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{{def|Deal fatigue|/diːl fəˈtiːɡ/|n|[[File:Nerf.gif|450px|thumb|center|A young attorney experiencing [[deal fatigue]] yesterday.]]}}The point at which an activity’s intrinsic [[tedium]] becomes so intolerable that it dawns on participants that the [[I'm not going to die in a ditch about it|ditch in which they have been stubbornly insisting they will die]] is really just a rut on the side of an ugly hill leading nowhere in particular, doesn’t look an especially comfortable place even to lie down in, let alone bid a final adieu to this fragile existence, and that there is more fun to be had threatening to die in ''other'' ditches, on other hills, on other days, by passing up the opportunity to ''actually'' die, today, in ''this'' one. This revelatory moment happens spontaneously for all concerned participants, and often at about the same time. Usually on a Friday in the middle of the afternoon. | {{def|Deal fatigue|/diːl fəˈtiːɡ/|n|[[File:Nerf.gif|450px|thumb|center|A young attorney experiencing [[deal fatigue]] yesterday.]]}}The point at which an activity’s intrinsic [[tedium]] becomes so intolerable that it dawns on participants that the [[I'm not going to die in a ditch about it|ditch in which they have been stubbornly insisting they will die]] is really just a rut on the side of an ugly hill leading nowhere in particular, doesn’t look an especially comfortable place even to lie down in, let alone bid a final adieu to this fragile existence, and that there is more fun to be had threatening to die in ''other'' ditches, on other hills, on other days, by passing up the opportunity to ''actually'' die, today, in ''this'' one. This revelatory moment happens spontaneously for all concerned participants, and often at about the same time. Usually on a Friday in the middle of the afternoon. | ||
Commercial [[Transaction|transactions]] ''all'' have a “point of [[deal fatigue]]” — it is more or less linear — at which point everyone goes sod it, forgets about typos, gives preposterous [[indemnities]] and just signs the damn [[contract]]. | Commercial [[Transaction|transactions]] ''all'' have a “point of [[deal fatigue]]” — it is more or less linear — at which point everyone goes sod it, forgets about typos, gives preposterous [[indemnities]] and just signs the damn [[contract]]. | ||
===Asymmetric deal fatigue as a negotiation gambit=== | |||
The canny [[legal eagle]] keeps enough dry powder to box on when her opponent is catatonic. Hence, the negotiation tactic of raising issues over time, rather than up front. As each successive blow lands, [[ditch tolerance]] in the opposite side is stunted. This is, of course, bad faith, deteriorates the commercial relationship between the principals, while only the lawyers stand to benefit. | |||
A modern negotiator must thus regard herself as some kind of endurance athlete. We recommend a Spartan workout regime of ascetic sleep deprivation, to build up the strength to resist this shoddy tactic | |||
===Bureaucracy never sleeps=== | |||
On the other hand, bureaucratic processes imposed by [[middle management]] ''cannot'' reach the point of [[deal fatigue]]. Policy will not allow it. It is a conceptual impossibility: the potential “fatigue curve” for bureaucratic tasks is thereby curved into a new dimension of [[tedial]] [[space-time]]; but in the flat, three-dimensional geometry of ''normal'' [[Tedium|bore-space]], the fatigue point for bureaucracy is asymptotic. It gets ''close'' — very, ''very'' close — to that line, but never crosses it. Instead, yawns away to an infinitely distant point (the “[[boredom heat death]] of the universe”) and those poor souls — [[subject matter expert]]s, usually — who are compelled to follow that policy curve are trapped, wrung out and plastered for all infinity at the [[event horizon]] of utter dreck — a [[Schwarzschild radius]] around which many of us orbit quite closely enough already, thank you very much. | On the other hand, bureaucratic processes imposed by [[middle management]] ''cannot'' reach the point of [[deal fatigue]]. Policy will not allow it. It is a conceptual impossibility: the potential “fatigue curve” for bureaucratic tasks is thereby curved into a new dimension of [[tedial]] [[space-time]]; but in the flat, three-dimensional geometry of ''normal'' [[Tedium|bore-space]], the fatigue point for bureaucracy is asymptotic. It gets ''close'' — very, ''very'' close — to that line, but never crosses it. Instead, yawns away to an infinitely distant point (the “[[boredom heat death]] of the universe”) and those poor souls — [[subject matter expert]]s, usually — who are compelled to follow that policy curve are trapped, wrung out and plastered for all infinity at the [[event horizon]] of utter dreck — a [[Schwarzschild radius]] around which many of us orbit quite closely enough already, thank you very much. | ||