A started it, by calling us "Brainiacs". "Us" being the merry band of application developers/software engineers/analyst programmers (or whatever largely meaningless label we choose to give ourselves). He then proceeded to call the project managers, who were in the meeting room at the time, "The Important People", though I should stress that this was said with tongue firmly implanted in cheek.

It seemed that he had developed a system of categorisation for the department, which immediately captured my imagination in a way that the pointless task I was working on had singularly failed to.

"So, what does that make *you* then?" I enquired, sensing that he had distanced himself somewhat from both previous categories.

"Ahh, well I'm one of the Happy People," he announced, beaming in his usual, amiable way.

"Am I *not* a Happy Person, then?" I did my very best grumpy face, lowering my eyes and ensuring that my bottom lip was protruding to the maximum, counter-productively looking as far from a happy person as is humanly possible.

He pondered awhile.

"Well yes, I would say you're probably a Happy Brainiac."

I smiled and nodded approvingly.

"What about D, then?"

"I reckon he's an Important Brainiac as he's just come out of the meeting room..."

I considered his system for some time. In A's vision, the department was divided into 3 main categories of people. But one person could embody the characteristics of more than one category. My eyes lit up. A smile began to edge its way across my mouth. I'd finally found the excuse I needed...

...to draw a Venn Diagram!

Now, these opportunities do not come about very often, but when they do, I believe they should be fully embraced. It was in this spirit that I approached the whiteboard, pen in hand, to set about the task.

Having drawn the overlapping circles and labelled them A, B and C, we then set about plotting people within the diagram. Most were easy, but we pondered for some time over G - should he go into the intersection of all three sets? In the end, we decided that whilst he was clearly an Important Brainiac, we couldn't say without a shadow of a doubt that he was a Happy, Important Brainiac.

Big. Mistake.

G took A into the meeting room, A emerged with board rubber in hand and, before I knew it, the diagram was gone. And with it, my smile.

I continued glumly with my task.