Dilbert is a documentary

I've been meaning to change the names I've given people here simply because I think it would improve my writing, but in one case I should do it because calling someone "the well-meaning-but-dumb boss" is becoming less and less accurate. Because he's getting more and more like Dilbert's pointy-haired boss with every day.

There was a meeting three weeks ago at which we set the current schedule for the doomed project. Among other things, we decided we need team members' bosses' bosses to review the document again soon, and the vague, noncommittal feedback we have often received is unhelpful. We wanted every proposed change to be in the form of text ready to use, not just comments saying "this should be stronger" or "a new definition of this would be helpful". Part of the reason for that is deadline pressure; the doomed project has never been leisurely, but sticking to schedule seems even more important right now than it used to. Now, WMBD was in the room and agreed with everyone else about all that. Those ideas might not have been his originally, but I'm completely sure he didn't disagree.

The review happened. J. the substitute tech writer started organizing feedback while I was away and I finished this morning. I would have finished earlier, but one copy didn't get to me until today. (We're still missing one more, in fact, but we had to stop waiting sometime.)

The WMBD boss included eight comments of his own, and not a single one of them was text ready to use. One of them, for example, tentatively suggests creating a table to go into detail about something instead of briefly summarizing it in the text, while another comment simply asks "Isn't this a big loophole?" about a certain requirement. He also had a bunch of updates directly in the text and it looks to me like every one of them is nonsubstantive. Nothing that changes what the document does or even how it does it, just how it looks. Now, I admit that that kind of thing wasn't specifically discussed in the meeting, but given the deadline, it seems obvious to me that any changes should be limited to what's absolutely necessary to keep things simpler.

This is, let's recall, H.'s boss. This is the person in the building who cares the most about the timeline. He agreed that the review should be kept simple and concrete feedback would be helpful, both of which would help the deadline. But apparently he either doesn't know what that meant or thought it doesn't apply to him. Christ, what an asshole.