What your product manager really means
Your project or product manager (depending on what those titles mean in your company) is desperately trying to get every one to sync up and just make the product go, for the most part. Their whole job is to make things go smoothly. Rarely do they get to say what they really want. So, if your PM has a suspiciously similar expression, or is slinging you any of these lines, they may be having nefarious thoughts.
The ‘gaze into a galaxy far-far away’
They say:
“Mike… now the feature is going to take an extra two weeks, after we just scheduled the media release publicly. That seems, like — a large misestimate.”
They mean:
“What the fucking-fuck Mike? How in the hell did your estimate change by a whole two weeks since our stand up, yesterday? You are killing me Mike, I’m dead now. Please set up a fund for my orphaned child.”
The ‘amused disbelief’
They say:
“Oh, you aren’t feeling well today? So you need to transfer all of your priority tasks to another member on the team. That’s unfortunate, it’s going to put us behind on launch.”
They mean:
“Do you understand how the internet works? I can see your public twitter. I know you were out partying last night #puking #MaybeDontDrinkSoMuch #GetAPrivateAccount #ReportingYourAssToHR.”
The ‘momentary panic’
They say:
“We have a last minute feature request. I know this is inconvenient and you have other things to do, but we have an executive interest in this one.”
They mean:
“Oh. My. God. You have no idea how high up my intestines this executive is. There is one bug, not even a bug really, a glitch because you can’t reproduce this issue with anyone else but the CFO’s wife. She is displeased, and one of millions of users, but hey, let’s disrupt the whole feature cycle to hunt a literal ghost in the machine. That’s worth all of the time.”
The ‘don’t make me come over there’
They say:
“Hi, I didn’t see you at the mandatory team meeting, that has been on the calendar… for the same date, and time — for the whole year.”
They mean:
“Why must you make me hurt you? Do you like the pain? Do you enjoy the passive aggressiveness? Do you like to make me look like my eyes are going to pop out of my head? I knew that putting ‘rock star’ in the job description was a bad idea. Rock stars sleep late and overdose. I want a fucking ‘scholar’ next time.”
The ‘how could we get away with this?’
They say:
“We could probably get these security fixes prioritized higher if there were some high profile users who were affected, but you know how management is, react late.”
They mean:
“So, if I’m looking this way, and not looking your way. I see nothing in that case… Do you notice how I’m totally not looking at you right now? So say if you were to make a change, and a Director was affected by a security bug, where texted photos were made public, I would know nothing. Maybe the guy who cheats on his wife with that chick in user experience, for example? Like, no one would have seen you do that, or endorsed it at all.”
