Project Death Spiral: Of slugs in suits

Just had the meeting with PMv2 that he set up last week. It wasn't as confrontational as I'd been expecting, which made it more productive and less of a trial than I'd feared (which is good) but at the same time it's taken the edge off my sense that I need to flee this madhouse (which is bad).

Clearly I'm too easily mollified and need to work harder at maintaining grudges.

There was a somewhat insincere apology for giving me "a hard time" last week. Apparently he did it for my benefit, because he knew my probation review was coming up and wanted to make sure I produced something that I could show my operational manager. And of course a personal attack cc'ed to me operational manager is just the way to do that. It's possible that this was some fiendishly clever plan on his part to make me look like an innocent victim, but I have trouble buying that one.

I might not be good at holding grudges, but I'm not stupid.

The first half hour covers the useful stuff, including the bombshell that, according to his reading of the project plan, actually doing anything useful with what we discover isn't part of the project scope (i.e. is hard, requires resources, doesn't yield glamorous results), reducing Death Spiral to a level where we just gather data and materials for the sake of it and don't do anything meaningful with it.

Oh, and I need to redraft all the pre-existing project documentation into the approved project office templates, even though the processes need to be documented in their existing format so that they're consistent with QA documentation.

And he didn't actually read most of what I'd written. I know this because he prefaced the meeting with "I haven't read through most of this". He just wanted it to look like the project template and see a couple of dates written down. Doesn't need to know what the dates relate to or whether they're realistic. They just need to be there in the right font.

Then comes the obligatory part of any conversation with PMv2.

• Talking about all the other projects he's managing and how important they are?
  Check.
• All was in chaos before he arrived?
  Check.
• Everything's going well?
  Check.
• Moaning about HR issues?
  Check.
• He'd love to see the project through to the end, but thinks he'll be moved on?
  Check.
• We're doomed?
  Check.
• Getting confused about what we're doing?
  Check.
• He's had enough of this project and wants out?
  Check.
• It's all someone else's fault?
  Check.
• Swaps roles with someone who pointed out a serious flaw, so that he was the one pointing it out to them, incredulous that they could have missed it?
  Check.
• It's all everybody else's fault?
  Check.
  

I'm careful to avoid stepping on the slime trail on the way out of the meeting room. PMv2 shall henceforth be referred to as "Sluggo".