The story reminds me of the so-called 80/20 rule. > Microsoft noted that by fixing the top 20% of the most-reported bugs, 80% of the related errors and crashe

The story reminds me of the so-called 80/20 rule. > Microsoft noted that by fixing the top 20% of the most-reported bugs, 80% of the related errors and crashes in a given system would be eliminated. Lowell Arthur expressed that "20% of the code has 80% of the errors. Find them, fix them!" More relevant part: > It was also discovered that, in general, 80% of a piece of software can be written in 20% of the total allocated time. Conversely, the hardest 20% of the code takes 80% of the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle#In_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle#In_computing It sounds like you were often stuck with the toughest 20% which actually took 80% of the effort. I also heard that of that 20%, there's another level of 80/20, where a further 20% takes 80% of the rest of the effort, and so on. Anyway, I hope you find a better situation!