The [con]Fusion Cell ...

Have you guys ever seen the old war movie Dr. Strangelove? There is a particular scene in it where the main characters are in the "war room" - essentially a big conference room with huge boards all around. the famous quote "there is no fighting in the war room" came from that movie. Anyways, I had my own experience with a "war room."

Starting last week, I have a meeting every week until I leave that outlines the status of KBR in theater. Lots of fun...well, the first time i walked into meeting room i was speechless. it looked exactly like something out of a movie. there was a big conference table located in the front center of the room, and then there were five levels of auditorium style desks/chairs with about a million computers on each level. the room also had numerous projection monitors on every wall that displayed various things. Walking into the room was numbing. you think you are going to meet the president of iraq or something like that...well, that was not the case.

the conference table in the front center of the room had name tags for people. I had a chair at the big boys' table (something a Lt should never want to have). So there i sat, still awestruck by the massive room with all the computers - waiting for the meeting to begin. They call it a fusion cell meeting because it has all the key players for integrating the contract taking and prepping for future actions.

How do you think a meeting would go if all the big-whigs sat down at a table? smooth? easy? coherent? If you say anything other than chaos, you would be wrong. I have never seen so many high ranking officials argue, point fingers, and blame other people for the most minutia things. and to top it off, the people operating the millions of computers in the stadium seats above us are carrying on their own conversations. no one can clearly hear what the other person is saying...and no one seems to think there is a problem...

overall, my impression of the "war room" is nothing more than a place for things to get stalled, lost, and forgotten. how does anything ever get done over here?