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Alan Langford

@mike @gsuberland I got called back to a former workplace to do a "weekend save" of a $10M project. Many of the team who I led were called in too. CEO who I had never worked with comes in all panicky trying to come up with a plan and I'm "A & B you tackle component X; C & D you're on Y; E you take Z; I'll take U and work with E on V when that's done. Let's get to work!" and the CEO is still sitting there trying to figure out why the meeting is over. Sorry bro, we don't have time to panic.

27 April at 1:52 | Wall-to-wall | Open on mindly.social
6 comments
Dr. Obvious

@alan @mike @gsuberland
Sounds really familar.

But this comes with a really bad downside. People start seeing management potential in you and think it's a good idea giving you projects. And then they expect that you constantly update project plans, document stuff keep track of other peoples task. And you are sitting in front of that stupid project plan and don't update the few words till it's time to go home.

27 April at 5:37 | Open on chaos.social
Alan Langford

@Dr_Obvious @mike @gsuberland Nope. When that happens I just quit. Spent a year as VP Engineering with a staff of 30. Fixed all sorts of problems, made a bunch of unsatisfied customers happy, put in systems to keep things running, got bored, quit before I started to mess up.

And there is the downside for me: the lean periods between heroic saves. Gig work before it was called gig work.

27 April at 11:48 | Open on mindly.social
Dr. Obvious

@alan @mike @gsuberland
Fully relateable. I have, although I am young, quite a lot of job descriptions collected. Often it became too boring or too many tasks I just couldn't find motivation for.

I am currently working in a 24/7 high tech production environment. That often leads to panic fire fighter mode reactions where I can shine. That compensates a lot of boring tasks.

27 April at 12:12 | Open on chaos.social
William Pietri

@Dr_Obvious @alan @mike @gsuberland I really relate to this, but find that over the years I've mostly lost my taste for firefighting because 99% of the fires were totally unnecessary.

Actual emergency? Yes, great! Let's save the day! Fake emergency because some exec put all the shiny things in a fantasy feature list and then insisted on a launch date that was never achievable? GTFOOH.

So now I mostly do release-early, release-often approaches, which fits my desire for fast feedback and things always happening, and also drive a lot of organizational sanity.

@Dr_Obvious @alan @mike @gsuberland I really relate to this, but find that over the years I've mostly lost my taste for firefighting because 99% of the fires were totally unnecessary.

Actual emergency? Yes, great! Let's save the day! Fake emergency because some exec put all the shiny things in a fantasy feature list and then insisted on a launch date that was never achievable? GTFOOH.

27 April at 17:10 | Open on sfba.social
Alan Langford

@williampietri @Dr_Obvious @mike @gsuberland Yeah unrealistic launch dates aren't fun, but if they reached out to me at least there was funding. The ones that I liked the most were "national ad campaign launches in a week and we just discovered one of our vendors lied and is nowhere near ready." Okay, pay my retainer and agree to my rate and let's go!

27 April at 17:23 | Open on mindly.social
William Pietri

@alan @Dr_Obvious For sure! If they're paying emergency rates, that makes it easier. And if people still enjoy the rush, more power to them. But I think I burned out on that. youtu.be/aKV7v2Oh71U

27 April at 18:03 | Open on sfba.social
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