Inability to stop questioning tulip design and standards

[Ignis Fatuus]

Depressingly I've come to the stage in my working career where I realise that you just have to fall in line, shut up and cash the cheque.

If you ever catch yourself getting on a high horse get down immediately. It's cost me money and aggravation too many times.

Now I'll raise the issue and leave it at that. I don't get in to technical fights. I just bend over and take it while thinking of the money.

I hate it and it kills a little piece of my soul each and every day.

+1.

As the OP said,
Insert appropriate smiley that shows a soul slowly dying.

[Notascooby]

Your moral high ground may be misplaced. I certainly wouldn't take design and standards criticism from someone who cannot spell.

Since when the fk did good spelling equate to good design?

I'll admit to being dyslexic (not to a letters jumping around the screen level) and that my spelling is shocking. F7 is my friend (unless using lotus notes and it just indents the text).

Whilst I'll admit that I may not be 100% correct, there are some practices that are just plain stupid and wrong. these are worth gently challenging.

I'll do what I've always done, point it out, then point it out for a second time, then shut up.

[Ignis Fatuus]

A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement.

This is how it starts, and, before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high.

-- Jimmy Reid, Rector, Glasgow University, 1972.

[TheFaQQer]

I'll do what I've always done, point it out, then point it out for a second time, then shut up.

Sadly, I think that's all that we can do - soul-destroying as it is.

Trying to provide too much expertise cost me my first contract. When it got to the level of the entire project team being emailed "you obviously know nothing about the product" (to which I replied "I wrote that part of the product"), the writing was firmly on the wall, and I still missed it.

Say it once. Strenuously say it again. Document the decision. Shut up, smile and invoice.

[Mich the Tester]

-- Jimmy Reid, Rector, Glasgow University, 1972.

A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement.

This is how it starts, and, before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high.

I hope I'm making it clear how strongly I approve of that statement.

[bobspud]

-- Jimmy Reid, Rector, Glasgow University, 1972.

That quote is spot on and of absolutely no use in the IT world. IMHO

You can see the people that chose their way out of the Rat Race. They used to litter Lincolns Inn fields and the other homeless sites all over London. They might be right they might have some moral high ground but right doesn't keep your roof over your head.

The IT game is the Rat race. There is no option. There is no choice. The closer up to the CIO and CTO you get, The more you will realise this fact.

What you do by making loud noises and kicking against the doors to be heard is ensure that you become the target for those who need to diffuse the attention from their own short comings.

Just because you are right it doesn't make you immune from office politics, and if you get anywhere near costing a senior exec their bonus just by being right you wont be in the office any longer than it takes to pick up a phone.

[Mich the Tester]

That quote is spot on and of absolutely no use in the IT world. IMHO

You can see the people that chose their way out of the Rat Race. They used to litter Lincolns Inn fields and the other homeless sites all over London. They might be right they might have some moral high ground but right doesn't keep your roof over your head.

The IT game is the Rat race. There is no option. There is no choice. The closer up to the CIO and CTO you get, The more you will realise this fact.

What you do by making loud noises and kicking against the doors to be heard is ensure that you become the target for those who need to diffuse the attention from their own short comings.

Just because you are right it doesn't make you immune from office politics, and if you get anywhere near costing a senior exec their bonus just by being right you wont be in the office any longer than it takes to pick up a phone.

I don't agree; I think going freelance was my escape from the rat race. I don't have to lick arses, I don't have to say what people want me to say, I speak my mind politely but clearly, I back up my arguments and then I send an invoice; it's up to the client whether to extend, not extend or give me more responsibility and a higher rate; all three have happened as I go along, and I'm happy with that. I don't see extensions as my goal in my work, I just see succesful projects as my goal; if I see that a project's success is being blocked by politics then I discuss that with the person who's hired me and there's always a chance I'll have to leave. Seeing as I have a good track record, that isn't something that worries me.

[jmo21]

I don't agree; I think going freelance was my escape from the rat race. I don't have to lick arses, I don't have to say what people want me to say, I speak my mind politely but clearly, I back up my arguments and then I send an invoice; it's up to the client whether to extend, not extend or give me more responsibility and a higher rate; all three have happened as I go along, and I'm happy with that. I don't see extensions as my goal in my work, I just see succesful projects as my goal; if I see that a project's success is being blocked by politics then I discuss that with the person who's hired me and there's always a chance I'll have to leave. Seeing as I have a good track record, that isn't something that worries me.

A noble cause and I agree with the start, but only to a point.

A successful project is my goal too, but I won't get myself the boot (assuming I want to stay of course) by rocking the boat any more than I need to.

[Mich the Tester]

A noble cause and I agree with the start, but only to a point.

A successful project is my goal too, but I won't get myself the boot (assuming I want to stay of course) by rocking the boat any more than I need to.

That's the difference between us. I will if necessary, and clients know it; it hasn't served me badly because when a client wants a test manager who'll tell the truth, warts and all, instead of giving a political answer, he'll find me via his network and then either hire me or look further for someone who will give the political answer.

[bobspud]

I don't agree; I think going freelance was my escape from the rat race. I don't have to lick arses, I don't have to say what people want me to say, I speak my mind politely but clearly, I back up my arguments and then I send an invoice; it's up to the client whether to extend, not extend or give me more responsibility and a higher rate; all three have happened as I go along, and I'm happy with that. I don't see extensions as my goal in my work, I just see succesful projects as my goal; if I see that a project's success is being blocked by politics then I discuss that with the person who's hired me and there's always a chance I'll have to leave. Seeing as I have a good track record, that isn't something that worries me.

I am an Architect by trade so I guess it differs a little. We expect Test Managers to be a bit more robust. I always had the balls out attitude to pick a technical fight and right the wrongs, I normally won the point because I am quite astute.

However that attitude changed in 2008 after a well known firm handed me my arse on a plate. I was 100% in the right but by the time their snide ****** of a technical manager had briefed against me and the company I was working for, we didn't stand a chance. The whole programme was slipping because they couldn't get the code out on time. So they decided to make sure we got the blame by getting us to break the shared environment and then hold them up from deploying code. It was very subtle but you would see them asking separate people for changes to be made to the environment prior to deployments and within the hour weblogic would be laying flat on its back with our admin trying to figure out what the hell had happened... Meanwhile they would go straight to the directors and tell them that the infrastructure team had stalled them again...

We were walking into meetings with well prepared documents detailing the bad behaviour of the dev teams and the underhanded stuff they were up to. Meanwhile they had already had a separate meeting 3 levels up and we were being made to look like fools...

The image of the project was "managed" by the programme board bellow the directors and by the developers company at director level. The technical facts of the matter were never on the table or even relevant.

Myself and the other witnesses disappeared from the team. The cud chewing morons that did nothing managed another 3 years of billing on silly rates while rates in the market varied considerably. Not a bad time to be on £700 a day while rates crashed as low as £425...