Mostly Harmless

Donna

Disclaimer

There's little sense of security in the computer industry. You can put your best work into a development project only to see it canned at the last moment owing to the need for "risk payload rebalancing" or a change in "goal-centric strategic realignment parameters". So I'm more than a little proud to point out here that the department in which I work has managed a series of arduous, complex and sometimes overlapping projects all to a satisfying conclusion.

One of the keystones of our success in this regard has been the annual employment of student interns. There is nothing like a bunch of students to breathe new life into a flagging project. It's true they bring a certain amount of mental baggage under the general heading "Computer Science" but this stuff can usually be unlearned in a couple of weeks. Then for enthusiasm, creative flair and industry there is nothing to beat them.

Our newest recruit is one Donna Jackson, formerly a nurse in the cardio-thoracic unit of our local hospital, who decided to swap bedpans for an Open University IT course. The intern who helped interview her could barely contain his emotion afterwards - blurting something along the lines of "But she knows (obscenity) all!". He clearly hadn't been listening when Donna was outlining her special interest in the Reluctant Surgeon problem and her attempt to analyse it using Varela's extension of the axiomatic algebra of Spencer-Brown. It's amazing how people succumb so easily to technical snobbery.

So we employ Donna like a shot and assign her to work in the Lab Manager's office. This esteemed room has partition walls lined with framed jigsaw puzzles. It's the gnarly endgame for our current project which is a 5000 piece puzzle of Jackson Pollock's painting One: Number 31 which we began in November 2005 and came close to giving up on during the football world cup.

With the end in sight there are quite a few people in project-central at lunchtimes. There's a lot of jostling and the atmosphere can sometimes get quite heated when there's a disagreement about which inspired blob of paint goes with which. Donna, however, has been a marvel. She seems to complete whole chunks before anyone else gets in - as if she has been fitting them together in her sleep.

There's a prize for the person who puts the last piece in, so yesterday lunchtime, with only a few pieces left, the room is particularly full of myopic geeks trying to palm their own stashes of avant-garde fragments and pecking competitively at the table. I have decided to sit this one out so I am testing a new consignment of Nepalese tea (which definitely contains more than tealeaves) when the victorious shout goes up.

It is followed almost instantly by protests and incredulous gasps. Peering in at the door of project-central I am amazed by a curious scene. My colleague, Ursula Resplandor (she who can diagnose three data-corruption panics before breakfast), is stretched halfway across the enormous puzzle with a forefinger triumphantly pinning a piece which looks like a deformed chromosome. The puzzle is undeniably complete - and therein lies the problem. For Donna (the voice of protest) is still holding a piece and looking decidedly wronged.

Now, everyone is familiar with the misery of finishing a jigsaw puzzle and discovering that the hole which nobody could find a piece to fill is there because that piece really is missing - but how often do you finish a puzzle with a piece left over? The thing is unheard of! It has the same sort of unexpectedness quotient as wandering up to the old drinks machine, drawling "Tea, Earl Grey, hot" only to see it swing into action to serve up exactly that.

... to be continued ...

Posted at 07:39AM Mar 02, 2007 by John Alderson in Lake Guillemont  |  Comments[3]