The News Troll says: "Who cares if the company doesn't have any actual customers? Just be creative - ooh! Is there no holding these people back?"

Based in the surprisingly small country of Belgium, bespoke ecommerce software house WaffleTilBlue Inc has not had any actual customers for over three years now. They are kept afloat simply by the sheer inflated denial of its directors, and the surprising insouciance of its employees. In fact WaffleTilBlue staff have learned to pass the time in many creative ways that somehow pass as "work":

• They dream up "think tanks"
• They propose and chart out hypothetical customer-support schemes
• They implement change management control methodologies and unified refinement processes

In fact, it's quite shocking just how little their efforts have to do with actual software development.

"We do have a tremendous buzz around the office," Senior Process Alignment Director Fred leBot proudly explained. "Everyone is really busy, actively doing something. Any visiting investors would not even suspect that we don't even have any real customers, unless we told them... ooops!"

He laughed happily, and asked if I would like to try out their (now slightly ageing) Career Progression Analysis software, all written in-house of course. "This software is becoming a bit long in the tooth now," lamented leBot, letting out a deeply contented sigh. "Perhaps next month we will arrange a Community Task Force to rewrite it from the ground up and integrate it into our company Intranet."

More recently, WaffleTilBlue manager of Internal Process Reengineering Hans van Tipper came up with the idea of dividing the company into special Communities. The company now has a Technical Community, a Sales and Marketing Community, a User Friendliness community and so on. Spurred on by the almost desperate enthusiasm of his colleagues, van Tipper further divided each community into several sub-communities (or Unified Villages as he calls them). Each Unified Village meets every week for a two hour Workshop, during which each community member must think up at least five suggestions about how the company processes could be further improved. Each idea must be scribbled onto a Post-it note which is then slapped onto the wall. The group then divides into several mini-Task Forces, each of which consolidates their share of Post-it ideas into a selection of tangible "deliverables" that must be completed by the following week. These deliverables are then randomly allocated to the eager-beaver staff, and woe betide any poor individual that fails to complete their task in time for next week's Workshop. Of course this is never a problem.

Another weekly activity involves choosing an arbitrary subject (e.g. favourite city, least favourite fish, tallness; the list - and the possibilities - are endless). The Unified Village members are then divided according to their preference in that subject. This process involves waiting until the Community Leader blows his or her whistle, then running as fast as they can to the allocated area of the conference room, giggling as they go, bumping into each other, knocking over chairs, skipping and prancing like excited infants.

To reward its employees for all their hard work, the company directors recently treated them to a table-tennis table, which was set up in the company dining area. A Technical Task Force was quickly set up to create a game league on the company Intranet.

"Busy-ness is next to Godliness!" a junior intern exclaimed excitedly during one of the many regularly attended Workshops. "Our Intranet is now the most advanced client-server system in the entire f***ing World!!" The intern then paused, looked slightly depressed for a second, and added: "We've got way too much time on our hands, haven't we?"

Mary A. Skunk, Web Designer, NJ:
"I have to say this article is in the poorest possible taste. At my company we have lots and lots of customers. It's just none of them have paid us yet."

Larry Gibson, Amateur Telephonist, London, UK:
"This kind of stuff is called meta-work, work about work. It can get quite out of control, i.e. the process becomes the goal."

Let your fellow Millers know what you think of this story. Talkback here:

Confused, Slovakia:
Aaaieeeee good for WaftilBlue they winn again Wafblu rock dudes MS big-time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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