(an exaggerated reenactment)

Me: Ok today, I might get some coding done and get my changes in by Weds
(2 mins after coming)
Emails Come In:  Most of the users are on vacation this week, but you need the users to sign off on your changes to go in.

Me: So wtf do I do.
Me: I guess, I will just mass email any user in the building so I get this thing signed-off.  (still haven't done any coding)

Me to Developer: I can't seem to find any users to get this thing signed off, now what?
Developer: <Shrug>
Me: ok, great...

Guy on Phone: Is your change going to be submitted today.
Me: I am still waiting on users so sign off
Guy on Phone, Network Person: (jokingly but not really) Well, normally management likes to have these forms signed-off at their right times or that just leads to more forms and calls.  We just like to have our ducks in a row.

Me: I am working on it, need users to sign-off.
Me: Now wtf, maybe I will just go to lunch and let this work itself out.
Me to Management:  Blah, blah, blah, blah; I need something to be signed-off by Weds morning.
Management: Ok

...Management signs off on wrong thing.  That is ok, because nobody really knows what is going on anyway.

Me in email to Management: Well it looks like the change made actually bumps the date of the sign-off to next week, which is not needed.  So, now we need to fill out another form and get it re-approved by the end of the day.

Me: <gets a .45, points to head, today is going to suck>
Me to Developer:  So now I need help getting this form/change re-approved, 3 user sign-offs, and then make my other code changes in the next couple of hours.  What do I do.
Developer: Hmm, this happens all the time, let me call somebody.
Me: Whatever

Me: Found users an hour before end of day and finally got sign off and other stuff.
Me: Now I have 30minutes to make more code modifications and we get to do the same thing tomorrow.

If it weren't for the ancient source control (which I have circumvented by using svn), the amazing amount of paper-work for simple code changes, the lack of process (ironic, ask any developer with 2-5 years tenure and get blank stares as to how to do something), the spaghetti code whick breaks every code convention ever printed (the result of putting C/cobol developers on a large J2EE web project), and fixing code written during the same year java was released (10 years ago) and not being able to fix it...this place wouldnt be that bad.

But then again, maybe I just like to complain.
The people are semi-cool though.

Well, its like that everywhere. Its not your fault, but you're at the bottom of the totem pole, so you need to be proactive and fix your managers mistakes, if they threaten you. It sucks, they shoulda've payd attention, but its the way things are.

If you werent moving back with your parents, I wouldn't understand why you were quiting.

Why wait for sign-offs?  Why not just stub the code changes?

Yeah, if you know what you're doing, why not just do it?

And you keep a local copy of the code tree? Are you serious?

"Me: Ok today, I might get some coding done and get my changes in by Weds"

Do you mean make my changes in production?

Yeah, that's not going to work without users sign-off -- it's the same everywhere with > 100 employees.