Pressing the ‘Submit’ button felt like pushing a thumb into a bowl of cold oatmeal-soft, unyielding, and vaguely disgusting. The cursor circled in a frantic little loop for 41 seconds, a digital heart attack in progress, before a red error box bloomed across the screen like a bruise. This was the ‘New Invoice Submission Synergy Portal,’ a title that required three capital letters and a soul-crushing amount of patience. Behind me, the office hummed with the sound of 11 different people sighing in unison. We were the people who actually touched the money, the ones who translated physical freight into digital ledger entries, and we had just been gifted a solution that felt remarkably like a cage.
The Committee’s Abstract Reality
The memo had arrived 31 minutes before the system went live. It was full of words like ‘optimization,’ ‘cross-functional visibility,’ and ‘streamlined architecture.’ It was written by a committee that lived on the 11th floor, a place where the air smells faintly of expensive toner and the carpets are too thick to allow for the sound of approaching footsteps.
One action satisfied the requirement.
Three redundant steps to satisfy the vision.
They solved a problem that didn’t exist, and in doing so, they created a labyrinth.
The DIY Analogy
This mirrors my shelf project last weekend. I followed the vision of someone who didn’t live in a house with 101-year-old plaster walls. I created a structural disaster solving a minor visual flaw. Corporate committees do the exact same thing, but they get a bonus for it.
The Cost of Irrelevance
Eli A.-M. calls it the most dangerous dynamic: a group of people with a budget and no daily chores. When you aren’t responsible for the output, you become obsessed with the process. You look at a 1-step process and feel an itch to make it 11 steps. This effort successfully deleted 31 hours of human life every week across our team alone.
There is a peculiar kind of arrogance in assuming that you can fix a system you have never inhabited. The committee members see the data points, but they don’t see the way the sunlight hits the screen at 3 PM, making the pale gray ‘Save’ button nearly invisible. They are designers of cages, convinced they are building cathedrals.
DNA vs. Acronyms
I find myself deleting another ‘um’ from the CEO’s recorded speech, where he talks about how ‘innovation is in our DNA.’ Evolution doesn’t add a fifth leg just for the sake of ‘synergy.’ It keeps what works and discards the rest. But in a corporate environment, there is no natural predator for bad ideas.
DNA
Keeps what works to survive.
Acronyms
Lives 11 years with powerful sponsors.
Paradox
Streamlining doubled our workload.
The Silence After Failure
“
When we pointed out that the new portal crashes every time someone uploads a file larger than 1 megabyte, the committee sent back a 31-page PDF on ‘Optimal File Compression Techniques.’ They didn’t fix the portal. They told us we were using it wrong. They would rather we suffer through an 11-minute process than admit that the 1-second process was actually better.
– Process Observer
It’s a performance of competence that masks a deep-seated fear of irrelevance.
The Beauty of Function
I think back to my Pinterest shelf. I patched the 21 holes, repainted the wall, and went to a local furniture maker. I told him I needed something that could hold 51 pounds of books and wouldn’t fall over. He didn’t use the word ‘synergy’ once. He just looked at the wall, felt the plaster, and built something simple.
The Result: Trustworthy Support
It hasn’t moved in 11 months.
There is a profound beauty in things that just work.
When you look at platforms like best factoring software, you see a glimpse of what happens when the designers have spent 31 years actually listening to the industry. It’s the difference between a Pinterest DIY project and a shelf built by a master carpenter.
View Industry Standard Platforms
[the weight of unnecessary complexity]
The Roadmap to Drowning
We are currently 21 days into the rollout, and the backlog has grown to 1,001 invoices. The ‘Strategy & Synergy’ team is already planning to integrate AI to ‘predict invoice discrepancies.’ We all know this means another 11 buttons to click.
Backlog Reduction Attempt
2% Progress
Eli A.-M. was calm, precise, and entirely ignored. The manager kept nodding and talking about the ‘long-term roadmap.’ It’s hard to care about a roadmap when you’re currently drowning in a swamp.
The Value of Humility
Perhaps it’s because ‘it just works’ is a short sentence. It doesn’t fill a 61-minute presentation. It doesn’t allow anyone to claim they ‘revolutionized the paradigm.’ To make something simple, you have to admit that the people on the front lines might actually understand their jobs better than you do. Humility is a rare commodity, usually buried under 11 layers of middle management.
[the arrogance of the uninitiated]
I’m closing my laptop now. The committee members leave in their clean cars, satisfied with their day’s work. They have ‘optimized’ our workflow into a standstill. Tomorrow morning, at 8:01 AM, I will log back in and begin the slow, agonizing process of proving them wrong.