Then again, if I had been given a cent every time I had to tell a member of my team "please, do the job we pay you for before doing the thing you find fun but have no actual business value" I would be a rich man by now.

A programming manager told me once that his job consisted of, every day, visiting every programmer on the team, and asking them about what they were working on. He'd then gently nudge them back onto what they were supposed to be working on.

I’m sure some people would find this overbearing, but to me this sounds like an exceptional manager.

It must suck having to work with people who need to be “nudged” to do their jobs, every day.

It’s very much part of the job at any organisation.

At any level, you have in front of you people with a lot on their plate, competing interests and different prioritisation abilities and it’s your role as a manager to give them enough information for them to prioritise adequately.

It might be straightforwardly reminding a developer that right now we really have to ship this feature or it might be subtly making a manager understand than it would be in their interest in the upcoming reorg if they were seen as a strong asset in solving a specific issue even it’s not directly part of their KPI and explicite goals.

My manager does not have to do this with me. We meet once a week where I update him on my progress for the projects assigned to me, or decide which next project I should take on. If anything impacts my ability to deliver, or if anything is unclear in terms of scope or priorities I talk to him on Slack to resolve it.

I am a professional. I do not need to be reminded about what I have promised to do. Maybe that's why I'm paid good money to do what I do.

It's funny people tolerate this kind of stuff. I'd be out the door immediately, and I have been before. You don't have to work for companies that do this kind of insanity.

What insanity? Being asked by your PO to work on the actual stuff your team has agreed to work on in the sprint planning , you know the stuff that management thinks will actually happen? If you don't tolerate this, it's certainly better for both sides to depart.

Let me tell you, it’s so frustrating to having to catch engineers veering from one fun thing to the next, it feels like being a kindergartener constantly trying to prevent a handful of kids from killing themselves with the next fucking thing they see.

There is a reason we’ve decided what to work on. We have customers and a runway to consider, and targets we promised investors to reach. I also would like to work on fun stuff instead of fixing those bugs! That seems to be something you only understand later in your career though.

At any company, your job is to do what the company needs done and that is rarely your choice.

It's gonna get much, much harder to find the kind of laid-back company you favor, where you can work on whichever part of the code base you want, when you want. There's much less money sloshing around, and what's there needs to be spent on priority items.

> At any company, your job is to do what the company needs done and that is rarely your choice.

Doing what the company needs done can also mean not taking orders from your PO. Depending on your situation, that could manifest as ignoring them, working around them, convincing them it was all their idea, directly challenging them, or going over their head. Skullduggery. Ass-kissing if necessary. Be a hero or a martyr in the end, but at least end each day with a clear conscience.

None of that being my preference, given the choice. All I expect from a PO is a collaborative relationship where I'm treated as an equal and not some member of the worker underclass who's just there to close tickets.

When the project collapses under its own weight as a consequence of the PO's own choices, is the PO going to take the blame? Is the PO going to help when production goes down? Will they working overtime to fix things? Who suffers? The PO? Not so much.