An astute corporate metaphor fresh from the Middle Ages.

Some of you know Spouse. Some of you just wish you do.

He transitioned to Big Corporate not that long ago from a long series of startups and smaller companies. Quite a long series. Really, it was a long series. The change has been interesting – while in some ways working for a big established company can be easier (401k anyone?), it can also prove challenging (strained schmoozing muscles). Also our drycleaning bills are astronomical.

Spouse is a pretty acute observer. Sometimes so acute you wish he’d slip into a nice, quiet coma. But he does send me little e-mail observation bombs once in a while and has given me the all-clear to share them here.

And so, I proudly present:

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

As Wikipedia’s entry explains, the vegetable lamb is a plant that grows cotton. A tale told by travelers during the middle ages to describe how this newfangled wool-like substance is produced. The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (aka The Sythian Lamb, and The Borometz) captured the popular imagination and became a mythical creature sighted the world-over. Like Brangelina.

Spouse says: “I fought myself very hard, and I found a way to not to insert it into a presentation deck as an example of how we view the problem before we study it…”

I must say that I’m pleased as punch that his Powerpoint skills have come so far! Remember where he was just a few short weeks ago?

I also think that the Vegetable Lamb is a phenomenal metaphor for so many things.

The Legend of the Lamb-Plant as presented by the USDA tells it best:

Sigismund, Baron von Herberstein, wrote in 1549 “…For myself, although I had previously regarded these Borametz [another name for this plant] as fabulous, the accounts of it were confirmed to me by so many persons of credence that I thought it right to describe it.”

Well thank God, you know, that we’ve come such a long way since 1549. I mean, can you imagine what it would be like if just anyone could start a rumor and make it more or less true by getting other people to believe it and repeat it endlessly?