Once, it even ended up in a disciplinary hearing for me, brought about by manager. My manager ended up with a reprimand from the director, instead.
I was given a five day, must be done, no excuses task on Monday that *HAD* to be done by Friday. On Tuesday, there was a customer field issue, which was *CRITICAL* and had to be done immediately. It took two days. As a result, the "must be done by Friday" task didn't get completed until the next Tuesday.
In my hearing/interview, as the facts were laid out, the director was confused. He'd expected two different stories, but my manager and I agreed on all of the facts. How, he asked, did my manager expect me to complete the first task in time when the second task took precedence?
The manager stiffly informed him that she had told me when assigning the second task that I could not use it as "an excuse" for not completing the first in time. And yet, that was exactly what I had done, and why she wanted him to approve the reprimand she'd submitted on my record.
The director looked at me, said "you can go, don't worry about it", then looked at my manager and said "you, stay". It did not go well for her.
The second case had no reprimand, but was even crazier. We had a mandated move (the fire department said our layout was in violation of the fire code), so we had to move to the other side of the building. This was in the 1980s, when a PC was a 15lb beige box, another 20lbs for the monitor, more cabling than you can shake a stick at, plus a keyboard. Add two bookcases worth of technical books, a phone, and whatever lab equipment was at your desk that day.
Unfortunately, moving day had a customer issue reported, that was high priority. So, I was working on that.
My boss came by, and asked why I wasn't moving yet. I explained the field issue, and he said that I had to move, they couldn't start disassembling the current location until everyone was out. Fine, I got a cart, started unplugging things, putting them on the cart, and moving the quarter mile or so within the building. I had six carts worth; some engineers had ten.
On my fourth trip, my boss saw me moving, and asked me how the field issue was going. I pointed out that I wasn't working on it, since I was, you know, moving. As should be evidenced by the PC and monitor on the cart I was wheeling.
My boss said that the field issue was priority. When I mentioned that an hour earlier he'd say the move was necessary, he said, "the field issue is priority, you should try to do the move as a background task".
As a background task.
Sure, I could (and did) move some books and whatnot while the PC was compiling, but most of the fix required debugging at a powered computer, something difficult to do when it's unplugged and on a moving cart.
> something difficult to do when it's unplugged and on a moving cart.
You should have taken a generator on wheels and hired someone to cart you around from the old location to the new location. Follow me for more solutions.
These are some crazy examples. The female manager logic is mind boggling, sadly I have met plenty of such lunatics.
I one such scenario, I'm sitting with around 50 tickets assigned to me*. 4 or 5 of these were ultra super critical and needed to be handled immediately. Not in sequential order, but all at once. Issue #1, Issue #2, Issue #2, Issue #4 would just not cut it. It had to be Issue #1, Issue #1, Issue #1, Issue #1.
Anyway, we had several customers and stakeholders railing against the system. These people were super pissed and with good reason**. I'm sitting in meetings with them (individually) and the director and the manager. The director is essentially ready to promise whatever, just to somehow get the hell out of dodge. The manager will try to enforce whatever. Their whole plan was to survive one more day and have someone else worry about the fallout of the day after.
After the meetings were concluded, I was left holding the same pile of tickets (more were likely created as time passed by) and the backlog grew stronger. For every hour I spend in the meetings each of 50 tickets assigned to me get one hour more overdue. That's all very simple mathematics. In the end, I was expected to fix it all in one fell swoop by the end of the day. While resolving those super duper critical ones would take longer than a week.
The manager went so far to suggest that I need to work of on all of these at the same time, as they promised I would and have them resolved by the end of the day. Before lunch, even. I stated that this was not possible, that my plate was overflowing already and that the next super duper critical is likely just behind the corner.
The one thing I wanted from her and the director was to be told in which order they would want me to work on resolving those issues.
I wasn't asking them to tell me what needs to happen (they would not know anyway) nor get me a hand of helping hands (there was nobody lending) nor to provide the documentation (there was none). I only wanted to be told what's the first next thing on which I should be working. Take charge, do this one thing that you are supposed to be doing anyhow and tell me what's next.
Instead of taking a modicum of ownership, they ran away. The hard reality is that they were quite squeamish and they knew if they insisted that 2 plus 2 makes 5 I would get really upset and rub their noses in their mental diarrhea. So that's why I just got past all of that, broke it down and made things simple. Just tell me the order of priority. They would have none of that.
* I couldn't find anyone at the company who would claim that was not an obscene number of issues to assign to a single employee. I couldn't find anyone who would lift a finger to do something about it, either.
** They were lied to, often. The ball had been dropped so many times Michael Jordan would have been impressed. The application had a big load of bugs, there was data corruption, the database server locking up due to low performance... the amount of trouble could only be matched by the level of aggravation.
I once had a manager (a different one) assign two super critical, had to be done by end of week tickets to the Russian employee I sat next to. The Russian looked at them, said getting either of them done was unlikely, and both was impossible. If he worked 100% on one of them, with zero interruptions (hahaha), he might be able to eke out a bare minimum, fragile solution to one of the two, but just barely. Which one did the manager want him to work on, he asked.
The manager said "task 1", and the Russian said "all right, I shall work 100% on task 1".
The manager then said "but task 2 is urgent", and the Russian said "all right, I shall work 100% on task 2".
The manager then said "but task 1 takes priority", and the Russian said "all right, I shall work 100% on task 1".
The manager then... etc., etc.
It was like listening to a sketch comedy play out in real time. The manager bounced back and forth like a ping pong ball. The Russian was just bored. It took the manager almost an hour to make a simple decision of whether task 1 or task 2 was the priority. All the while saying it was absolutely urgent that these tasks be worked on. The reason they weren't being worked on was because the manager couldn't make a decision.
Indeed. But there's all but a tiny step between indecisiveness and double think. Which is what people who succumb to such circular logic subscribe to.
Whatever I invest effort into and regardless of commitments, I shall at all times be aware that two liters worth of liquid can't possibly fit in a one liter bottle. This is so and it's eternally true and I may not allow myself such hubris that would justify thinking otherwise.
I once had a PM and APM (assistant PM) who subscribed to the doublethink credo, in a big way. The subsystems were pretty much in open revolt against the absurd expectations, and the most common term used to describe the schedule was "bonkers".
When the PM 'quit' (there were suspicions it wasn't by his choice), a new PM was airdropped in. He had a reputation as a cleanup guy, so the APM warned us that he likely wouldn't be as tolerant about our "slacking" as the previous one.
The reality was quite the opposite, however. While the new PM's reputation as a hardass was definitely earned, he was in the "tough but fair" category. Unlike the previous PM, he didn't live in fantasy land, where the APM and the rest of the project team resided.
The first big all hands meeting with him was hilarious.
PM: "So, is everyone confident of the dates?"
Subsystems: "we're confident about what the dates are"
APM: "they know the dates, they don't have a choice to not make them"
PM: "that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking if they can make them"
APM: "I just said. They have to"
PM: "Yes, but what do they say?"
APM: "It doesn't really matter what they say, they have to make that date"
PM: <stunned look>
The PM then asked the subsystems individually, got a realistic picture, and discovered that the problem wasn't engineers "slacking off", as the previous PM had reported, but, to use your example, they weren't able to put two litres of liquid into the one litre container like the previous PM had told them too.
I learned a long time ago that there's a subclass of PM that thinks that saying the word "CRITICAL" magically allows the engineers to break laws of physics and time barriers. That's why good PMs are worth their weight in gold, and why so many of them have people follow them from company to company.
Did this PM feature a giant, single horn smacked right in the middle of his forehead, by any chance? Must be nice, working with people deeply rooted in reality. I wasn't as gifted.
Executives (CEO, CFO, PM, whatever) that have reputations as cleanup people built those reputations on success. That's why they make the big bucks, as they say. And they don't achieve repeated success without accepting reality.
A lot of people, usually executives, don't like the cleanup guys because they don't have any sympathies for existing people, and they'll cut what they see as needing to be cut. Often, that's under performing rank and file. But just as often, if not more so, it's various executives responsible for the mismanagement.
That cleanup PM was I think the fifth PM on the project in four years. One PM was definitely terminated (the program director announced it), one other left with almost no notice and was likely let go, but there was no announcement, and the two others were rotated into other positions when they couldn't get a grip on things.
The previous PMs refused to accept reality, which is why the engineers were in open revolt. The APM in one meeting said flat out that he started with the customer delivery date, calculated what he thought it would take him to do the paperwork for commissioning, and whatever was left over was what the engineers what for development. There was no engineering input at all.
Not surprisingly, when the cleanup PM saw that, his mandate of "get the project back on track" involved less listening to the APM and more listening to the actual engineers.
Hoo boy, have I had this happen.
Once, it even ended up in a disciplinary hearing for me, brought about by manager. My manager ended up with a reprimand from the director, instead.
I was given a five day, must be done, no excuses task on Monday that *HAD* to be done by Friday. On Tuesday, there was a customer field issue, which was *CRITICAL* and had to be done immediately. It took two days. As a result, the "must be done by Friday" task didn't get completed until the next Tuesday.
In my hearing/interview, as the facts were laid out, the director was confused. He'd expected two different stories, but my manager and I agreed on all of the facts. How, he asked, did my manager expect me to complete the first task in time when the second task took precedence?
The manager stiffly informed him that she had told me when assigning the second task that I could not use it as "an excuse" for not completing the first in time. And yet, that was exactly what I had done, and why she wanted him to approve the reprimand she'd submitted on my record.
The director looked at me, said "you can go, don't worry about it", then looked at my manager and said "you, stay". It did not go well for her.
The second case had no reprimand, but was even crazier. We had a mandated move (the fire department said our layout was in violation of the fire code), so we had to move to the other side of the building. This was in the 1980s, when a PC was a 15lb beige box, another 20lbs for the monitor, more cabling than you can shake a stick at, plus a keyboard. Add two bookcases worth of technical books, a phone, and whatever lab equipment was at your desk that day.
Unfortunately, moving day had a customer issue reported, that was high priority. So, I was working on that.
My boss came by, and asked why I wasn't moving yet. I explained the field issue, and he said that I had to move, they couldn't start disassembling the current location until everyone was out. Fine, I got a cart, started unplugging things, putting them on the cart, and moving the quarter mile or so within the building. I had six carts worth; some engineers had ten.
On my fourth trip, my boss saw me moving, and asked me how the field issue was going. I pointed out that I wasn't working on it, since I was, you know, moving. As should be evidenced by the PC and monitor on the cart I was wheeling.
My boss said that the field issue was priority. When I mentioned that an hour earlier he'd say the move was necessary, he said, "the field issue is priority, you should try to do the move as a background task".
As a background task.
Sure, I could (and did) move some books and whatnot while the PC was compiling, but most of the fix required debugging at a powered computer, something difficult to do when it's unplugged and on a moving cart.
> something difficult to do when it's unplugged and on a moving cart.
You should have taken a generator on wheels and hired someone to cart you around from the old location to the new location. Follow me for more solutions.
These are some crazy examples. The female manager logic is mind boggling, sadly I have met plenty of such lunatics.
I one such scenario, I'm sitting with around 50 tickets assigned to me*. 4 or 5 of these were ultra super critical and needed to be handled immediately. Not in sequential order, but all at once. Issue #1, Issue #2, Issue #2, Issue #4 would just not cut it. It had to be Issue #1, Issue #1, Issue #1, Issue #1.
Anyway, we had several customers and stakeholders railing against the system. These people were super pissed and with good reason**. I'm sitting in meetings with them (individually) and the director and the manager. The director is essentially ready to promise whatever, just to somehow get the hell out of dodge. The manager will try to enforce whatever. Their whole plan was to survive one more day and have someone else worry about the fallout of the day after.
After the meetings were concluded, I was left holding the same pile of tickets (more were likely created as time passed by) and the backlog grew stronger. For every hour I spend in the meetings each of 50 tickets assigned to me get one hour more overdue. That's all very simple mathematics. In the end, I was expected to fix it all in one fell swoop by the end of the day. While resolving those super duper critical ones would take longer than a week.
The manager went so far to suggest that I need to work of on all of these at the same time, as they promised I would and have them resolved by the end of the day. Before lunch, even. I stated that this was not possible, that my plate was overflowing already and that the next super duper critical is likely just behind the corner.
The one thing I wanted from her and the director was to be told in which order they would want me to work on resolving those issues.
I wasn't asking them to tell me what needs to happen (they would not know anyway) nor get me a hand of helping hands (there was nobody lending) nor to provide the documentation (there was none). I only wanted to be told what's the first next thing on which I should be working. Take charge, do this one thing that you are supposed to be doing anyhow and tell me what's next.
Instead of taking a modicum of ownership, they ran away. The hard reality is that they were quite squeamish and they knew if they insisted that 2 plus 2 makes 5 I would get really upset and rub their noses in their mental diarrhea. So that's why I just got past all of that, broke it down and made things simple. Just tell me the order of priority. They would have none of that.
* I couldn't find anyone at the company who would claim that was not an obscene number of issues to assign to a single employee. I couldn't find anyone who would lift a finger to do something about it, either.
** They were lied to, often. The ball had been dropped so many times Michael Jordan would have been impressed. The application had a big load of bugs, there was data corruption, the database server locking up due to low performance... the amount of trouble could only be matched by the level of aggravation.
I once had a manager (a different one) assign two super critical, had to be done by end of week tickets to the Russian employee I sat next to. The Russian looked at them, said getting either of them done was unlikely, and both was impossible. If he worked 100% on one of them, with zero interruptions (hahaha), he might be able to eke out a bare minimum, fragile solution to one of the two, but just barely. Which one did the manager want him to work on, he asked.
The manager said "task 1", and the Russian said "all right, I shall work 100% on task 1".
The manager then said "but task 2 is urgent", and the Russian said "all right, I shall work 100% on task 2".
The manager then said "but task 1 takes priority", and the Russian said "all right, I shall work 100% on task 1".
The manager then... etc., etc.
It was like listening to a sketch comedy play out in real time. The manager bounced back and forth like a ping pong ball. The Russian was just bored. It took the manager almost an hour to make a simple decision of whether task 1 or task 2 was the priority. All the while saying it was absolutely urgent that these tasks be worked on. The reason they weren't being worked on was because the manager couldn't make a decision.
Indeed. But there's all but a tiny step between indecisiveness and double think. Which is what people who succumb to such circular logic subscribe to.
Whatever I invest effort into and regardless of commitments, I shall at all times be aware that two liters worth of liquid can't possibly fit in a one liter bottle. This is so and it's eternally true and I may not allow myself such hubris that would justify thinking otherwise.
I once had a PM and APM (assistant PM) who subscribed to the doublethink credo, in a big way. The subsystems were pretty much in open revolt against the absurd expectations, and the most common term used to describe the schedule was "bonkers".
When the PM 'quit' (there were suspicions it wasn't by his choice), a new PM was airdropped in. He had a reputation as a cleanup guy, so the APM warned us that he likely wouldn't be as tolerant about our "slacking" as the previous one.
The reality was quite the opposite, however. While the new PM's reputation as a hardass was definitely earned, he was in the "tough but fair" category. Unlike the previous PM, he didn't live in fantasy land, where the APM and the rest of the project team resided.
The first big all hands meeting with him was hilarious.
PM: "So, is everyone confident of the dates?"
Subsystems: "we're confident about what the dates are"
APM: "they know the dates, they don't have a choice to not make them"
PM: "that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking if they can make them"
APM: "I just said. They have to"
PM: "Yes, but what do they say?"
APM: "It doesn't really matter what they say, they have to make that date"
PM: <stunned look>
The PM then asked the subsystems individually, got a realistic picture, and discovered that the problem wasn't engineers "slacking off", as the previous PM had reported, but, to use your example, they weren't able to put two litres of liquid into the one litre container like the previous PM had told them too.
I learned a long time ago that there's a subclass of PM that thinks that saying the word "CRITICAL" magically allows the engineers to break laws of physics and time barriers. That's why good PMs are worth their weight in gold, and why so many of them have people follow them from company to company.
Did this PM feature a giant, single horn smacked right in the middle of his forehead, by any chance? Must be nice, working with people deeply rooted in reality. I wasn't as gifted.
As I said, he was a cleanup guy.
Executives (CEO, CFO, PM, whatever) that have reputations as cleanup people built those reputations on success. That's why they make the big bucks, as they say. And they don't achieve repeated success without accepting reality.
A lot of people, usually executives, don't like the cleanup guys because they don't have any sympathies for existing people, and they'll cut what they see as needing to be cut. Often, that's under performing rank and file. But just as often, if not more so, it's various executives responsible for the mismanagement.
That cleanup PM was I think the fifth PM on the project in four years. One PM was definitely terminated (the program director announced it), one other left with almost no notice and was likely let go, but there was no announcement, and the two others were rotated into other positions when they couldn't get a grip on things.
The previous PMs refused to accept reality, which is why the engineers were in open revolt. The APM in one meeting said flat out that he started with the customer delivery date, calculated what he thought it would take him to do the paperwork for commissioning, and whatever was left over was what the engineers what for development. There was no engineering input at all.
Not surprisingly, when the cleanup PM saw that, his mandate of "get the project back on track" involved less listening to the APM and more listening to the actual engineers.
"female manager logic" feels sexist to be honest.
Was it a female manager in case in point? What something feels like is usually not what that something is.
There goes crazy Bob again, and his time laws-lawls.
just clone your self... pffff, how hard is that.
Or invent time travel. Whichever is easier. At the same pay grade.
"Everything can't be top priority!" - me, at least once a day at work.
Oh no! Bob let the inside thought out
“Limitations are for losers, Bob. You don’t want to be a loser, do you?”
Love it! I have reposted on therealitycollider.substack.com