Check out the new episodes of The Expert: Square Project!

The scariest thing about this video is just how relatable this is to software developers explaining things to CEO's/Execs.

As a software developer for over 10 years, I must say this piece is so deeply well composed and performed. Absolutely stunning.

I work in communications and marketing, and this is almost literally the way projects unfold. Except that Addison, the expert in drawing red lines, would not be invited to the meeting, and the project manager, Walter, would communicate with Anderson on individual tasks that Walter likely never articulates. Anderson would turn in each iteration for review, only to be critiqued by telephone game through Walter, as Anderson slowly discovers the who/what/when/where/why of the project over each compounding iteration. If Anderson tries to ask any of the information up front to reduce this foggy, iterative rework, he will reprimanded for having a bad attitude. He will also be scapegoated for any missed deadlines of the project. Everyone else will be promoted, and new shiny Project Managers will come in and repeat this process. The designer would also be treated like Anderson, and cut out of the meetings.

"what's stopping us from doing this?"

My dad was a public school teacher for 38 years. He told me this story once about a meeting his department had with a group of "educator coaches", whose big talking point was making the grades of all students above-average. Not the national or state average, the school average. They spent the entire meeting desperately trying to convince them that it was literally impossible for ALL of the students to be above the average, and their response? "We don't care, we know you can do it."

3:25

You know you're an engineer when this doesn't feel like a joke anymore

This is fairly accurate to how these types of meetings go. You have one expert in the room, severely underpaid and underappreciated, trying to explain basic concepts to a bunch of overpaid businessmen and successful gamblers

After getting my first job as a software engineer, it's scary how accurate this is... every meeting I've had with business people has gone like this.

This is not a comedy sketch, this is a horror film. A+

As an engineer for 10yrs, this is why I became a project manager. If you can't beat them, join them.

Always, ALWAYS, ask the client for their PROBLEM. Never ask them for their SOLUTION to their problem, just for you to implement it (because... you are the Expert, of course). Otherwise, you'll end like this.

This is not comedy, this is corporate life.

I remember telling a CTO that "his support servers were so old he wouldn't get any money for them on eBay". *Completely true*. Got kicked off the project for bruising his ego. 2 years later they had a major failure, no backup and lost $millions.

As a software engineer, this is painfully relatable. But the worst part is that, when you somehow managed to draw seven perpendicular transparent lines with red ink, a more senior developer of the team comes and says that your solution is incorrect, not elegant, and of course, he'd done it better in much less time

The fact that everyone is saying how realistic this is in the corporate world makes me want to go to a street corner with a big sign that says "The end was near"

I've worked in design for almost 23 years now, and this skit was so painfully true of my management. My boss once demanded that I mix two pigment colours to get Yellow. I asked him which two colours did he suggest I use, and he got blustery and said "I'm not the expert! You are!".

I feel like this must have been what a lot of the conversations at Theranos were like.

As an engineer, I eventually learned to just agree with them and then did whatever actually needed to be done- knowing they'd never even know the difference.