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jdavidboyd (3251)

jdavidboyd
  (email not shown publicly)
Born - 1958
USAF - 1976-1980
BSEE - 1984
Married - 1987
Moved to Florida - 1994
Programming since 1986

Journal of jdavidboyd (3251)

Wednesday July 09, 2003
11:32 AM

Annoying

[ #13352 ]

Man, is there anything on this planet that is more annoying than you telling your boss that the change he wants is going to take 'X' amount of time, and he responds "Oh, I don't see why that would be. It is only a little change."

Of course, he knows nothing about coding in C, or the data structures the program uses, or the flow of the code as it presently exists.

He does know that, when I make his change, and he is subsequently looking at the screen, a few elements will have shifted around. He says "Shouldn't be a big deal at all."

And, when you try to explain, he gets a glassy eyed look, and then gets upset because he seems to think that I am questioning his judgement

Like I said, most annoying.


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  • Does it help to make a list of your development tasks and ask him if he knows a simpler way to do it? I always like to learn better approaches.

    • No. I think a major part of the problem is that he is 67 years old, wants to retire, can't afford to, and doesn't have the memory he used to have. He used to keep myriad details in his head, but now they flit away.
      I've tried giving him a list of tasks, as you suggest, but he always comes back with "Well, whatever you think is best."
      Another big problem is the fact that he has no conception of the fact that it costs so much more to fix a bug after it is release into a working system, than it would cost to
  • Well yes, you are questioning his judgement. The trick is to let him know that without making it a personal thing. Yes, it is very annoying when your boss won't listen. But he'll trust and respect you more in the end if you stick to your guns and are up front about how long something will take to accomplish. Don't cave to an unrealistic schedule. That will just set you up for failure. My .02 -Kelly
    • "...but he'll trust and respect you more in the end..."
      No, unfortunately, he won't. He consistently gives in to our customers whenever they want a change, and promises them a time they will have it. It isn't that important that it works completely when they get it, just that they have it.
      The worst thing, in his opinion, would be that we don't deliver what he has said we will, when we will.
      Of course it would be better to have some discussion of the problem, and make an accurate estimate of how long it w
      • Wow. That's not a good situation. However, if that's the situation and it can't be changed, then you have to either live with it or get out of Dodge. It almost seems as you are doing the same thing for him that he does for customers.
  • "Well, boss. Maybe you see a simpler way of doing it. To me it looks like I need to do A, B, C, ... and Z. And that'll take me X days. If you can show me a simpler way, I'd love to see it. Which one of these steps can I leave off?"
  • See my comments on CYJ [perl.org].
    --

    --
    xoa

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