36
Xamenyap
324d

The year was 2021 and we have to implement X
Alice, the manager: let's do this and this
Me: actually that won't scale, I did the same in my previous company. Here's an analysis on why it doesn't scale
Alice: nope, we'll have to do it like that. If it doesn't scale we'll fix it. It's a learning opportunity.
The feature was rolled out, and we got tons of alerts after 1 week.
Alice: haha what a ride! At least the team learned something new
Me: I didn't learn anything new. All I got was stress and disrupted sleep because of those midnight incidents...

Then 2022 came, Alice was promoted thanks to the incredible leadership to deliver X, I joined a different project, a part of this project is to implement Y, similar to X.
Bob, the manager: let's do this and this
Me: actually that won't scale, I did the same in my previous project. Here's an analysis on why it doesn't scale, you can ask Alice if you want.
Bob: nope, we'll have to do it like that. If it doesn't scale we'll fix it. It's a learning opportunity.
The feature was rolled out, and we got tons of alerts after 1 week.
Bob: haha what a ride! At least the team learned something new
Me: I didn't learn anything new. All I got was stress and disrupted sleep because of those midnight incidents...

It's 2023 now, Bob got promoted thanks to the awesome leadership to roll out Y, I joined another project, which requires us to develop Z, similar to X and Y.
Chris, the manager: let's do this and this
Me: ah shit here we go again...

Comments
  • 13
    Hmmm....

    Failing upwards. Maybe you should stop fixing the problem, and fail upwards as well?
  • 6
    So, Alice transitioned to Bob?
  • 4
    @aviophile
    Nah. It was Eve all along - doing her thing 😈.
  • 4
    @jestdotty it's usually a lack of communication and respect.

    Management trusts Alice / Bob etc. more and disrespects the opinion of developers...

    ... If the developers have a chance to communicate at all with management.

    Many companies have a hierarchy designed to explicitly prevent the communication of "down" to "up".

    Imho a grave mistake, cause that gives people like Alice and Bob the "l'etat c'est moi" ability… and their employees are unable to stage a much needed uprising.

    Alice and Bob get rewards for incompetence, their employees suffer the consequences of their bad decisions.
  • 3
    Just do what Chris wants and show leadership yourself. When you got promoted from project Z as well, immediately present your "omg new solution scales so well omg" to management and rake in another promotion because you showed such leadership

    But probably won't work so fuck them
Add Comment