Ah, xf falcon. Yeah, I remember that whole thing. What a chapter that was, let me tell you.
When they first started talking about xf falcon, it was all grand visions and big promises. This thing was supposed to be revolutionary, the system that would change how we did everything. Streamline operations, boost productivity, you name it. The presentations were slick, full of exciting charts. We were all supposed to be excited.
I got pulled onto the xf falcon team fairly early on. They said they needed my “unique perspective” or some such corporate speak. Truth was, I think they were just scrambling for anyone who could spell “project”. So, there I was, right in the thick of it from almost the beginning.
And what a beginning it was. The first sign that things weren’t quite as advertised was the planning phase. Or, well, the lack of one. It felt like we were building a plane while it was already taxiing down the runway. Requirements changed daily. One manager wanted it to do A, another insisted it must do B, and the big bosses just wanted it done “yesterday” using whatever new tech they’d read about in an airline magazine.
The tech stack itself? Oh boy. It wasn’t a stack; it was more like a garage sale. One team was trying to force-fit this ancient legacy system into it. Another was all about the latest, shiniest framework, even if it made no sense for what we were trying to build. Communication between these groups was practically non-existent. Trying to get different parts of xf falcon to talk to each other was like trying to herd cats. Angry cats.
My own little corner of that storm
I spent months trying to bridge gaps, make sense of conflicting instructions, and just get my assigned modules to work. There were so many late nights, fueled by stale coffee and sheer frustration. I specifically remember one all-hands-on-deck crisis. We had a major demo for some important folks the next day. And, of course, a critical component just fell apart. Turned out, two different teams had built their pieces with completely opposite assumptions about how data would flow. No one had bothered to check. Chaos, pure chaos. We somehow patched it together with digital duct tape and prayers, but it was ugly.
That kind of thing wasn’t a one-off; it was the norm for xf falcon. Good people got tired of it. Some really talented folks just packed up and left. Who could blame them? You can only bang your head against a wall for so long before you realize the wall isn’t going to move.
For me, xf falcon became a real turning point. I’d put in a lot of years at that place, but this project just highlighted all the cracks in the foundation. It wasn’t just about the xf falcon project itself, but the whole approach to getting things done. Or not getting them done, as was often the case. I realized I couldn’t thrive, or even survive, in that kind of environment anymore. My motivation was shot.
So, after one particularly pointless “emergency strategy meeting” that went in circles for three hours and achieved nothing, I made up my mind. I started looking. Took a while, but I eventually found a new gig. A place where planning was actually a thing, and people talked to each other before building stuff. Imagine that!
What happened to xf falcon? Last I heard, they’d massively downscaled it. Took the “falcon” part out and just kept a few small, manageable pieces that vaguely resembled the original idea. Maybe it’s quietly doing some small, useful task somewhere in the company now. Or maybe it just became another one of those legendary internal project failures that people whisper about. Either way, I was glad to be out of its flight path.
