The tales of working on a 25 y.o. startup

A collection of the most stupid behaviors I'm seeing for the past couple years. Management (specially people management) is an art. An art for few people, and I'm convinced it is become rare and rare. Lack of management leads a company to a downward spiral, where it is impossible to keep employees satisfied, impossible to keep the moral up and it is extremely frustrating. Together with lack of transparency, these are the recipes for catastrophic business disasters.

So, starting with the most arrogant stereotype: the Sales Manager. These are probably the most stupid ones. They believe the fact they are capable to sell gives them the right to "boss" you. In a large meeting, the man keep shouting out loud what the project manager needs to do. Wait!!! Wouldn't be the project manager role to tell what each one has to deliver? I mean, how the trust plays here? The man sold the project, fine. Congratulations. He clearly don't have any experience with large delivery projects and still keeping bossing and telling what the others, including the customer, what to do? Give me a break. Get out of my way.

The second most one. The Project Manager. Why the hell someone hire a non-technical person to deal with a highly technical matter? The lady, in this case, can't freak spell computer. What she's doing there? Do I need to pay six figure salary for a lady that manages a stupid spreadsheet? OK. Let's say, the project has paid off. Fine, fair enough. So why don't she focus on freaking managing the spreadsheet? You provide a feedback and there's always an answer pointing you to a peer because she cannot acknowledge the fact that what has been done or the way on how it is being conducted is wrong. Project Management 101: Documentation. How the hell would you organize a large project documentation? Nooooooo!!!! Mr. Sales man and Ms. Project management. This is not on-demand!!! This got to be structured, dude! It's not just a deliverable, it is important for us, otherwise you will loose continuity down the road. And you, Mr. super duper Sales man, will loose money. Wake up please.

The Service director. This is the sort of guy that shows up trying to establish the order! His 40 years of experience as VP of whatever freaking position gives him the right to tell something he barely knows what it is. Of course, he will get brown noosed by the other two characters mentioned above, and with a puffed chest will spell crap out the entire team. His arrogance and hyprocrisy is such that sometimes you even get confused wondering if it is worth paying attention. "Ok people. Let me tell you how this works..." Really? What was the latest time you've got your hands in a real project? Things changes, Methodology changes. Technology changes. Asking for a serialized set of events may be no longer the answer. You got to understand the need of empowering your team, providing chance to each one contribute, rather than spewing out a bunch of crap and finishing your talk saying "OK. I got to jump in another meeting. Please Ms. Prj Manager, organize a meeting with these folks and get it all serialized on your spreadsheet. Send me an email with a copy, in PDF please, so I can read on my phone while I'm traveling around". Then, Ms Project manager start chasing everyone requesting an answer "I need a date. Give me a date. I don't really care about what crap you will deliver because I don't even know what we sell, but please give me a date". And after all, everyone lost energy and didn't move one centimeter. In fact we lost time on this stupid meetings, lost energy and ended up with a longer backlog! What the hell?! Is this everywhere or just the universe conjuring against me?

All I need is good cup of coffee, piece of mind, be patient and let it go... Better times will come...