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Tell us your story... Message Forum Over the years, the Bad Managers stories have struck a chord with programmers, managers and workplace slaves all over the world. Now it's your turn to tell it like it is! Some suggested topics:
Story Index:
The Stories: Let´s reinvent the wheelA market-leading company in the financial services industry used a proprietary programming language created in the late 1980´s to code huge banking applications filled with thousands and thousands of business rules related to lending compliance. About 4 years ago, they decided that their language had fallen behind the times enough that they wanted to create a new language that would give their applications access to the latest technology. The original language had been given support on various operating systems, in a way making it a proprietary version of what Java would become. Management decided that they would just copy Java so they had a programmer spend 4 years creating a Java like language that was a blatant copy of Java (it had the same language grammar). This programmer was having difficulty creating an Integrated Developer Environment, Debugger, run-time libraries, etc, all by himself in a timely fashion. He had a Java-like run-time for Win32 developed, but the original cross-platform capability of the original language was lost. This Java language was just one of the wheels this company was reinventing. They also were attempting to create their own version of SQL, XML, and HTML. The original language did have capabilities that were surprisingly like proprietary precursors to these technologies. They had two other programmers to help with the additional load of reinventing these technologies. These projects were done in secret and any attempt to question the business case behind them was met with fierce, autocratic attacks from management in an attempt to silence the whistle blowers. No effort was made to openly debate the suitability of this approach in today´s world. The new tools were the push of some engineers who thought it would be "cool" to get to work on this kind of stuff. They were working in a vacuum and had no business plan. Surprisingly, management embraced this effort and nurtured it, with the exception of keeping the projects secret from higher-level management. People who questioned the reasoning behind these projects were ostercized and put out to pasture in an attempt to silence them. Anonymous Portland, OR, USA Wed Mar 27 02:38:14 EST 2002 Managers that don't listen I just love when I get one of these. I was interviewing to work for one manager that just would not listen. I had done some research on his time-sharing system, and had figured out why their system crashed so often. I mentioned at the interview "Oh, and the first thing I'll do if hired is make that one-line patch to keep it from crashing-- you have an unterminated match table that responds to ^X". They wouldnt listen to this. The second thing that was really broken there-- whenever their disk crashed they had to reload it. From the base system tapes, then from a bunch of patch tapes that were scotch-taped to the CPU front panel! They had to be loaded in some mystical order. I said the second thing I'd do is write out ONE complete patched image that could be loaded without a second thought. They didnt respond to that idea either. Needless to say I wasnt invited back for a second interview. Shucks. All that fun management I missed out on. ha grg1@flash.net USA, USA Fri Apr 12 17:47:24 EDT 2002 Scripting decisions My job entails a lot of data transformation work: converting data from one format to another, something many developers don't like to do because it can be mind numbingly boring. I actually kind of like it -- it gives me a chance to learn a lot of skills and the steps of the process are always pretty similar. I've been doing this job for two years, starting with some very crummy script and transitioning into some cunning designs for autonoumous processes written in standardized languages (java, perl, and more vb than I care to admit at the local hacker's dive). But the watchword has always been speed -- how quickly can we knock off x, text x, and go on to y, and how quickly can we fix x if the necesity changes. We recently merged with another company with a very disparaging design strategy. Their idea is to design everything and efficiently cover every case the first time -- correctly. To do this, they've created an amazing application that takes in a lead file and spits out gold data. The application is controlled by a set of "decisions" like an ini file. I was asked to use this application to perform a couple hundred transformations, and was excited to do so. I asked for instructions on using the application and was told they would "send them out". I hadn't realised this meant by post. The instructions arrived, a thousand page bible explaining all the "decisions" involved. Each decision has a number associated with it, and some decisions might contact others -- if certain "situations" were involved. Basically, the decision files were a fancy scripting language...they had line numbers, text processing commands, variable identifiers...but they did so in a "simple" manner. Meaning that to perform any operation took four or five "decisions" to get the data how you wanted it...really, it reminded me of writing assembly, only nowhere near as fast. Furthermore, the guy who had "designed" the language seemed to be a big fan of postfix operations a la your hp calculator...and I am hopelessly stuck in an infix paradigm. For me to do my task as a decision file would have taken the better part of the summer. So I scrapped that part of the project, and redid it in VBScript, a language I don't like but that opened up an easy migration path to ASP or VB. Two days later I was called into my manager's office for a "why-don't-you-shut-the-door" session. "Why are you doing this in script? Why not just write a 'decision' file? I tell you, the guy who wrote that is a genius." A Nonnie Mouse USA Fri Apr 26 21:02:10 BST 2002 Just ALittle Misunderstanding - a salutary tale Were we expecting you at 9 o’clock? Yes, of course we were. Please take a seat – not that one, take the one over there. I just have to make an important telephone call. It shouldn’t take too long and then I’ll be free to help you with your social research on office management. Would you like a coffee while you wait? Elizabeth, this call is important and I don’t have time to read your note right now. No, don’t wave it under my nose. I can read it later. I’d like you to make Mr. Smith a cup of coffee. Am I ready now? Yes of course. I do apologise, I hope you didn’t mind wasting twenty-five minutes but you’ll appreciate that I’m an extremely busy woman and I have a very heavy work schedule so my time is very important to me. I’m glad you enjoyed your coffee. Put your cup down on the edge of the desk. That’s right just shove all that junk to one side. Now fire away with your questionnaire. Is my desk always this cluttered? Yes. I’m always far too busy to be tidy. I have such a heavy burden of responsibility you see. Everyone is depending upon me, vying for my attention and asking me for advice. And of course I have to juggle all this with my domestic responsibilities as well. Do I ever delegate work? No way! If you want something doing properly, do it yourself – that’s my motto. Do I share information? Not if I can help it. I feel threatened if I have to share information. I like having secrets and I prefer to hug things close to my chest. If I dispensed information willy-nilly everyone else would know as much as me wouldn’t they and then I wouldn’t seem so indispensable. What time do I start work? Well I’m supposed to start at nine o’clock but I arrived late again this morning. Che sera! What time did I actually arrive? Nine thirty. My children often forget things so I have to drop them off at the school and then I get caught up in traffic gridlocks. It seems to be just one little domestic crisis after another these days. But fortunately the rest of the staff arrive at eight o’clock sharp every morning so they can cover for me when things like this happen. How long have I worked here? Not long, only a few years and I was promoted to Team Leader 18 months ago but just between you, me and the bedpost I didn’t find it easy in the beginning. Why was that? Well I soon realised that it was essential to demonstrate that I was in charge but you wouldn’t believe the trouble I had asserting my authority. They tried to undermine me at every turn. I found it very stressful to tell you the truth. I shed a lot of tears of frustration over this in private, and a lot in public as well. However I pulled myself together and soldiered on and they finally stopped trying to challenge me. They all accept that I’m the boss now and they’ve become very docile and they don’t answer me back any more. I’ve managed to whip them into shape at last. Have I made any changes since I was promoted? Oh I’ve made lots of positive changes. In my first week I had all the office desks moved around one evening after work. Yes, the staff had quite a surprise when they turned up the next day and wondered where they were supposed to sit. Then I deleted a lot of the standard letters and forms on the computer because it was obvious that they weren’t needed. Then I tidied up the office by ripping down those tatty calendars with Robbie Williams and David Beckham on them. Did I consult the other staff first? What for? No of course I didn’t ask them for advice before doing this. I am the team leader now and people are supposed to come to me for advice, not the other way around. Yes, I know my colleagues have all worked here for many years but I’m in charge now. New brooms sweep clean etc. Are the staff happy in their work? Well they darn well should be – I am a wonderful boss. Jane is a bit moody and sulks but she’s very young and green. Elizabeth still challenges me because she has been here twenty years and thinks she knows best so I have to be very firm with her – but she’s not good at obeying orders unfortunately. Samantha is far too sensitive for her own good and keeps bursting into tears. I’ve told her it isn’t professional and she really should keep better control of her emotions. Also I know it isn’t really PC to say this but I think Anna is too old for this job. Last week I told her that she wasn’t up to the mark on procedures and offered to give her the benefit of my extensive experience. Her face turned a strange puce colour and she muttered something about heads being too big to go through doors and teaching grandmas to suck eggs. How do you motivate your staff? Oh I show them the error of their ways when I catch them doing something the wrong way or making mistakes, which they do very frequently actually. They are not good at accepting criticism gracefully and they particularly don’t like being corrected when there are other members of staff listening to me ticking them off. I think they are a bit jealous of me because I never make mistakes. It’s very hard being perfect. Do people every get angry with you? And if they do, how do you react? Ooh, you wouldn’t believe how bad-tempered some people are. People often get very angry with me but I won’t tolerate bad behaviour. I am always right and so I interrupt them in mid-conversation, raise the volume of my voice so that it’s louder than theirs and drown out their objections. Strangely that usually makes them even angrier and then they lose it and start shouting at me. I know all about harassment. I have the right to be treated with respect at all times and so I make a fuss and insist that people come back and grovel and apologise to me. At other times people become so angry that they turn around and walk away from me but I don’t let them get away with that. I immediately follow them and confront them again to make them accept my point of view. I can never understand why people have to be so difficult, can you? You know I try so hard to teach them how to do things the right way but they get that stubborn look on their faces and I know they don’t want to listen and learn. I have a great deal of commercial expertise at my fingertips and I think it’s very kind of me to guide them in the right direction but they won’t allow me to share this valuable knowledge. Do I ever go on training courses? Well I’m supposed to. My boss told me to make sure that I attended the last training course but as usual I was absolutely snowed under with work and I had such a lot to catch up on and so I made an executive decision and decided not to bother turning up. I am very competent in all that I do and so there isn’t really any need for self-improvement. However I know that the rest of my staff really do need their skills updating and so I make sure that they all attend as many training courses as possible. I suppose that I might benefit from going on an assertiveness course though. Have I realised by now that you are not a Social Researcher and that you are in fact the M. D. of this global firm? Elizabeth why didn’t you tell me this man was the Managing Director. What do you mean you tried to but as usual I wouldn’t listen? You say Mr. Smith the Social Researcher rang up to cancel this morning at 8.30 am. Why didn’t you tell me our Managing Director was also due to arrive to this morning at 9 am? Elizabeth come back here at once. Don’t you dare turn your back on me and walk away. Maisie England Sun Apr 28 21:02:36 BST 2002 Help Desk Prison I work at a large university in New York City in the USA. My primary function is to run the helpdesk - meaning that I diagnose computer problems and either talk the user through a solution or type the problem (in abbreviated form) into a database. This is not, as we say in the USA, "rocket science." Still, the other techs tend to screw it up so, over time, I have found myself the only person assigned to the help desk. As you can imagine, this position, while potentially challenging, tend to be very dull. Mundane problems dominate most helpdesks and we are no different. So what is the problem and how did I end up doing this? When I got hired I made the mistake of being very credentialled (MCSE, CCNA, A+, Network+) and very hard-working. When I was sat down at the helpdesk I quickly learned it and did it well. BIG MISTAKE! The other techs eyeballed the situation and realized that if you are on the desk you are not in the field doing the work. For some reason (!?!) these guys who can diagnose and resolve most PC problems were unable to figure out that "Building/Room/Department" in the database meant that you needed to put in information pertaining to the name of a building AND a room, AND a department. A request for a phone number actually meant you should put one in. Users have names - both first and last ones: iIf you can't figure out a person's name, search the database and it will pop right up. Suddenly, the only person who seemed to be able to do the job was me. I now spend 8 hours a day waiting for the phone to ring, surfing the internet, and writing email. Though my job sounds great to people outside the computer field, for those of us who love the challenge of PC support, it is slow death. Here, management wants quick solutions. Instead of actually authorizing me to teach other other techs to do this simple job and ordering them to show competence in it, my manager has found it easier to just leave me at the helpdesk and let the other techs do which jobs they like. You can be sure I'm looking for another place to work! NYC Tech y2kmcsenj@hotmail.com New York, USA Tue May 21 19:18:52 BST 2002 The Lookup Table I work in a six year old struggling software house. Their MO was hiring fringe programmers, eg programmers with little or no formal training but plenty of know how (and not paying them much). Not that I mind; technically I'm not a programmer, either, I'm a linguist who just happens to be very good at programming. Through mergers, questionable outsourcing decisions, and stylish homemade coding techniques, we have arrived at the point at which our database contains so many tables that it is impossible to tell which is used and which is unused. I discovered this when deleting Our_Users, Users2Test and tlkpU; all of which, as it turns out, were essential to the referential integrity of the actually-accessed-in-code Users table. In all, I counted six user preferences tables with nearly identical syntax. QA refused each of my requests to combine them, stating that they would have to test every part of the application (which is grousing since they do that anyway). So when time came to add more information to the convoluted user system, I bucked the system: I used an INT64 field which was already there as a flag field. And rather than add yet another table to identify these columns, I wrote it on the whiteboard. "Where's the lookup table," I was asked. "Look up," I replied, indicating the table. This brought about much rage. "What if it gets erased," I was asked, so I replicated it on another white board. Surprisingly, I've never been asked what that field does...only which whiteboard has the most recent version. Al Caps Tue Aug 20 20:57:01 BST 2002 Application Users-Fun Facts Hi all, I am working for one of the India's biggest Bank as S/W manager. I will tell u few fun facts ,which i faced with my users. One of My user called me User: 'Iam unable to login to ur application' I : 'what the problem?' User: 'password incorrect' I : 'R u Entering the correct one' User: Absolutely ( I Checked my encryption dll and found it to be working fine and all other users are logging fine,i kept enquiring the user about the facts,look at DB ) I : 'Would mind telling ur password, so that i will try' User:yes, it is seven stars (*******) I : what??? User: 'Yeh!!! my password is marshal and iam typing *******' case 2 We had a security Breanch with display of client signature on the screen. I wrote win32 API progs to restrict the user to disable print screen option and deployed the same at client end. on a fine morning user called me up User : "Sir, New version is not working" I " Why What's the problem?" User : I have problem with signature I : "What's the problem,R U able to view it?" User : "Yes i am, but iam unable to copy/print" I : "Yeh!! it is a security check,we blocked it delibrately..." User : "that's the problem , iam unable to copy/print the signature" I : "It is a security policy, it should not be copied/printed" User : "Then i will give a mail to ur PM, that ur application is not working...." Varanasi Srinivas vrsrinivas@yahoo.com Hyderabad,AP, India Fri Jun 27 10:11:08 GMT 2003 YES I CAN GIVE YOU THAT INFORMATION sitting at a desk...., i was listning to somone on customer support getting a mad client on the phone, i picked up my phone and used our ab-ext system to dial her extension and hear this convo. When i picked up the phone i heard the following Client: 'i cant remember my password;; Help : 'ok fine, when was your last payment' Client ; a few weeks ago i rekon. Help ; whats your username Client ; my username is....******* help: ok fine, your password is ****** At this point i was mind blown, she gave him a users password with no auth. and we have secret question shit in place for that reason! it goes on, Client; can you tell me the credit card number of my last payment so i know which card i used to pay...?? Help; yes sir, just one moment.... At this point i had to go over and say somthing... just out of order.... if companies are going to pay people for helpdesk on a massive scale, at least secure it so they are not giving user details out ad-lib. IM GLAD IM ONLY THERE ON CONSULTANCY :) YOU KNOW THE SCORE. aiden papaunix at hotmail dot com manchester, england Wed Oct 15 07:17:08 BST 2003 The lonely Home. This is a true story about a family in India. There were seven members in this family. They were Four girls and One boy. Their Father Worked in a organizstation in the city of Coimbatore.One day the father returned from work late and he sat on his chair and he Kicked the bucket. The mother was uneducated and her children were still studying the eldest was in College and the others were in school still studing. The mother even though she was uneducated she started a Nursery School for Children between the age of Four and Five years old. She was able to see all her childen well educated. It was all due to her efforts. She was always sincer in whatever she had to do even, though she was uneducated She Knew something about time managment. She made sure that the family didnt have to starve even after her husband expired.She gave off her best to her family.She never ever taught of giving up even though she was uneducated she started educating herself by reading books and novels and she really spoke Fluently in English. She knew how to draf letters, and she also made a lot of friends. Llewellyn Alister1967@yahoomail.com Coimbatore., India Sat May 01 11:34:28 BST 2004 The unforgetable experience. This is a true story of a person who was simple and honest. He was none other than Harry as he was affectionatly called by his friends. He was always very Ambitious. He wanted to excel in what ever he took to do, so he traveled to Bangalore as he was selected for an orginszation This organiszation was none otherthan "Convergys." He under went the training for the Call center. But due to his Sleepless nights which he spent dedicated to studying the American Accent he was unable to Complete the final round with good results he was still determined to go on with the organization but instead they forced him to give in his resignation.He still did not give up hope he went to other organizations and made sure he got a good job. This was sure a good lesson he had learnt to never ever give up with the road seems tough. Alister alister1967@yahoomail.com Bangalore, India Sat May 01 11:55:36 BST 2004 WTF? Why are Indians posting boring stories that have nothing to do with the subject matter of this site? They might as well say "I like kittens", at least more people would give a shit. Anonymous person Mon May 03 00:57:49 BST 2004 my dream hero this happened last year 2003 when the monaco saturday afternoon pole positions was on a week before that started i phoned up the monaco grand prix circuit i spoke to a french lady who understand me quite well i said i know michael schumacher isnt there at the moment until next week could you please get me a photo of him & ask him to autograph it she replied in broke english i will try so i gave her my name & address as i said the monaco week came at my husband said to me that saturday you have a letter from monaco so i opened it carefully and inside my michaels formula 1 car photo with his autograph i was over the moon ive followed michael since he was in benetton up to now i think he is the best formula 1 driver in the world after aryton senna when michael retires in 2006 i shall deeply miss him i will still watch the grand prixs but will feel sad because michael isnt there well i wish him happiness for the rest of his life. mrs gail gray gailgray01@yahoo.co.uk marlow buckinghamshire, england Sat Jul 10 23:34:13 BST 2004 Lean Business Practice, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ignore Inefficiency First, a little background. I?ve been working with web applications since high school. I was one third of the web team for a major insurance provider in Minnesota by the time I was a junior; following that, I was a reasonably successful freelance programmer. I?d known I wanted to be a codemonkey for quite a while by the time I left the state on my great adventure towards Higher Learning. My first post-high school 'job' was with a commercial avionics juggernaut, an 8-month co-op. I?m still not sure what that means; the word ?cooperative? comes to mind, but the extent of the cooperation in this instance was the personnel and business analysis departments cooperatively misappropriating eight months of my life. This was the second semester and summer of my sophomore year at a university in Iowa (from which I later received serious liver damage and a bachelor?s degree in computer science). I was excited to have been sought out for a position, as I?d hopefully dispersed resumes at several previous career fairs. The company provided housing ? some very nice apartments ? and the HR people were very friendly, so regardless of the pay (unimpressive, even for a co-op), I had a very good initial impression of the company. This lasted until I was introduced to my boss and coworkers. As it turns out, the gentleman responsible for requesting my presence from HR (we shall call him Fido) managed a small team of four analysts. At least, I think they were analysts; all I know with certainty is that they did not need help to run Excel. My ?coworkers,? if one could in good conscience call them that, were four women no younger than 45 and mostly over 60. Of the four, two had retained their wits and personality; one, however, was lucky enough to work apart from our little cubicle cubbyhole, leaving me with only one actual person to talk to. As it turns out, she was the black sheep of the group (unsurprising; personality is not useful to a financial analyst) and probably the youngest of Fido?s Angels. She had been with the military and spent quite a lot of time stationed in Germany; she loved Black Sabbath and never had anything good to say about Fido (which we came to have in common very quickly). Fido was the very archetype of lower-level management. The members of his group existed solely for the glorification of his initiatives, which were rarely well conceived and never on anything resembling a reasonable timeline. Fido reveled in momentary glee at every twisted, bloated new use of technology he read about on whichever websites tech-obsessed MBA?s frequent. I have no doubt that he was being fed these ideas, since he was not original enough to come up with them, nor do computer industry buzzwords magically plant themselves in feeble minds. I arrived to find myself assigned to a very clear set of tasks. I was even presented with reasonably well-conceived design notes. Having very little corporate experience at this point, I did not find this strange in any way. It was explained to me that I was now the tech in charge of the Oracle database and front-end with the analysis and reporting teams used to organize and present expense data. Company analysts in at least a dozen countries, notably including Germany and Australia, accessed this database regularly. I quickly learned that the Oracle front-end I was to deal with was a nightmare. Creating new reports was a trial, and attempts to edit existing reports led me to abandon this idea in favor of the former (the lesser of two evils). Not only that, but the actual structure beneath the reports was an amazing mess. At this point, I had never worked at length with any database software; the extent of my experience with such things was a single college course in database theory. The fact that I immediately knew that the tables were haphazardly constructed at best cast a further pall over my assignment. Upon discussing this with Fido, it was grudgingly revealed to me that I was the fourth in a procession of co-op students assigned to all four of my particular tasks. Basically, what I was expected to do had been attempted continuously by varying sub-employees for the last twenty-four months to no effect. Students had been managing the Oracle database, which was being used extensively on a daily basis all over the world, for the last two years. So my situation at this point is this: I am a student providing cheap labor for a madman?s unfeasible pet projects under the guise of a ?learning experience.? Nearly half way through my term with the company, I have learned nothing beyond how to hack up the Oracle front end and which of my coworkers like to go to the casino on the weekends. I have yet to use any technologies I?m familiar with, and I have yet to expand upon my knowledge of computers and computer programming, which I had mistakenly assumed would be the point of my eight-month hiatus from school. Enter Lean. The company has now begun to campaign for efficiency by making Lean education mandatory. I am required to take online courses and quizzes that test my knowledge of Lean procedure. I am a lean, mean Lean machine, and it occurs to me that a programmer who works in a financial analysis department is a horrible waste of resources. This becomes my campaign platform, and for weeks I badger Fido in the hopes that he will see the erroneous nature of employing me so far from my field of study. I beg to be transferred one cubicle over, where the lights are always out and the Unix gurus speak in hushed voices about things I so desperately want to know; I point out to him all the ways in which it would be a much better use of my skills, and how his projects would have so much more knowledge brought to bear upon it if only I could take it and move to an actual technical department. Once again displaying for all to see my ignorance of managerial selfishness, I fought for this until I finally realized that Fido simply would not drop his bone. I then resigned myself to my fate. At this point I wrote amusing ASP applications to pass the time; one or two were actually useful. This afforded me the opportunity to teach myself ASP database integration, which would be the only useful tidbit I gleaned from my time with this technologically advanced company.I have left a shithole - hooray Alas, I have my own such story: I worked for, shall we say, "PC". I left after just six months - the shortest time I've spent anywhere. I felt some regret and sadness at not having completed a project, but by goodness, what on earth was I doing at that company? I fear this comes across with arrogance, but by crikey, that company was far too small for me! Indeed, I need to write this blog to vent about how much I suffered at the hands of PC and BigKahuna. It was a crushing part of my life. I believe in success. I believe in achievement. I believe in passion and immersing yourself in your project. Yet, I just can't believe the company was as committed to the project as I. It was impossible to get milestones out of BigKahuna. And at the same time he kept speaking out of both sides of his mouth. Why say "will this be finished in time" but then tell me he doesn't know what he wants for any specific presentation and most surprisingly tell me not to work too hard? Why express worry that a new, independent, system may impact on the Australian market but then tell me explicitly "there is no problem" and actually forbid me seeking ways we could integrate with that system, whether extracting data from it, or uploading data to it? Three times BigKahuna demonstrated my work; once at a New York industry-specific conference, and twice in the U.K. Yet not once could I eke a single skerrick of feedback from the punters out of him. I did tell him my disatisfaction but just got abused. Go figure! I could go on and on and on. I am simply floored that I seriously worked at PC - I was a key strategic player in my last role, and happily, I am a key strategic player in my new role. At PC, I had to daily suffer the ineptitudes of a manager who actually told me he doesn't know what he wants, he doesn't want me to work too hard, he doesn't know how to sell things, that he is scared of big telcos, and even that he doesn't know what Gothic script looks like! I remember the fanfare with which we launched the online discussion forum. Yet then I was staggered that FellowCoder and I were not permitted to actually discuss the product on the forum. Some customers asked support-type questions on the forum, so they sat there unanswered, giving purely the impression nobody read the site or cared. Actually, it made BigKahuna cranky people asked support questions. I'm not actually sure what the forum was for except for him to make periodic announcements. Now, there were two managers, but I really don't want to be critical of OtherBoss - despite her rather schizoid nature - because in the end I did very much enjoy working with her. In my last two weeks especially she, FellowCoder and I worked very closely and it almost made me sad to leave. I think the three of us really did put a lot of emotion into the project at the last stage. So, in the end, I did feel warmly towards OtherBoss. But BigKahuna, my goodness, I just cannot respect him in any way. He's a wealthy fellow, from what I hear, and I can only presume it is from his property management and development interests; I just absolutely see no people management or leadership or sales ability whatsoever. Certainly, his phone manner is pretty camp. By contrast, my new role is moving at light speed. There's no end of achievements to be made and I am fully engrossed in it - the way I like it. In many ways, it's easy to imagine the last six months at PC simply never happened and I just went from one full-on role to another with maybe a bad dream in the middle. Ironically, the only other really bad managers I've ever had besides BigKahuna were during the five years I worked at a University. I can only presume maybe there is something lax about public-funded organisations. Certainly, the best managers I've had were driven entrepreneurs in commercial enterprises. I was frustrated, too, at the University. It was so hard to change things. People expected nothing to ever happen or succeed. Money was squandered willy-nilly. By the same token, PC had no real regard for effiency or costs. Hell, even the financial lady was lucky to be mediocre - questions to her about FBT or super choice were just met with blank "what do you mean?" responses! Although, this said, FellowCoder was a tremendous person to work with and had a strong analytical mind. He is very loyal to the company and I hope they always treat him well. I'm hopeful my product will be released in some form, some day. It just horrifies me that the current version - an Access database with four separate code-bases - could seriously be flogged off as a commercial product. What a shithole! Off to bigger and better things! Zug zug@zug.com Smithtown, Yemen Fri Dec 23 03:59:12 GMT 2005 The tinpot dictator Once there was a tinpot dictator who thought his company was his castle. He liked women, his favorite was gemma.net profits were great because he raided the public purse. He knew google but not how to answer a phone like a man. Graham Fuxton dickhead@ozemail.com.au Newcastle, Australia Thu Jan 05 13:10:10 GMT 2006 Crazed Co-Worker I have a co-worker at a remote site that constantly comments of everyones programming and coding publically. Recently, he did it to me again, so I decided to look at one of the new programs he wrote & found that he was initalizing the first indexed entry in a file to be zero, which is incorrect because all other files that do not have a reference to that file contain a zero. I made a change in the program to set the first entry to one and emailed him the change. Below was his reply: "I appreciate you taking the time to review the code but it would be better if you reviewed your own SQL first. If you insist on this change then you will also need to to make modifications to the business class and the maintenance screen because you have now broken the code :( It was designed that way because the Boss requested that I utilize the zero-th ID. As a result the business class was specifically designed to work with the DataBase class in that manner. After you have made the appropriate changes to the business class and after you have made the appropriate changes to the maintenance screen and after you have corrected your database model to correct the field data types in the table and after you have recreated the appropriate SQL files and after you have tested the maintenance screen please let the Boss know so he can finish the SCR. He had planned on doing that work today but with your change he will have to wait until you fix the remaining code and SQL. It would be nice if you followed another co-worker's example of calling and asking if there was a reason something was done before taking matters into your own hands and making changes that were not requested." Instead of answering him, I sent a copy of the email to his boss who told him to change his code. Anonymous mrhilbren@yahoo.com Newark, NJ, usa Fri Feb 10 18:58:09 GMT 2006 Control freak manager stopped people having e-mail addresses I worked for a crappy software company which had a crappy Access-based product called Gemma. Only a very few people actually had a distinct e-mail address; the company opted to have shared mailboxes used by entire departments. I figured there was a good reason for this; as the company had a great deal of public funding I thought it was for accountability purposes. But no. The manager explained to me she had all the mailboxes open in her Outlook and if there were too many mailboxes she couldn't read them all (!). Actually, to my mind, the whole thing was a farce anyway. Most personnel conducted their transactions - including genuine business - via private Hotmail and ISP e-mails. So, a lot of genuine business intelligence and correspondence was actually totally lost to the company when these people moved on. Quite telling, even the so-called "Executive Director" himself used his own ISP e-mail account for all his business for the company - which only exacerbated the unprofessional look the company had. (Oddly enough, he also used to unplug the fax so he could dial-up his ISP to check mail; I don't think he realised he could use POP over the Internet ...) That place was far from a castle :) Anonymous person pingo@hotmail.com Newcastle, Australia Sat Sep 15 12:03:54 BST 2007 Hooray! Do other people have crap managers too? Wow! Nice to read your stories on crap managers. I do not perhaps come under any of your industries, or maybe, I am, as I am an Online Marketing Exec with an IT Masters degree. My boss is a complete tw**t. Everything I say is wrong and he seems to like to make sure that only his ideas count. I give an idea, and the response is not positve. It is no, or just on a note on that, or yes but.... He says that I can make a contribution to one of his presentations, but just as I am about to speak he butts in and takes over my entire bit of the presentation. I prepare a two page document, as he requested, but no, it is wrong, he takes over, reads my document and writes his own list from it to present to the Director. He tells me to phone someone to research a project and I phone the person in question and he tells me that my manager has already spoken to him on that very subject. I would just like to make my contribution from the UK on crap managers. They exist everywhere. Do you have to be a crap manager to be a manager I wonder sometimes? I am yet to find a manager who is inspirational and who enables me to develop. Ahmen. Anonymous person United Kingdom Mon Oct 15 22:02:01 BST 2007 Earlier Stories & Messages:
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