Friday, September 29, 2006

Haunted by an old exercise room:

In the mid 1990's, the company I worked at floated some stock and was able to carefully design the "just perfect" offices for themselves and move into them. (C. Northcote Parkinson has a law about this that I discussed last March 6, and yes, that company was then dying from within even as it moved.)

The director of engineering was a runner and felt very strongly about physical fitness in the office. He arranged for our new building to have a "gym", a large room with mats, weightlifting equipment, a treadmill and an exercycle. I was of course far too busy programming to use any of this equipment, but I passed the room frequently as I walked about the building, and I knew - as did everyone else - that the room was virtually unused. Eventually the equipment disappeared, and it became a meeting room.

Many years have passed since then, and now I can only ask myself: what could I possibly have been doing at that company that was more important than using the exercise room?

No comments: