My PM doesn't tell me to do anything. Their job is to prioritize things on the backlog and give status updates. Very, very rarely do they tell me that whatever I'm working on no longer needs to be done at all.

Generally speaking, if I do get an interruption, it's from the person above the Project Manager. And they're more of the "shit hit the fan" variety of problems that need to be resolved.

LordCrom@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 291d (11 replies)

My PMs are all about time allocation..... yet they fail to understand what research is.

Pm: How long until you finish designing and implementing this thing?

Me: I cant put a time on it, weve never done this before and have no points of reference. So i could figure it out today or a month from today...i cant give you a time because its bever been implemented.

PM: Sighs in dissapproval... ill just say 5 business days. Hows that.

Me: if we are just making up numbers, sure

Alexstarfire@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 291d

balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one · 6 pts · 290d (4 replies)

Sounds like you got someone with experience in hardware. They're all about just shitting a date on paper.

The key to good PMs seems to be that they will make up the fake schedule without even talking to you. The schedule will be made up either way, so if they can not bother me that's a ok.

ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 290d (3 replies)

My good PMs understood that their role was to attend meetings and create a buffer between myself (who understood what had to be done and was doing most of the work) and the higher-ups. The awful PMs were the ones who thought they were running the show and driving everything.

rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 290d (2 replies)

Our current PM gets involved in projects from day dot. Plans out vague technical ideas, makes up timelines, gets involved in meetings and suggests things to clients, totally rules the roost.

Shame she's completely fucking clueless about any of the actual work, really.

ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 290d (1 reply)

I usually preferred male PMs, solely because my contempt for their lack of technical knowledge was never mistaken for chauvinism. Women PMs who stayed in their lane -- or even better were actually technically competent -- were A-OK with me.

rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 290d

Oh yeah, it's difficult to criticise her because it is a bloke criticising a woman and it just comes off poorly, despite my issues with her being absolutely nothing to do with her identity. I think I've had one or two mostly good PMs in maybe eight jobs across my career so far?

ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 290d

I used to tell my bosses that everything would take three months. I would then ensure that everything took three months, usually by fucking off for two and a half months and then blasting something out in the last two weeks.

Hupf@feddit.org · 2 pts · 291d

https://youtube.com/shorts/PNqF1gCbWhA

alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 290d

Isn't that what story points are for? :p

psud@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 271d

5 days seems pretty reasonable to design and build most stuff. It's function and system/integrated test that takes time not to say there's not random bits of work that take months before anything testable can be produced.

*My experience is in giant systems processing mainframe class data. The programmers in my team use COBOL

MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 290d

Uh oh. Now you're expected to be done in 5 days.

baines@lemmy.cafe · 10 pts · 291d (3 replies)

just don’t you dare ever proactively prevent a problem

always gotta spend 5x on the current dumpster fire

Alexstarfire@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 291d (1 reply)

Which is when I just do it I tell them afterward. I build it into my estimates so it doesn't put us behind.

There are still a few cans that get kicked down the road though, for various reasons.

baines@lemmy.cafe · 5 pts · 291d

i love i told you so too much

it’s usually the customers exacting fault

rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 290d

Nothing gets on my nerves more than when I fix something critical that's broken on a client site, and then get an earful from my PM because we didn't check with the client if they wanted it fixed, or they didn't have the support budget for that this month, or whatever else. I honestly think the management at my place want our client sites to be broken and stay that way, it's so weird.

rozodru@piefed.social · 20 pts · 290d

Years ago when I still worked for companies as an employee my team had this PM that was so desperate to get things done and get them done early. I mean he was a nice guy but always pushing. The thing is though my team was pretty damn solid and we got stuff done early, all working, tests passed, all that cause we liked to play battlefield 3 and eve online together when we had the free time. Course we never told the PM this. Also the PM liked to motivate us with food if we worked late to get stuff finished. So we used this to our advantage and once or twice a week we allowed the PM to buy us dinner and beer/snacks because we told him we'd be working late to ensure deadlines were met. When in reality we'd just be in the office playing eve online together and wanted food and beer while we did so.

I don't feel bad for the project manager, he came from money, he constantly told everyone he came from money, so we took his money.

asg101@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 18 pts · 291d (2 replies)

Procrastination ALWAYS paid off for me.

psud@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 271d (1 reply)

Though I usually succeed despite procrastination, I'm pretty sure in most cases things would have gone better with alacrity.

asg101@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 271d

Worked for me, could be an environment problem.

ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 290d

I used to work for (more accurately at since I was a contractor) a large cable company whose name rhymes with "bombast". Most of the people in charge of the projects I was working on (usually vice-presidents, a thoroughly overblown title there since there were hundreds of vice-presidents) were hopelessly technically incompetent and/or bordering on clinically insane. For a refreshing change of pace, I occasionally had bosses who were just soulless and amoral. None of them lasted more than a few months before they were suddenly and without warning disappeared. One day you would come in to work and their office was emptied out and they were never mentioned ever again. I'd like to think they were just fired and escorted out, but I would not be surprised to find they were executed and rendered down for the fats they contained.

killeronthecorner@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 290d (1 reply)

PM expert mode challenge: recall the last thing you asked for

psud@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 271d

It doesn't count if what they remember is that 6 business days ago you agreed to 5 business days

LordCrom@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 291d

You got a laugh outta me with this one. Heres your upvote

lightnsfw@reddthat.com · 4 pts · 290d

Yeah, the amount of times I ignored tasks I didn't want to do and had them just disappear in a few weeks is actually insane. Occasionally I'll have something come back and bite me but in those cases I've just been like "Oh whoops, that one fell off my list" and then I do it, but for the most part it's frightening how little it seems to matter if I do my job or not.