Hello, We are the 1700 Engineers Working on the Coronavirus Website. This is Our Story.
Does it really take 1700 people to make a website? What we are saying is: It could!
BY THE ENGINEERS
AS YOU MAY recall, on Friday, March 13th, Mr. Donald Trump made the following exciting announcement:
I want to thank Google. Google is helping to develop a website. It’s gonna be very quickly done, unlike websites of the past, to determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location. We have many, many locations behind us, by the way. We cover this country and large parts of the world, by the way. We’re not gonna be talking about the world right now, but we cover very, very strongly our country. Stores in virtually every location. Google has 1700 engineers working on this right now. They have made tremendous progress.
We think that’s pretty clear.
But look, right out of the gate, we want to let you know that we know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking something like, “It doesn’t take 1700 engineers to make a website. Mr. Trump is saying a nonsense lie.” Or: “Why would it need to be 1700 engineers? Wouldn’t it need to be 1700 web developers? (And but also, still, why 1700?)” Or: “Why wouldn’t the government use a website that already exists? For instance, any of the government’s websites. (But also, still, why 1700?)”
Hey, we get you! It takes, like, one person—not an engineer, just a regular person—to make a website. Look at the site you’re on right now. It seems like it might be something one person makes in even just a small part of his or her or their day, as just a hobby or something. Not saying literary websites are just a hobby! Not diminishing the important cultural work done by and on literary websites! Just acknowledging that it only takes one person to make a website, and that person doesn’t need to be an engineer. That person can be a regular person. (A regular person with access to the internet, of course.) Seems we all probably agree on this.
And hey, we know there isn’t exactly a lack of information about the Covid-19 virus on the internet. We’re entirely happy to acknowledge that the media seems to be on it. That’s the state of things. But even if you’re pretty sure it doesn’t take 1700 engineers to make a website (again, acknowledging that this site itself is evidence it does not), let us ask you to ask yourself the following crucial question:
But could it?
What we are saying is it could. What we are saying is: Hey, we are the engineers! And this is our story.
NOW WE DON’T want you to think we’re not busy working on the coronavirus website. We are! We are totally busy developing the coronavirus website! All 1700 of us! But Sutter in marketing this morning, in our morning marketing meeting, Sutter said, “Hey, time is kind of passing. I worry people have maybe kind of forgotten about the coronavirus website all 1700 of us are developing. I wonder if maybe we should do some outreach, you know, about the website development.” And we realized Sutter was entirely right. It was March 13th when Mr. Trump let everyone know about the important website development all 1700 of us were working on, and now it is March 26th. So we thought, hey, maybe we should do some outreach. This is that outreach!
Here is what we have been up to since March 13th. First of all, we did have some birthdays, and we celebrated those with cake. (Modest cakes. Don’t want to waste the website project budget. But do want to keep morale high! Do want to acknowledge birthdays and show team members that they are valued!) In marketing we’ve got a few different divisions: online marketing, television marketing, newspaper and magazine marketing, little free library marketing, etc. Each of these divisions has between five and eleven employees working on the marketing aspect of what we call the “roll-out” of the website. Pretty important work, because as they say in the website world, “If you make a website and nobody comes, did you really make a website?” The implied answer is no, you did not. Don’t mean to offend anyone, though—especially not the maker of this website. Don’t know how many people come to this website. Probably a huge number! Seems like a really nice and effective website. The observation about developing a website and nobody coming so did you really develop a website is meant to be humorous. You have to market websites. As noted above, the virus news field is pretty saturated right now, so marketing efforts are going to be crucial to our success in developing the website.
Now, from what we understand, just one of our seventeen coders had a birthday recently, and I’m not sure how the coders mark birthdays. The coders are in a different building, with its own security. Obviously, with an important project like this, we have pretty extensive security staff looking after each of the buildings on our campus. And let’s not forget our maintenance and janitorial crews! And let’s not forget the gardeners and landscapers taking care of the campus and keeping the grounds generally ship-shape! Important team members, all! Not sure how many birthdays they’ve had recently, unfortunately. But we definitely hope they had cake (modest amount of standard-but-good cake) to mark the occasions.
We don’t want to overlook the design crew. Fun crew there! Very artistic folks. They’ve been talking a lot about color theory and what site palettes will most effectively convey to a visitor’s eyes, “Hey, this is a website about a virus I need to be aware of!” while also conveying to the visitor’s eyes, “Hey, this looks like a welcoming, easy to read, dare I say fun website that appears that it might be pretty informative about this virus I have come to the website to learn about!” Is that a website with a red banner and orange headers and Arial font? Probably not! (Not a designer or a color theorist, but red is generally avoided when trying to calm and inform people, right? We can agree on no red?) So are we maybe talking about a blue banner with white headers and Georgia font? A green banner with yellow headers and Verdana font? We don’t know. It’s hard to say. And we haven’t even started to think about images. We haven’t even started to think about charts and graphs. We haven’t even started to think about how to style the pull-quotes. You see? These are things the designers are working on. A great many designers working in concert to come to the best and most effective design decisions for the website that will cover very, very strongly, our country.
You’re getting the idea, right? The idea that it can definitely take a great many people to make a website? We haven’t even gone into how many communications people are involved in this. We have external communications teams in touch with the medical community, with the political community, with the communications community, with all sorts of communities (with you, for instance—with your community, right here, right now!), and we have an internal communications team that keeps us all on the same page, that keeps us all up to speed with each other’s decisions, each other’s quandaries, with management’s goals and best practices and scheduling decisions, as well as keeping us informed about the latest political imperatives, the latest news developments, the latest innovations in web design, and so forth. We are all aware of what we are all doing, and aware of our awareness. All 1700 of us! Working, communicating, aware! Developing the website!
We of course have an extensive human resources team making sure we all get paid on time and have access to the best medical care and all of that, but we don’t need to go into detail there. It’s a bit red-tape-ish, right? A bit snore-inducing. Won’t bore you with how much we’re being paid or how good our medical care is. Let’s just says we’re doing fine, all 1700 of us, and you don’t need to worry about us, though thank you for asking. So kind of you to ask!
This work is not easy. It requires a great many people, working in concert, to develop the website. (Not this website. As acknowledged previously, this website appears to require less than one person. Don’t mean a lesser person! Didn’t mean to imply that. Meant one person working on it occasionally as something akin to a hobby. Not that literary websites are a hobby! Literary websites are literary and therefore very important! We’ve covered this.)
But we hope you understand now just how it could easily and dare we say almost necessarily require 1700 engineers to develop a website. We are all working as hard as we can, sending each other emails, chatting in our Slack conversations. If only you could see our Slack conversations! So funny! Some truly humorous people here! But productive, too. Always productive, the Slack humor. The kind of humor that makes us laugh while also moving us forward, because it is insightful humor. The humor about the website development where the humor is funny because it is true, about the website development.
Some of you may be thinking, “Yes, this is excellently explained and I am at peace about this now and understand it is very real and not at all a nonsense lie. This all well and good. But when can John Q. Public expect to see this website? When will the 1700 fine engineers doing fine work have the website ready for John. Q. Public to see?”
That is a fair question. Unfortunately, at this time, it is one we cannot answer. There are a great many moving parts. The situation, as you know, is fluid. Soon, we think. We are confident in saying we will have this developed soon. Many moving parts, though. Complicated situation, complicated work. A lot to consider. But soon.
Please know we are trying. Please know we are working. All 1700 of us. Please know we are definitely real engineers, definitely working to develop an actual website that will cover, as Mr. Trump said, very, very strongly, our country. Stores in virtually every location.
Wait. Stores? What?
The Engineers are working on the website.
