10 Ways to Anger Your Project Manager

Today we trigger our PM friends.

00:40 - Intro
We chat about our studio setup and Eddie’s perceived curmudgeonliness. Eddie insists that it’s almost always about expecting people to be a good roommate.

03:57 - Tyler is giddy.
Tyler shares about the comment thread on one of his recent LinkedIn posts. The initial post asked people to make a project manager fly off the handle in five words or less. Here are some of our favorites:

-“Cleaners erased your whiteboard.” We wonder if cleaners should carry insurance for this offense.
-“As per my last email…” We have a hard time seeing this one used in a tone that is not passive aggressive.
-“Rev 16 is being issued tomorrow.” We’ve seen the numbers climb even higher than that.
-“That is excluded from my proposal.” This one always comes six months down the road.
-“Why is the OSHA truck outside?” We throw Dad under the bus with a story from OSHA’s early days.
-“You see the new plans?” We can all work together to make sure this one goes extinct. Eddie submits a plea that people don’t nudge elements when you’re tempted to.
- “They’ve been scanned in.” …Meaning you can expect some coffee stains.

24:15 - Our additions and some honorable mentions
Eddie shares a trigger phrase that he didn’t share on LinkedIn: “Yeah, but you lost your slot.” He shares some thoughts about the chain of events that leads to this one. Someone is wanting to put everyone else on pause.

We run through a few more responses:
-“That’s above my pay grade.”
-“I may not have said that, but that’s what the consultant’s intent was.”
-“The permits were never obtained.”

30:03 - Confessions
We also posted an invitation for people to share about bizarre project-manager-related stories you’ve experienced or heard. Here are some highlights from that one.
-A traveling employee who angered his girlfriend by visiting a specific sort of club
-A worker who went AWOL under suspicious circumstances
-The contractor who demonstrated his objections to excessive meetings by painting figurines in the corner of the meeting room

We invite you to share some more via DMs.

36:52 - Meetings
We discuss the merits and annoyances of meetings. Are they necessary? Well, yeah, for sure they are to a point. Can we all agree to manage them as thoughtfully as possible, though?

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