Just out of a meeting discussing a painful modification to two systems. It's painful mainly because the company is using one of the systems to do something it wasn't designed for, and it's the kind of problem experienced by every large company (and most small ones) I've worked in. At the end of the meeting, I asked the business person who has been with the company longest why we were using the system to do something it wasn't intended to do and was told "Because we're !*%#, and that's what we do."
Now, you would think that when so much money is on the line, somebody's head would be on the chopping block for having made the decision to use the product in the first place. Concievably, you could trace things back to some decision made two or three years ago, and find out who was the force behind such a disasterous decision. However, once again, the spectre of outsourcing raises its ugly head. When asked "why did we do this?" the answer inevitably ends up being, "Well, this isn't how we specified for it to be done. [That other company] just implemented it this way." To which my question would be, "Who signed off on the work received from that company?"
Of course, it's all a moot point, because the company ultimately answers to the shareholders, who aren't interested in such ins and outs. The shareholders just want to know how we're going to make money in the next quarter, and how many expensive employees we have.
2 comments:
Systems, software, will always be used wrongly. Or, take the other stand: Software will always suck. In fact, if users are willing to admit it sucks, it means they are using it so much (or at least, enough) to admit it able to dent their life.
It's a law of nature, or well, IT - software sucks. That is not to say we, you shouldn't care anymore. IT professionals should simply surrender and accept that there is a huge mess out there that needs constant solving or sometimes handholding. We should always strive to improve what is there, but never assume we are so unique to achieve a final solution.
[off soapbox]
I'm sorry but that simply doesn't justify the level of incompetence and lack of care that I have experienced in many companies.
There is a huge spectrum between achieving a "final solution" and "a huge mess." There is no excuse for constantly ending up at the bottom end of that spectrum.
In this case, the people paying for the system (this company's clients) are suffering from poor service, but the company continues to climb the stock market ladder because they outsource and bring in contractors (e.g. me) instead of hiring.
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