It never fails that if there is a high priority critical thing that I absolutely must get done that business folks will immediately book half of every day with status meetings.
Each meeting is the same. Some group of people asking me the same thing I already said 5 times that day, then them discussing for an hour while I tune out and actually do the work
Just note that if you somehow get out of those meetings, incorrect information will be propagated somehow. Even if you put the correct answers in an email and send it to everyone involved. If someone has a way to prevent that from happening please let me know. It’s killing me slowly.
Step 1. Ignore everyone and do the thing you’re going to eventually do anyway.
Fin
- Get passed over for promotions/laid off for “not being a team player” or some BS like that because idiots can’t tell you’re doing your job unless you waste time bragging about it.
Strongly depends on the company. I have done this exact thing several times when something was critical and it was actually noted as one of the reasons they told me as to why I got my last promotion. Something like “staying focused on the issue at hand while respectfully managing the pushback from the business while still moving ahead with the urgent fix.”
Basically I told the business to shove it in a very polite way and fixed the issue.
in all fairness, most developers that are still passionate about code aren’t looking for promotion anyway, because usually once you hit the management level positions you do far less code and more bureaucracy bullshit, and what code you do is usually limited to guidance or review.
Now being passed on raises or laid off? that might be annoying.
This. I avoid management positions like the plague. I already don’t like having to deal with my own performance review. I don’t want to deal with several other people’s. I’ll take the pay hit.
Had this experience today. It was incredibly frustrating. Had to meme about it since I can’t get approval for my fix until tomorrow at 9am in another meeting.
I feel you friend. Just remember to write status updates at regular intervals so that stakeholders can see it. If you’re blocked, make sure people know that you are and why so they don’t start thinking it’s you who is slowing down
No excuses to participate online only?
You are missing the parts where they pull the wildest possible estimate out of their ass, then blame the worker for not living up to it.
Oh uh… is that just me? Okay then…
While the deadline for the previous task is also not pushed out.
PM: “How long is developing this feature going to take?”
Me: “Due to all the refactoring that’s needed --which I’ve been repeatedly bringing up for two years – just to implement it, it’s going to take about 6 months.”
PM: “Is there any way you can have it ready for the release in two weeks?”
Me: “No.”
PM: Proceeds to tell everyone that it will be ready for the release in two weeks.
Don’t worry, it’s not like crucial decisions such as whether or not you get to keep your job depend on the outcome…
Due to all the refactoring that’s needed --which I’ve been repeatedly bringing up for two years
Never let that accumulate for that long. Continuously do small refactors to improve the structure.
Always spend at least 20% of the time on stuff you know is necessary, but will never be prioritized by marketing heads.
Always spend at least 20% of the time on stuff you know is necessary, but will never be prioritized by marketing heads.
This is the way.
Leadership: Please don’t prioritize code cleanup, we have critical features we need to release.
Me: Oh. I didn’t realize you were taking ownership of (complex code no one wants to be associated with). I’ve got diagrams I can send you.
Leadership: No, that’s still yours. We just need you to focus on these features, and not any planned maintenance, for just the next sprint.
Me: So you’ll take over guiding maintenance on (complex source code no one wants to get near)? I can send you the backlog for your project plans…
Leadership: That’s not what we’re saying. Please just prioritize the feature.
Me: Oh. Sure. I will prioritize that feature, and I’ll only do the bare minimum cleanup that can’t be avoided, right now. (Which will turn out to be however much cleanup I damn well please, because their eyes glaze over if I explain it, anyway.)
Leadership: Now you’re getting it!
Me: Gee whiz. Thanks for talking it through with me.
however much cleanup I damn well please
The programmer is the expert to make the decision on what’s necessary to implement a feature.
Exactly.
We are implementing the feature in this two week sprint. (It is a four week task and is not amenable to being further decomposed - at least not with meaningful exit criteria.)
Running a side business it’s like:
Client: Why doesn’t this work?
Me: The same reason I told you I didn’t want to implement it in the first place.
Client: surprised Pikachu face Well just do
<some other hack that’s equally bad>Just put AI in it.
This is literally me this week. Came in Monday to folks having knee jerk panic reactions then are unreachable to properly diagnose or, heaven forbid, fix the issue. Was definitely important enough to wreck my Monday though.
My boss is notorious for this. There is a part of his brain that’s just driven to self sabotage.
I see issue, i tell him i’m gonna focus on fixing this, suddenly i get a slew of emails from him about other shit that’s not critical in the slightest that needs to be done.
Get a fucking hobby, mate.
