Cuppa Four Talents
To celebrate the successful marketing of the company's new life raft, management fêted the employees most responsible for the success with a celebratory picnic on one of the rafts as it crossed a large nearby lake, gently propelled by a fortuitous breeze on a sunny day. After casually dining upon the picnic's delectable delights, the four settled back to enjoy their just desserts with a cuppa joe from the picnic hot pot.
The engineer boasted of his suggestion that the fabric's seams be both stitched and glued. The draftsman was proud of his design rendering that was so easy to understand, thus decreasing raft assembly time. The project manager remarked that her expertise with PERT charts kept the project moving forward quickly despite several setbacks. And the materials buyer reminded that his early anticipation of the project's needs provided timely and sufficient materials for speedy assembly of many quality rafts.
Suddenly, in the middle of the lake, the raft snagged on a sharp object floating across its path! They all panicked! "What can we do about this leak lest we be humiliated by failing to pilot this premier new product across a calm lake for celebration of our company's 'maiden voyage'?!"
One by one, they began bailing water with their coffee cup, while trying to engineer, design, manage, and procure a solution. And one by one they realized that, with their combined - previously unknown - talents, the raft remained afloat and did indeed arrive for grand celebration of the symbolic voyage (secretly attended by the local press and town's dignitaries).
Later, upon hearing the details of this crisis-quietly-circumvented and the secret attendance, the company immediately and publicly announced the formal name of its premier product: "Vindication" (which explains the subsequent Vistaprint order for four employee coffee cups, boldly decorated with "
Vindication" ; - )
P.S. What was the solution to keeping the raft afloat
Bailing ... or something else
Rod