Permie surrealism

[Mich the Tester]

Here's a transcript of a real life conversation I had with a permie development team lead this afternoon;

Permie Team Lead; 'Hey Mich, I see that your test team haven't raised a lot of issues about the interfaces we developed'

Mich the Tester; 'That's right, but the 7 issues they've raised are test blocking issues, meaning that the rest of the functionality on a particular interface can't be tested because the issue prevents the interface from working at all'

PTL; 'I'm surprised because I expected much more issues'

MTT; 'how many issues did you expect?'

PTL; 'well about 250 or so, but don't take it as a personal attack'

MTT; 'I won't, but on what do you base that number?'

PTL; 'our development strategy'

MTT; 'what do you mean?'

PTL; 'well we built the interfaces in a hurry'

MTT; 'let me turn the question around, but don't take it personally; if you expected 250 issues, why did you deliver the software?'

PTL; 'because the board of directors gave me an unrealistic deadline'

MTT; 'and you didn't tell them their deadline was unrealistic?'

PTL; 'I did, but the problem is I need to prove that to them now and I need many more issues to prove that I was right about the deadline!'

MTT; 'are you suggesting that this is MY problem?'

PTL; 'not as such no'

MTT; 'good, then we agree that this is not my problem'

PTL; 'erm, yes' (walks off in a huff muttering 'bloody overpaid contractors etc'

Now then, sometimes I have moments of self doubt and start to think I'm the mad one. But then I snap back into a quasi rational mode and think that permies live in some off-parallel universe where the laws of nature are just a bit skewed, rather like a painting by Dali or Matisse.

Are they really all this mad?

[swamp]

Does he sign your timesheets?

[Mich the Tester]

Does he sign your timesheets?

no

[RichardCranium]

I can see where the PTL is coming from. But why they got in a huff I cannot imagine. You're doing them a favour.

I suspect the huff was because you are unable to access the other 240+ errors yet.

[swamp]

Does he sign your timesheets?

no

smile and think of the money

[Zippy]

I can see where the PTL is coming from. But why they got in a huff I cannot imagine. You're doing them a favour.

I suspect the huff was because you are unable to access the other 240+ errors yet.

If the directors are too thick to accept the estimates of the people they pay to develop the interfaces, they are going to be too thick to grasp that blocking issues are as bad as it gets. Only 7 errors - great - we were expecting 250.

Had that stupid f-ing conversation. Utterly pointless

[dozer]

250 you say? you can do a lot of invoicing retesting all of them, good times

[mace]

If you find 250 errors, you'll upset some of the developers plus the CIO. If you stick with 7, you upset the technical architect. I'd stick with 7.

[Not So Wise]

PTL; 'because the board of directors gave me an unrealistic deadline'

MTT; 'and you didn't tell them their deadline was unrealistic?'

PTL; 'I did, but the problem is I need to prove that to them now and I need many more issues to prove that I was right about the deadline!'

Response at this point should have been:
'Unfortunatly you did such a bad/great job we cannot access your other 243 errors because the first 7 are so big'

[d000hg]

"Forget the number 7. The software is so broken we can't get far enough to test anything."

I'm not sure what the permie did wrong. He told the higher-up people the deadline was unrealistic and now wants to give them the kind of evidence he thinks they'll understand - a big number of errors.
The whole "Well, as long as it's not my problem I don't give a crap" response puts Mich in the wrong unless I missed something.