Alright, so folks sometimes bring up this “McHale Bird” thing, and I guess they picture some smooth, soaring project I cooked up. Let me tell you, it was anything but. More like a bird that flew straight into a window, repeatedly.
This whole McHale Bird mess started with a client, let’s just call him McHale for the sake of this story. He had this grand idea for a feature, this “bird,” he called it. Supposed to be elegant, top-of-the-line, you know the drill. Problem was, McHale himself was the one flapping around with the specs. One day it was blue, next day it needed to sing opera, the day after it had to be a submarine. You get the picture.
Man, it was a nightmare. We’d get to work, build out a prototype based on what he said Monday, and by Wednesday, he’d have a whole new vision. My team, good people, they were about ready to pluck their own feathers out. We tried:
- Chopping the features way down.
- Presenting like, five different mock-ups at a time.
- Even tried to get him to just sketch it on a napkin. Anything!
Nothing really stuck. It was just a constant churn, burning time and cash. His cash, thankfully, but my sanity.
So how do I remember this “McHale Bird” so vividly?
Well, this wasn’t some project I read about in a textbook. I was neck-deep in it. And the timing? Perfect storm, of course. I’d just gone freelance full-time, first kid on the way, you know, just a calm, quiet period in my life. Ha! McHale was pretty much my biggest client then, so I couldn’t just tell him to take his bird and, well, you know.
I remember spending nights, not sleeping, but thinking about how to make sense of his latest ramblings. My wife would ask what’s wrong, and I’d just mumble, “McHale’s bird needs to lay golden eggs now, but underwater.” She thought I was losing it. Maybe I was. We had calls where he’d contradict himself in the same sentence. It was like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. A very loud, demanding Jell-O.
In the end, what happened to the McHale Bird? We basically delivered a pigeon. A very basic, stripped-down version of his original fantasy. It did one thing okay, and that was it. McHale wasn’t thrilled, but I think even he was tired of it by then. He paid up, thankfully, and we moved on. I think I slept for a whole weekend after that project was off my plate.
So yeah, that’s my McHale Bird story. Not exactly a feather in my cap, more like a cautionary tale. Sometimes these grand visions are just a wild goose chase. And if you hear “McHale” and “bird” in the same sentence again, maybe just slowly back away. Trust me on this one.
