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Just a couple of years ago, I arrived at my new job to find the following corporate culture:
1. The IT department had been beaten into submission, and was not guiding the company's tech direction at all.
2. A "business analyst" (self-proclaimed) working in the call center had been implementing his own "systems" written in MS Access. Most "reports" were actually editable query views.
3. All invoicing was done in spreadsheets, and there was no audit trail of who had been invoiced (or who had paid) for what.
4. Said "BA" had the last say on anything I wrote, and was terrified of automation, or any software published post 1998.
5. I had to code in VB6 and VBA, because the not-a-BA couldn't understand C#, and insisted on "approving" all my code.
6. I was forbidden to replace any of his rubbish, because "I was spoiling all his fun".
7. All users had admin access to the servers and the databases.
8. Health and safety insisted on a doorstop being used whenever anyone entered the server room, and then insisted we turn off the cooling system because there was too much noise when we had the door open.
Last month, the not-a-BA resigned, and my blood pressure is slowly returning to normal levels.
Now, nothing frightens me anymore.
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YIKES!! 
Better step up and fill that power vacuum quickly and completely 
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...you scare of "local Gods", who turn everything to be how he likes, despite common standards and best practices. Agree 100%!
But most scary thing is these clowns leave the job and spread everywhere how genius they were on position "Senior God of IT department" and asks for position a step (or two) above! And needless to say most of such "hell knows what" came from India after 2-weeks courses "PHP for complete idiots" being given gold stamped "certificate".
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very surprised you made it past one month. I would have been gone!
To err is human to really mess up you need a computer
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I'm astonished he took the job in the first place!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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...written mostly in vb.net (> 80%) and using llblgen (100%).
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Being dumped with a steaming pile left by the last, fired developer that nobody knows anything about, starting at 40-50 project solutions.
Leads, architects, etc. that can't embrace established new tech, i.e. 3 RTM versions behind the current preview editions.
Having to follow questionable coding standards.
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Remember that legacy application that's only being used by one client? You know, the one who never complains and has never missed a support payment in 13 years. Now his neighbor has signed up for it. Since it's now not dying peacefully, they've decided that it should be converted/upgraded/rebranded.  And I thought I had gotten away with one!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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"and if you're looking for the foxpro installation software, it's on the file server"
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This is the worse, I've never worked with source control. I replaced my latest edit that took me days to complete with the older version in my External HDD while trying to backup right in front of my client. A first presentation, hmm. My luck was the installer package, just have to look at the function workings and do it again, a hell of a job writing code you had suffered to complete before.
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How long have you been coding? And you've never used source control? You well deserve every second of suffering that re-write.
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That's a lesson every programmer learns once. If a second application is needed, they usually cease being a programmer soon after.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I have not once not used any source control, even a humble backup, since I started working as a programmer. When I was teaching myself at home before studying, then I had no clue about it, but the programs ran well within in 640MB RAM, and VB4 only took up 1 or 2 megs of disk space. (I think).
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Listen Carefully: If you are NOT using version control... You are NOT A Professional, and your time has ZERO VALUE, IMO.
Before GIT came out, I would have (.SVN and .SVNprod/.SVNlocal) folders, and swap them so I could commit my changes more frequently to a local repo, and then when I had solid code, I would swap them, and commit to the production repo (which affects others).
OMG, the thought of not using version control. One client was doing ASP work. He fought tooth and NAIL to "not have to learn anything new", but I forced him. He apologized once a month for 6 months for resisting it for so long! Agrees that he sleeps better now, and has zero fear to clean things up, because he can always recover a file if he was wrong.
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...having an unexpected deployment on Friday and you have a scheduled trip over the weekend.
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Ah yes - the "unexpected deployment" stunt. I worked at a company that pulled that crap a lot, and that act got old very fast. I just went ahead with my plans. Usually all was needed was to mention "Sure, - I'll cancel my plans, here's the bill."
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
-- Marcus Brigstocke, British Comedian
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Erik Burd wrote: was to mention "Sure, - I'll cancel my plans, here's the bill."
and if the app breaks over the weekend and tons of users depend on it, the management will tell you "You're fired, hope you enjoyed your trip and had a blast!"  
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I remember my olden days (I dint forget the 'G'  ), i was in a product dev company not doing so well. A person comes up to me and says "2 months from now we will have our demo. Start preparing".
We had to port a winform based application on a WinCe device. We developed an application in multi threading and stuff like that. After doing all of that, on the final day of the demo, we gave a presentation to an other official.
He comes up to me and says "This was not what we wanted. I cant proceed ahead with the demo".
This is when i realized, putting in so much effort in the wrong direction is of no use.
This is one of the scariest part i feel can be.
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Been there, done that. I had that happen in front of senior management because a previous boss threw me under the bus. He promised a bunch of stuff, told me to do something else. Then I give my demo.
Naturally, he was no where to be found and I was left holding the bag. 
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
-- Marcus Brigstocke, British Comedian
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I have spent much of my career developing software to meet state pr Federal government requirements. Usually, I am working at a smaller subcontractor. What scares me is doing a demo of the finished product for the customer and finding out that the specification document did not contain some crucial requirement.
In the "good ol' days," you could make the changes required, charge the government and usually get away with the "cost overrun." In today's political climate, attempting that will get you a few column inches in the local newspaper and, if you are really unlucky, an interview with an aggressive TV reporter. The legal nicety of saying that we delivered what you contracted for gets lost in the political finger-pointing. Either way, don't expect to submit a successful bid for a year or two.
__________________
Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that there are some things I just can’t keep up with, the determination to keep up with the things I must keep up with, and the wisdom to find a good RSS feed from someone who keeps up with what I’d like to, but just don’t have the damn bandwidth to handle right now.
© 2009, Rex Hammock
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we had this a time ago, because of a blackout and another time water in the server room.
It aint funny
Press F1 for help or google it.
Greetings from Germany
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+1
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Microsoft !
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If my boss would told: me your app on Windows Phone next week.
Press F1 for help or google it.
Greetings from Germany
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