Just over a week ago, my boss asked me to do some work that was urgent and not much time was being allowed for the task. Since I had a very heavy week coming up (with tasks that couldn’t be sent elsewhere), I suggested he look to someone else.
The heavy week came even heavier than expected, and I didn’t get a chance to look at the work in question. There came a meeting with the internal customer, and I laid my cards on the table, freely admitting I hadn’t started.
We got into a conversation about the requirements, and the scope grew a bit. The client asked “So you can do all of this in 2 days?” and I said “Maybe, give me a few hours to get started and I’ll know.”
My boss was angry, and said that everyone else agreed first, and worked overtime later.
How can I encourage him to take a more disciplined approach to making commitments?