Re: Set up to Fail

[Peter Gold <peter -at- highsoft -dot- com>]

John:

Look up "A Message to Garcia," on Google. There are some modern spins placed
on this story about a messenger chosen to deliver a message to a general.
Unbeknownst to the messenger, though, was the expectation that he'd be
captured and the message would be believed by the captors, causing them to
lose a battle. However, the dedicated, inspired, devoted messenger got
through, and, well, read the story, and the modern spins, too.

One Google hit notes that "anyone who works for a boss should read this."

Regards,

Peter Gold
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On 5/28/03 12:26 PM, "John Posada" <JPosada -at- book -dot- com> wrote:

> 
> 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?
> 



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