Somedays it feels like the monkeys are winning.

While I can't physically use my clue-by-four on the monkeys, just the mental image (monkey baseball anyone?) sure helps my stress level.

And then comes the big monkey. The 800 lb gorilla type. Yep, upper management monkeys (they should have to wear tuxedos, not just tie and jacket (yep, monkey suits)).

I'm a computer programmer. I work for a big company, that a couple of years ago was bought out by a much smaller competitor and taken private. And they seem to be pushing us as hard as they can back into the 1980's - for management, technology, you name it. And proud of it.

Several years ago several of us worked on a project (I was not the chief architect of it, but was a major contributor) that solved a pretty nasty problem very elegantly. The company missed a huge marketing opportunity with it, but the software has been working, and working well, for several years. Gives us several advantages, and has some really neat features. Oh, and did I forget to mention that IT WORKS!!!

But the new 800 lb gorillas don't understand it, because it is based on technology newer than what was available in the 1980's. So they want to scrap it, and go back to what DIDN'T WORK before, because their small company had it working, for a much smaller customer base (like 10% of what we have).

The difference is scale. When we did it their way, we had a person dedicated nearly 100% of his time to fixing issues, and he is not looking forward to going back to that model.

Unfortunately I need my job. And I was feeling good about finally tracking down the latest screwup that the little monkeys had done and getting it fixed.