In a meeting, some maps I made for a project came out.
"We'd like you to change the aerial photographs to full color." The maps are pushed to me across the table.
"They were in color," I said. "You requested that I change them to black and white." I push them back.
"Oh, well... Blah blah blah color." Deep breath, Shannon, I tell myself. They pay you to be here 8 hours a day and you get paid to do the stupid, redundant crap just the same as anything else. Smile for the boss.
"Sure thing." Big smile. "I'll get right on that." I move to get up.
"Oh and a few other things..." A laundry list of requested changes comes sailing across the table with my maps. And we go over it point by point.
"We'd like these dots to be lines."
"They were lines, but last week you said-"
"Oh, and can you change the orientation on this one?"
"Usually it isn't oriented like this but that was specifically requested by-"
"Oh, and can this be purple?"
Purple?
After a hour and forty-five minutes of this meeting I wearily push my chair back from the conference table and attempt to retreat to my desk to wallpaper my office with my new to-do list. As I rise, the boss says, "Oh Shannon, I'd really like to come up with some standards so our maps are more consistant. Do you have any input on that?"
I blink.