5:08 PM >> L&C, LLC - Most eligible situation

Two friends Clark and Lewis were constantly making plans. They voted on things. They weighed their choices. They brianstormed solutions. On occasions when there seemed to be no plans that needed making, they'd brainstorm things they could plan. The two had hundreds of ongoing to-do lists. They had folders for all of their various tasks. They had plans for their plans. They even had palm pilots that would communicate by a satellite link, so that their plan making was always up-to-date with one another.

It was really ridiculous.

They decided that a canoe trip would be fun. Instantly, folders were made, meetings were scheduled, lists were begun, and training was underway. This was going to be a long long trip. It was going to require lots of planning, which they liked very much. They would need all different types of shoes, water mocs, boots, sandals, slippers, flip-flops, and crampon attachments.

The trip was probably going to take them a couple of years so they made plans on how they were going to have enough food the whole time. It was decided that they'd brainstorm all the different ways they'd acquire food. It went something like this:

Take food (lightweight, but dense in nutrients/proteins)
Kill food
Fish
Tree bark
Roots
PB&J
Make our own bread
Buy cornmeal
Candy
Non-melting chocolate
...

The list went on. It got really big. They had always said that a brainstorm should not be edited. It was a way for them to just get stuff out there no matter how stupid or unrealistic it sounded. When the brain-listing was done, then they'd go back, whittle and weed, and come up with a sensical list of about 10-15 items, depending what project it was. Some projects yielded larger edited lists, while others were in the 10 to 15 range.

This food thing never stopped though. It went on for months. The list was over 150 million words long and growing longer everyday. They realized that it had become unmanageable. So, they hired a consulting firm. The firm charged them by the word count. On the day the contracts were signed the word count, as the firm had tallied, was at 501,345,000 words. Hyphenated words were counted as one. Thinking they'd be sneaky by hyphenating words that typically weren't, Clark and Lewis were amazed at the firm's count. They apologized for there trickery and let the count stand.

The firm began working. They worked and worked and worked. There were lots of emails and meetings and work sessions scheduled by the team that was assigned to the project. They were good. And this is what they did. They were up for the challenge. Internally, the team had their own lists and brainstorms and satellite links, just to make Clark and Lewis' list a manageable mound rather than the behemoth that it was.

The firm failed to complete work on the list by the time stated in the contract. Clark and Lewis thought that they might try suing them and quickly got started brainstorming the different legal complaints that they might file.