There are few experiences to equal being at work at 8 o’clock at night replying to email from your boss’s boss, explaining why your crack team of developers didn’t deliver on the function your reported was “done” two days earlier.
You know what? I take it back. I’m GLAD I got her fired; we’ll be lucky if she’s the last, given how cavalier everyone’s working these days.
So yeah, here we are, knee deep in code, with my normal unitized team, decomposed into two halves, each working on a significant chunk of work. I had a meeting, told them deliver me three things in 4 weeks: Code, Running unit tests @ 80% coverage, and Documentation.
Then I went off to put out fires everywhere else, attend meetings, sell my car…you know, team lead stuff.
So, I come in Monday, feeling all chipper, and I go around the room. “Yes, good to see you. How was your vacation? Awesome! Well, let’s get this over with so I can go and read those journal articles on my desk…”
10 minutes later I found out I was not only a liar, but a flat-out dupe. I’d sat in a meeting Thursday and reported things were “Just great” with the team and that our function was “right on track”. So, in our meeting, C says “I’m having some big problems with that code. I just don’t quite understand ___________”.
“What do you mean understand it? Isn’t it checked-in and in the build?”
Think again, loser. Your tidy subteam of geniuses has clatched together in a room and DESIGNED for the past 3 weeks, and barely done any code, unit tests, or documentation. Sorry, guys, you don’t even get and “F”. This is a frickin’ “I”.
I was in shock Monday, and today I just woke up pissed-off. These are the people I’m trying to promote throughout the company as the best team since sliced bread. We can tackle ANYTHING!
Ahem….we can’t even meet a deadline WE SET for the function.
Why does business hate software? We’re alternately magicians or devils, depending if we DELIVER THE GOODS!