Gelatinous Foam

 

"probably toenails are vegan"

During the phone interview, TSG asked me why I wanted the job. "Photography", I said. 

A previous hire, "the discrete mathematician", had left projects in an unstable state. I told TSG that clean-up should be straight-forward, "white knight rolling-in after expectations were low, and blame had been assigned." TSG laughed, which was good - because this is how I talk. "Don't ever get a phd", he said. 

The mathematician had named the main program "General-Guacamole" - and things got weirder. Where I'd expected to find a database and labels for water, heat, power, etc. Instead the software was formatted as perl poetry - a food recipe complete with ingredients and preparation. 

System variables avocado and sea-salt were given to the function mortar-and-pestle. Lime juice was measured. Jalapeños were diced. Cilantro was chopped. It was beautifully done, and it was currently running all life-support and satellite systems. This nonsense must have taken a long time.

The wiring panel contained hundreds of connections, none labeled. I attached a signal generator to the closest thermostat, walked down each wire at the panel, and checked for a tone. Input #126 beeped, printing it output "61", and a little heat-gun pushed it to "81." In the code this was named "peas" - I search-and-replaced "peas" to "utility-room-temp" in all files.

The Micro Nikkor 40mm lens arrived; it has fantastic close-focus.