Set up to Fail

[John Posada <JPosada -at- book -dot- com>]

Had an interesting meeting with my boss yesterday.

As some of you know, I've been working on an ambitious set of documents for
a very large system....you've seen the numbers (1800 stored procs, 4900
tables, 40 servers, etc.)

I have maybe 800 11X17 size pages in each of two docs, 5500 page in another,
etc.

However, after working on it since mid-January, some sections are not
acceptably finished. At the meeting, we outlined what was still weak and
today, he met with the CTO to get me additional resources.  I just got off
my cell phone with the boss.

His statement...and I paraphrase..."The CTO and VP of Engineering knew from
the beginning that you couldn't get it completely done. They knew that
nobody could. Two preceding writers quit without making any progress.
However, they felt that since you are never satisfied with your own stuff,
that you'd push yourself and everyone around you to milk the most that you
could and they knew you wouldn't quit on it."

Now...I have mixed feelings...on one side, I'm flattered that they felt that
way about me, and on the other, kinda upset that they put me in that
position.

Anyone else ever find out that they were in a similar situation and how did
you feel about it?

John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
Barnes&Noble.com
jposada -at- book -dot- com
NY: 212-414-6656
Dayton: 732-438-3372
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream
of things that never were, and ask why not?"
-----Robert Francis Kennedy, 1968 presidential campaign



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