I was reminiscing the other day about my old workplace, and recalled a gem that I thought I'd share.
So one of my coworkers was tasked with setting up a new product which sits between and integrates data among three other systems. He comes in, describes the scope of the project, because I worked on a similar project before. "How long," he says, "do you think this should take?"
I think about it, since this guy isn't very good at project management, and lay out the various steps we'll need to do. The product should handle our needs, but we'll need to configure four systems, test them, and deploy. Overall, my estimate is around six to eight weeks, barring any unforseen complications in testing.
"Yeah, well, the hardware we need should arrive on Tuesday, and I told the CEO we'd demo this for the executives on Friday, and move it into production next week."
At which point the following three thoughts popped into my head:
1. He's screwed.
2. Oh God, did he say "we"?
3. We're screwed.
The scary thing was, even after the debacle that this became (it took about five weeks, by the way) this guy was not only kept around, but promoted. I guess the CEO liked how his time estimates were always so much shorter than anyone else's. I, meanwhile, left to pursue greener pastures elsewhere.