The Expert: Wrong Angle (Short Comedy Sketch) 

You can now buy Expert shirts & hoodies at laurisb.myshopify.com/ For all the experts out there who can do absolutely anything they're asked to, this is the ideal garment for your office battles.

I think I know what's the problem with his boss. His left brain has nothing right and his right brain has nothing left.

“When you’re dead, you don’t know you’re dead. The pain is only felt by others. The same thing happens when you’re stupid.” - Ricky Gervais

I had a boss who kept calling me to his office to ask why our work was being delayed. I told him I was constantly being interrupted and called away. He told me to ignore all calls until I was done. Several unanswered calls later, he came storming onto the floor, demanding why I wasn't answering his calls. This really happened.

As an actual engineer, this whole "The Expert" series is so frustrating to watch. And yet I can totally relate. People who hear and use words, with no idea of their meaning.

This hurts to watch.

This reminds me of a real world situation with a client which happened about 15 years ago. It goes like this: I had been called to troubleshoot a problem with a server. We were not allowed remote access, we had to work onsite and literally in the server room with a KVM (remember those?). The server room was a literal 5 minute walk from the incident room the client had set up with about 10 different people attending to talk about the impacts and the workaround they were trying. You get the idea. The client told me that it was mandatory for me to provide an update on progress every 15 minutes until the problem was resolved. I had to give the update in the incident room to the crash team and, I recall being told this very clearly... the update about progress 'is more important to us than actually diagnosing or fixing the issue. You MUST give these updates every 15 minutes no matter what'. What then commenced was a sequence of me giving an update, which took about 1 minute. Walking or running to the server room in the building across the street (5 mins). Signing into the room (security calling to check the incident number allowed access - every time) and going through an air cleaning space (2 mins). Me looking at the server logs and trying to figure out what was wrong with the daft thing (1-2 minutes). Me leaving the server room and proceeding back to the incident room (5 mins). Me giving the next update based on about 90 seconds of actual work. As the updates were virtually useless more people began to ask questions.... this mean that it would have been time to give the next udpate by the time I arrived outside the server room - so I just had a coffee in the incident room until it was time for the next update. Those idiotic people never even thought to themselves that I had not left, they just pitched up and wanted the next update all the same. I tried to explain the problem to the incident manager, but all I would get is a 'well I cant get a closer incident room', or a 'maybe you could phone the update in?' (no phone in the server room where I needed it and too noisy anyway). Eventually, realising this was going no-where I falsely blamed the issue on the companies own internal networks team and demanded that someone senior from that team accompany me to the next update them come with me to see the evidence of the problem in the server room. They sent quite a senior person from that team who listened to me update that the network was dropping packets then we walked to the server room. Begun to connect his sniffer....then it dawned on him -before his laptop had even booted, that it was time to go back. We left everything in place, and walked back to the incident room whereupon I started the update by asing if he had proven that the network was functioning correctly? Of course he could not say. I burned another couple of minutes again arguing my case and back we went. By now the companies own tech realised that I'd pulled him into an impossible loop. He made some calls, his boss made some calls and in due course the incident manager was spoken to and I was excused from any further absurdity. The issue with the server was located in the first debug session I was permitted to have that lasted more than 2 mins. The cient had changed the antivirus app on the machine from a supported and correctly configured version, to their enterprise a/v - which was not supported and was killing the server app from even starting. Service restored in less than 20 mins after a day of outage. Just because someone works for big company X and has fancy title Y it does not mean that are not a buffoon.

I thought this was a comedy. Why am I stressed out?

I used to laugh to these sketch, believing no one is that stupid, but now this is more akin to horror movie that I have to live in everyday.

The thing which may not be obvious to the novice is that you can address the issue of left-angles by simply allowing your square to rotate half way around. Left angles quickly become right angles, and that's an improvement of 50%! Of course some previously right angles may have become left in the process, but you can simply rotate again to overcome this. The ability to respond quickly with incremental changes like this is called "agile" development.

WHY ON EARTH DOES HE STILL WORK THERE! After the lines incident I would've left

The principal actor is phenomenal.

I think I might have some PTSD from working in an office for so many years...

Anyone who has ever worked as an engineer and been in a meeting with senior management knows exactly how this feels. I don't find it that funny as I just feel my blood pressure rising as the memories come back. This is not a comedy but a quite accurate depiction of what it is like to work in engineering but in a way which is accessible to a wider audience. You could go places by offering this as a training film as it is quite an effective little film. Watch the ashen faces of engineers in the audience as they break out in cold sweat.

Sometimes, I experienced situations like these when I was working in IT in the early 2000s. After trying to be polite and explaining like Anderson does, I soon took a completely different approach: When people started to spew clueless nonsense like Timothy, I got up, told them "okay, get back to me as soon as you remotely know what you're talking about, and leave me the fuck alone until you do" and just left. That ruffled quite a few feathers at first and some people became pretty pissed at me, but in the long run it did pay off: Those who were willing to learn started to comprehend how unproductive their behaviour had been and began to change (at least made an honest effort), and the others ignored me (which was equally fine by me, because that way I didn't have to deal with those muppets anymore as well). Granted, I lost one job because of that. But that was no big deal because the boss was a true cliché MBA (i.e. a certified clueless smart-arse who liked to deal with any problem by avoiding any head-on approach at all costs and just make your ears bleed with pseudocompetent MBA "big words" instead), and the company went Chapter 11 for the first of numerous times anyways about six months later.

I think murdering him in anger would be a perfectly viable defense in front of the court.

Ryan nails that expression perfectly! The number of times I've had that look on my face when I used to be an engineering consultant. LOL

"Obviously we wouldn't be using a left angle, that just wouldn't be right!" Omg the metajokes! Well done.

"Why is the beverage separating in layers?" "You need to use an emulsifier." "Peter we don't want to make the recipe complicated!" Yea. That is my job.

*This was perfect and not just all right!*

The "expert" videos are sadly a reality for many engineers. Extremely well done, hilarious, and pretty accurate to working in some larger companies.

This absolutely, and tragically, one of the best version of sales people that you'll work with.

Finally finally finally finally more psychological horror. These brilliant fucking sketchessss. Yes.

This "expert" series is really stressful for me.

This is like watching a live action Dilbert comic.

for me it is not funny. that is my reality and people make fun of it

I am in literal pain about this

It's a true genuine comedy. One person said: Humour starts when people stop laughing.

I love this writing. Great job again.

Thank you so much for these videos. They make my world as an engineer feel so much more relate-able.

OMG! Spot on! I'm happily retired now after 32+ years of working for a company whose name you would recognize in the USA.....plus 3 years with the USMC.....and this video only *slightly* exaggerates the inefficiency of corporate (and military) management. It is truly a wonder that *anything* gets accomplished. Great video! 🤣👍🏼

Make sure the right angles' lines are drawn in red with green ink.

I can't count how many times I've been in situations like this. Before I was nice and patient, now I'm very blunt. Being blunt just makes it so much easier.

He must organize a one week business trip to find the perfect right angle - makes total sense. CEO might accept the idea, too.

Ignorant Managers holding back Competent Workers... the modern day Corporate system is indeed the best of the possible worlds.

...At last, The Expert ( Part 2 ? ) Have been looking forward to seening something new for you guys. Loved that previous The Expert sketch. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Boss: "Isn't a right angle a round number, like 100 degrees?" Expert: "No. 100 degrees is a libertarian angle. And 75 degrees would be a far-right angle."

I am dying to see other episodes. This one was quite ironic just like the first one. I show the first episode to my every client. Keep doing it. 😊

Yay! So happy to see this. I love this humor!

I love these series! You guys should do more of them

"Left angle" ==> you killed me ^^ !

What !? There will be more episodes !?!? Yaaay !!!

We are witnessing this poor man in HELL.

This is why i subscribed! Thank you for bringing back the expert!

Absolutely brilliant. Lauris -- you made my day!

This reminds me of a task I was given in 1987. My boss refused to believe that sending 50 KB per second across a 9600 baud serial line would not work. He actually made me run tests and present the results.

Yaay I'm so glad this is back! The humour is right up my street :D

It's too close to home to laugh about it. You have nailed it perfectly!

You are really funny guys! I'm from Chile and with your video "the expert" i laughed a lot, keep making these amazing sketchs!

How big is a left angle?

Anderson should have said that a right angle is pi/2 radians to confuse the other guy into shutting up and remind that other guy who the expert is, and that an expert is defined as someone who knows what they're talking about

Love when you upload, always gold.

Brings memories of my old job. They took a whole bit of my soul there.

Check out the next episodes of The Expert: Square Project! bit.ly/SquareProjectEp2 bit.ly/SquareProjectEp3 Have you seen the original video? Watch The Expert: bit.ly/TheExpertSketch

The moment when you realise that you are the only sane person in the world.

very well polished and thought out, you guys deserve more views ;)

I can not stress how much i relate to these sketches

This must be shown in schools and offices all across the globe. You probably nailed the reason why the world sucks and dull companies rule the world instead of smart people.

Awesome! So good!

Amazing Lauris , this is really amazing

the best thing about these videos is they using such basic geometry that everyone can understand what tech experts actually go through..

When that kid that got all C in high school gets the same job as you.

This is so real... experiences such similar cases in office all the time

They are best actors and actresses and with best script:) can't wait for more.

OMG, they had to have gotten this from Google. I was working on a project, and this really happened.

This is so relatable it's scary.

Love it! Super funny. Great production. Great acting. Like SNL does Dilbert. More please!

Very, very, veeery good. Perfect, dudes, this is so freakin realistic.

I clicked this because it said "Comedy". But there was a 2m31s advertisement about right angles and then there was no video! WTF?

So painfully true

These are epic! I love his face!! And, yes, definitely, no left angles please.

This series is years late, but man it is good.

Timothy mysteriously died on "Bring-your-gun-to-work Day", all witnessing developers testified that it was a suicide.

"We wouldn't be using a left angle, that just wouldn't be RIGHT"

Thank you for these!!!! Being the only mechanical engineer (or just engineer) at a company of 1000 employees, competing with those that employ 100+ engineers, I can sympathize with Anderson. These are hilarious and somewhat therapeutic for me. Funny skits, yes; but that doesn't mean that the exact thing doesn't happen in RL. My best "Subscribe" in a while. Thank you!

Welcome back...awesome videos as usual!!!

There actually is an angle unit where a right angle has a measure of 100, it's called gradians, the other part of that "DRG" button on the calculator that noone ever uses.

The scarriest thing is, that those people exist... and they can make you hate even the coolest job.

These Expert videos are hilarious !!!

Brilliant stuff here Lauris.

Something's bottling inside me that want to get out after watching this video. ARRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!! 🤬🤬🤬

I have literally been having a conversation with one client on why they can not achieve 70% by combining 47% and 15% for 7 months at this point.

I need more of these. Please. They speak to me.

I fully expected him to slam his head into the desk at the end lol

This guy needs a new job

What angle is a ca..tten? Right or left or 90?

Can not wait for the next episodes

An update after a loooooong wait!!!

I’ll personally ensure you won’t be using any left angles for this project.

ROFLMAO!! Been there way too many times. 🤣

I think I'm your new #1 fan!

I can see how much this has aged him...

This is the most accurate depiction of my newly appointed snowflake “boss” that has ever been envisioned. Thank you for showing me that it is not just me dealing with these idiots.

"I sent an email why no answer"...knife emoji....love it!

another episode in only a week? you spoil us

"An expert is an ordinary man far away from home." alternatively "An expert is someone who used to be a pert."

Me when I show my parents for the 999th time how to save a file on a USB pen

1:04 "isnt it a round number" wait until this guy finds out 90 degrees in radians is pi/2 lmao

Dilbert loves you, right? 😀😎 Brilliant

This got me really frustrated for some reason..