Project woes
Jan. 12th, 2009 08:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kumir_k9I was pretty excited Friday morning. I beat some amazing probabilities and got the answer I wanted from my analysis of some data. I won't go into the details except to say that my findings would save my lead programmer and my favorite consultant hours and hours of work. I was ecstatic. I don't think my lead programmer understood enough of what it saved him to get all that worked up about it, but he's got years of backlogged work, so avoiding any more is a good thing. I thought my consultant would be happy, but she's too darned efficient and had already done a ton of work on it way faster than I thought she would. My findings made her have to go back and undo work. *sigh* At least I saved one of them.
Now for the aggravated and annoyed part, which have absolutely nothing to do with the above. This is about my database project I'm doing on the side as a consultant. I met with the new programmer there Sunday in a follow up meeting. The first thing he did was jump all over me about how my table design was missing half the elements it needed for what the users want. I'm baffled as there's no way I've missed the amount of stuff he's talking about. He pulls out this mock up of a screen I've never seen before in explanation. It's a mock up *HE* did based on a meeting with the users *AFTER* I'm no longer involved in that phase of the project and the scope of that part has creeped *WAY* outside its original boundaries. So how was I supposed to build a table with additional fields that had never been asked for? Damned if I know, but he seemed to think I should.
Then he questions why I'm doing the work I'm doing at the point I'm doing it, which is keeping him from getting to the two independent sections of the database. I walked him through the whole philosophy of the database, but this isn't good enough for him and he starts off on how he's being held accountable for a timeline that I'm keeping him from hitting. Before I blew my cool, which I was on the edge of doing, I went off in search of a mediator.
By the time we were done talking with Monique, all was good, we had a plan to finish that weekend's work and a plan to go forward. I thought that he understood that the timeline wasn't set in concrete and that we were having these meetings to keep up on the status. I was to give him all my work to date by the end of yesterday so he could have a copy, which I did.
Today I get an email from him, ccing his boss and his boss' boss (which just happens to be my wife). He wants to know why, after our discussion of function and philosophy, that the form in question doesn't work as we discussed. Understand that this form is only about 2/3 of the way laid out to look like the samples, that only one of the multiple function buttons is even on the screen and that most of the functionality that the users need hasn't been built in yet. He shouldn't even be looking at it, never mind criticizing it and ccing others.
I'm not upset that he looked at it. I'd have the same curiosity about a new toy like this if it were given to me. I'm upset that he knows it's very much a work in process, not even demoable yet, and proceeds to tear it apart in front of two other people without asking me about it privately. This is one of the fastest ways in the world to get my ire up. I have long ago mastered the art of replying to all and very politely telling someone they are rude, apparently deaf, inefficient and unprofessional in front of the same people they opted to include when they shouldn't have. Should be an interesting conversation when Monique reads it. I suspect I'll get in trouble for it this time, but there's no way he's getting away with that kind of nonsense.
Now for the aggravated and annoyed part, which have absolutely nothing to do with the above. This is about my database project I'm doing on the side as a consultant. I met with the new programmer there Sunday in a follow up meeting. The first thing he did was jump all over me about how my table design was missing half the elements it needed for what the users want. I'm baffled as there's no way I've missed the amount of stuff he's talking about. He pulls out this mock up of a screen I've never seen before in explanation. It's a mock up *HE* did based on a meeting with the users *AFTER* I'm no longer involved in that phase of the project and the scope of that part has creeped *WAY* outside its original boundaries. So how was I supposed to build a table with additional fields that had never been asked for? Damned if I know, but he seemed to think I should.
Then he questions why I'm doing the work I'm doing at the point I'm doing it, which is keeping him from getting to the two independent sections of the database. I walked him through the whole philosophy of the database, but this isn't good enough for him and he starts off on how he's being held accountable for a timeline that I'm keeping him from hitting. Before I blew my cool, which I was on the edge of doing, I went off in search of a mediator.
By the time we were done talking with Monique, all was good, we had a plan to finish that weekend's work and a plan to go forward. I thought that he understood that the timeline wasn't set in concrete and that we were having these meetings to keep up on the status. I was to give him all my work to date by the end of yesterday so he could have a copy, which I did.
Today I get an email from him, ccing his boss and his boss' boss (which just happens to be my wife). He wants to know why, after our discussion of function and philosophy, that the form in question doesn't work as we discussed. Understand that this form is only about 2/3 of the way laid out to look like the samples, that only one of the multiple function buttons is even on the screen and that most of the functionality that the users need hasn't been built in yet. He shouldn't even be looking at it, never mind criticizing it and ccing others.
I'm not upset that he looked at it. I'd have the same curiosity about a new toy like this if it were given to me. I'm upset that he knows it's very much a work in process, not even demoable yet, and proceeds to tear it apart in front of two other people without asking me about it privately. This is one of the fastest ways in the world to get my ire up. I have long ago mastered the art of replying to all and very politely telling someone they are rude, apparently deaf, inefficient and unprofessional in front of the same people they opted to include when they shouldn't have. Should be an interesting conversation when Monique reads it. I suspect I'll get in trouble for it this time, but there's no way he's getting away with that kind of nonsense.
