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Two main things cause this that I've seen.
1. Poor communication. Often us devs are hostile to MBAs. This is not without reason, but it sets up a player vs player environment except the managers have the upper hand. Avoid this at all costs by communicating clearly and politely. Very tricky to do, I'm still figuring it out myself.
2. Manager is a fucking dweeb. Usually under pressure from their manager to get shit working right because the upper management also know he's a dweeb and don't trust him to get it right. -
> "im gonna start documenting all decisions of this retarded manager"
And keep the documentation in a safe location, away from the ability for any of the 'powers that be' to see and delete.
Previous department mgr would routinely scan our hard drives looking for evidence of 'something' that folks could embarrass him (pictures, message threads, etc).
I had a directory of Dilbert cartoons that I saved locally (C:\Dilberts) whenever the daily strip hit a little close to home. One in particular was an almost a word-for-word exchange (one where the pointy-hair wanted a pre, pre-meeting), so I printed it out and hung it on my wall.
Knowing me very well (one mgr called me "King CYA"), the dept mgr found and deleted the directory.
He knew I couldn't complain to anyone. It's a company computer and he had full admin discretion to do anything he wanted.
Little did this guy know was C:\Dilberts was just the download directory. I backed up everything to my personal google drive. -
@PaperTrail lmao have an ++ sir.
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Tbh, any company of any sufficient size you'll get this regardless of position.
The real ones get blunted into "cover you ass" mode where they just make sure shit don't slide on them.
If you can try to find/connect with people still giving a rat's ass to get some actual work done, but yeah otherwise, explain who actually blocked you, preferably on paper since it leaves a nice trail, bonus points for strategic CC'ing you paper trail. (even then, back up your e-mails/screenshot your slack messages folks!) -
@rootshell I will just get into cover my ass mode and thats it lol
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@rootshell > "The real ones get blunted into "cover you ass" mode where they just make sure shit don't slide on them."
Since those 'dark days', new mgrs have embraced leadership principles from the book 'Extreme Ownership'.
Now it comes down to ownership and if you care enough about the project/process/whatever to get the job done. As of now, if something is screwed up, nearly all the mgt team takes responsibility for the issue, then work backwards to find out what they didn't know/could have done better, then set a plan to improve and make sure the problem isn't repeated or make sure we have a process in place to resolve future problems.
Its not about blame, it's about responsibility. They take being responsible very seriously. If anyone tries the "its not my fault, Greg screwed up!". OK, Greg screwed up, but you're Greg's boss, *you're* responsible. Greg obliviously didn't have has the tools or leadership to succeed. What can *you* do in the future so Greg can succeed? -
@PaperTrail that sounds so lovely, I've never been at a place where management actually took responsibility.
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@rootshell > I've never been at a place where management actually took responsibility"
Its not perfect and a lot of pressure mgmt puts on themselves to push each other.
It it a little uneasy when we get an alert and 5 upper managers all want to help "fix" the problem and the VP badgering the mgrs. I just want to scream sometimes "STOP!! Go back to your office and let me fix this!"
The other day, 'Mgr-Mark' interrupted me 3~4 times (kinda lost count) throughout the day about a problem in HR that had nothing to do with him or his area (he's responsible for the logistics systems). The mgr who is actually responsible was busy and he took it upon himself to step up.
Kept stopping by "Is it fixed yet?...What do you need? I'll get networking involved. Do we need to have a meeting with XYZ? I'll schedule it."
I really wanted to say: Dude, stop...I appreciate it...but stop. If I need your jedi powers to blow up the death star, I'll ask. -
@PaperTrail lmao. I guess so. Normally I get like 6 people moshoutinganing "why isnt it working yet, when is it done etc"
Granted its usually an mix of C level, project managers, couple of people on the client side as well as some developers from an daughter company where I end up spending more time routing coms then actually programming.
when your code is a mess but everything work out in the end
When you keep getting +1s on a rant you posted a month ago.
Go big or go home.
Monday - delivered feature1. Manager demands starting to work on new feature2. I start working on feature2.
Thursday - in late evening manager provides feedback from testing feature1 for which internal testing starts Monday.
Friday. I start investigating. Everything is fucking broken. Backend contract broken from BE side, UI broken by another team member's PR from FE side. Missing configuration from FE side that was not documented anywhere.
I start working on issues from my side, inform relevant parties and coordinate that they would make fixes on their side (ofc after getting a lot of pushback trying them to force me to write workarounds to work with their broken implementations)
My manager during the day: what was the reason for us being blocked now?
Me: broken BE, broken FE by another team member, missing undocumented configs. Too late (and incomplete) testing feedback. Having to switch to feature2 priorities before finishing everything with feature1. Basically all things out of my scope.
My manager: so just to clarify we are blocked from internal testing because YOU missed this? Why it wasnt caught sooner?
Me: due to 5 same reasons that I listed before, I can list more but would prefer focusing on getting things working today
Manager: Ok, as WE discussed let's focus on getting things working and discuss about improving this processes in the future.
Seriously it fucking sucks working in this bank as a mobile developer.
We are responsible for basically everything.
From scoping out work according to business requirements, documenting stuff, to creating/maintaining BE contracts and constantly double triple checking everyone else's work across the chain.
Actual mobile implementation or proper testing is like the last priority in this case. And yet we are the ones that take all the blame if we fail to meet arbitrary deadline.
Fucking hell. Im gonna start documenting all decisions of this retarded manager, I'm not gonna allow him to throw me under the bus due to failures caused by his own shitty decisions
rant