You ever get a crap assignment at work, and...
 

....it turns out WAY worse than you thought?

I got whored out by my company to train some systems engineers who work for WA state. Great group of guys, but everything else......

Materials = crap.
Facilities = crap.
Hardware = UBER crap.
130 mile commute each day = crap.

I'm holding this puppy together with duct tape.

Friday, where are you baby?

yeah sux out loud doesn't it? I have 30+ years in QC/QA/Regulatory Affairs and Pharm Reg Compliance...so what did they give the old guy? Import Compliance! I'm a pharking shipping clerk basically. Come on retirement.

Fek yeah, I'm with ya.

Got brought in on a project recently and immediately started noticing problems... optimistic timelines, total lack of understanding of technical limitations, underbudgeted. I raise red flags but it's obvious no-one wants to hear it, and I don't necessarily want to be painted as the "can't do" guy or chicken little.

I'm just making sure all my concerns are captured in emails instead of just being glossed over on the phone. The project manager has a rep for finding scapegoats when the cookie crumbles.

It's been 8 weeks of this schyte, and I think it's gonna blow in the next couple days. Milestones either aren't being met, and some are being checked off half-done. "launch" is supposed to be next Thursday. She's already getting folks to do pretty crazy OT "off the books". Luckily, I had been warned ahead of time and have been very careful, but man... what a way to spend a few weeks.

Yep, looking forward to Friday, but next Friday will be even better... when this project is either over, or blown all across the company in little bits, with OT timesheets and unmet timelines scatterred everywhere.

Trade you... got sent to Africa. Would have loved a 130 mile commute! :)

Hang in there buddy, and thank your stars that you're not one of the WA State guys who will use that hardware/facility/Uber Crap until you retire.

At least you commute in a 911 or Boxster...not all bad, right?

It gets worse. As if being a Democrat isn't bad enough, Bush is in office and he cannot even go to his favorite porsch website without being pummeled by a certain unnamed Republican.

Joe

Where exactly in Africa (its a big place as you know)? If you come down south (Joburg) pm me I'll buy you a beer.

I feel for you. I took a job in January that I knew was going to be crap and no pay increase...because the company needed someone to fix the problems.

THe only good side is I am making some very good changes around the company...I'm still swimming in $hit!

BTDT, I've found two ways to handle it that have proven to work very well. I don't approve of these tactics ordinarily, but someone dumped a no-win situation on you and set you up to fail. That calls for drastic measures.

First, delegation is your friend. Dump as much responsibility on unsuspecting dupes as you can. First and second year engineers are easy marks. If you can drag in two or three interns you are on easy street.
Second, build a kingdom. You need resources? Go get them. you need people, offices, meeting rooms, lunches, outside contractors, consultants, etc.
You need to "borrow" as many people as you can, just get them assigned to you as a temporary assignment.
Make darn sure you focus on the org chart and big picture, don't get tied down in the details.
Turn this project into the biggest, most expensive, and resource consuming cluster _uck you can but always focus on the big picture and the presentation. Glossy covered books, manuals, websites, whatever you can do to make it appear to be a world class process.

It will drive your direct supervisors crazy and they will try to figure out how to get you off that project without drawing any attention to it, but you will impress the heck out of the people above your supervisor one or two levels who don't have a clue what is really going on.

You will eventually be pulled off the nightmare project and will get a better assignment. Sometimes they will create one just for you.

This is very risky but if you know how to play the game you will come out ahead.
One other thing, be prepared to change jobs in 4 or 5 years, if you stay at one place too long eventually it will come back to haunt you ;)

Yes this is a bit of tongue-in-cheek but there is also some truth in it.