I used to work at an utility company that started to build, or rather started to plan to build a new site, for something that mostly exists in developed countries already. The normal projects thus were usually expansions, upgrades and refurbishments.

Getting to build from scratch, and especially at that size is an amazing opportunity. Unfortunately though mixing the slower processes of a utility company with political interference in an unstable political environment, company leadership where the CTO role was vacant for multiple years and the rest of management is classical business school people w.o. engineering background and insane ideas about new management practices, bogged the whole thing down pretty harshly.

With the managing practices i’m talking about things like bonus systems that most companies tried in the 90s and got rid of again. This is particularly absurd as the companies goal is to provide the utility at cost coverage, not to maximise profit. But it gets even worse, as the main issue is lacking cooperation cross departments. In an environment where people are already clingy to “this is our department standard, i will follow it precisely because i dont want to take risks”, adding on top conflicting KPIs that impact peoples salary is a recipe for desaster with a 100% guarantee.

Also they got an insane idea about “desk sharing” to cut down on office space rented, since most people are working from home. But they didnt increase the allowance of work from hom days. So you are basically forced to stay at home on specific days and go to the office on other days, so you can meet both quotas, effectively taking all the benefits for the employee away.

I left and i’m not looking back. I would have loved to continue working with the colleagues though and i am still amazed by how they try to make the project happen despite every boulder the company throws into their path.