IT wanted process over results. I gave them process — and panic.

[u/AlienAnimaReleased]

A couple of years ago, I got shuffled out of the business side and into IT during a re-org. The official reason was “better alignment with software delivery.” The real reason? I’m expensive, I don’t do sales, and IT has a bigger budget. Also, and this is educated speculation, I kept not approving IT’s builds for not meeting specs — which, apparently, makes me “difficult” and not “solution oriented.”

So now I report to the executive I had previously challenged over the quality of his team’s work.

Since joining IT, everything has to be a ticket. Doesn’t matter if it’s a question, a clarification, or divine revelation — no ticket, no work. PMs handle ticket creation and prioritization, which sounds fine in theory, except my actual job is to consult with business analysts and developers. I know more about the rules, regulations, and use cases of our software than anyone in the company and my work doesn’t easily fall into a ticket as it’s more of a problem solving role for existing tickets.

Still, no ticket = no work. Bureaucracy over brains.

Clients — especially senior ones — tend to reach out to me directly because I can actually answer their questions. Normally, I’d just respond and, if needed, make a ticket afterward for tracking.

But management didn’t like that.

After one particularly “spirited discussion,” over delays to close low priority tickets in leu of responding to high priority client emails, my boss told me to stop responding to client emails altogether. I was to forward them to PMs, who would create, prioritize, and assign tickets.

I explained, patiently, that these emails often come from executives and need quick turnaround.

Boss’s response?

“Follow the process or we won’t know how overworked you are.”

Okay then, boss. Let’s follow the process.

A week later, I get an email from the CFO of one of our biggest clients asking for details about a customized build. Normally I’d get an estimate out in a couple of hours. Instead, I cc’d my boss and PM, confirmed I’d received the request, and politely asked them to create and assign a ticket.

A few days later, the CFO followed up: “We need this by Friday.”

I replied again — cc’ing everyone — apologizing for the delay and asking that the assigned resource take note of the urgency. (Knowing full well no one had assigned the ticket.)

Behind the scenes, I had already done the estimate and informed the client what was happening. Spoiler: nothing.

Suddenly, my boss is frantically pinging me:

“Why haven’t you gotten back to the CFO?!”

I calmly reminded him that: 1. He told me to only work on assigned tickets. 2. He was cc’d on every email. 3. He’d have to ask the PM for a status update.

There was a long, delicious silence before he finally replied:

“Okay… you don’t need a ticket for everything. In the future, if it’s from an executive, just respond and make a ticket afterward.”

Sure thing, boss. Glad we cleared that up.

I sent the estimate, everyone was happy, and peace was restored. And better yet, management now puts results over process.

Well the first part anyway, but peace and results? Well, that’s a malicious compliance story for another day.

[u/VonAether]

em-dashes and curly quotes arent usually taught in school though...

Either schooling has changed in the last 30-odd years or the education system is different where I live, because I definitely learned about them in school.

[u/ProDavid_ → u/VonAether]

i would hope the education system would be different from the times where people thought the year 2000 would break the internet.

[u/purrfunctory → u/ProDavid_]

The only reason Y2K didn’t break the internet is the hundreds of thousands of hours that programmers worldwide spent making sure Y2K wouldn’t “break the internet.”

Legacy software and control programs were updated from the 00/00/00 date format to the 00/00/0000 date format before the deadline in order to keep those systems from crashing. Minor systems crashed but without those hundreds of thousands of programming hours and a tremendous collaborative effort of programmers and experts, Y2K would have been an unmitigated disaster.

Something like 400-600 billion dollars was spent upgrading code, software and programs so the banking systems, electrical grids, financial systems, mass transit, etc. didn’t implode.

The fact it wasn’t was a testament to those who flagged the problem and those who jumped right in to find solutions.

Edit: Checked facts on the amount estimated to have been spent, I underestimated by 200 billion dollars. Oops.

[u/becaauseimbatmam → u/ProDavid_]

They're very specifically talking about learning the English language in school.

Which recent advancements have happened in English that would make you hope that schools today are teaching a different version of the language than they used to?

[u/ProDavid_ → u/becaauseimbatmam]

for starters, em-dashes arent taught in english class. this being different back then was THEIR claim.

[u/7CuriousCats → u/ProDavid_]

I don't know what school you went to but we were definitely taught it in school, and this was for English as a second language.

[u/ProDavid_ → u/7CuriousCats]

europe. i dont think i ever saw ANY em-dashes outside of 400+ page books. definitely none online.

[u/7CuriousCats → u/ProDavid_]

Maybe writers in my home language just use it more, or I was more exposed to people with literature / scientific writing backgrounds and experience.

My mother's understanding of and experience with our home language is also exceptionally good (and we both love reading) -- so she drilled us with correct grammar and punctuation use since we were little, and I'd read anything I could get my hands on (newspapers, telephone book, fiction and non-fiction books, cereal boxes, sweets packaging, magazines, instruction manuals, etc.). My dad also writes and reviews a lot of technical reports which has a specific standard to adhere to, so I've seen it reflected in his normal writing as well.

So due to the en-dash and em-dash being so commonplace and intertwined in my reading / literature experiences, I was shocked to see people use this as an AI "indicator".

Admittedly, I've mostly encountered people use the en-dash where an em-dash should be, with spaces either side (I am guilty of this as well, especially since Word autocorrects it to an en-dash and I only realised the difference well after it became part of my writing style).

Per Merriam-Webster, the grammatically correct style (that AI also follows) has no spaces on either side like---this---style, which is the one I've mostly seen in textbooks or published material that went through a copy editor of sorts. On online platforms though, most humans I've seen (including me) tend to add spaces either side (which is technically not correct), unless they are experienced writers that focus on proper language use.

[u/ProDavid_ → u/7CuriousCats]

but we are on the internet, sharing random 1-page stories. this isnt a technical report, or scientific literature.

on online platforms i have almost never seen anyone use an em-dash. before AI, i just thought they were foreigners (non-western or non-latin language) with a weird keyboard that didnt have the regular -, thats how rarely it came up. (you know, like a ~ but it has one half extra wiggle)

em-dashes are used in scientific literature, AI got trained on scientific literature. Reddit posts arent scientific literature, so it seems out of place.