...by the end of the day

I work in amongst users on a Thursday and a Friday. Quite how I'm supposed to do development while sitting amongst people discussing tonight's episode of Coronation Street, their child's digestive tract problems, or (related?) the sausages they made last night. Regardless, one advantage of getting out of the IT room is that I don't have to listen to Robin "singing" to Barry White. (I'd rather listen to Gollum sing Barry White.)

The official line is that sitting in with the investment management back office allows me to work only on their problems. Practice proves this to be nonsense. I mean, I'm sitting in a room full of telephones and my computer has a mail client connected to the network. In themselves not reasons, but there's a behaviour at GBU that makes any kind of planning redundant. I'd been in the office less than an hour this morning when the first deadline hit my desk. Reading the e-mails JP forwarded, they'd known about today's deadline on 15 January, but only chose to tell me today.

The problem is that staff at GBU have found from experience that they can do this. In the past they've given the IT department un-meetable deadlines that've been met, so they don't feel any need change their behaviour. There lies the solution. Their behaviour works, so there's no need to change it. If they found that imposing artificially tight deadlines resulted in failure then they'd tell us about problems earlier rather than after it was already too late.

"In the past, we've told them on the day and they've done what we've asked. Why bother ourselves telling them earlier this time and having to keep on top of them?"

I stumbled across this comment I'd left in some source code in 2005:

What can I say. They've known for months that they'd need this data, but they only contact me when they need it "by the end of the day."

Shite program reflecting the lack of planning from above.

Whoever is maintaining this: have a nice day ... and get yourself a better job.

The Ubiquitous came to me soon after JP with a problem that didn't have an impending deadline. I spent today concentrating on her work. I'll be finished it by lunchtime tomorrow. Way, way before any deadline. Then I've got a small job for MAL. I reckon I'll be starting JP's job 36-hours after she brought it to me. That'll already be 12-hours past the deadline. If I do the work properly rather than rush then it'll be Tuesday before I'm finished. Is that the best way to change their behaviour by showing them that it doesn't work?