"It's easier if more than one of you are doing the job," I explain again, "that way you can divvy it up into more manageable workloads."
"But how will we know who's doing which bit?"
"if that's a problem you could always divide the work up thematically."
"That won't do: some themes overlap and some won't fit into the themes."
"Is it really that much of a problem?" I ask.
"The problem is that we won't know if somebody else has already done the job."
And there, ladies and gentlemen, is as clear a statement as to how we got up shit creek as you are likely to read.
