Is it me or do you also get put on numerous projects simultaneously?

I don't know why companies do this. To save money, probably. What were they thinking? It's not efficient to put a developer on several different projects at once, much less projects that are not in their field.

What do you get when you put an employee on 5-10 different projects simultaneously? A nerve-wracked, stressed out, easily-burnt-out employee. I've seen it myself.

Working in some kind of outsourcing? Hmm, probably invoiced twice or smth. I wouldn't be happy with that.

@retoor Kind of, yes. Invoice is same. lol. Just underpaid.

I've had to juggle a couple of projects and being put in a project lead position for some time now. Never more than 3 at the same time, and the one ongoing project is one I architected that's the easiest to maintain due to the simplicity and automation.

Another project I'm working on has led to severe burnout because of the amount of technical debt, on top of another legacy project that is a warehouse of fucking spaghetti code, also contributed to this burnout.

That's why I'm quite a pain in the ass about code maintainability.

I've worked in consulting for 6 years. The aim is usually 80% utilisation but when you're at 100%, what's another 100%? Weeks have 15 days, right?

@jestdotty Aah.. the true agile way of working: "In an agile environment, the assignees get to pick the work from the backlog and discuss it, rather than work being forced upon them". I'd be glad to have three days for such a ticket. I'd say: 1 day business analysis, 1 day documenting (ok maybe much) and 1 day testing.

Too important, hm. So that sounds like they want to put you on valuable projects.

@jestdotty

Ah yes, not to worry on the priority etc, those are defined at the start of the agile stage, when specifying epics etc. What helps is them telling me how important each project actually is, which they do and I appreciate - it helps me focus. Like say, it's more important to focus on a client project rather than on an internal one.

I like the idea of the acclimatization, even though what bothers the bleep out of me is those damn Slack interruptions and then the expectation of being available all the time. That's some balance I have to work on as well. You're working on an important project and then some people from the lesser project act like their project is super important. ping ping ping bloop, ping, bloop. Yes, alignment with the shareholders, classic stuff. I dislike all that extra management.

It makes me go crazy when I am context-switching. Yes, I organize well as well, but here is the kicker: stress throws my organization into hell. lol. Something to work on.

@jestdotty Management sur likes to get their grubby hands on everything and pretend they're managing. lol.

Oh, but what about having meetings to discuss the scope and requirements? Well.. write them down. Okay, sure, you can have separate meetings to discuss uncertainties.

In a lucky world you get a tester. In a less lucky world you are all roles: dev, tester, DBA, analyst, etc. Fun huh? And then getting snarked at for not writing enough (types of) tests. Spending 1/3rd of your time testing the hell out of everything. lol. "You wrote it, it's your responsibility".

I've had those annoying "this is the way we do things here" meetings, with a PM specifically. Yes, that's annoying. I also agree on the progress notes - just put them in jira or SharePoint. lmao. And the annoying thing of having to keep in mind eeeeeverything everyone is doing on the project because "team" bla bla.

Yes, ridiculous.

@jestdotty Thankfully I hate silent mode on my OS, which is great. Management just likes to point fingers lol.

Sorry to hear about your situations. We must find the best environments.

It's not always easy to tell people off politely - another skill for me to learn. Even to some are so dense that I politely tell them I'm currently occupied on something else, they still hammer on as if it can't wait. The manager referencing is nice. lmao. Managing expectations.. requires such energy. No wonder I'm tired lately.

@jestdotty Baah.. I tried the busy thing. The same annoying person still pinged me. What works is going offline altogether, or setting yourself to meeting indefinitely. lmao

Yes, contexts carry over.

Thankfully I can book meeting rooms for people to leave me the bleep alone. Even then.. sometimes someone thinks it's funny to knock and ask me through the window if I'm going to join their stupid party. No, I'm not. lol

I read somewhere that e-mails in the morning is throwing off your concentration. I try to automate things as much as possible in software. Swish, swish, e-mail filters. Hah. If from management_software and task_assigned > move to tasks. If from newsletter > idgaf. If from jira, filter it out to separate folders.

@jestdotty That reminds me of the analogy that your brain hard drive has to purge yesterday's page file (sleep) before it can store and access new information efficiently. Not doing so will leave you feeling sluggish (access from hdd rather than memory). I understand that feeling.

What's this? What's this? A recursive advice! What's this! ♫ Yes, self-knowledge is wisdom. You hold the mirror to your own reality and you shape it. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the wisest of them all? lmfao. It is good to know thyself - it saves more energy.