The Rime of the Ancient Project Manager

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The Rime of the Ancient Project Manager

Ian Whittingham, PMP

October 26, 2009





Mixing his metaphors, I still remember his parting words as we finished our conversation: “I wouldn’t touch that project with a barge pole. It’s a real albatross.” He didn’t need to say any more; I knew my Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the awful fate that befell the ancient mariner. His message was clear--if it didn’t kill you, this project would drive you crazy.
 
By today’s standards, the horrors that the ancient mariner endures in Coleridge’s famous poem are melodramatically quaint. A sailor shoots an albatross and is consequently punished for his crime in a series of supernatural events. Eerie creatures stalk the ship (Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / Upon the slimy sea); his fellow mariners die then come back to zombie-like life (They raised their limbs like lifeless tools-- / We were a ghastly crew) and sail the ship back to safe harbor.
 
There are no chainsaw-wielding, ski-masked psychopaths or blade-gloved ghouls.



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I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
- Jack Handey