Charts of Doom

Numbers are my friends

In an effort to combat late deliveries, the most pressing problem at the company I worked at until retirement in 2017, meetings were held at 3:00 each Friday. As you might expect these meetings, presided over by Deke, the head of IS, and attended by the CEO, four managers, and a few engineers, accomplished nothing. At the end of one meeting the CEO complained after all these meetings he still had no clear idea of what the trends were like over time. Was the situation improving or getting worse? After the meeting I approached Deke and volunteered to take on what would otherwise would have fallen upon him.

Working my usual geek magic, I created a set of charts representing the late orders in each of the 50 or so departments during the previous year. The first was the simplest — and the most damning. The vertical axis represented the number of late orders while the horizontal axis had a tick for each of the 52 weeks. Near the left side, that is, about a year ago, the lines clustered pretty near the bottom. As the weeks ticked by, the cluster of lines untangled a bit and rose steadily as the number of late orders in most departments grew and grew. A few more charts presented the data in a few different ways, but none told a story like that first one. At the next meeting I began my presentation by showing describing the first chart, then moving on to the second, and describing that. About halfway through the third the CEO stopped me. “Q, go back, uh, one more, OK stop there.” It was the first chart. I knew what was coming. Each of the four managers present was responsible for about a dozen of the fifty-odd departments. The CEO laced into them, slamming his hand for emphasis as he went on — “…and I’ll have your reports on my desk Monday morning at 9am with bullet points, action items, action plans, completion dates, cost analysis…” One of the engineers who was also a friend glanced at me as he tried not to smile. He clearly enjoyed watching those guys sweat.

The CEO walked out saying, “Good job, Q, keep it up!” I tried to make my body language say, “Hey, man, I’m just the messenger,” but if looks could kill, I’d have been so dead from the glares those four turned on me. Fortunately I answered to none of them. One of the them quit on his way out that very day. He was a big asshole so I was not sorry to see him go.

The incident went down in company oral history as the charts of doom meeting and was still talked about years later. It burnished my reputation as a guy who could take wads of numbers and make them mean something. Not a bad reputation to have.

Numbers were and are my never failing friends.

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