Working Class Blues

I rarely discuss work on this blog. However, after the last two and a half weeks or so, I need to vent.

I've been working a project since last summer/fall. It started as a three-month contract that got extended a couple of times until, right now, I'm working through the end of April. And that is likely to get extended to the end of May or June. This is all great news for our bank account, even if we have to put up with the headache of figuring out taxes for two countries.

The issue came up not quite three weeks ago. A new content guru came back to the project and became my primary resource for editing the 250 page manual I was working on. She is a very good reviewer, overall, and knows the content quite well, which is good. However, she decided with only a few weeks left that she didn't like the manual's standard layout and changed it. I mentioned that this was a pretty significant scope change and asked about the due date. After some hemming and hawing, I learned that the 2/21 due date was not really the due date; the main PM on the project had a built-in "just in case" week and the real due date was 2/28. He wanted me to shoot for the 2/21 date as best I could, but could find it acceptable if I went over a day or two.

She then made more scope changes to the document after another week. I cried foul and mentioned that these scope changes were making it difficult for me to hit that deadline, and I was worrying about the 2/28 deadline. We have to hit that deadline, they said. Do the best you can.

And then, with only a few days left, they decided that I needed to change all of the pictures/graphics in the document to something more like the end-client's devices. I'm a technical writer, not a graphic designer or artist. I mentioned scope change for the third time and got the same Do the best you can response back.

I worked every day from 2/7 through 2/26, including weekends and overtime on week days. The only reason I didn't work on 2/26 was because I was waiting for edits that I thought would arrive and never did. During that time, my content adviser and editor took each weekend off, left early on a number of days, and generally treated our deadline like it didn't matter or wasn't a concern, even though I was constantly being told it was a drop-dead date. This included telling me that she would work this last weekend, but she only answered two emails and only sent me a partial review of the content, and then did not check her email or "finish" her work until the start of her work week. I put finishing into quotes because she just "didn't get to" one entire section and will get to it the next time she's in the office... which is tomorrow, a day AFTER the deadline.

What I dislike about this is that, at this point in the process, I can't do work without her edits. She's the gatekeeper of the knowledge. Yet the PM of the project was holding me to due dates and deadlines without considering his own people's processes and participation requirements. Nor did this PM tell his workers that they needed to work the weekend or overtime in order to help me get the project done (or as close as we could come).

During the entire time I've been working this contract, each person involved has taken at least one vacation. The content guru I'm working with has taken two and has continued to work her "normal" schedule regardless of due dates and pressing needs.

I live by the old adage "improper planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." However, due to conflicting values and direction by the overall PM of the project, they managed to make an emergency on my part with their lackadaisical responses to my needs and to the due dates. Luckily, working much overtime and being a generally conscientious guy, I managed to hit the deadline, as best as I can with missing sections. The sections my content adviser didn't get to are simply being marked in red as "to be determined" for now and we're moving on.

And, for the remaining projects upcoming, I'm going to be less willing to put in a great deal of overtime if my coworkers treat the remaining deadlines in the same manner. If they don't care, why should I? (Okay, that's not true; everyone who knows me knows that I will still do my best to be professional and will still strive to make deadlines. But I'll be thinking it and will likely raise a bigger stink about it going forward.)