Mon: Ticket A is now low priority, Ticket B is top priority

Tues: Ticket B is now low priority, Ticket C is top priority

Wed: Ticket C is now low priority, Ticket D is top priority

Thurs: Ticket D is now low priority, Ticket E is top priority

Manager (Fri): You haven’t completed a ticket all week! What gives??

Manager (Following Mon): Tickets A, B, C, D AND E ARE TOP PRIORITY!!!!!

Dev: …

Manager (Fry)

So very familiar…

And don’t forget the eventual “Your performance this quarter has been abysmal!”

Stop changing the fucking priorities and I’ll get something done, asshat. 🤬

Start ticket. Finish ticket. Then choose the next one. Ignore manager and changing priorities while working on tickets.

@Root 😂😂😂

Sometimes I just work on stuff and say yeah I will get to that while continuing to work on same stuff. I will tell them this and explain a, b, and c need to be done on the original stuff. This makes it look like there is an 'n' amount of things to do. This helps convince them to let me finish. I am lucky that my management listens.

Tickets are always in the stack but not in the queue: last in, first out.

Just like a man overeats: always vomit, never trots.

With some managers this is an unsolvable problem.
You could have a meeting about how their shifting causes issues but if there's deadlines that meeting would just cause more delays.

Sometimes it's our responsibility as devs to really push back and say "Are you aware that me stopping A will cause a big delay and it would probably be faster overall if I just resume with A til it's done? You make the call but if you don't object I'm gonna resume with A as I think it'll help our overall schedule"

@magicMirror it always seems to come full circle to something close to chronological

Always do CYA (cover your ass) method with these kinds of people. Document everything and serve their stupid decisions back to them. All stupid verbal requests needs to be followed by an email confirming it.

@magicMirror Wise dev guru

Previous manager would never say it like that however once my week went like that and on Friday he went like "what have you done this week ?", I just responded "watching a billion ticket changes" in a jokingly tone.

If I had a manager trying to dump his incompetent time management on me (managing is HIS job, not yours) I would have all communication go over email and when something verbal is said ask to confirm via email "so I don't forget". If shit hits the fan all communication goes to his boss, if he is the one in charge i woud have quit in the first place. Time is precious and fuck people that (trying to) make you waste it feeling bad.

Well, try git someday and be smarter than your manager