I dreamt that I was at a posh conference dedicated to management in all its guises. Many luminaries of the field were present. Among them was a Russian manager of great renown of whom I have never heard. He was very old and in rather poor shape, but he talked with intelligence and gusto. It was wonderful to listen to him. He told us an anecdote from his youth. During a period of friendship between the Soviet Union and China in the late Fifties, he was managing an institute dedicated to that friendship. There were many Chinese working in the institute building, as well. And then he said that the paramount objective of all the Soviets working under his management was to obstruct in any way imaginable their Chinese comrades in their “evacuation function.” He chuckled a bit when he said this, but he would not elaborate it too much. It was obvious that the old management objective was still a state secret of sorts, and that he was only regaling a chosen audience with a piquant detail. I remember chuckling all the time as I was trying to figure out what was going on in that long-disbanded institute. Indeed, obstructing urination and defecation must have been great fun.