I have had exactly the author's experience at prior jobs. Quite literally the EXACT experience.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I was put on a project that was doomed to fail from day one. I was looking at it optimistically. It was a problematic system, and I knew I could improve it dramatically.
What happened instead? My improvements brought to light a lot of horrible stuff, and the new code was catching and alerting on previously hidden errors. This lead people in high places to believe I was reckless and shipping dangerously bad code, when it reality, it was not any worse off than before.
This led to my downfall. It was a sad lesson to learn, but office politics are everywhere. It's so important to recognize when you're being backed into a corner and given projects that are designed to fail.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I was put on a project that was doomed to fail from day one. I was looking at it optimistically. It was a problematic system, and I knew I could improve it dramatically.
What happened instead? My improvements brought to light a lot of horrible stuff, and the new code was catching and alerting on previously hidden errors. This lead people in high places to believe I was reckless and shipping dangerously bad code, when it reality, it was not any worse off than before.
This led to my downfall. It was a sad lesson to learn, but office politics are everywhere. It's so important to recognize when you're being backed into a corner and given projects that are designed to fail.