I was talking to my good friend Tennessee again today at lunch, and we started talking about disaster projects that we've both been involved in at the jobs we've had. It's funny some of the things a project manager will do to try and make something work. It's almost like the project is started for the good of the business, but then takes on a life of it's own and must be finished no matter what the damage to the business. It's really like a child growing up to be a shooter in a bell tower. Something went horribly wrong - even with the best of intentions.
There have been books written about this problem... degrees handed out on the study of it... and millions and millions of dollars wasted because of it. But what this lead to in our conversation was the realization that many people leave a job not because of the day-to-day stuff, but because of one of these Death-March Projects.
You're pretty happy in the job, things are going pretty well - ups and downs, just like everything else, and then comes the Death-March. You start working on it - maybe not yet realizing it will become horrific, maybe it hasn't yet gotten to that point, but some point along the way it becomes that, and you start telling yourself "Hey, this can't last forever, it's going to get better." But it never does.
You go one like this for months... each week saying "Hey, it's gone on this long, it can't take too much longer", and yet each time you have a status meeting, you realize that it isn't getting any better. The specs change... or you find other dependencies... or someone says this needs to be done as well. All these things are reasonable, but it's the accumulation of these on a single project that is a killer.
Then you start to think it's never going to end. You get depressed about coming to work, so you put forth less effort, and this makes things take even longer. Pretty soon you try to think of things to do to keep from doing the Killer Project. But it's coming back to ge you... you can't run away.
Then you start to think that the only way you'll be free of this is to leave. You find it's a happy thought. You actually look forward to it. You interview and you're gone. Free at last, thank goodness!
I wonder why management doesn't realize all this? I'm sure they remember this, but they seem to forget it, or be oblivious to it once they get the nice office. Seems silly, really. But that's why Dilbert is so funny.