On Friday afternoon, Riddler requests a full project proposal that has to be completed for Tuesday afternoon. He tells me it is a direct request for a product we’ve already completed, and we just have to price it out. He promises to get me the client info ASAP, then leaves for the weekend.

I start working up the proposal on Monday morning. The Riddler finally gets me the info I needed in the early afternoon. When I read through it, it is clear that the client isn’t requesting a training program. I sit down with the Rid to figure out the discrepancy. It turns out he hasn’t read the RFP, and hasn’t taken any notes from his conversations with the client.

When I ask him what the client has requested, he says he’ll have to get back to me…but that I have to put a budget together. I explain the impossibility of his request. He says we’ll discuss it at a later point, but that I should make a few specified changes to the documentation I have in place.

I start revamping the proposal, and put together a process for properly itemizing and budgeting everything out. When the Rid sees this version of the document, he reveals that he has had the budget for the project from the beginnning. So budgeting the entire thing is irrelevant. We have a number to work to.

I revamp again.

When I try to pass the next version along, I find the Rid asleep on his desk, snoring. (Note that GHC now leads the HPDEB on the Full Snooze Scoreboard.) I wake him up and ask for a next round of review.

When he emerges, he reveals that he secretly had a presentation for exactly this subject matter on his personal computer, and that the proposal I’ve put together is not going to be used.

I’m becoming convinced that this company is a front for a tremendously complicated psychological experiment.