A full bladder and the sound of running water.
Seriously though, an email saying just how great the last release of our software was and how a record low number of bugs have been reported in the field despite the fact that this release involved a monstrous rewrite of three critical program modules and how the 140 systems already purchased and installed make this the most successful incremental release in the history of the product.
That pisses me off. That makes me want to go up to the Pres and walk him through the base logic involved here and ask him just what the hell he was smoking when he decided to eliminate the Quality Assurance position for our product.
I can't do that though. His goons would pound me.
(Okay, he doesn't really have any goons. That I know of. I still can't do it though because I would not be able to hold my temper in and I've still got a paycheck here for the indeterminate future. Also, our Product Architect has already done that with the result that QA is being eliminated. If I tried it he'd probably figure it a good idea to whack all of Development.)
It's good to know you can still earn an MBA these days despite having no earthly notion of how cause and effect work. Jaysus.
I know you like most of the folks you work with there, but what about El Presidente? Did he ever give off signs of being this clueless before, or is this a new thing?
Jim it would seem to me you actually have very little to lose by pointing out to el Presidente exactly the value of contribution to this project. It's not like they can fire you.
Ilyka - Generally speaking he's a sober and responsible pilot, which makes this particular decision very confusing. Best guess is the force for the change is coming from sales/marketing - "We need MORE product! We can't sell this as it is!"
Simon - Agreed and I'm working that speech up right now with a bit of partisan help.