Dithering and wavering

Don’t you just hate when people dither and don’t deliver things when they’re supposed to? Or when they just sit on the fence and don’t make decisions?

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Well, to be honest I’m not sure either way :wink:

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I absolutely do! But then there’s occasions when I don’t…

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Certainly my freelancing experience - and that of some of my friends who freelance in other disciplines - is that it can be very frustrating when potential clients postpone decisions. Even when I was trying to get back into perm roles, there were some potential employers who seemed incapable of using the magic “D” word.

And I can think of a situation in a previous life where a new job role was being proposed which I really, really wanted to get into, but the management delayed greenlighting it for possibly three or four years for a range of different reasons. In that time, the people who wanted that job doing were able to cast around for an external candidate and essentially short-list for the role before it even got advertised; then when I threw my hat into the ring they were surprised (first, that I’d even done it, because I wasn’t on their radar; and second, because I had a really good grasp of what the job entailed) but had virtually set their hearts on the external candidate and went with them instead.

If I’d got that job, I probably wouldn’t be sat here now as a tester; OTOH, I might have been either heavily involved in Brexit work for HMG or I might have been contemplating the life of the ex-pat, depending on how the past ten years had gone…

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Worse than sitting on the fence is being unable to stand by a decision, I currently work with a product owner who in design will insist in one approach, and then when development claim “too difficult” he folds.

I know call him “suit” as he folds like a cheap suit

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Yes. Bad things can happen when a decision is delayed, and not standing by it can be worse. On the other hand, when delaying a decision is not a problem, the additional time may allow for more information or events, to make a better decision. And then some choices aren’t worth thinking about very much. The trick is telling the difference.