To get back to the story - I'd missed the last bit of a meeting (yet again - why can't they plan ahead and tell me when these things will occur so that I can fix my diary before-hand?), and it still hadn't gone through all of the issues, so there was another meeting tentatively created for the morning, and I was free. Before this, however, FO dragged me into a little room to write all over the white board his thoughts, which coincided with mine, continually asking for back-up.
"Am I an idiot, or is this what we want engineering to do?"
If I have to choose only one of the two options ...
I demured my support.
The problem with using arrogance as a tool if it's based on self-belief is that occasionally you become befuddled with doubts, and need the support of those who believe in you. Failing that, there's telling me your troubles.
The meeting came. It didn't start well. I took my customary seat, with Arkel sitting to my left, instead of my right, with the hope that we'd have better luck finishing if he changed position. Tank started setting things up, discovered that he couldn't access the document he needed, and scurried out again to fix things up. Eventually, FO strolled in.
"Where's Gabriel?"
"He's in another meeting."
"F* that! I want him here."
Out he went to grab Gabriel. Sure, there was an undercurrent of engineering scheduling and status involved in the meeting, but unless he didn't trust Tank to convey the minutes to Gabriel, he wasn't an essential element. It even turned out that the other meeting had been canned for the same reasons that FO was going to pull its plug, and Gabriel had taken the opportunity to indulge in his dirty habit.
"I've got someone hunting him down when he comes back," FO said with glee.
Preamble. Catch-up. Gabriel arrives. We start discussing the list of tasks in Tank's document.
Every sentence had FO jumping up with "Why? Why do we have to do this to achieve what we want?"
"Well, because of ...
"How come we have to deal with that?"
"That's just the state of the system as it is."
"Why is it going to take so long?"
"That's how long it will take to do the work - you need these people working on it, and they've got to control several other tasks as well ..."
"It shouldn't take that long!"
Some time ago, I gave up second-guessing engineering estimates. I can question their processes for coming up with the numbers, but they're supposed to be the experts in delivering, so they know what the numbers should look like. When I used to estimate, I used to be pretty accurate, but always conservative. Having done that myself, I won't question when someone gives me likewise conservative answers to a simple question. If it's a complex question, like "What's your best and worst estimate?", then I expect detail. I ahve a few simple rules. Nothing takes less than a day. Anything useful takes more than a week. Anything new and major takes months. It doesn't matter how 'big' it is, things just take time.
"It's only going to cost us that much time and resource because you f*ed up!" he ranted.
Silence.
I should have stepped in there, on principle; but at the time, I almost believed FO. There was something fishy in what was, or how it was, being expressed that I couldn't fathom. FO and Tank may have been talking at cross-purposes over what needed to be done, and it ended up that they were essentially in agreement, but personal attacks are not the way to solve differences.
This was getting us nowhere.
FO eventually calmed down, we found the trigger phrases that cause mutual comprehension - Tank had been calling a spade a shovel so that they didn't get confused, because we still needed spades, and FO and I were concerned that all we had to do was dig a hole, so we didn't need an excavator.
All went relatively swimmingly into agreement.
I went off to visit FO later. I walked into his office and closed the door behind me, which is something I just don't do.
"Uhoh," he said, turning from his computer.
"Are you intentionally trying to make anyone in particular quit?"
"What do you mean?"
"That personal attack on Tank."
"Oh! I've already talked to him and apologised for that."
"Did you talk to anyone else?"
"Huh?"
"What about what other people there were thinking?"
"Good point. I'll have a chat to them. Thanks for that. I appreciate the feedback."
He might appreciate it, but will he act on it? Only time will tell. Sure, he's under a lot of pressure, etc, taking on more responsibility, but he's over-doing it and missing the point of having that responsibility - he has to be responsible to the employees as well as the board.
Meanwhile, I'm interviewing potential receptionist/admin staff. That's a story for another day.
