'I never offered any solutions to that company again': Egotistical boss overrules software developer's plan with their own, leading to their quiet quitting

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Nov 11, 2023 7:00 AM EST

Sometimes, getting too good of results will only prove to your boss that you're a threat to them and will earn you the honor of being the target of their ire and infantile rage as, rather than up their own game, they try to politically hamstring you in order to prove their superiority. After all, whenever their ego is involved, you can trust someone to make an irrational decision. 

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  • While their boss was away on leave, this software developer was asked to provide a design change in their stead and delivered by using their own time and underutilized skills to produce an exceptional design document that delivered far more than anything the company had been using. But, when their boss returned from vacation, they were furious and insisted on creating a new plan themselves, which the developer was forced to implement despite knowing that it was inferior and doomed to fail. 

  • 01
    Posted by u/GreenAlien10 15 hours ago Software developer did what I was told. MOC I worked at a pipeline company that supported hundreds of clients. Part of the mission was gathering information from internal sources and create client specific reports which were required to be available at the start of their business day
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 02
    by web. Once, when the site's team lead was on vacation, the off-site manager asked me to provide a design change which included providing downloadable PDF reports as well as several other changes. Up to this point, this company had not been utilizing my software engineering skills, I was just maintaining their existing software product as a programmer. I was excited to show them
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 03
    what I was truly capable of producing. I put in over 60 hours that week researching the requirements, the customer usage patterns, hardware resources required, development plan, including staged implementation. All that's needed for creating a great design document. And it was a great design document!
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 04
    When the site team-lead returned from vacation, he went ballistic claiming that the design was trash and totally useless. He then sketched out a plan that poorly covered about 25% of the requirements and which didn't consider hardware usage and availability. My current guess is that he felt threatened by my abilities.
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 05
    But I was told to implement team lead's plan as he documented it. So, I did what I was told. While my research indicated that less than 5% of the clients bothered to review the daily reports unless they were tracking down a specific problem. Time to create each report was 10-20 seconds. So, part of my plan was to create the
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 06
    customer's PDF report files as requested during the business day when the computer workload was lite. And once they downloaded the PDF, delete that PDF from disk. The team-lead's replacement design required the PDFs to be created for all clients every night. He also failed to add the cleanup process, leaving the PDF files on disk.
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 07
    You can see where this is going. It added a massive amount of computer to the nightly processing, delaying the finish of the daily processing. And it took a couple of months to fill up the hard drive. But the team lead said my design was trash and I should do what I was told. I never offered any solutions to that company again. I
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 08
    just did what I was told. When the hard drive fills up, not my problem. If the nightly processing could not be completed in time, not my problem. Now adays, we would call this "Quite Quit". edit: "quiet quiet"as several people have pointed out to me! :)
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 09
    Gold-Carpenter7616 14 hr. ago Rightfully so. Sad that you never got to use your skills. I hope you have a better job now! Vote Reply Share GreenAlien10 OP 13 hr. ago Vote . I did. I moved into a much better position. Thanks for asking. Reply Share ●●●
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 10
    StuckToPcPleaseHelp Good job! When no one's listening this is what you should do. Just one thing, do you have written trace of him telling you to follow his specs? Just to be sure you are covered. 14 hr. ago I started doing the same thing with my boss, it's always a pleasure to see a problem rise
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 11
    up when I predicted it months in advance and telling him "I told you" Do you want to reduce "development time" by blindly accepting the juniors merge requests? No problemo Do you want to cut out this "useless functions" that the customer will surely ask after the first release? Aye aye matey! Again, good job! Vote Reply Share
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 12
    RedditAdminAreMorons 14 hr. ago • edited 13 hr. ago This is why I always kept anything I made in my own file away from the normal spots anyone would think to check, for when it turned out I was right and had a higher up ask for something be fixed directly down to us (as opposed to
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 13
    following the chain, never a good sign when they do that) I could push out the "solution" in about thirty seconds. The accompanying explanation on how I got it to them so quickly was always fun, especially if they notice the dates of the files and documentation. Vote Reply Share
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 14
    klingers 12 hr. ago I've officially stopped asking "are you sure" and graduated to "sure, okay." after 15 years working for public servants paid twice what I am. If they don't want to all get in a room together and work out a set of high level functional requirements before they ask for something, that's a them- problem.
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 15
    Apparently not knowing what the you actually want is called "agile" now, according to one of my managers. Who am I to disagree? Vote Reply Share
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 16
    Oni-oji 14 hr. ago I did something similar. Generating the custom reports were very load intensive, so we held the custom report for a few days after it was downloaded because for some reason the clients would often download them and delete them right away. Don't ask me why. Vote Reply Share ●●●
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 17
    Techn0ght 13 hr. ago ● That's not quiet quit, that's breaking an employee. They had someone willing to stretch their limits, and they let fear get in the way. Vote Reply Share ●●●
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 18
    HuggeBraende 13 hr. ago ● The upside is that you have proven to yourself you have the skills needed to do the job very well. Use this experience in the interview for your next job. Reply Share Vote ●●●
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 19
    asp174 13 hr. ago ● When the hard drive fills up, not my problem. If the nightly processing could not be completed in time, not my problem. Well, did they fill up? This is but a hint of maybe-fallout. Please drown us in fallout gore. Vote Reply Share ●●●
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 20
    GreenAlien10 OP 13 hr. ago Yes they filled up. And the team lead blamed me. But by then I cared little about what was going on. Reply Share Vote
    via u/GreenAlien10
  • 21
    SubversiveInterloper 13 hr. ago He sounds like a Dunning Kruger halfwit who's more interested in looking good than in success of the project. They often kiss and weasel their way into management slots. I won't work for or with people like that any longer. Vote Reply Share
    via u/GreenAlien10

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