ieve's Squall of Consciousness
Entry 19 - Returning to an Exodus
(April 29, 2026)
Tapa Tour
I returned from vacation yesterday - a week's motorcycle adventure in Andalusia. Ab-so-lutely fantastic - amazing food, amazing riding, great twisty roads, a great time getting lost in little villages in the middle of nowhere, way off of the highway or even any reasonable road. Loved it, 10 out of 10.
It was a bit of a whirlwind tour, though. Just a tapa poquito of a tour of España. Will have to go through my notes and my pictures and somehow trim down my many hours of helmet camera footage to make a little travelogue for myself. (It's not like I just left the video rolling through a whole bunch of boring riding. I took it off when it was boring. It's just ... 95% of the riding was amazing, beautiful and exciting. Pretty much only the highway slogs around Sevilla were boring. So I have probably 12+ hours of footage to edit down into something reasonable.)
An imminent void
I intentionally left without installing Teams on my new phone - this physically prevents me from making any stupid decisions to see if anything is on fire while I'm gone. (I might... leave it uninstalled?)
I already knew boss-boss was leaving. It's uh... some of the timing of all time. We're in the 17th (out of 12) hours of a FDA submission for a major overhaul for this neurostimulator system. (It was supposed to be submitted, according to boss-boss's original non-plan, September 30th of 2025.)
He's in charge of product development, and somehow also finagled his way into being boss over quality and regulatory. (Hmm, just a _tiny_ conflict of interest there...)
Despite our challenges and differences of opinion, he's been the leading force for this project, and it certainly feels like we're being left with a void. This is largely by his own design - I have experience leading engineering teams and running complex projects in orgs with very little structure and institutional history, I saw that there were gaps in the project management and development systems, I have and continue to try to address the gaps despite repeatedly getting my head bit off for 'stepping out of my lane'.
But planning has been a fortress no one has been able broach. I think boss-boss wanted to be able to say that he was the lead for the project, he led it to success through his planning and strategic decisions, and whenever anyone tries to say "Hey I think we could have more predictable timelines and improve our chances of success by doing X, Y and Z {completely standard engineering project management things that everyone everywhere else does for a reason}", or just to step up and start doing things because there's obviously a gap, boss-boss would very aggressively put you back in your lane.
He bit my head off, he stonewalled marketing lady who was told that 50% of her role was to manage timeline/risk/deliverables for this project, he stonewalled other parts of the business who offered to step up and help manage the project. And despite obviously not finding success with his approach, he just kept setting new arbitrary deadlines with the same lack of planning or realistic estimation behind them.
But nevertheless... he's moving on to a new role, taking an opportunity that popped up, and we're not getting a direct replacement. Marketing boss will take over coordination with the leadership of our CMO and overall responsibility for the project but... we're not getting a new product development leader anytime soon.
And then there were more
Before I left, my boss gave me a call so we could chat about the news. I think she was quite surprised, but we both agreed that although a little inconvenient, it does open up some opportunity for us to drive ... different ways of doing things in the business that we see as more likely to derive success.
While I was on vacation she sent an ominous text, "Hope you're having a good trip - Please give me a call on my cell when you're back." Hmm. I mean, you know I'm back on the 29th, I'll call you on the 29th.
Welp. I checked my work email and messages early in the morning, still too early to call her and get the story, but I see that there's a "Celebrate {boss}'s contributions to {company}!" lunch on the calendar for Thursday.
Weren't we just talking about how it's a little bit exciting that we're not... hobbled by this leadership structure anymore? And you're leaving?
(Oh. Update from the next day... she's being uh... politely fired. "Your job is being eliminated". But they're reshuffling and hiring a senior manager to essentially replace her director level role. But, gets to keep equity, and on payroll for a couple more months while she figures something out.)
That leaves us without a product development boss and without a quality boss. Upper management will shuffle things around so people at least report into places. Regulatory can take over quality executive responsibility temporarily. We're all ... pretty much self sufficient, and we can all continue to just run our slices of the business.
And -- it does open up opportunity to try to do things 'the right way'. Or at least, 'a better way'. Some opportunity to just step up and drive the project to completion without being undercut by politicks but...
This has become a little more than a little inconvenient. Despite also having challenges with my boss, we did get along really well. Most of our 1:1's over the past 3 years have mostly been chatting about how things are, how we want them to be, and figuring "welp things are consistently moving in the right direction. It's ok. We'll get there eventually".
So... it feels a little bit like being cut adrift.
Although - I told my colleague not too long ago, when we were discussing the ... very difficult management style that our boss has, that we just have to outlast them. He laughed - he didn't foresee that happening anytime soon. I guess, be careful what you wish for...
- 🜌