Relationships Really are Built on Trust and Honesty
I know it sounds silly. It really does. But relationships really are built on trust and honesty. There's no other way. OK, sure... healthy relationships. I've been struggling with something for a few days, and it's come to a head this morning and it's got me a little concerned. The situation is this: the new group I'm in is meant to develop applications and systems quickly. In order to do this, we are meant to own every aspect of the system - including production operation and support for at least six months. In order to achieve this we are specifically not meant to be slowed down by the traditional QA and deployment system.
After we have been in production for the necessary time, then it'll be up to us to decide what to transition to other groups in the Shop - and then work towards those goals. But certainly not to make those kinds of plans early in the game.
The catch is that this group is a "do or die" existence. I'm either treated well or I'm out. There is no in-between. So, the group has to be able to control their own destiny, and not be stuck with rules and conditions that would make it easy for a person with a grudge to slow the progress down enough to make it more likely the "die" comes about.
So this morning I'm looking at a 109 point list of what needs to be done for production status on the project I'm working on. Interestingly, this shouldn't be possible in the scheme presented to me, but I'm willing to be flexible - to a point. The problem with the list is that it's riddled with incomplete requirements and based on a system that is so horribly flawed that my system had to be written to replace it.
Oh... and did I mention that the guy creating the list is the manager of the legacy system that was so bad off that it couldn't be saved? Yeah... he's got no axe to grind... Not.
So I'm sitting here thinking "Hey... this wasn't supposed to happen!" and feeling like I've been hung out to dry. Would I have signed up for this group if I knew that anyone with a grudge could do exactly what I warned might happen? Nope. Not a chance. Some might say I should have known better, but I trusted the people telling me this. It's feeling very much like I'm getting the shaft.
Yeah... this is not a nice feeling at all.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what I'm going to do about it. Confrontation is not really a great idea, and doing nothing could put me in a situation that I'm looking for a new job in six months. Very uncomfortable.