When outsourcing goes bad, part 13 of 16

We are the best people to help him, so why doesn't he want our help?

Jul 10, 2024

The next day the crew from headquarters had all gone home to Atlanta, but the team in Boston was still stuck in meetings from 10 AM to 2 PM. A bit after 2 PM, Emory came by and asked if I'd had lunch, and since I'd actually been waiting for them to get out of meetings, I suggested we grab a few people and go. But he wanted to talk to me one-on-one, so went out onto the street and walked down towards his favorite sandwich shop.

Emory: So, tell me about our new "Enterprise Software Architect." What did you learn from him?
Lawrence: I never met him. I didn't even know he was in Boston.
Emory: But I saw you talking to him.
Lawrence: The new Software Architect? No, I never met him. No one introduced us.
Emory: But you had a long conversation with him.
Lawrence: When?
Emory: Last night. At the restaurant.
Lawrence: At the restaurant?
Emory: He was the guy sitting to your right.
Lawrence: HE WAS THE GUY SITTING TO MY RIGHT?
Emory: Yes.
Lawrence: ARE YOU JOKING WITH ME?
Emory: No. Tell me what you talked about.
Lawrence: Whiskey.
Emory: Whiskey? Do you mean the PHP CLI tool called Whiskey? Did you tell him we already use Ansible? Does he want us to switch over to a PHP-based devops architecture?
Lawrence: No, no, I mean whiskey as in the stuff you drink to get drunk which is what I want to do now that I know that guy is our new Architect.
Emory: You talked about whiskey?
Lawrence: He had a whole speech about how sometimes the top shelf stuff was disappointing but sometimes the mid-shelf stuff was full of pleasant surprises.
Emory: Why did you talk about whiskey?
Lawrence: I thought he was some sales guy. I asked him what he did at AndersonRiskAssessment and all he said was "I help Arwin."
Emory: Why would he hide his role from you?
Lawrence: I don't know, but generally when people do that it's for one of two reasons: either they think you're stupid or they're worried you're smart. I don't know the answer so I'm just going to assume he was worried that I'm smart.

We got to the sandwich shop and, since the weather was nice, we sat at a table outside. The waitress came by and we gave our order.

Lawrence: Listen, I've got some bad news. Last night in the parking lot, I overheard Arwin giving Gujarat a hard time about story points. That idea that every software developer needs to do 10 story points every week? That's coming straight from Arwin.
Emory: Damn. I was worried about that.
Lawrence: You didn't know?
Emory: I suspected it but I didn't know for sure.
Lawrence: It's a terrible system of incentives and it's coming straight from the CTO.
Emory: Maybe I can get Lucy to talk to him? Maybe she can help him understand how much the individual emphasis undermines team work?
Lawrence: I'm fairly sure that Arwin wants Lucy to quit.
Emory: Why do you say that?
Lawrence: Well, for one thing, he gave her some terrible, irrational advice, that she'd be crazy to follow. Like, career-damaging advice, about personalizing her criticism of DevModeMax.
Emory: Why would Arwin want Lucy to quit?
Lawrence: I don't know.
Emory: You realize that Lucy has received several promotions?
Lawrence: Did any of those promotions come directly from Arwin?
Emory: Uh... I guess not. Mostly Lucy's current boss, Walter. He's always been a big promoter of Lucy.
Lawrence: Maybe Arwin wants all of you to quit?
Emory: Why would you say that?
Lawrence: Well, is he working hard to keep you? Is he worried about your morale? He gave you a big bonus to stay one extra year, and 8 months have gone by. 4 months are left. Has he talked to you about a bonus to stay another year? Does he act like he cares if you stay?
Emory: No. No, he doesn't. Almost the opposite.
Lawrence: Tell me about the meetings you had yesterday. They came up here from Atlanta, I assume they had some big announcement to make?
Emory: It was mostly a review of the tech. They felt the tech was too buggy to serve as a foundation for future growth.
Lawrence: And what did you say in response?
Emory: I walked them through it. I tried to explain where I thought the problems were, and how we could fix it. But, honestly, they had an exaggerated idea of how buggy the system was. At a certain point I felt like saying, "Listen, the system works pretty well. It's not that buggy."
Lawrence: Why didn't you say that?
Emory: Lucy and I had talked about it ahead of time and we agreed that we wanted Arwin to know that we were taking his concerns seriously. So we opted for an approach that avoided confrontation. We tried to show we were listening and responding to his concerns.
Lawrence: If he was acting in good faith then that would work. But is he acting in good faith?
Emory: He doesn't seem to trust us.
Lawrence: You exist and you're intelligent. That makes you a threat.
Emory: What do you mean?
Lawrence: I don't want to sound too cynical, but when a top-level executive does irrational things, you have to consider what their personal motivations might be. For instance, you and Lucy, you probably have many ideas about how to improve the software?
Emory: We've been working on this since 2008. When it comes to moving commercial insurance to the Internet we've been working on this longer than anyone else. Whatever he wants to do next, we are have the most experience, we are the best people to help him. And yet he doesn’t seem to want our help.
Lawrence: He won't get the credit. You and Lucy have been working on this since 2008, so when this product becomes the center of the USA insurance industry, you two will get all of the credit. He won't get any credit unless the two of you disappear.
Emory: That might be true. I'm worried that Arwin is just looking for ammunition to justify re-writing this software from scratch.
Lawrence: Which would take years.
Emory: With DevModeMax, it would simply never happen.
Lawrence: Well, as Mack would say, that’s looking on the bright side.