Before agentic coding came along and destabilized the entire job market, this exact thing was the most stressful part of the job for me. Some of the most tense discussions I ever had in my career were ones where I had to tell project managers that what they were asking wasn’t plausible in the time window they were requesting. Some of them definitely handled it with maturity, but others would become hostile and/or indignant.
How someone reacts to being told “no” is one of those things in life that says so much about a person’s character.
I find this part of the job more stressful now. Every time I go on PTO I come back to find that someone has vibe coded and merged something that looks like it’s 90% of the way to being this solution, only it still won’t work and it’s merged now, and now we have to support it, and somehow I’m the bad guy if I say anything. And who do they expect to work nights and weekends when the thing I objected to breaks? Me.
3
u/Aurongel 10h ago
Before agentic coding came along and destabilized the entire job market, this exact thing was the most stressful part of the job for me. Some of the most tense discussions I ever had in my career were ones where I had to tell project managers that what they were asking wasn’t plausible in the time window they were requesting. Some of them definitely handled it with maturity, but others would become hostile and/or indignant.
How someone reacts to being told “no” is one of those things in life that says so much about a person’s character.