So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
- Peter Drucker
Boy, isn’t it the truth? My boss is “managing” me right into a hole of utter un-productivity right now.
He apparently doesn’t understand that only 10% of the project is actually the layout of the interface (ie: stuff he can “see”). The other 90% is where you’re working in the background making sure that pretty interface actually does something.
Two to three times a day, he’ll come by, call me, or email me asking if there’s anything new for him to see1.
No, there’s nothing new for you to see, I’ll tell you when I’m done with something so you can see it. The more time we spend talking about how there’s nothing for you to see, the less time I get to spend actually working on something for you to see.
Add to it that it reinforces a bitter feeling that I’m not getting anything done nearly fast enough even though I’m working my ass off, and you’ve got one thoroughly unhappy developer.
Time to call those two job recruiters back, me thinks…
- He’s supposedly on vacation this week, but at 8:24 this morning he still found the time to email me asking if there’s anything else he can see. [back]
Worst. Organized. Project. Evar.
For the last two weeks, I’ve been working to design a one-off enrollment system1 for a client, and it seems like it’s just been one road-block after another.
First, their data was incorrect. And then again. And for good measure, a third time. To be fair, I don’t know if it was their fault or ours the second and third time (mis-communication somewhere about what translations we were making), but the first time certainly was2.
Then, there’s the fact that when I notified the person in charge of coordinating this data exchange with the client, they apparently “missed” the email… And so three days later I’m asking them where the hell my answers are, and they have no clue what I’m talking about.
Next, apparently no one really knows what data the client wants to get back from us for entry into their system. On some things, they claim to want all coverages. For others, just changes. Then there’s this one piece of information they don’t seem to have thought about nor want at all…
Finally, 4 days before the system is to go live and we’ll have thousands of people from across the country calling in to enroll using it, as I’m working my ass off to correct a few bugs and get final testing in, I notice that the spreadsheet I originally got says that the client is expecting data back for a coverage we’re not supposed to be enrolling them.
Uhh, what? How can we give them back data on something we’re not enrolling? Back to the project manager we go… “Oh, right… That spreadsheet is old, I’ll see if I can find a new version for you.”
WTF? 4 days from live and I’m the one that has to realize no one bothered to give the programmer the real specs? If these were freelance clients, I’d never work for them again… Alas, they’re internal company employees and I’m not their manager…