Tossing blame
In a previous article written in Romanian, I wrote about how much I hate it when people can’t admit their mistakes or be responsible for what they did.
It’s very common for developers to say: this previous guy did a lousy job, i can do it better! Heck even I said it a few times. But it rarely is the case…
Drama time
Got a phone call from a very nasty client that I did a project for (android + backend) that didn’t end the contract on really good terms. The guy started the call directly screaming to me that the app stopped working because of me (it’s been a year since I stopped working on that project). What happened, apparently, is that a new guy came in for the backend job, saw what I did and said that he can do it better and started to ‘optimize’ it.
The bad part is that he ‘optimized’ it so well, that the client app stopped working properly and would even crash on rare occasions. He ‘optimized’ it so well that he decided to delete the git repo and start new on bitbucket. (who the fk does that????)
After realizing what he did, the new guy, tossed the blade on the old guy (it’s easy to blame the one who cant defend himself) so the client phoned me obliterating my speaker with his screaming.
I offered him a contract to fix the problem and promised to do it in 2 hours, but got threatened with a lawsuit if I don’t do it for free on the spot (the guy was loosing serious money). I refused to work for free, lawyer contacted me, got into long discussions and nothing happened…
Be fking responsible and…
- If you’ve set a deadline, stick to it no matter what!
- Don’t toss blame! You are not in kindergarten!
- Try to understand why the previous guy did what he did, learn from it and try to walk a mile in his shoes.
- Don’t lie, never lie!
- Have at least one backup of everything you’re doing*.
*I’m have my home on my working laptop, on my ‘for-fun’ PC and on bitbucket/github and i never ever delete anything.
By: Adrian Coman
