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At the same time most of the people they are managing are nowhere near as good as they were at doing the actual work

While I'm good at what I do, I wouldn't class myself as an "incredible engineer." But as a manager, I encounter this frustration all the time. Sometimes, I want to scream "that shouldn't take all day: I could do it in 20 minutes."

But I have to stop, take a deep breath, and use it as a teaching moment. "Can you give me a breakdown for all of those tasks individually so we can see if there's a possibility to reduce scope and bring the time in?" becomes the more polite way to phrase what I'm thinking.

It's a variation of having to remind my developers that we're here to make the customer's life better; not to make their jobs easier.

You probably couldn't do it in 20 minutes.

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