Vindicated
Posted: Wed 29 August, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, Work-related |2 Comments »Is it wrong to feel slightly smug?
Over the last six weeks, things have been going mental with the site redesign at work, and lots of hours have been put in. The preceding three months have involved me doing a lot of work on the back-end of the site, while others have been faffing with design, wireframes, ideas, and the like. One person in particular has been doing sod-all, but making out they’re the centre of all the work.
In the last six weeks, they’ve been banging on about how all their stuff is done – but it hasn’t been checked in to the version control system, so no-one else has been able to see what they’ve done. And during that time, all my work – and all the work that the other people on the team – has been checked in, visible to all, tested, and done way ahead of deadline. And all the way through, I’ve been saying that the person hasn’t done what they’ve said, and that things will go horribly wrong – each time to be told by others that I’m too cynical, that of course they’ve done what they said, and blah, blah, blah.
So on Friday and today, the day before everything goes live, they’ve been complaining that things ‘suddenly’ don’t work, and it’s turned out that the relevant sections done by this one person have gone horribly wrong, and aren’t actually anywhere even close to completed. In fact, it’s being questioned whether any valid work at all has been done. Everything has turned into a last-minute panic for those sections, and the person has been working all weekend to complete them – as well as working ’til very late tonight.
And it’s been acknowledged that actually, my cynicism was accurate.
So yes, I feel slightly smug. And really rather vindicated. It’s a good feeling.
Don’t take this the wrong way but I’d hate to work with you. Seriously. Not because you were right on this occasion but because “smug” doesn’t help. I’m trying to figure out how to say this gently but…
You raised concerns and everyone thought you were just being cynical.
Either you raised them to the wrong person, or you raised them in the wrong way. Seriously, how much of the project is in jeopardy now, are you relying on that one person (the one who screwed up, right?) to fix things properly? Wouldn’t it have been better to get this addressed early, and get the problem sorted back then, back when you first thought it was going wrong?
I know it’s never that easy, and I know there is probably a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes but.. ick. Smug is not a nice character trait!
Now, arrogance, THERE’S a character trait!
Yeah, in fairness I’d probably hate to work with me too. However, smugness was only visible once I’d gone home – not in the workplace at all.
I raised the concerns to the line manager (and his manager) who both told me that as [Person] had been here for three years, they were sure that what she said was true. Now maybe I did raise it wrongly, but I demonstrated that everyone else’s stuff was regularly checked in to subversion, was visible, testable, blah blah. I raised them to line managers, who pooh-poohed them. Fair enough – their choice.
Is the project in jeopardy? No, not really. It’ll still go live today, but about 2 hours later than planned. The problems have been/ are being fixed, duff sections commented out or removed, that kind of thing.
And I agree, smug ain’t nice. Which is why it wasn’t (and won’t be) shown in the office. I’ve just dealt with the problem, and ‘told you so’ hasn’t passed my lips.
As it is, though, D4D is the only place where I’ll say that I feel somewhat vindicated. I won’t say it in work, or in a work-related site.
So I dunno, isn’t that what a personal blog is kind of supposed to be for? *grin*