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That's not a realistic comparison. More realistic would be if Gandalf said "If the ring is not destroyed by Friday, Sauron will definitely defeat us, and any ef
by DougWebb 14y ago
That's not a realistic comparison. More realistic would be if Gandalf said "If the ring is not destroyed by Friday, Sauron will definitely defeat us, and any effort spent on trying to get to Mount Doom will be wasted, and may cost us the chance to defeat Sauron a different way. Given that, Frodo, can you destroy it by Friday?"
Of course, in most shops Gandalf will keep all of that to himself because he hopes that Frodo can get it done sooner (it's just walking, after all) and he doesn't want Frodo to half-ass it, take his time, and not deliver until the last minute. So he'll just ask Frodo when it can be done.
- purephase 14y ago"it's just walking, after all" I read that in the common dismissive tone that I hear regularly and cringed. I'm not sure it was your intent but when higher-ups try to ascertain the level of complexity/work with little to no knowledge of the problem, these sentences fly. Having been one of those managers, I understand that they're largely trying to be optimistic and justify their own demands but as a project drags on, it depresses the hell out of me.
- DougWebb 14y agoYou read it exactly right. I've had project managers tell me, in that same tone, that they disagreed with my six month estimate for a project, and said they could do it in a weekend. I tried offering to swap jobs for a while, but they never went for that. I'm not surprised; more often than not I wasn't just the tech lead and architect on my projects, but I did most of the project management too.