Manager of the FUTURE!

[sesquipedality]

In Star Trek: Deep Space 9, there is a certain pattern in crisis conversations.  Usually they are between Cisco and O'Brien and go something like this:

Cisco: Is there any way to re-energise to molestators?
O'Brien: Well I could reroute the capitulation circuit to cross-cut the tachyon pulse which should reverse the direction of chronon emissions.
Cisco: Good plan, chief.  How long will it take?
O'Brien: Two days
Cisco: You have half an hour.

Is it just me, or is demanding things faster than people say they can do them not a very useful management technique?  Is there something about stating a time limit with sufficient authority that slows down time, or something?

Comments

[simont]

demanding things faster than people say they can do them

I do wonder, in some cases, if the actual sequence of events is more like this.

Captain: How long will it take to fix?
Engineer: [thinking in terms of "fix properly so it stays fixed and doesn't introduce technical debt"] Two days.
Captain: [thinking in terms of "fix well enough that we don't blow up in half an hour's time"] You have half an hour.
Engineer: [does a hasty and horrific bodge barely adequate to prevent explosion]
Day: [is saved]
Engineer: [puts in a day cleaning up the previous fix and two more days fixing it properly, once the fuss has died down]

[chaosdeathfish.livejournal.com]

I was thinking along the exact same lines.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

Well, that is a more realistic scenario, but in that case the engineer is being incompetent since they are aware of the imminent threat of demise, and that the useful figure is not how long it would take to do it properly, but how long to bodge it.

[markbanang.livejournal.com]

Wow, you used the term technical debt, on livejournal. Did you mistake this for Programmers stack exchange?