Okay, so someone asked me about maybe going back to a certain type of project, or maybe even a specific place, I kinda forget the details. But my immediate gut reaction? Nah, I’d pass.
Let me tell you why. It takes me back a few years. I was pretty green, eager, you know? Jumped onto this thing that looked shiny on the outside. Everyone was talking it up.
The Setup
So, I got involved. Put my name down, signed up. The first few days, maybe the first week? Felt okay. Standard stuff. Getting the tools ready, reading the docs they gave me, which were, looking back, kinda thin. Real thin.
We had these kickoff meetings. Lots of big talk. Big promises. Charts going up and to the right. Everyone nodding. I was nodding too, figured they knew best.
Things Get Messy
Then the actual work started. And man, it went sideways fast. What they said we needed to do kept changing. Like, every single day. One morning it’s build feature X, by afternoon, feature X is scrapped, now it’s feature Y, but totally different.
Communication was a joke. You’d ask a question, get three different answers from three different people. Or worse, no answer at all. Just silence. Emails vanished into thin air. Messages marked ‘read’ but never replied to.
I remember pulling some seriously late nights. Not because the work itself was that hard, but because we were constantly redoing things, chasing down answers, trying to make sense of the chaos. It was exhausting. Felt like running in mud.
- Scope creep was insane.
- Requirements were basically scribbled on napkins.
- Nobody seemed to be steering the ship.
The Breaking Point
There was this one time, we worked basically all weekend on this critical piece. Absolutely busted our asses. Monday morning comes, big meeting. We’re ready to show it off. And the main guy, the decision-maker? He just goes, “Oh yeah, we decided to go a different direction on Friday afternoon. Didn’t you get the memo?”
No. No, we did not get the memo. Nobody told us. All that effort, wasted. That was kinda the last straw for me. I stuck it out ’til the end, barely, but I learned my lesson.
So, Yeah… Pass
Fast forward to now. Someone mentions something that smells even remotely similar. Same kind of vague promises, same kinda hype without substance, maybe even some of the same names involved. My brain just instantly flashes back to those late nights, the frustration, the feeling of spinning wheels.
Is it possible it’s different this time? Maybe. Could it be a great opportunity? Perhaps. But based on what I went through? Nah, I’d pass. Peace of mind is worth a lot more. I’d rather stick to things where I know what I’m getting into, where people actually talk to each other, and where my weekend work won’t just get tossed because someone forgot to send an email. Learned that one the hard way.
