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NemeXis
3y

So one year ago I was working at this company from the US, me being in Europe, which automatically implies there is several hours of timezone difference.

The eng. manager decided we would have a release tomorrow (decision was made one month earlier), and stuff was being prepped up to make that happen.

In the US the workday was about lunch time and in EU it was one hour before finishing. The manager gets us in a meeting and asks me and another dude to do some testing that would take several hours to do. This testing could have been done several days or weeks earlier.

40 minutes after that meeting I get a private message from the PM asking for the status of the test...

Me: aaa.. well I started it and will continue tomorrow

Manager: wait what? we have launch tomorrow, this testing has to be done by tomorrow

Me: it's the end of the workday here, I got personal errands that I have to attend to

Manager: uhm ok ... I see...

I was just messaging something in the public chat right before calling it a day and the manager writes "thanks for the input, your day is over now", completely out of context to the conversation I was having with whomever.

There was no question of "can you stay extra hours and do this?", there was no "hey, I know your day is over we will pay you premium hours with this amount as according to our contract, could you do this now as we have release tomorrow?" ..no ..just .. "do it!". I automatically assumed that ..hey, maybe he wants to do this during and after the live launch (and yes I do admit my mistake of not asking just to be clear, but I assumed the manager knows that there is a timezone difference ..like it's a no brainer).

I can not tell you the heat sensation I had after that last reply from the manager ... it was completely uncalled for, and unreasonable.

I mean why not make a pre-launch phase where you put stuff on the staging server, and perform all the necessary tests and then when you get all the green lights from testing you then proceed with the actual deploy? ...no ... mention this like right at the end of the day before the launch....

And another thing that scratched my neuronal cortex is, how does he know exactly how long the tests would take?

rant

timezone difference

overtime

management

bad vibes
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Comments
  • 13
    3y
    What is pathetic and saddening is, there wasn't a QA phase in the release plan

    I mean, who is the dumbest here? Manager, dev, QA (if one exists), customer, product or each and every fucking one of you involved in this release
  • 7
    3y
    @asgs well there was manual QA, and they did check the individual features, but the manager wanted me and another dev to do some sort of "validation tests" that everything is working fine, with the mantra that "devs should be involved in all processes and take full responsibility for their code" which I agree, and I am happy to do ...but not like right before the launch.

    oh and ...there was no "release plan"
  • 10
    3y
    @NemeXis there you go

    As Richard Williams said "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail"
  • 2
    3y
    @asgs The customer! It is always the customer, who is the dumbest at the end. Everyone else gets money. The customer is the only one who pays for having the bad experience.
  • 1
    3y
    Automate your tests.
    My place runs on a shoe string but we automate the shit out of everything to make up for not having enough people. As far as I know we only have two QA’s in the whole company and one of those never seems to do any testing, he’s too busy pretending to be the CEO.
  • 0
    3y
    This will definitely be an unpopular opinion but I believe it comes with the job. Imo a software job is much different than an any other job especially when working remotely across timezones. When things need to get done in a timely manner like urgent releases or production bugs then its expected that us as developers take ownership and deliver asap. Sure you can choose not to do it and there will be no repercussions but there will be no rewards either. You will just be seen as this dude that doesn’t care about the product and only sees his job as a job. No promotions for you my friend
  • 2
    3y
    @agalin920 I disagree totally for the following reasons:

    On a general level:

    - promotions should be based on consistent efforts throughout the project, not on last minute struggles

    - enabling the manager to believe that he/she can do whatever it wants with your life is damaging for a number of reasons

    - having to do overtime in the last minute means there was a management failure of not ensuring a smooth sail

    On this specific project:

    - the deadline was artificial and not based on actual sensible estimations (manager never asked)

    - there was no release plan, or if there was one it was vague

    - other devs were not as invested as I was... especially because they were third-party and didn't care. I personally contributed 30% to the whole project compared to the rest of the devs (and no I don't have a superiority complex, actually I think poorly about myself)
  • 0
    3y
    @NemeXis

    I agree with all your points but you are seeing it in an idealistic scenario and what im trying to convey is that in reality you will get managers that will fail and the people who put in the extra effort to not make him not look bad to his manager will get you on his good list and anything against it will put you on his bad list as simple as that. People don’t use critical thinking especially when any sort of emotions are involved. You gotta play the game if you want to win and not whine about the unfairness of the rules
  • 3
    3y
    @agalin920 thats very bad way of thinking. By sucking up to such managers and doing every shit you got throwed you will get rewarded by more work and shit without actual pay raise or promotion. You will be taken for granted.

    It sounds like you are working in a very toxic company without even realizing it, hope you will get a chance to go to some more caring team.
  • 0
    3y
    this kinda sounds like there might have been miscommunication on both sides?

    same as you assumed what suited your schedule best and responded accordingly, they then assumed the worst (i. e. my day is over, fuck off) intention behind what you said.

    i recommend trying to talk with them about it, basically tell them the same as you said here, but more diplomatically?

    the best case: miscommunication will clear up. the least worst case: instead of looking like you aggressively didn't give a shit you will look like you were momentarily dumb. the worst case: they will confirm what you already think about them right now, and you will confirm what they already think about you right now.
  • 1
    3y
    @Midnight-shcode the thing is, I did intend to say "my day is over so fuck off" 🤣🤣 . I was fed up with a lot of bullshit and chaos. I effectively ended the contract a month later.

    If it were a better company or team I would've probably be more pro-active and do work over-time especially if the delay was on the devs side, but in this case the eng. manager had set an out-of-the-ass deadline and made unreasonable demands.
  • 1
    3y
    @NemeXis oh. well, that changes everything. in that case, everything seems a-ok.
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