The Scope Creep

I had an idea for a comic strip. Maybe a comic book, but my attention span might only allow for the strip thing. My hero is more of an anti-hero. The Scope-Creep is a dude that drives around in a Scooby-do style van, but on the side, it says “Scope”. “Scope”, instead of Scooby-do.  

We are not talking about the mouthwash version of “Scope”. We are talking about the document that says what your job is. And our anti-hero does indeed look like a creep. He is a creep in a creepy van that says “Scope” on the side. He hasn’t shaved in a couple weeks. And when it comes to bad paper, The Scope Creep is the king. He writes bad paper. Bad specs for jobs where the integrator can’t win. The Scope Creep rides around in his creepy van pushing out bad paper onto the street with unmanageable expectations and no clear finish line.

What skullduggery awaits us today at hands of The Scope Creep? Today will it be too many microphones in too small of a space? Will it be 4K video transport with only 720P sources? My skin is crawling just imagining this creep doing his creepy stuff to our AV. This creep and his tomfoolery is getting the best of our attempts to make AV useful.

In today’s comic strip, The Scope Creep is doing a site survey for a medical office building. There is a common area near the lobby and The Creep suggests the client can add in a BYOD all-hands type space. Per usual, The Scope Creep just assumes that you can use any ole’ USB extension system with AV. So, he slaps a keystone USB-B pass-through on a single-gang wall plate, hands off the BYOD interface thing and calls it a day. How is the client going to get the USB connection to different parts of the room? The Scope Creep doesn’t care. He is a true sociopath. He does not understand that the USB world does not revolve around his bad paper. This Creep needs to be locked up… lock him up and throw away the feature-license that unlocks the door. This Creep needs to be a recurring revenue source for some maximum-security AV detention center.

So, who is going to be the hero we want, the hero we need? Who is going to undo the hijinks of The Scope Creep? Will it be “Design-Build-MAN?” – a super hero who cannot only write it down, but screw it in? Will it be NAT-girl? – a super hero who can translate ANY network address? I don’t think the Scope-Creep can be stopped… but we can do our best to try.