What goes up comes around

While most people were hoping to see another spectacular video clip of disintegrating astronauts, I was glad to see them get back safely. Thanks to our crack news organizations, the possibility of disaster was explored, in depth, live and in color by vitually all the news media except those devoted to the riviting coverage of a missing white girl in Aruba.

In the end it seems like the billions spent for this ten day ride are a success. Strangely enough that is how my current project is being hailed.
What, you ask, the famous fubar project from hell? A success, you say?

Yes, that is what I said. Moreover, we had a wine and cheese party to celebrate it. I went, of course. Pappy told me "Son, if someone offers you free food and drink don't spoil the party by not showing up." This has been the guiding strategy of my entire career.

And there is a hint of a bigger more lavish celebration in the works. You can imagine that I felt like some one who has accidentilly stumbled into The Mad Hatter's tea party. The users were smiling and drinking heavily. No one talked about "The Emperor's New Clothes" nor did I hear any references to Titanic or other disaster metaphors.

It sounded like everyone was happy about the new implementation. No mention of the unix os running out of process agents. Or views that taking two hours of running time. Some of the actual operational users were screaming about how the system was interfering with their productivity. These cretins were not present at the party - perhaps they were still catching up on their work. Whatever. None of us who were there, sucking down the free food and drinks, really wanted those nattering naybobs ruining the positive aura that had been so carefully architected.

I decided that my previous judgements were in error. This truly was the best project implementation ever! It was in a flash of insight that I realized how faulty my definition of success had beem in the past. I had thought that there must be an absolute measure of success.
But the scales dropped from my eyes.
I now saw that success is nothing more than the shared perception of the people with the budget to throw celebration parties. I can live with that.