Deadlines

He hadn’t been outside in natural light in a decade, he barely slept, and he bruised easier than a ripe peach. It didn’t help that his breakfast consisted of an off-brand nutritional shake that followed the dietary recommendations of some country that believed potatoes to be the key to healthy bones. His lunch never deviated from a single peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And dinner was nothing more than a can of meat and potato soup. All selections he’d made based on the minimal preparation required, which allowed more time for work.

Timothy said he felt great though. “Fresh as a spring chicken,” he’d say when co-workers asked him how he was feeling, noticing the exhaustion on his face. “Never been better,” he replied to the temp who found him immobile on the kitchen floor, piping hot coffee seeping into his skin through his nearly transparent white dress shirt, shards of the smashed coffee pot scattered about his person. That one got him sent home early, and by the CEO no less—he happened to be walking by—who explicitly told Timothy to take it easy for the next couple of days. Timothy was back the next day though, believing he was finally on the higher-ups’ radar and couldn’t afford to miss such an opportunity. He passed out on his keyboard within the first hour and a couple temps transported him to the supply closet where he slept for two days straight. When Timothy woke he figured he’d been sleep working, an act he was proud of, and returned to his desk.

Pinned above his monitor was a standard piece of printer paper that read, “Even the smallest job is necessary to the larger whole.” A glorious sunrise was intended to appear behind the phrase, but it was printed in greyscale—as per company policy—and therefore looked more like a grey semi-circle with some dark grey splotches scattered about. Timothy didn’t mind, it was the message, not the aesthetics, that mattered. A co-worker once recommended Timothy replace the phrase with a picture of Atlas. Believing the co-worker was referring to a world map, Timothy replied, “That won’t do much for productivity,” and returned to his work.

It is difficult, though, to claim that anything Timothy did was for the sake of productivity. He always submitted his work at the absolute last moment, at which point in time it underwent merciless revisions until the polished work was completely unrecognizable from Timothy’s draft. Timothy’s area had to go so far as to add an extended revision timeframe for any project Timothy was a part of. But he had no idea. Timothy was under the impression that his job was to plant the seeds of an idea, those he submitted his work to were responsible for cultivating those ideas until they blossomed. As for the timeframe, well, he took great pride in using every possible minute allocated to finish something before a deadline. To complete work early was to cut corners. That was just how Timothy operated. Everyone knew this and accepted it as fact.

It wasn’t until the company hired a consultant to improve their business processes, an analyst who specialized in finding inefficiencies, that Timothy’s job was ever in jeopardy. Within two weeks it was revealed that Timothy was the cause of several significant inefficiencies within the company. So the recommendation was clear: remove Timothy from the organization. However, the analyst continued to research further. Not that he wasn’t confident in his findings, no, he just couldn’t understand how someone like Timothy could remain employed for such a long time. Plus the contract was for six months so it would give him something to do.

In his early days, Timothy’s shortcomings were overlooked by his micromanaging supervisor, who thought any work done by anyone other than himself was trash, and, therefore, subject to rework. So it didn’t matter what Timothy or any of his colleagues handed in, the boss would make it whatever he wanted it to be, often working long hours to do so, and seldom even looking at what was in front of him to begin with. This lasted for ten years, until the supervisor suffered a heart attack behind the desk. It was on a Saturday night, so nobody found him until Monday morning, at which point it was too late to save him. When the paramedics arrived on the scene the report under the corpse was one of Timothy’s.

The next supervisor was young and accepted everyone in the workplace for who they were. It was this easy going attitude that allowed Timothy to walk all over him. Not that Timothy had any idea that he was responsible for such behaviour. Timothy approached work with the same work ethic he had since joining the workforce, ensuring he was the first one in and the last one out. Such dedication warranted respect, the supervisor thought, not to mention Timothy’s time with the company. But when the supervisor realized how off-target Timothy’s work was it was too late. He couldn’t bring himself to change his manner towards Timothy, so he accepted the fact that he would just have to redo all that Timothy submitted. But then, after seven long years, an opportunity at a new branch on the other side of the country came up and the supervisor jumped at it.

For the next four years the supervisor position remained vacant. The company had taken a lean approach to business and did not see value in unnecessary management and supervision. Employees were instructed to work in teams and operate on a consensus basis. Strictly by chance, Timothy was grouped with new hires fresh out of university. The new recruits had can-do attitudes, plus the willingness and energy to do anything to get the job done right. Timothy, they figured, was just some guy on the verge of retirement—he looked at least twenty years older than he really was—who was stuck in his old school mindset, so they would simply tolerate him until he left. Naturally, Timothy became the butt of ridicule anytime the new recruits got together. With time though, they viewed Timothy as an integral part of the team, if only as the crotchety old guy who slowed everything down. When any one of the young folks left for another team, they didn’t know what to do with themselves without Timothy for at least three months.

Supervisors were installed once again after the CEO read a book during a flight to Hawaii about the necessity of intermediaries. However, the group structure remained very much in place, so Timothy’s work was never put in front of a supervisor directly, it was always vetted by the group first, even though it benefited no one else but Timothy. Like so many annoyances in life, he become a permanent fixture. A finicky car door that requires both pushing and pulling at the same time. Annoying at first, but the driver learns to deal with it and, with time, they don’t know anything different. That is until they test drive a brand new car with fully functioning doors. The job of the analyst was to make that old car run like new, to replace the finicky door.

It took two months for the analyst to piece together Timothy’s origin story. A relaxed two months that is. Time he billed as research was mostly spent playing Snood. Only on productive Monday mornings did he dig into the personnel files for dates and facts, the rest was all chit chat with workers in the kitchen. Still, there was something he didn’t understand: what did Timothy actually do?

Timothy wrote proposals. Clients reported a problem of some sort or another and the company’s job was to provide a solution for that problem. Such solutions were pitched with a proposals. Most solutions were fairly straightforward and, thus, so should the proposals have been. But not in Timothy’s eyes. To Timothy, every problem was an opportunity to go above and beyond, to fix not only the problem facing the client, but the existential plight faced by humanity. His proposals rambled on ad nauseam, sourcing the root of the problem back centuries to some fatal flaw made my some long forgotten leader. He followed the thread like an investigative journalist to the client’s current problem, offered a solution in a couple of short sentences, and continued solutioning until the client and company had entered into singularity with all others, culminating in a serene utopia.

At first the analyst was dumbfounded, but after reading more and more of Timothy’s proposals, he realized that the prose was beautiful. Timothy eloquently explored human nature, intertwining it with world events, amalgamating it all into profound essays that forced the analyst to cut many days early to reflect on what he’d just read, to contemplate his own existence. And when the analyst mentioned the work to others in the organization, he found that a handful had also been left in awe at the insights, but only for a brief period of time. There was still work to be done, and they couldn’t waste their time mulling over some overworked crackpot’s theories on life. But it did give a better sense as to why people forgave his work. It also made sense why Timothy was overworked. Those big existential questions kept him up. They kept his brain working around the clock. And when he stumbled upon a truth, he agonized over how to deliver it like a tortured artist. Only a deadline would bring his work to an end, otherwise those proposals would ramble on until Timothy’s last breath.

The work produced, however, was clearly contradictory to Timothy’s “All for the company” motto. It made no sense. So the analyst, after five and a half months of compiling all he could about the man, finally approached Timothy. The only question he could think of was: why do you work here.

A man must make his way in this life, Timothy said. One way or another.

The analyst cited Timothy’s salary, his lifestyle, and his work before asking if there was something he could do with his life that was more aligned with his interests.

I help solve the world’s problems, Timothy said. That is my only interest.

Your job isn’t to solve the world’s problems, it is to solve very specific client problems.

Even the smallest job is necessary to the larger whole.

The meeting ended shortly thereafter.

For the remaining weeks of the contract the analyst returned to investigating the company for inefficiencies. Timothy was simply too great an asset to let go, so the analyst took to working fast to uncover something else. He also had to justify all the time he’d spent researching Timothy for the five months prior. He barely slept those two weeks. Mostly because the work consumed him, but also because he couldn’t get the large ideas Timothy explored out of his head. He’d made the mistake of reading one of Timothy’s proposals late one night as a means to get some sleep, but the concepts made the analyst think even more about the meaning of his work, the meaning of his life. When the contract came to an end the analyst recommended a customer relationship management software that he promoted with every deal. He cited no real clogs in the company’s process, specifically noting the excellent work done by the solutions department. He did not accept another analysis contract and moved to a cabin in the woods, taking with him a banker’s box full of photocopied proposals penned by Timothy.