I’m in a team of 2, kind of.
There are actually 3 more, but 1 is our manager who is involved in the project, but also in many other things, and the other 2 are temps. So full-time and 100% dedicated to our project, we are 2.

The thing is that we are completely different from each other.

I’m relaxed, I don’t worry too much about screwing things up, I let people do their stuff, I trust our vendors.
She is stressed out, she panics if she thinks any thing could go slightly wrong, she’s a control freak, she does not trust our vendors.

Most of the time I think we get a good balance out of it. A whole team stressed out is not healthy, and a whole team relaxed might not be the most productive one. So generally speaking we’re good.

But sometimes her stressing out and control freakiness just get to my nerves.

We just came out of a meeting. She was freaking out with the idea that we should ask vendors to do something that sounded risky to her (they might mess up by loosing data!!!???????). So she wanted us to create a tool to avoid them messing up.

Then we suggested that instead of creating a new tool, we should add this as a feature in an existing tool we will be providing as optional, but would perfectly fit the need for her worries.
Then she says that tool is optional, we need to provide vendors with the freedom not to use it.
So we said we could offer the tool as optional and also instruct them on how to do the same thing manually if they opt out for the tool.
Then she says she does not want them to do it manually, that’s why we need to create a new tool.

Hey! Am I missing something here? We need to get them the freedom not to use one tool, but then we impose a second tool? Ain’t that the same? Aren’t we breaking their “black box” (as she call it) anyway??? What’s the difference???

Argh!

Well, to make her happy we will add the feature in the existing tool and create a new simple one as well. It’s no big deal actually. I just dont’ think her discourse makes any sense!!!

And that irritates me!