Working for Dilbert’s boss

I’m the software QA manager at an enterprise application development company — and all my boss needs is pointy hair and an Etch A Sketch for a computer to be a direct replacement for Dilbert’s boss. A few months ago, he calls me into his office and asks how long a particularly large project will take to run through a complete QA test-fix-and-verify cycle.

After I check with my technical development manager, we ask for three months. Given the sense of urgency I’m getting from my boss, that estimate already assumes 10-hour days and working weekends.

My boss gives us three weeks! I figure this is because some clueless sales guy promised it to the customer without consulting us — just before he took off on a long vacation. My boss, who puts everything through his personal political career filter as to how it will be perceived by top management, is afraid to push back because “it will make us look like we’re trying to get out of work.” (I swear he actually said that.) In other words, he is such a sycophantic toad to his superiors (who, like him, know next to nothing about what my department really does) that he’s perfectly prepared to sacrifice our time and personal lives rather than make a principled stand for product quality and appropriate development methodology.

OK, I’m used to this drill. I make it clear to my boss that if I’m only getting three weeks to test it, the product will inevitably ship with bugs. He doesn’t care. “Just test the parts most people will see,” he says. (I swear he actually said that one as well.) So my team kills itself working 90-hour weeks, trying to give a good hit on all modules, while we’re literally sleeping in our cars and cubes. Amazingly, we actually ship the thing on time. Considering the time crunch and the corners we had to cut to meet the date, the app is in surprisingly good shape.

One week later, my boss discovers a minor cosmetic bug deep in the bowels of the thing. He stomps into my cube and starts screaming at me: “How could you have let this slip through?” he yells. “What’s wrong with your QA procedures?”

When I explain — unapologetically — that it was his sign-off on the three-week date versus the 12 weeks we actually needed that caused us to miss the bug, he snaps, “You have a terrible attitude! Don’t you even feel guilty about letting this bug ship?”

Sigh. Now I’m supposed to feel sorry and guilty that I missed a bug because I was ordered to cut corners on my job — and the exact nature of that job is to find bugs! Unbelievable.

So, last week we get a similar project for another customer. This time, without even consulting me, my boss agrees to a two-week turnaround. His logic? “Well,” he says,” you did it in three weeks before, so I figure you can do it in two weeks if you just work a little overtime.”

Right. At this point, I’m spending all my time looking as busy as I can, smiling a lot, and faxing my resume to as many headhunters as I can find. There’s only so much institutionalized stupidity a person can take in one week, and this place hits that limit by noon on Mondays.