Manager: Alright, we've decided we're gonna just going to accept PayPal and also credit card checkout through PayPal in the next two days!

Dev: ...

Manager: We can achieve this timeline, right?

Dev: ...

Manager: Alright, awesome to see your motivation! Let's do it!

Dev: YOU ANSWER PHONE CALLS, TALK TO PEOPLE AND 'STRATEGIZE' ALL DAY. YOU DON'T HAVE TO RELY ON THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE USING THE APP WITHOUT ERROR. THAT'S ON ME, NOT YOU, SO JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!

Manager: ...

Dev: ...

RIP

I have had managers who do this. Never really understood how they can estimate a delivery deadline when they have ZERO development work to do. Like, what're you afraid of? We are gonna take extra time to implement something quality and robust and prevent ourselves from having a burnout?

This is our PayPal integration conversation we have every couple of years (we've been "trying" to establish PayPal as a method of payment ever since they opened up their API)

Mgr: "It's time to finally offer PayPal to our customers. Make it happen! We want immediate payment and no way for customers to charge back months after they receive shipment!"

Devs: "We can't do that. Its in PayPal's terms of service."

Mgr: "Have you called them? Tell PayPal we're going to make them thousands of dollars."

Devs: "eBay alone makes them millions, so they're not going to change their TOS just for us."

Mgr: "But have you tried to call them? I think you'll find people are reasonable."

Devs: "OK, how about *you* call them?"

Mgr: "Wha?...huh...uh...I don't know anything about writing web sites...that's YOUR job!"

Round and round, wash-rinse-repeat...it's 2022 and we still don't offer PayPal or any non-credit card payment method.

@PaperTrail good call it's management's job to negotiate contract terms. Especially that type of manager.

@hjk101 > "management's job to negotiate contract terms"

An area dev manager (my boss at the time) was basically running/maintaining our Amazon storefront because the marketing manager responsible considered it 'programming', and not his responsibility. The idiot didn't even add a nice banner or anything.

Fed up, the company fired the marketing manager and 'moved' my boss into his position.

By 'moved', I mean it was 'take the job or else' kind of thing. Sure it was more money, way less stress, but he says he misses the dev world. Spends all day analyzing data and writing reports (excel). I might have taken the 'or else' clause.

@PaperTrail I had this exact conversation with a boss about YouTube channel design over a decade ago! Check my most popular rant in my profile. I wonder if your boss and my former boss are the same person or related! haha

@doa4aod this reply brings to mind something i heard from my father about margin in mortgages and all. Banks dont usually give out 100% of the mortgage amount, because the buyer has no investment in the property, so there is a high chance he might default on it.

Managers should have some stake in the development process other than making timelines. If they have any role in the development process, maybe it would hurt them more if they make unrealistic timelines.

Call PayPal, and offer 90% margin per transaction.