Meet the Red Basher!..

Meet the Red Basher. He's the best coder at our company. Tell him what's the problem, and he's already on his way to solve it. He'd code any languge, any platform, anytime! He's always collected, and productive. But recently we became convinced that he's talented in other areas too!

At one of the group meetings - the Red Basher present - a CEO dropped by, and mentioned - "We'd like to build a new HQ next to this one, a bigger, with brick walls. Better working conditions for our employees is a priority at this company!" Here - You must understand, we all love our company - we are usally working well into the night but not that night for some reason. Everyone had to leave early. I had to pick up my daughter from school, Joe had a dentist appointment, Kate had a date, and so did everyone else. Everyone except for the Red. No one knows until what time he stayed up. Maybe he did not go home at all, we'll never know. But we do know that by the time each got to work the next day, each was stoned, struck by the look of an edifice next to our HQ. Three-stories tall building, all bricks, shoebox shaped. It had no doors, no windows, but a prominent metal plate on the northern wall - facing the street. On that plate the logo of our company was painted by hand.

"Who knows what this installation means?", asked Steve - our manager - on a group meeting in the beginning of the day.
"I know", the Red Basher said. "I built it, cuz the CEO said that the company wanted it.
"Wow! That's really surprisingly nice of You, and where did You get all materials?"
"I booked it using our project's budget, the new HQ is high priory, isn't it?"
"Sure, sure", - the manager said. "But how about making a door?!"
We laughed, then turned our heads to Red, but he was gone already.
"Wow, what a guy", Steve whispered with admiration.

We heard a loud noise outside, so we left HQ to see what's going on. Out there we saw Red drilling through the front wall. Fragment were flying everywhere as Red thrusted into the building.
"Thick walls there must be", someone said. And he was damn right - thick as a bunker, good to withstand an aerial bombardment.
"And if that'd be our new HQ, windows would be great", someone added.
Red just finished making the door, now he was trying to erect some sort of pillars in front of the entrance, clearly to make it more aesthetically acceptable.
"How do You like it", he asked?
"Good work sonny!", - CEO just arrived at work on his modest Porsche 911 Turbo. "This guy sets a perfect example for all of You. This new building is sold, looks comfortable, and was built fast."
"Yup, but what about the windows?", - asked Kate.
"Oh, windows are easy to do", Red answered. "I'll finish'em by the weekend".
"Great then", CEO concluded. "Now everyone has work to do, move, move, move." He was really content with himself, so he obviously decided to go home right away, and we had nothing to do but to go back inside our old HQ.

As the Red Basher promised, we enjoyed the rumble of construction work until the weekend. There was a minor setback, since we had effectively lost one developer, and the rest of us could not concentrate in the noisy environment. So we missed a deadline. But that was nothing compared to the building outside.

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fig.1 Building sketch

It had the windows scattered all over its walls (see fig.1), and did not quite looked like it had flat level floors. When we had asked Red about it - he showed a great surprise on his face, for he did not think about the floors. The thing was just empty space inside!
"That's why it took me so long to make windows", Red was saying. "I had to use a system of ropes, and catwalks to get there".
CEO loved the building though.
"This is just awesome, just awesome! Very creative. Here we got a major artist among us, boys and girls, isn't it. Keep working on it Red, show'em!"

In the meanwhile we missed another deadline, then another. Finally our project run out of money, since Red spent most of the budget on the newly layed concrete floors, he even put some carpeting over the concrete, so that we won't freeze in the winter. Actually he was the only one moving on schedule, everyone else were well behind the clock. And he became our only hope for our group in a sense, because he invariable pleased the CEO with the results.

The project failed to meet the final deadline, and got canceled in the end. Steve got fired. Some of us moved on to another job, and some were transferred to other projects - lucky folks were going to move into the new HQ. Although it had yet much furninishing work incomplete - no glass in windows, no heating, no electricity, and so on. Windows weren't always conveniently located. One of them was facing the restrooms on the below belt level. This final touch was given to some contractor, don't know its name.

The Red Basher got another project, something about writing software for nuclear power plant - I heard. Hope he does just as well as with that HQ project. He is - now we know it - a productive guy for Pete's sake!