Difficult Projects
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ouch! looking back I am sure you can say I saw some signs. I have been stressed but never that stressed.
To err is human to really mess up you need a computer
We were all under severe pressure, but everyone absorbs that pressure in a different way. Looking back it at, the engineer who took his life didn't seem to show the stress everyone else was obviously carrying around. I now know that that's a warning sign - when someone internalises severe stress, it can build up to a point where they can't contain it anymore, and something has to give. In that position I know I'll end up crying, screaming (usually back at whoever is dumping on me) or taking it out on some inanimate object (TV remotes do make a satisfying cracking noise when you hurl them at a wall....). He did none of that - just kept taking it until he popped. :(
Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
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BrainiacV wrote:
She said, "Don't."
She say how? (I don't want to use the one sure-fire method to do so. My sister was 20 years older than me, now I'm 9 years older than her.)
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AFAIK none of the projects I've worked on has failed, although that might be a reflection of the fact that most of them were engineering type projects (digital broadcasting, defence, marine navigation etc.) rather than internal line of business systems. The hardest one was undoubtedly the first team I led. We were developing an automatic test system for helicopter avionics, in conjunction with our arch competitor in order to stitch up another competitor. Although it was technically tricky, the worst aspects were political in nature - and the politics went all the way down to the dev teams. Every lunchtime the team leaders were receiving faxes from their opposite numbers stating "please respond by close of play today" - and that was just the start of it. Put a foot wrong and you effectively had the management of both companies on your back. It was horrible, but I survived and learnt a great deal from it - most notably when to stick your neck out and say "No. I don't care what they say - it cannot work this way" (I did, and although it caused a huge row which went on for months I was eventually vindicated) and when to just get on with it as best you can. Others weren't so lucky. The software manager on my site (my immediate boss) had a nervous breakdown amid a festering pile of fantasy Gantt charts and left the project for less stressful pastures, and one of the hardware engineers on the team committed suicide. No matter how stressful a job becomes, nothing should ever come to that.
Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
Yes I agree. Politics is always the problem in Software Development. Too bad the colleges and Uni's don't invest as much time in teaching their studuents how to manage stress, idiot project managers and hostile customers as they do the "best and most perfect" design.
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Unfortunately she died before passing on the secret.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
BrainiacV wrote:
Unfortunately she died
And that's the surefire method that my sister used so I became older than her. I do have an infantile sense of humor that I stubbornly retain despite my wife's objections. Probably a misused method of keeping the mind young.
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BrainiacV wrote:
Unfortunately she died
And that's the surefire method that my sister used so I became older than her. I do have an infantile sense of humor that I stubbornly retain despite my wife's objections. Probably a misused method of keeping the mind young.
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Yeah, today happens to be my birthday and I've been saying fantasy or not, I plan on seeing 125.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
BrainiacV wrote:
I plan on seeing 125.
I'm pleased to say I am under half that age, but not by that much and unfortunately that time is approaching twice as fast. (IE, by next year, I'll have added 2 years to double my age. Of course that's true for everyone.) When I was born the life expectancy was 72 and today it only has increased to 75. The good news is that when you live longer, your personal life expectancy increases as well. So if you make it to 124, you might reach your goal. Of course we both could snuff the candle tomorrow improving everyone else's odds of exceeding 75. You related to that singer that bemoans the fact that we only live a 100 years? Ignoring the fact that only a few of us really reach that age and then go on and prove the singer wrong cause they just keep going, going...
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Yeah, today happens to be my birthday and I've been saying fantasy or not, I plan on seeing 125.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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BrainiacV wrote:
I plan on seeing 125.
I'm pleased to say I am under half that age, but not by that much and unfortunately that time is approaching twice as fast. (IE, by next year, I'll have added 2 years to double my age. Of course that's true for everyone.) When I was born the life expectancy was 72 and today it only has increased to 75. The good news is that when you live longer, your personal life expectancy increases as well. So if you make it to 124, you might reach your goal. Of course we both could snuff the candle tomorrow improving everyone else's odds of exceeding 75. You related to that singer that bemoans the fact that we only live a 100 years? Ignoring the fact that only a few of us really reach that age and then go on and prove the singer wrong cause they just keep going, going...
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Thank you. Now I don't want you running out and getting me any inexpensive gift ;)
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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The project I am working on now is pretty tough. Was wondering about some other projects that others here have worked on that were ultimately successful? This project I am working on involves taking a C# library running on one server type machine, and interfacing it with the Micros ISLs for the Micros POS. It communicates with the C# server library using WCF (which I had not used before). Of course, Micros uses native DLLs so I had to write C++/CLI wrappers for everything else too. In addition, this C# library I wrote has to load an embedded system and put the Micros sales into our web server. It is going to work, as I prototyped it a while ago, but now I am deep in the muck of implementation..... I will get quite a bit of personal satisfaction when this project is working, especially since my company has paid for 2 different implementations of POS software that ultimately did not work and cost a small fortune.
The toughest projects are the ones where I don't agree with the original design and I am given the code to debug. I am forever thinking, I wouldn't have done it like that or If they had done it the way I suggested, we wouldn't have this problem. It is just a huge mental block because I have a biased opinion of the design.