My contract is finally ending YAY!

[lorakeen]

- don't worry we won't miss your inane sexist comments - and would prefer never to have to see the racists ones that would otherwise inevitably appear.

Because God forbid someone might criticize a woman, even if it is another woman doing the criticizing.
Projection is a wonderful thing

[vetran]

Neither mine, nor ees' comments were a compliment to you. You just aren't seeing it though... and that's part of the problem i.e. you.



What's that saying about if everyone around you is an idiot.....

Problem is if things have stopped happening after the PM arrived he may have a point.

For me if things get better after a PM arrives then that is positive (we had a chap dive in after a project was in a serious tailspin and he landed it). If they get worse then its negative.

A PM telling devs how to code is like me challenging their MS project expertise or effort estimation. If you want to improve code style as a PM then insist on code reviews as part of the deliverables and set coding standards. Standing in front of the developers and telling them their code is tulip will not win you fans even if you are right, unless of course the dev is so bad even their peers think they are a numpty.

For instance I have a manager that interferes with technical stuff and refuses to follow best practice. As a result the developers run wild and the database is carnage. DEVS IF YOU REWRITE SOMETHING AND CHANGE TABLES MARK THE OLD ONES AS RETIRED, ITS NOT FECKING DIFFICULT. You could of course add some comments to your code. Documentation is not for wimps.

He generates half arsed code that hobbles the sql server performance and names objects something like -"dbo.[oh look this proves I am stupid]" I have explained schemas and naming conventions to him many times, he doesn't add any jira links or comments to the code so no one except him has any idea what it does. There is no testing so we only have the opinion of the users (who screwed up the data in the first place). I suggest we use FREE authoritative sources to compare data to but he prefers guessing whether data is right. He maintains a list of counties via Wikipedia rather than using code point open or ONS data etc.


Nah I have never thought of you as an idiot...

[lorakeen]

Problem is if things have stopped happening after the PM arrived he may have a point.

For me if things get better after a PM arrives then that is positive (we had a chap dive in after a project was in a serious tailspin and he landed it). If they get worse then its negative.

A PM telling devs how to code is like me challenging their MS project expertise or effort estimation. If you want to improve code style as a PM then insist on code reviews as part of the deliverables and set coding standards. Standing in front of the developers and telling them their code is tulip will not win you fans even if you are right, unless of course the dev is so bad even their peers think they are a numpty.

For instance I have a manager that interferes with technical stuff and refuses to follow best practice. As a result the developers run wild and the database is carnage. DEVS IF YOU REWRITE SOMETHING AND CHANGE TABLES MARK THE OLD ONES AS RETIRED, ITS NOT FECKING DIFFICULT. You could of course add some comments to your code. Documentation is not for wimps.

He generates half arsed code that hobbles the sql server performance and names objects something like -"dbo.[oh look this proves I am stupid]" I have explained schemas and naming conventions to him many times, he doesn't add any jira links or comments to the code so no one except him has any idea what it does. There is no testing so we only have the opinion of the users (who screwed up the data in the first place). I suggest we use FREE authoritative sources to compare data to but he prefers guessing whether data is right. He maintains a list of counties via Wikipedia rather than using code point open or ONS data etc.


Nah I have never thought of you as an idiot...

Basically this.
We have tried to implement coding standards.
However she refused to approve of them because she didn't understand the references used. Apparently expecting developers to understand what a EAV table is is somehow unreasonable.
She insisted that it was OK to still use procedural code because "most of the platform is like that anyway". So much for modernizing the damned thing.

And who can forget the time she moved a file on the testign server without telling anyone - just manually moved it because reasons which messed up testing for a week until she came clean?

[SueEllen]

Basically this.
We have tried to implement coding standards.
However she refused to approve of them because she didn't understand the references used. Apparently expecting developers to understand what a EAV table is is somehow unreasonable.
She insisted that it was OK to still use procedural code because "most of the platform is like that anyway". So much for modernizing the damned thing.

And who can forget the time she moved a file on the testign server without telling anyone - just manually moved it because reasons which messed up testing for a week until she came clean?

In future manage your managers from the beginning of the project so they aren't blockers to what you want to achieve. You need to learn to do it in a way so they think they are in charge and it helps if some other team members back up your approach.

[lorakeen]

In future manage your managers from the beginning of the project so they aren't blockers to what you want to achieve. You need to learn to do it in a way so they think they are in charge and it helps if some other team members back up your approach.

The rest of the team are outsourced- so they will do what they are told. The senior ones agree with me but won't ever speak up because they don't want to lose their jobs. They are good people, and the agency that employs them has their own PM, who does a good job.

"I want X done in Z time" is Ok, but halfway through that I've lost 3 developers to other projects and they're STILL expecting the initial deadline to be met.

I had a good relationship with the actual boss, and it worked. We had results and were making progress. Planning was discussed weekly with the team and we got what we aimed for. Not anymore, now it's just the PM and the boss and we get directives with no team input.
I really don't care anymore at this point.

[Andy2]

I really don't care anymore at this point.

finally you got it

[Paralytic]

For a company supposedly penny-pinching, the PM must have been brought in for a reason. I wonder what that reason was.

[lorakeen]

For a company supposedly penny-pinching, the PM must have been brought in for a reason. I wonder what that reason was.

she was an internal transfer. Someone else dumped her on us

[GJABS]

finally you got it

Exactly.

OP, you are caring about the welfare of the client far beyond your responsibilities to it as a contractor. Your job is to deliver your IT services to the best of your ability, not to try to correct this project manager's contributions to the project. You don't and didn't control the management processes that put her in position.
i.e. if she does things that massively reduce the productivity of your team it is important that the project fails. So that management unambiguously learns the lesson that they made a mistake in hiring her. If you help her out and the project is a success, then she might be promoted further and make an even bigger hash of her next project.

[northernladuk]

For a company supposedly penny-pinching, the PM must have been brought in for a reason. I wonder what that reason was.

Poor developers with bad attitudes?