Why are there so many handshakes involved in getting anything done at work? You'd think changing the color of a button wouldn't require 10 layers of approval, yet here we are. Let me tell you about one particularly frustrating experience I had that perfectly sums this up.
I was assigned a seemingly simple task: migrating our email service from SparkPost to Amazon SES (Simple Email Service). The majority of the work was already completed in our test environments. Now it was just a matter of replicating those steps in production. Easy enough, or so I thought.
The first step was to set up the necessary production accounts. To do that, I had to submit an internal request. That request didn't go to my manager, it went straight to his manager. Odd, but I went along with it. Once they approved it, the ticket came back to me to confirm the approval. Yes, I had to approve the approval.
The request then moved on to another team. I showed my manager, and he told me to wait until the next day. Some work should be done. I came back, expecting progress. Nope the ticket was still in the same state. I followed up again, only to be told that my manger's manager still hadn't approved it. When I questioned why so many layers of approval were needed for something that had already been greenlit twice, my manager realized something was off.
After investigating, we found the ticket had been rerouted to yet another team for review. And that my manager's manager was just put as a placeholder since they are the first level of approval. At this point, no work had been done. Nothing had changed in production. We were just stuck in a bureaucratic loop of people approving other people's approvals.
The kicker? The teams involved were under our team in the org chart. This change had to pass multiple tiers of approval for a configuration I was more than capable of executing safely. Meanwhile, I was still waiting for the production accounts to be created to start the actual task.
I decided instead of waiting, I went ahead and completed steps 2 through 5 of the migration. They were quick updates to YAML files no approvals needed. But step one? Still pending. It was absurd. This was supposed to be a one-day task. We are 3 days in and still hadn't completed the most basic prerequisite.
On day four, I finally got an update, my request was denied. The reason? There was "no production account set up." That was literally what I needed the approval to do in the first place. I was stunned.
I resubmitted the request. Three more days later, I finally got the green light. Within ten minutes, everything was up and running. That's right, ten minutes. After a week of waiting through pointless red tape, the actual task took less time than making a cup of coffee.
I asked my manager why the process was so convoluted. His answer?
"Honestly, I don't know. The whole thing is just dumb."
And that sums it up.
If you had any experiences like mine tell me about it in the comments.
Top comments (0)