Spread Cheeks, Insert Head

Anyone who's been reading this for the last couple of months knows that I work with, and let's be polite, Gumbies.  Here are my coworkers in action:

Yesterday, I went to lunch with some of my fellow team members.  I got to talking with one of the few competent devs on this project, a lovely young lady, and Spurs fan (she's young, she'll learn eventually).  One of the Gumbies is her team lead.  We got to chatting about the deployment date for our application.  Our current deploy date is the 19th.  I don't have high hopes of it.  But I am doing my best to meet the date, because that's what I do.  It's OK to doubt the date.  If you're an adult, you are probably capable of being trained.  And we've all been trained on this project to doubt the date using simple repetition techniques.  But we're also responsible for being ready for the date, just in case. 

Not so for Gumby Team Lead.  She told her team members that the 19th probably wasn't going to be the date.  Oh, sure, officially, it is, but it probably won't be, she said.  She took pains to stress that.  So now, her team doesn't think they have to meet the deadline.  This dev I went to lunch with was confident that the 19th wasn't the date.  It's not surprising, really, since Gumby's team has the largest number of chronic deadline flaunters on the project.  Most of her devs couldn't meet a deadline if you threatened them with a chainsaw.  And now we know why: deadlines mean nothing to them, because their Gumby Team Lead has made it clear that there are absolutely no consequences for missing a deadline, whether it's a daily schedule or a project timeline.   The 19th?  Don't worry about it, it doesn't really matter.

We need to send her for brain surgery.  And I really want to be the anesthetician.