Project Death Spiral: Mr "Eight Productive Hours"

Another scheduled meeting with PMv1, and this time I enter the Project Office just as he's leaving.

"Oh," he says, "I forgot about your meeting. I was just on my way to another one."

The bugger. He wanted these regular meetings, and they're in his calendar, but he's trying to slip off to another meeting after already keeping me waiting yesterday?

We go inside the project office and whip through my report ("It's all going well"). Personally I wouldn't trust any report from someone on their second-last day who's leaving because they couldn't stand dealing with the project office anymore, but he seems happy enough.

I leave and drop into the refectory on the way to grab a late breakfast to eat at my desk. On my way out, I nearly collide with PMv1 hurrying in to collect his breakfast (his "other meeting", presumably), meaning he was planning to do the same thing today that he did yesterday - ignore his calendar, don't use the Great Whiteboard to note where he's going, and keep people waiting for meetings that he's requested.

Back in The Shed, I mention this to the rest of the Death Spiral team while scrubbing my details off our mini whiteboard (Project Office staff never come down to the sheds if they can help it, but none of use are willing to gamble that they wouldn't do so for the sole purpose of a whiteboard spot-check). The remaining original temp confirms that he used to do exactly the same thing to her all the time when she was team leader on Spawn of Death Spiral, scheduling regular status-update meetings and then turning up late with his breakfast in hand.

The Project Office: inspiring the maximum amount of cynicism with the minimum amount of effort.