Sometimes the client wants to build a shittier mousetrap
and what can you do?
Capitalism is a crappy economic system
and the only ones worse are all the others
so when the client says,
“Corrupt the efficiency of your device,”
you say,
“By what percent?”

(Particularly when the client
is tall and elegant
and waves in such a way
that makes you giggle like a Japanese schoolgirl.)

So you get to work
designing
reviewing
correcting
effecting change
to do everything in your power
to make the mousetrap
that has worked like a shark for generations
into something hip
now
a device for a new generation
the kind of memetic application
that everyone can get behind.

And it works
sort of
in that the thing
that had
by intent or coincidence
evolved into the almost apotheosis of the form
has been made by your hand
into something
else.

The shark has been devolved
into a different thing that no longer traps mice
because after all
why would we do things in the old way
anymore anyway?

At least it wasn’t your suggestion.
At least it was somebody else’s orders.