Chapter 12. The Enemy
The $150,000 mistake, the discovery of critical and unfixable architectural flaw three weeks before shipping, and the Really Bad Hire (aka, weâre being sued).
These are not screwups,[2] these are fuckups, and they arenât about to happenâtheyâre here. Theyâre guaranteed. When you discover them, the air leaves your lungs, the back of your head tingles, and thereâs an odd metallic taste in your mouth. Your mind goes blank except for the crisp mental picture that is a fuckup of your own making.
Initial personal discovery is shocking, but what I want to examine is secondary discovery. This is when your boss learns of the fuckup, and you shouldnât be worried whether thereâs an odd metallic taste in his mouth; you should worry about who heâs about to turn into.
Management Transformations
Ideally, your boss is the levelheaded type, and heâll manage your fuckup cleanly and easily using his years of experience, but fuckups knock people off their game and out of their comfort zone. Fuckups create unusual stress, and stress can mutate normally sane people into unrecognizable caricatures of themselves. Letâs talk about some of them.
The Interrogator
The Interrogatorâs approach is an endless stream of questions: âWhen did the customer first call?â âWho triaged the bug first?â âWhat were the results?â âHow did we proceed from there?â It goes on and on.
Whatâs annoying about the Interrogator is that he actually only wants to ask one questionâTHE ...
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