Hot boss, cold boss: This tech pro just had no chance

Communication is an art, one it seems a project leader would possess. But one contract I was working on went south due to disagreements between the customer and our team’s leader. There was good news for me: I got hired by the customer to work on the same project, albeit only for a little while.

A small supplier of custom software had asked for a jack of all trades. I applied and found myself working my way through five interviews with the business leader, who became Boss A. When asked if I could familiarize myself with five technologies while reworking a vintage software system, I confidently answered, “Yes.”

[ For more stories about exasperating IT jobs, check out “10 users IT hates to support” and “7 blowhard bosses bollix up IT.” | Pick up a $50 American Express Gift Cheque if we publish your tech story: Send it to offtherecord@infoworld.com. | Get your weekly dose of workplace shenanigans by following Off the Record on Twitter and subscribing to the anonymous Off the Record newsletter. ]

I found myself reworking a software system for a corporate customer that published law materials. The software system, chosen by the customer for the project, was a complex amalgamation of several hundred files creating a Web interface written in 1995-ish Web technology, patched onto a back-end system dating back to the 1980s. It was legacy software and lacked documentation, a contact person, or a supplier — they’d been out of business for years.

I succeeded in updating that system’s user interfaces, including making JavaScript run properly even when it resided in files that called each other recursively. It became more responsive and user-friendly. And our team wrote data converters to port SGML data, which the customer supplied, into the file structure of the system.

During that time, I communicated with some of the customer’s staff. But all contact with the project leaders went through my boss, whose solid technical expertise was overshadowed by the fact that he couldn’t control his emotions.

That’s one way to sever a contract

One day, Boss A came back from a meeting with the customer, his face purple with rage even several hours later (it was a long drive to the town where the meeting had been held). Sputtering, he explained that during the meeting the customer had requested new features — impossible ones! He told me to write up a report confirming this, which he would pass along.

But I recognized many of the requests as ideas the two of us had discussed when we were brainstorming. We had acquired extensive knowledge of how to make the old system do new tricks, but Boss A had decided not to offer them since he thought they would be too time-consuming and costly. However, with the customer requesting them, it seemed like we could at least offer the option and build in fees to cover our expenses and time. Boss A agreed with me that the features were doable, but he still insisted I write up a report telling the customer they weren’t.

I never learned the customer’s reply. But one day, a few of us were fired because they had canceled our supplier contract on the grounds that they were now consolidating their supplier relationships. There wasn’t much to do but start looking for another job.

The next day, I was leafing through a computer magazine and did a double take when I came across a job advertisement from the same publishing company. The job description didn’t fit my skills entirely, but I applied because it involved technologies I had already worked on for them while employed at the software supplier. Could I simply continue my work? It seemed like a dream opportunity.

I landed an interview, which did not go well. First, the person interviewing me — who was to become Boss B — didn’t seem interested in me as a person, rarely making eye contact or small talk. Another detail that might help explain the strange feeling I got was that, a few days before, an accident had left me with a serious black eye. Many strangers had asked me about it. But, even after a long interview, this person never mentioned it. During the whole encounter I got the feeling I was considered a robot and not a human being.

The final reason I didn’t feel good about the interview was that Boss B asked me about my knowledge in many technologies I’d never heard of before. Can you do this? No. And can you do this? No. It went like that for seemingly 10 minutes, during which she never looked at me, her eyes fixed on her checklist. I figured I wouldn’t get the job.

Let’s try that again

So I was surprised when I got a call saying they wanted me so much I should take all the time I needed to make up my mind. I was pleased, but I thought twice. I had a bad feeling about the work relationship I might have with Boss B. Still, I eventually accepted the job, for lack of alternatives and much peer pressure.

It did not start well. On the first day of work, I followed the directions Boss B had given me but got lost — turned out she’d omitted a few details. Then I found out the team I was assigned to ran SGML data converters, which were worse than those I had constructed for them while at the software supplier. Theirs produced erroneous output, and they had work processes to manually correct them instead of revising the converters or adding software to repair the output. I built on what I’d learned from my previous job to write proposals for improvement and gave them to Boss B, but she ignored them, and I never could seem to find her to ask about them.

Finally, in a team meeting, an opportunity arose, and I asked for her thoughts on my proposals. She didn’t answer, instead shooting me a look that could kill. I didn’t press the matter any further. I later learned that the malfunctioning converters were all her work, based on her academic achievements, and that the corporate hierarchy was a very political environment that had her back. They didn’t think kindly about suggestions for improvement.

Running these data converters left me with plenty of idle time while they did their work. Bored, I happily accepted work from people in other departments, who gave me tasks in the very project work I had done while with the software supplier.

It didn’t keep me from doing my assigned job, but it did get me into trouble. It turned out the other departments had not gotten formal permission from Boss B to give me tasks. Which led to me being fired from her team for not following her orders.

The other side of the story

Before I was fired, however, there was another turn to the twisted tale. I ran into Boss B in the hallway, and she was in a rare talkative mood. Suddenly, she began discussing the meeting with Boss A from the software supplier that had led to the termination of that contract. As she shared more information about that meeting’s true nature, her face distorted with rage, just like Boss A’s had.

The purpose of that meeting had been a sales pitch, to which Boss B had invited Boss A. During the sales pitch, Boss B asked the potential customer to share their ideas for new software features that would make it more usable for them. Her aim, of course, was to gain the customer’s interest and hopefully make a sale.

According to her, Boss A had sabotaged the sales pitch by immediately shooting down the potential customer’s ideas, saying they were impossible to implement and refusing to discuss or explain why. Considering what Boss A had told me, I wondered if he had grasped at all the meeting’s purpose and that a potential new customer was present. Nevertheless, in the meeting Boss B had disagreed with Boss A, and they both jumped into a heated argument right in front of the prospective customer.

Who, not surprisingly, did not buy the software.

Only the fly on the wall knows what really happened, but it seems like a basic lesson: Communicate clearly and control your emotions. It’s just good for business.

Send your own IT tale of managing IT, personal bloopers, supporting users, or dealing with bureaucratic nonsense to offtherecord@infoworld.com. If we publish it, we’ll send you a $50 American Express Gift Cheque.

This story, “Hot boss, cold boss: This tech pro just had no chance,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more crazy-but-true stories in the anonymous Off the Record blog at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.