There’s an old story about a website designer finishing a site. But they knew the approval for the site would need to come from one specific manager. This particular manager was notorious for changing things just to be able to say they contributed. Nothing could ever pass over this manager’s desk without at least one revision, because the manager wanted to be able to say that they had a hand in the project. They weren’t ever content with just sitting back and going “yeah, looks good. Ship it as-is.”
So the designer got the site looking exactly how they wanted it. It was perfect… And then right before they sent it off to be approved, they added a banner of spinning rubber duck gifs at the very top of the page:
The manager sent back “yeah, just get rid of the damned ducks before the site goes live.” By giving the manager a big bright “this needs to be fixed” thing to change, the designer was able to get the site they actually wanted. So if you’re ever dealing with a manager like this, be sure to give them a figurative rubber duck to “fix”.
I call them Rubber Duck Managers.
There’s an old story about a website designer finishing a site. But they knew the approval for the site would need to come from one specific manager. This particular manager was notorious for changing things just to be able to say they contributed. Nothing could ever pass over this manager’s desk without at least one revision, because the manager wanted to be able to say that they had a hand in the project. They weren’t ever content with just sitting back and going “yeah, looks good. Ship it as-is.”
So the designer got the site looking exactly how they wanted it. It was perfect… And then right before they sent it off to be approved, they added a banner of spinning rubber duck gifs at the very top of the page:
The manager sent back “yeah, just get rid of the damned ducks before the site goes live.” By giving the manager a big bright “this needs to be fixed” thing to change, the designer was able to get the site they actually wanted. So if you’re ever dealing with a manager like this, be sure to give them a figurative rubber duck to “fix”.