I remembered one incident from 15 years ago. I don’t know why this came to my mind (maybe due the fact that I’ve been working on non-games stuff to pile some additional funds for this project). I was hired to do a visual presentation about a fire that spread quite far in my childhood town.
My uncle hired me and told me what to do.
When I saw the plan (me: age 15ish, uncle age: 3 times my age) I suggested that “yeh, the animated fire over the map looks pretty nice, but wouldn’t it make sense to put a *fast forward* button there so that in the presentation you don’t have to wait for the 3 minute animation to finish”.
My uncle immediately said: “No need for that, this is very good”
To which I replied: “…”
Okay, I was like “the lil boy working with stuff that I was hired to do” and my uncle was the “boss who said how things should be done”. And… he was my uncle. And authority. You don’t tell “but this will be shitty” to authority, right? At least in that situation I just let it be.
Then it was the presentation day. My uncle was saying things. Then some fireman started explaining how the fire spread (and told me to start the animation). The animation begun and everybody was looking the screen really amazed. For 16 seconds. Until then, the fireman needed to pause. And then my uncle said out loud to me (so that everybody could hear it): “hey, please fast forward it a bit”. To which I said pretty silent “It can’t be done, you said…” and then my uncle interrupted me and continued with even louder voice (so that everybody in the room could hear) “looks like boys have not done a fast forward for this, so let’s all wait for a moment for the animation to play”.
I think he did not do that on purpose. I think he genuenily thought that he had done nothing wrong and that it’s a “small problem in the boy’s animation, but I’ll protect him” type of thing. At least that’s my impression.
And it’s not like that I have grudges and plan some evil plot against my uncle (with the exception of publicly attempt to prove him totally wrong him via this blog post – he hardly speaks English I presume – and showing that I was right!). Okay, jokes aside. I didn’t feel bad or anything about that situation. The presentation was fine and everybody liked it, but for some reason this incident was buried into my memory.
I knew I was right. I explained the potential problem in the very beginning, before the presentation. I suggested the solution (which wouldn’t been a big deal to be honest). But the end result was “no, let’s not do that” and afterwards “why didn’t you do that?” (in a very small scale).
I wonder how common this is in people’s lives? Do you encounter situations where you know how things should be done, but your boss is stopping you from doing it – and then blaming you afterward for not doing the thing (which the boss had told you not to do)? How often?
I wonder if I have been like this in my past. I don’t recall any incident where I’d behave like this, but maybe I have. I don’t know. My own brain is telling me how good I’m at anything, so I cannot trust that part of me. It’ll just fool me.
Do you behave a boss like this? Have you done this in your past?
Any advice on how to handle situations like this?