Eeyore project management
In the continuing saga of insanity, I received an email this morning, sent at 9:30pm on Sunday which contained this lovely tidbit:
Traveling members of the team need to plan for a Saturday morning departure home and a return to RDU on Sunday night. Please plan on working through Fourth of July weekend.
That’s right, forget your weekends, forget your Federal holiday—it’s only a celebration of our independence from the King. Never mind that the delivery date is July 3rd and therefore working through the weekend indicates failure and therefore should be resolved with the client prior to failing. The real psychotic cherry on the sociopathic cake? The closing:
Best Regards,
Wouldn’t “F#ck you” have been a better, and more honest closing?
This entry was posted at 12:22 pm on 23 June 2008 and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the post-specific RSS 2.0 feed.
Pete, you’re spot on. I know the game, but I won’t play it. Unfortunately, I’m the only one with the stupidity to stand up and say “no”. Fortunately, I had a good discussion with the HR executive today who reassured me that what’s being asked is totally insane and that he’s “out of control”.
Now to see if anyone does anything.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
You know, the last two times that happened to me, I quit on the spot.
It’s not a question of not wanting to work overtime, or not being dedicated to the job and deliverable. The issue here is fear filled management. Normally such demands come about when the project management is afraid to relay the actual state of the project to senior management. The team gets whipped and it’s seen by some muppets as a win-win situation. ON the one hand the team may come through with a miracle and deliver. Win. On the other hand when the team misses, muppet management can stand up and sigh “well, the team has been working around the clock – they know what’s at stake here yadda yadda. I’ll get a grip on what they were thinking and we’ll re-assess the situation”.