Boss Bitch

I was just reflecting on the simplest way to "lay off" an entire site's worth of employees. I, myself, have no knowledge of imminent terminations (in any sense) for anybody.

Well, this ought to be fun. I'm about to meet with the CIO to explain what my team does for him.

buzzwords, think BUZZWORDS!

It's sometimes hard to think one can survive crap (my cancer) only to be thrown back into realizing that day-by-day having to put up with demoralizing crap!
I won't go into detail. (Happy to be employed, mind you.)

Buddy that is a cancer survivor works for a highly bureaucratic / regulated place. One of the morons that is miles lower in pay grade gets their jollies by scanning the proxies IN REAL TIME for folks hitting "non work related" sites. Gets a call from said busy body asking if their web activities were work related. Without missing a beat buddy shoots back with a "if I tell you I may jeopardize the confidential nature of my work or expose the office to a HIPPA violation, are you sure you want to be part of either of those things?..."

Good luck!

The game I've been working on for eighteen months is in its final two weeks in testing; in other words, almost ready to ship. In the past few days, we've had a dozen company big-wigs come through to look at the game, providing us with "notes." We now have more than five pages of changes they want made in this game... changes which could easily have been recommended many months ago. If my producer chooses to implement even 20% of them, I lose nights and weekends for another month. (I've already lost them for the last two weeks, and numerous weeks earlier in the project.) It also would invalidate a lot of the testing that the game has been through, not that they're likely to re-test it. All because nobody could be troubled to arrange this group-critique when it actually would have been appropriate.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2010 09:56AM by John Willoughby.

But surely demanding last minute changes is how they justify their existence |:->

I knew there had to be SOME reason they existed. We have people who are called "stakeholders.' These "stakeholders" exhibit no interest at all in a game, its design, its development, its schedule, until it is too late to make changes without massive disruption to the project. They deliver edicts that must be implemented (unlike the distinguished gentlemen this week, whose advice gets filtered by the game producer). The "stakeholders" delivered their pronouncements about a month ago. But just TRY and get one to review a design before it is implemented.

For some reason, the word 'stakeholder' makes me think of an apprentice vampire-hunter.....

See, they're visual thinkers. They need to see the actual game implemented before they can tell you what's wrong with it.
Seriously, and forgive me for presuming, but could the review be bumped up in the process by starting with the parts that they'll see/interact with? i.e. prototyping. Then you'll have time to replace the smoke and mirrors instead of working code when changes come down.

We've been trying to get a decent prototyping system in place for years. The problem is that, right now, prototyping means that the math works right. The prototype has none of the art, audio, or visual effects that the final game has. That content usually isn't delivered until halfway through development (and then revised endlessly). There is no aspect of development that wouldn't be improved by decent prototyping, and nobody wants to do it except the engineers. ("But if we have to create the content first, development won't start for three months." "Yes, and we will save six months if you can decide what you want BEFORE WE IMPLEMENT SOMETHING DIFFERENT!")

If I sound bitter, it's because I am deciding between actually taking the weekend off and spending it with my family (wife and oldest daughter just returned from two weeks in China for a choir competition yesterday) and earning the STRONG displeasure of my management, or spending it in another soul-draining uncompensated, unappreciated weekend of work. I have more than five weeks of uncompensated time in this project, and I am sick of losing my life to other people's lack of competence and poor planning.

Gee, I hope these posts aren't google-searchable, or I may have a little difficulty with my next employer. Oh, well.

What, you mean that's your real name? I thought it might be Bill Smith, in an ironic twist of fate.

I have nothing else to offer for poor management that you don't already know. Frustrating.

google - ha ha my thoughts exactly J-Will.

In a similar vein , I have been off to a much requested and needed training class this week. In addition to peeking at the voluminous email that pours into my inbox I have also attempted to phone into several of the poorly scheduled tele conferences that I am sorta expected to be participate in. Today the honcho sends a note to me and the rest of the team asking that we suggest fiscal '11 project by Tuesday. Now call me crazy, but there would seem be an almost endless list of very useful projects we could include, not the least of which would be "Improvements to the Scheduling and Lead Time Notification of Projects" IF we had TIME. To thing these thinks through...

more with less

Is that Les Nessman, five-time winner of the Buckeye Newshawk Award as well as the coveted Silver Sow Award? Great newsman.

Darn near twin of your avatar.

I don't think that you're thinking of my current avatar. Or we see people very differently.