The above provided the means to reveal a truth about a situation in my career in 2010. One of the reasons I left that employer was due to my frustration with a Project Lead not keeping his word. Seeing Jack's statement, with the powerful second sentence Therefore, ... walk has just opened my eyes to what I was dealing with at the time.
Here's what happened.
I went to a meeting on a Monday to review a user interface. The user interface was to have all user actions on a right-click menu instead of a row of action buttons, as was common in most of the systems that company sold. I remember arguing the point that the user should not have to discover functionality with the Project Lead. The Project Lead countered with the fact that when you look at Windows Explorer, all the available user actions are not buttons. I conceded that but since there were a small number of user actions - let's say 5 - it made sense (to me) to have those buttons in a row on the screen. After much debate, the Project Lead agreed - buttons would be added to the screen.
The following week, I went to another meeting to review a user interface. The Project Lead was the same person, but he was not at the meeting because he was travelling. The screenshot in the specifications document we were reviewing showed a screen very similar to what had been discussed in the meeting the week before and, like the week before, there were no buttons across the bottom. Like the week before, I said, "Shouldn't we have buttons on the screen?" The person running the meeting replied, "No. The Project Lead said we were not going to have buttons on the screen." End of discussion.
From my perspective, we had taken a step backwards from what we had just agreed upon the week before. It'd be like if you negotiate with someone that they are going to accept Terms A, B, and C. The other person agrees to those terms. When you meet the next week to finalize the deal, the person says, "No, I don't accept Terms A, B, and C." It felt like the Project Lead was going back on his word. From a professional perspective, it felt like my opinion didn't matter if the Project Lead wanted to change his mind. From a personal perspective, I had always considered the Project Lead a decent fellow. I had never experienced him going back on his word to me, though I know in other matters in his life outside work, he had done so to others, such as his first wife, but this was really the first time I had been told one thing only to be told that that one thing was invalid the next week.
Looking back at that situation with the knowledge I've gained over the last 8ish years, I know what I would do or say differently to that Project Lead might not have changed his mind, but I would have made my case more strongly with evidence (screenshots of other systems) in an email. At the time, I let it become just another reason on a list of reasons to Therefore, ... walk.
No comments:
Post a Comment