“1 2 3 vegetable oil.” That phrase still rings in my head sometimes. They sold us this new system at my old job, said it was gonna be as easy as that. “Just three simple steps, folks!” That’s what the big boss chirped. Step one: Log your task. Step two: Bang out an update. Step three: Slap a “done” sticker on it. Simple as “1 2 3 vegetable oil,” right?
Yeah, right. Logging a task? The system crawled, man. Slower than a slug dragging a piano.
Updating progress? Oh, that was a laugh. You had to get three different managers to nod it through. And each one had their own darn idea of what “progress” even looked like.
And “done”? Forget about it. Hitting “complete” usually just kicked off a whole new secret list of “post-completion hurdles” they never bothered to tell you about in the shiny “1 2 3” pitch.
Man, it was a proper mess. We were all just spinning our wheels, tryna make this “easy” system do its thing. This whole “vegetable oil” deal? It was supposed to make things run smooth, but it felt more like we were wading through glue.
I remember this one project, a quick little feature update it was supposed to be. Total disaster.
- That “1” – just logging it – took pretty much half a day ’cause the server kept face-planting.
- The “2” – the update – got jammed up for a solid week. Why? ‘Cause one manager was off sunning himself somewhere and didn’t tell anyone who was covering his approvals.
- And the “3” – marking it complete – well, that set off some surprise inspection from a whole other department we didn’t even know existed.
What should’ve been a three-day job turned into a three-week migraine. And it wasn’t a one-off. Everything felt like that. The whole joint started to reek of it.
Felt like everyone was just play-acting, you know? Pretending this “1 2 3” stuff actually worked, while we were all drowning in the gooey mess it made.
So, why am I even digging up this old muck?
Because that whole circus taught me something big. I was pulling insane hours, stressed out of my skull, and for what? To keep some clunky, broken machine sputtering along with their imaginary “vegetable oil.”
It kinda hit me then – just ’cause someone in a suit calls something simple, doesn’t make it true. Not by a long shot. Got me properly thinking, like, what on earth am I actually doing here?
I remember it clear as day. Late one night, staring at another one of those “1 2 3” tasks that was going absolutely nowhere. I just snapped my laptop shut. Didn’t say a word. Got up. Walked right out.
Took a breather for a few days. No emails. No work calls. Zilch. That was it for me, the big turning point. I knew I had to get out, find something real.
Ended up quitting that place not too long after. Landed a spot where things actually made sense, where “simple” wasn’t just some buzzword they threw around to shut you up. Wasn’t a walk in the park at first, mind you. Change never is. But man, it felt like finally washing that sticky, cheap vegetable oil off my hands for good.
So now, whenever I hear someone chirp, “Oh, it’s easy as 1 2 3!” I just kinda laugh to myself. And I always gotta ask, “Yeah, but what’s the actual deal? What’s the real recipe?”
‘Cause sometimes, it’s the stuff that sounds the easiest, the most straightforward, that ends up teaching you the biggest lessons – usually the hard way. That whole “1 2 3 vegetable oil” fiasco? Weirdly enough, it pushed me to something way better. A better gig, a better way of doing things. So yeah, guess sometimes a bit of that nasty, cheap oil can actually help you see things clearer in the long run.
