The Big Tuna: An Introduction

Hypocrisy, arbitrary enforcement/making up of rules, having to be right all of the time, re-telling the same stories and (not funny) jokes all the time. Take all these annoying habits, put them together in a single package and you've got The Big Tuna. No, sports fans, I'm not talking about Bill Parcells. I'm talking about my boss's boss (and formerly my direct supervisor), who, quite honestly, is one of the bigger pains in my ass, as far as work goes.

Here are examples of each of the traits I listed above.

Hypocrisy - There is a Wednesday meeting led by The Big Tuna where work is assigned to developers. The Big Tuna always preaches that if work isn't brought up in that meeting, it shouldn't be assigned to a developer and definitely should not be worked on by a developer. However, when someone sends him an email on a day other than Wednesday requesting that a developer be assigned to some work, he immediately assigns it. But then, after he assigns it, the developer will be chastised for working on it, because it wasn't brought up in the Wednesday meeting. I'm still unclear on whether he realizes that he's the one that assigned the work in the first place.

Arbitrary enforcement/making up of rules - I love this story. Once a developer finishes writing their code, we have to review the code with the rest of the technical team. The code must be approved by three members of the team: a senior developer, any other developer, and a DBA. The Weasel was one of our DBAs and there was a code review on his last day with the company. The rest of the DBAs were busy with a production issue during the meeting so we needed a DBA approver and thus asked The Weasel, who was available. The Big Tuna, however, decided that The Weasel could not be the approver because it was his last day. The Weasel approved the code anyway.

Having to be right all the time - We were having a discussion about the best way to implement a solution and The Big Tuna was present. As per usual, The Big Tuna had his design idea that he proposed, which was a terrible idea. The rest of the group shot holes through his idea, but he kept arguing for it. Someone else in the group proposed an alternative solution, which made a lot of sense. The Big Tuna attempted to poke holes in this idea while continuing to push his original idea. After much discussion, we obviously started to realize that his idea was horrible and that the other idea was much better. By the end of the meeting he was talking about the good idea as if it were his own, like he came up with it. Priceless.

Re-telling the same stories and jokes - The Big Tuna walks over to you and asks "So, how big was the rock?", to which you are supposed to reply "What rock?". Then he hits you with "The rock you used to iron that shirt". This joke is really hilarious after hearing it two dozen times (I'm not exaggerating).

I have a very specific (continuing) incident involving The Big Tuna that I will post about some day. I expect that to be a pretty lengthy post given the level of frustration it has caused for me and others.

For now though, consider this an introduction to The Big Tuna. I can pretty much guarantee it won't be the last time he's mentioned in this space.