Mission Creep

Soundtrack for this post: Du Hast, Rammstein, The Matrix Soundtrack

I love learning new military terms.

What is Mission Creep, you may ask?

The icky, unwashed guy with the thing for on-line porn, the one you really don't want your sig other to have to share a shack with?

Nope.

Ah! I know! Its what your panty hose does over the course of a day!! Or that thong you thought was a good idea because then you wouldn't get "visible panty lines"

Nope, but I do think of that now, and smile!

Mission creep is: the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes. The term often implies a certain disapproval of newly adopted goals by the user of the term. Mission creep is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs. The term was originally applied exclusively to military operations, but has recently been applied to many different fields, mainly the growth of bureaucracies. (Thanks to the wonderful folks at Wikipedia for that definition!)

Like many military terms and ideas, mission creep is something many of us deal with in out daily lives, although not always caused by "the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts". But the "final, often catastrophic, failure" does come about, some times.
I have always thought I was just unfocused, easily distracted, or had very mild ADHD ... but no, I am a victim of MISSION CREEP!

This is a real challenge for me at work. A large part of my job is to find environmental stewardship projects to do, then find the funding and other resources to do them. Often we involve partners in our projects. Partners who have ideas. Ideas for new projects, which are great, so we add those in too. Then we get introduced to more partners, who also have ideas.

And the original mission creeps. And I end up working crazy hours, to try to get everything done, satisfy all the commitments I have made, meet with all the new partners ... you get the idea. My most recent "final, catastrophic failure" saw me spend 5 hours in the hospital, hooked up to EKGs, getting x-rays and ultrasounds, poked and prodded. The attending doc finally decided I was suffering from stress. The nurse who discharged me suggested a glass of red wine every night.

I think for me, mission creep is mostly caused by my inability to say no. This is a function of my God complex. I think it is my responsibility to fix everything. Everything. Like climate change, world peace, and endangered polar bears. Yep, its all up to me. And if I say no, I know that no one else can do it right, so I have to do everything myself. Yes, I have a *bit* of an ego.


Note: for some reason, posting this has changed the colour scheme on my blog. I don't know why, or how to fix it. **sigh**