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I'm not the OP but I'll describe a "behind the scenes" situation I dealt with. I inherited a team of seven working on a project. They were led by a very strong

I'm not the OP but I'll describe a "behind the scenes" situation I dealt with. I inherited a team of seven working on a project. They were led by a very strong personality who led the project based on his principles (he was interested in funneling as much corporate money into "free software" as possible while resisting delivery of business value). He'd been running the project for a long time by the time I inherited the team. One of the upper level folks gave me a call on Thursday and said, "In the operations call on Wednesday I'm going to propose killing that project because it's gone off the rails. We can use the money elsewhere. Just giving you a heads up". I spent the weekend figuring out how to pivot the majority of the staff into other projects, use staffing as-needed to develop features for business need, and provide a minimal maintenance budget. I called the guy who wanted to kill it on Monday, presented the plan, and he said he'd sign off on it. When I told the lead that the project will need to change he was outraged. He accused me of abandoning free software blah blah blah. I didn't get a chance to tell him about how I saved his job and the jobs of everyone else on the team by working 32 hours on my weekend and finding them other work to do.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> I didn't get a chance to tell him about how I saved his job and the jobs of everyone else on the team by working 32 hours on my weekend and finding them other work to do. Save the day by investing your free time into making things work, then collect outrage anyway. Management in a nutshell! Great anecdote. > They were led by a very strong personality who led the project based on his principles (he was interested in funneling as much corporate money into "free software" as possible while resisting delivery of business value). I've dealt with someone similar. It's strange how certain people can work their way into management while actively fighting against the company's mission. Of course, it doesn't work out well for themselves, the company, or the team they manage.
rtlfe 5y ago
> I didn't get a chance to tell him about how I saved his job and the jobs of everyone else on the team Why not tell them?
- jameshush 5y ago
  Not OP, so I don't have the full context, but here's an example I can think of where telling him isn't a good idea: Depending on that lead's personality he may "go over your head" and start complaining directly to _your_ boss. Which means you'll be dragged into yet another 30+ minute meeting when your schedule is already packed with meetings. Part of your job as a middle manager is to not only shield people below you from unnecessary drama, but shield people above and beside you from unnecessary drama also. This is where you have to use your past experiences with each individual person to gauge how to act. Do this for long enough, and grinding leetcode an hour a night for 2 months and just going back to moving tickets left to right at a FAANG company for (oftentimes) more money starts looking appealing. But then you have some days where everything goes great, a major project is shipped without any issues, and/or you're able to (finally) give a promotion to someone who deserves it which makes it all worth it. I ended up switching into speaking/training. All the pros of management (mentoring people, getting to speak) all the pros of coding (coding training materials is fun and simple, zero tech debt to worry about) and less responsibility on both sides.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> I didn't get a chance to tell him about how I saved his job and the jobs of everyone else on the team by working 32 hours on my weekend and finding them other work to do. Save the day by investing your free time into making things work, then collect outrage anyway. Management in a nutshell! Great anecdote. > They were led by a very strong personality who led the project based on his principles (he was interested in funneling as much corporate money into "free software" as possible while resisting delivery of business value). I've dealt with someone similar. It's strange how certain people can work their way into management while actively fighting against the company's mission. Of course, it doesn't work out well for themselves, the company, or the team they manage.

rtlfe 5y ago

> I didn't get a chance to tell him about how I saved his job and the jobs of everyone else on the team Why not tell them?

jameshush 5y ago
Not OP, so I don't have the full context, but here's an example I can think of where telling him isn't a good idea: Depending on that lead's personality he may "go over your head" and start complaining directly to _your_ boss. Which means you'll be dragged into yet another 30+ minute meeting when your schedule is already packed with meetings. Part of your job as a middle manager is to not only shield people below you from unnecessary drama, but shield people above and beside you from unnecessary drama also. This is where you have to use your past experiences with each individual person to gauge how to act. Do this for long enough, and grinding leetcode an hour a night for 2 months and just going back to moving tickets left to right at a FAANG company for (oftentimes) more money starts looking appealing. But then you have some days where everything goes great, a major project is shipped without any issues, and/or you're able to (finally) give a promotion to someone who deserves it which makes it all worth it. I ended up switching into speaking/training. All the pros of management (mentoring people, getting to speak) all the pros of coding (coding training materials is fun and simple, zero tech debt to worry about) and less responsibility on both sides.