Metaphors

photo: thestar.com/news

The half-sunken cruise ship Costa Concordia still lies where she ran aground just a few hundred yards offshore of the island of Giglio in Giglio Porto, Italy.   By now, anyone who reads, listens to, or watches the news is familiar with the almost unbelievable story. 

How could so many things go wrong? The most compelling questions are yet to be answered.    My friend has a 17 foot fisherman's boat and he has a sonar screen that scans the bottom for solid objects, but a cruise ship the size of the Empire State Building has no working sonar?  Also, just about everyone who has been interviewed by news reporters has complained about the lack of  training and information following the abandon ship order, yet nearly 4,200 passengers and crew got off the ship alive in the dark of night.  Isn't the most incredible fact that less than 40 people are still confirmed dead or missing in the bowels of the behemoth? 

It boggles the mind to consider that such a disaster could happen in calm seas in well traveled waters.

But it reminds us that the bubble of safety and security that we take for granted can pop at any time.

For some reason, ship disasters always make me think about my working life.  Many of the projects I worked on were like cruises to nowhere, plotted by some captain of industry who had an enormous ego, but was navigationally retarded.   The Titanic metaphor often seemed apt.  We trench denizens would sit around the coffee room musing about management re-arranging the deck chairs when the ship was taking on water, or arguing about what song selections the band should play while passengers took to the lifeboats. 

Some of those projects ended-up on the shoals of  disaster.  As I review my resume,  most of my former companies have failed or merged into different organizations.  Some cheap-shot commenters will undoubtedly muse that I was the jinx that helped sink those ships.  But, as is my wont, I prefer to point the finger at cowardly captains and clueless coworkers.