The Wrong Decision by the Wrong Person
There is one thing about my industry that I still find truly amazing (and not in a good way). This is despite the fact that it has happened to me so many times that you think I'd be used to it! I'm talking about non-technical people making technical decisions.
For some reason, it's a very common practice for those people who don't have expertise in a certain field to make decisions for people working in that field. The best example I can think of off the top of my head is the answer to the question: "Which technology should we use?"
Let me take a step back in time for a moment.
Damn you, Crystal Reports!
I've had Visual Studio 2008 installed for quite a while. When I first installed it I decided not to install the Crystal Reports components because I was fairly certain that I'd never need them at home.
Well, the worm has turned! On my new gig, I have the joy of working from home. It just so happens that I also need to use Crystal Reports. How silly of me to not bother installing a few extra components the first time so I didn't have to go through the pain of going through another VS Setup.
On the surface this doesn't sound like a painful experience right? WRONG. It's a lot more painful than you think.
