Alright, so you’re asking about “bennett bennett.” Man, that brings back some memories. Not all of them good, mind you, but definitely a learning experience. It wasn’t a person, not really, not two of ’em anyway. It was more like a… situation. A very particular, very peculiar way of doing things that got dumped on us.
The Project That Spawned the Madness
So, picture this: we had this project. On the surface, it seemed pretty simple. We needed to gather a bunch of data from various sources, clean it up a bit, and then present it in a nice, digestible format for the higher-ups. I’d done this kind of thing a dozen times. I figured, “Piece of cake, we’ll knock this out in a couple of weeks.” Famous last words, right?
Just as we were about to get started, really roll up our sleeves, this new directive came down. It was all about the “Bennett Bennett” approach. Apparently, some consultant named Bennett had given some advice, and then someone else, probably trying to sound important, had “enhanced” it, and suddenly it was this rigid, almost ceremonial thing. Double the Bennett, double the headache, that’s what it felt like.
Actually Trying to Do the “Bennett Bennett”
The first thing we had to do was reorganize all our existing files. And I mean, every single detail was specified. File names had to follow a super convoluted pattern. Document headers needed a specific, non-standard font that we had to track down and install. It felt like busy work, but orders were orders.
Then came the actual data handling. This is where “Bennett Bennett” really shone in its glorious absurdity. Here are some of the gems we had to follow:
- Every single data point, and I mean every single one, needed to be manually entered. No copy-pasting from existing digital sources. Nope. Print it out, then type it back in. “Ensures accuracy through mindful engagement,” the memo said. I think it just ensured carpal tunnel.
- Each entry then required a “Triple Confirmation Stamp.” This wasn’t a digital stamp. We literally had to get three different people to initial a printout of the entry. For thousands of entries. You can imagine how popular that made us.
- Color-coding. Oh, the color-coding! Specific hex codes for everything. If a value was 0.1% off the target, it wasn’t just red, it was “Bennett Red,” a shade slightly different from regular red, and if you used the wrong one, you had to start over on that section.
I spent hours just trying to make sense of the flowchart they gave us. It looked like a bowl of spaghetti that had exploded. I remember distinctly trying to explain to a new team member why we were measuring the margins of our printouts with a ruler before submitting them for the “Triple Confirmation Stamp.” He just looked at me with wide, terrified eyes. I couldn’t blame him.
The Breaking Point and a Small Act of Rebellion
We were falling massively behind, obviously. Morale was… well, let’s just say the coffee machine was working overtime. I tried to suggest some small tweaks, some common-sense shortcuts. “No, no,” they’d say, “We must adhere strictly to the Bennett Bennett framework for optimal outcomes.” Optimal my foot.
One afternoon, I just couldn’t take it anymore. For one small dataset, a really insignificant one, I just… did it the normal way. Pulled the data, cleaned it up with a simple script I wrote in like, ten minutes, and formatted it logically. It was done in an hour, instead of the two days the “Bennett Bennett” way would have taken. I kept it quiet, of course. My little secret.
The Unraveling of “Bennett Bennett”
A few weeks later, the actual consultant, Mr. Bennett (just one Bennett, thankfully), came in to review our progress. We all stood there, proud and exhausted, with our meticulously “Bennett Bennett-ed” binders and printouts.
He took one look, flipped through a few pages, and then asked, “What on earth is all this? This isn’t what I suggested at all. This is… incredibly inefficient.” You could have heard a pin drop. Turns out, his original recommendations were pretty sensible, standard stuff. Someone, somewhere up the chain, had “interpreted” and “expanded” on his ideas, adding layers of bureaucratic nonsense and calling it “Bennett Bennett” to give it more weight.
We ended up scrapping almost everything we’d done according to that convoluted method. We reverted to more standard, sensible practices – pretty close to what I’d done in my little secret experiment, actually. The project still got finished, late, but it got done.
So, What Did I Get From This Whole Mess?
Well, “Bennett Bennett” became a bit of an inside joke, obviously. But it also taught me a few things. First, always question things that sound overly complicated for no good reason, especially if they involve a doubled-up name. Second, just because someone slaps a fancy title on a methodology doesn’t make it good. Sometimes, it’s just a way to make simple things difficult.
And most importantly, it reinforced the idea that you gotta use your own brain. Blindly following procedures without understanding the ‘why’ can lead you down some really weird rabbit holes. It was a frustrating experience, for sure, but looking back, it was also kind of a masterclass in what not to do. And hey, at least I have a good story to tell, right?
