The Developer Estimate Conversion Table: What ‘A Couple of Hours’ Really Costs
'Should take a couple of hours' converts to roughly one fiscal quarter and a missed birthday. A reference table for PMs, clients and developers.
MAKE THIS WORSE →ENGINEERING / ESTIMATED: 2 WEEKS / ACTUAL: YES
DEVELOPER SADIST
For developers, designers, PMs, clients and anyone who has heard "it's just a small change".
CLIENT RELATIONS LOG
OVERHEARD IN THE PROJECT CHANNEL
Real conversations. Probably. Names removed to protect the budget.
DEVELOPER SADIST / ARTICLES
TICKETS NOBODY WILL CLOSE
Obituary: Side Project, Dead at Three Weekends
Born on a Saturday with a domain name and a delusion. Died on the third Sunday, just after the login page. Nobody came to the funeral.
MAKE THIS WORSE →Transcript: ‘It’s Just a Small Change’ (It Was Not a Small Change)
Client: 'It's just a small change.' Developer: opens LinkedIn. The full transcript of the most expensive sentence in software.
MAKE THIS WORSE →Daily Standup Phrasebook: What Your Team Actually Means
'Still working on it, no blockers.' Translation: I have not started. A brutal phrasebook for the fifteen-minute meeting that eats forty.
MAKE THIS WORSE →Anatomy of a Quick Call: A Post-Mortem
'Can we jump on a quick call?' Minute zero: hello. Minute 63: you have aged. A forensic post-mortem of the most dangerous phrase in agency life.
MAKE THIS WORSE →Will AI Replace Me? An FAQ for Developers Who Should Be Nervous
Will AI take my job? Yes. Does it attend standups? It doesn't need to. A frank FAQ for developers whose replacement is already in beta.
MAKE THIS WORSE →Transcript: Can We Make the Logo Bigger? (Five Days of Client Feedback)
Monday: 'Make the logo bigger.' Friday: 'Why is the logo so big?' A week of client feedback, transcribed in full as evidence.
MAKE THIS WORSE →Transcript: ‘It’s Like Uber, But For…’ (A Startup Pitch Nobody Asked For)
'It's like Uber, but for lawnmowers, but also a social network, with crypto.' A real pitch that has ruined coffee in every café on earth.
MAKE THIS WORSE →Expedition Notes From the Legacy Codebase: Nobody Comes Back the Same
Day 1: Found a function called doStuff2_FINAL_real. Day 4: It controls payroll. Field notes from deep inside a legacy codebase.
MAKE THIS WORSE →The Startup Pitch Deck, Slide by Slide: Every Lie in Order
Problem. Solution. Hockey-stick graph. Founder in a black T-shirt. A guided tour of every startup pitch deck ever made, and where the money goes.
MAKE THIS WORSE →