Cubicle Cultures
To approve or not to approve? That is the question. HOWEVER…
Every so often, at the development level, we need to get approvals from upper and executive management to perform tasks in the live (PROD) environments. Testing environments are nicknamed “sandboxes” and that’s where the real development and testing work is done. Some companies have several test environments for development, QA testing, and user acceptance testing (UAT). This way there’s checks and balances. HOWEVER, for access to update PROD screens or data, a VP approval is usually needed. Understandably, this is a good thing. Updating live data should be a big no-no. HOWEVER, many of us have jobs to do and denying access holds up progress. In past experiences I’ve had to chase down VPs to get their approval. This ranged from phone calls, emails, and literally walking to their office. Basically intern work and it’s demeaning. Even the interns I’ve had think it’s demeaning and I could care less…the little bastards are going to make more than me when they graduate. If VPs and above don’t have a full and complete understanding of what the change affects they’ll deny it. Find me an executive that has full knowledge of anything their minions do and I still won’t believe it. I can’t count high enough for the number of times I’ve had to slink into someone’s office and ask for permission to do my job. When (or if) approvals are given, we go about our business and do the PROD updates.
HOWEVER, there are multiple teams we have to go to just to get the access for said updates. There’s a security group, change control group (who has to approve the request to security before security actually grants the access), implementation group, etc. that all need to give their blessing after executive approval is in hand. Seriously, there could be upwards of a dozen or more people that can dictate whether or not we do a single screen update. For something that takes about 20 seconds, it can take up to 2 weeks to be told we can do it.
It’s FUBAR!
This all hinges on the whims of others as well. Where I work, we create “tickets”, basically a list of tasks that need to be done by which team is assigned and due date. Due dates are always an estimate of when someone wakes up and does what’s needed. There’s always folks who forget, I get that. But chasing people down to flip a switch can be a PITA. In order to chase folks down to perform their respective tasks, we have what are called “Project Managers”. Yes…they exist for that reason, nothing more in my opinion. They are a rung below interns.
NOTE: There will probably be another blog dedicated to those wonderful “people”. Project Managers, that is (say it in a Foghorn Leghorn voice and laugh your ass off).
All the above is always fodder for conversations in the cube farms. Complaints-a-plenty normally. Some folks have the predictable, “You’ve gotta be shitting me!”, others roll their eyes and quietly conform. I’m part of the former. It’s a great bonding experience because it brings out opinions on how one team can really screw up another and stories of how it’s done where folks were previously employed (the next time I hear, “Well at (insert company name here) we did it differently” I’m going to throw a tantrum complete with rolling around on the floor, spitting oatmeal everywhere, and screaming like my kids used to do). We have a united front of “pissedoffedness” when situations like this arise. To me, what’s great is how so many ideas of how to skirt procedures are vocalized. I’m an “ask for forgiveness before permission” person. Get it done, clean it up afterwards. Others have found loopholes in procedures that bypass, not only approvals, but full on implementation procedures. COOL! Until you get caught…then decidedly un-cool.
I think the whole point is that a single person shouldn’t have that much power to wave their hand over the kingdom and tell us to move forward. It all starts with that. We’re hamstrung without it. I’m not saying that executive management should know every detail of what every person does. HOWEVER, I am saying that she/he/them should trust their people to do the right thing; we’re the ones that pay for it if it goes wrong. We’re also invisible when it goes right…not a bad thing. No one likes bad press especially when it comes to affecting, potentially, millions of customers. Good press really means that the job got done.
Maybe next time I’ll put a task on a ticket for someone to do the hand wave and see if they complete it on time. HOWEVER, like I said, no one likes bad press…especially management so I’m betting they’ll delegate that shit for someone else to answer the approve or not to approve question.
Thanks for reading all of this! If you enjoyed this piece please click the heart below and comment if you wish. I’d love to hear your experiences no matter what they may be. Also, I have two books available on Amazon that I advocate you to buy, Manku and Manku Too. For more about me and what I do, here’s my website.
