“Ah”, said the Higher Up. “I’ll move you out of the Project Lead box”.
I’m not entirely sure what that means either in theory or in practice, but I thought it was an interesting piece of fallout.
