Re: HildyJ
Career limiting? Maybe, but definitely less stressful. OTOH, I got in the habit a long time ago of padding the estimates for time while downplaying the "features". I'd have project I know will take a week... tell the PHB "three", he'll go to upper manglement and come back with "be done in two". That leaves a week for the unexpected and also adding "features". If I get done early, I sit on it until the due date. Just because I don't want to fall into that "we expected you to have it done early" trap.
They (manglement) play the system to their advantage, we need to learn how play it back and one-step better.
And then there's the CEO of (I forget which company right now) who arbitrarily picks a deadline date after all the estimates are in. There was an article on El Reg about him. A project would need a year to deliver it and all the features and he'd come back with some random number. A true-power tripper he is.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
