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this was about office politics. for context, a lot of non tech people think they can borrow our time willy nilly and our boss agrees, so we're often pulled out of our tasks to do random shit.

these girls asked for my consultation on a simple problem, because another team wasn't fixing an issue for them and they said it wasn't possible. i said it was possible and simple to solve, i spoke to the other team, showed them how to do it and thought that was done. they kept asking me to produce proof that it was possible, excessively, like i had nothing to do.

that went on for a week, lots of back and forth, i was getting tired, so i told this girl fine, I'll do this stupid thing IF you send me an email making this a formal exchange, she says fine. the next day i find out they went after another guy in my team, who's much busier than i, and he stopped everything to coddle them.

i told him to be careful about that stuff, because he's setting himself up for this shit, he's making the rest of the team look bad and he's stopping his work to do something that was already done, because they couldn't bother to send an email. had a huge discussion about this, he was super condescending and overall, he was an asshole.

next time, I'll just send the girls his way

Comments
  • 4
    Better yet, ask them for a paper trail of their requests.
    They will immediately switch marks.
    I know the type, those are people who want to look efficient by not asking for help. So they totally ask for help, just make it hard to properly measure how often and how much.
    Your "I need a formal email request" defer tactics should yield the desired results.
  • 7
    @JsonBoa that's usually what we resort to, specially not to become responsible for someone else's mess. still, it doesn't work if they find a bigger idiot to do it for them
  • 2
    Hoes before bros?
  • 2
    @aviophile that's part of the many layers as to why he did this
  • 2
    Shit like this is a big problem

    With certain other teams in the company, me and my colleagues have a "if its not in the sprint we dont do it" policy, no matter how miniscule their request is
  • 4
    @LotsOfCaffeine we don't have any formal channel to define our tasks like a sprint. we just do whatever is "more urgent", based on who's higher in the food chain. sometimes if they yell high enough they can have someone else to back them up and we have to stop everything to do what they want.
  • 7
    @darksideofyay that sounds fucking awful
  • 2
    @darksideofyay that sounds fucking awful.
    (extra ++ on @LotsOfCaffeine here)

    You should leave. But you can do it the smart way - dodge the shitty tasks and do the ones that improve your skills while looking for a better place.
  • 0
    Reminds me of the printer problem episode of Big Bang Theory.
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