April 2, 2001
File this one under "Jason needs a new job." It'll probably wind up being the first part out of many.
I have two major projects on my plate at work right now. One of them is a client site with a two-week production schedule (Week One just ended), the other is the comapny site that's been on hold since what seems like the Stone Age. Well, a couple people have giant bugs up their asses about it now, so it's going to (allegedly) go live on the 11th of April.
Now, I don't mind having work. In fact, I prefer it to sitting at my desk all day reading CNN, hoping there'll be a war in some backward central European country to make my day interesting. Been there, done that, hated every minute. What I hate is the way we always (and I mean always) go about the work. We've been MindChisel since August 1, 2000. That's eight months as of my writing this. Now all of a sudden we want to launch in two weeks. In the mean time, we've been dicking around with this client since late last year, and we're just now entering production. Of course, the deadline can't change because of the client's retardedness, so as always the people doing production get fucked.
The account managers see nothing wrong with this. Even though every time, they swear they'll never let us get into a situation like this where the people who do the actual work make up for their laziness/ ineptness/ welcome-mat-ness/ whatever. And each time, the same goddamn thing happens.
We have Procedures out the wazoo, detailing every aspect of how to do a project. What we don't have is a procedure called "Account Managers: How Not To Get Shafted By The Client." And I know they know better, which is what makes this all the more irritating.
OK, I've hit the limit I imposed on myself for one of these things (passed it, actually). I'll finish spewing vitriol tomorrow.
