Man, May 2020 felt like another lifetime, right? Everything was shut down, but the work never stopped. We were all running on fumes and cheap coffee, trying to figure out how to do a full-time job while locked inside four walls. I decided to use that quiet time. I figured, since the bosses were distracted just trying to keep the lights on, this was my perfect moment to finally fix that one piece of our internal workflow that had been total garbage for years.
The Project I Busted My Hump On
I looked at the old tracking system—the one we used for logging client feedback and delivery schedules. It was ancient, written by some contractor back in the Stone Age and nobody dared touch it. Every time you used it, it added about ten steps to your day. I knew I could build something lean, something that just worked, in about six weeks, maybe less. This was my personal mission. No extra budget, just my own time late at night after the usual team meetings were done.
I started pulling data, talking to the people who actually used the thing—not the managers, but the poor folks in the trenches. I wrote down every single little detail, every click they hated, every unnecessary field they had to fill out. I took all those notes and basically built the opposite of the old system. I stripped it down to the bare metal. It was beautiful, honestly. It only did three things, but those three things it did perfectly and fast. No fluff, no enterprise garbage.
I was so proud of myself. The way I organized the data inputs, the small dashboard that told you exactly what was late. I had mock-up demos ready to go by late April. Everyone I showed it to informally was stoked. They were ready to ditch the old clunker. I felt like the hero coming out of the quarantine shadows, saving the day with pure, efficient effort.
The May Massacre
Then came the big review meeting, right around the second week of May. I was ready to present my little masterpiece. I had my slides (just two of them—keeping it lean, you know?) and I was feeling invincible. I pulled up the demo and started walking the Big Bosses through it. I watched their faces. They weren’t nodding with approval. They were just… blank.
I got maybe halfway through explaining how I’d saved them half a million clicks a week when one VP just cleared his throat and stopped me. He didn’t even look at the screen.
He said, “That’s very… detailed. Good effort. But we actually just signed a contract with that big consulting firm. They sold us on their new platform last month. It’s already paid for. Rollout starts next week.”
I felt the blood drain right out of my face. Wasted. All that time, all that meticulous planning, all those late nights. Wasted six weeks of my life and I got nothing but an awkward “good effort.” It wasn’t about my system being bad—it was about someone else already buying a shiny, expensive toy behind the scenes, and me not having a clue because I was too busy being perfect in my little silo.
What I Learned Was The Real Move
I realized my biggest mistake wasn’t technical. It was political. I was acting like an employee of a small business where my competence mattered most. I wasn’t. Here’s what I wrote down that night as the real takeaway:
- Never Trust The Specs: The problem I was solving was real, but the political landscape had totally changed. You gotta sniff out the money trail. If somebody higher up is talking to vendors, shut down your pet project immediately.
- Talk to the Money People, Not Just the Users: I talked to the engineers and the delivery team. I needed to be talking to the CFO’s office or the procurement head. They make the decisions, not the people who actually do the work.
- Perfection is Invisible to Decision Makers: My system was efficient, which meant it was cheap and fast. They wanted big, bloated, and expensive because they needed a reason to justify their budget and their jobs. My lean solution made them look bad for not solving it sooner.
- Sometimes The Best Career Move is Knowing When You’re Already Dead: I was never going to win that battle. I had proven I could do the work faster and cheaper than a million-dollar contract. That made me a liability, not a hero.
So, What Did I Do Next?
I showed up the next day, same time. I helped them transition to their stupid, overly complicated, brand-new system. It was painful to watch, but I made sure I was the most helpful guy in the room, documenting all the bugs and the missing features. I spent the next two months putting together the perfect exit plan. I didn’t want a fight. I wanted quiet freedom.
I started networking again, but this time, I wasn’t selling my technical perfection. I was selling my understanding of how businesses fail. I told the whole story—the perfection, the blind spot, the realization. And you know what? That narrative landed me a much better gig by the end of that summer. A place that actually rewards you for not wasting time, instead of punishing you for being efficient.
I left that old company feeling lighter than air. They’re still struggling with that bloated system, probably. Me? I learned the hard way that being right and being successful are two completely different things in a corporate environment. And that was the only real career move that mattered in 2020.
