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Although ancient, his essays are still useful in today's world...
https://archive.org/details/parkinsonslawoth0000park_f7z9
Short, funny, and inciteful
Ok, not so bad, except that the scope of my task remained the same. The project and my role was funded by the customer for the 4 years, but my deliverable remained the same. My job was to literally do nothing while being available to debug things if needed.
I have spent sixteen years working on a note keeping app that only I use. I even took the registration page down after GDPR out of an abundance of caution. I use it every day and really like it, but every time I have shown it to a friend they just shrug
Memory is hazy, and I may get some of this wrong because I left the industry a while back.
One was a multi-port T1/E1 interface card that provided -48V line power to downstream repeaters or CPE. Think PoE but over T1/E1 interfaces at telco voltages and ruggedized to sit in an outdoor metal cabinet with no fans. All components were rated -40C to +85C. I am glad it was cancelled. It was going to be a safety and regulatory certification nightmare.
Another was a multi-port DS3 interface card that did circuit emulation over Ethernet. There were no off-the-shelf ICs that could do everything they wanted. So, we ended up with 4 very expensive FPGAs on the board. This one went into second prototype stage before being cancelled. I'd guess, $200k spent just on prototype hardware.
I can't remember the third project. At that stage I was jokingly known as some sort of project killer.
Hmmm. I don't know the details here but I have seen some junior devs say "that's never going to happen" as a way of justifying fragile code. And sure, maybe that thing is never going to happen. But if you carry on like that you'll end up with 1000 things that are "never going to happen", and then you'll realise that this guy was actually right.
> So why am I being allocated to work on in such waste of time like it?
Maybe ask your boss instead of us...
In a previous career as a hardware engineer, I spent two and a half years leading three different projects that ended up being cancelled because marketing realized that they couldn't sell them. These were line cards for an early (2002) racked IP-based DSLAM. Memory is hazy, and I may get some of this wrong because I left the industry a while back. One was a multi-port T1/E1 interface card that provided -48V line powe…