Sleep Deprivation
OK... the place I work is moving from one office building in Chicago to another office building and this past weekend my servers were moved. Nothing every goes really well, does it? This was no exception. I'm very tired from trying to hammer out the last of the bugs in the move and missing on some very important sleep. Nothing comes easy, I guess...
At the same time, I have to hold myself back from tagging a few goobers at work. Specifically, in this sleep deprived state when I tell a developer that they are hitting the Test version of my code because I can see the logs it's more than slightly annoying to hear them say that it isn't. I'm not asking for a confirmation here, I've already got my own confirmation by looking at Test and Production. Instead, I'm telling them that it's wrong and I'm getting attitude back?
More importantly, why is it that I'm supporting their users? Yes, I understand that it's because I will and they won't, but that's their problem and my burden. There's something terribly wrong with this situation if I'm supporting their users.
It's all about the Prodigal Son - the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Now I'm not trying to fish for compliments, but when an organization or professionals allows such incredibly poor performance then it breaks an implied contract to those that have worked hard and pulled their weight. The implied contract is we have worked and met your expectations - those expectations are for everyone - not just those that really work hard.
When I see professionals doing less than my 8-year-old and not being held accountable, then I have to think that the expectations were really not meant for anyone (i.e. they wanted to have high expectation, but didn't expect anyone to really achieve them), or they have expectations and then when people put out "average" work, they aren't taken to task about the fact that they missed the expectations by so much.
Now if this were a co-ed softball team out for a game every Saturday afternoon, I'd say that it's no big deal, we're out for the Fun and Sun. But when we're supposed to be professionals at this, it's entirely different. Professionals are supposed to be professional and not get attitudes, or whine, or complain... they are supposed to be good enough at what they do to continue doing it under severe and challening conditions. But what I'm seeing is what I once would have called a bunch of babys.