A phrase at work that instantly tells you things are about to get messy.

“Can I ask a quick question?” This is always, always a huge project. In IT, it’s never a “quick question.” Not once have I seen it be quick. Not a single damn time.

One of the “quick questions” I got in my current job turned into a project that is still rolling on eight months later. The person estimated it’d take five minutes. This is extremely common in my field.

In another role I got a “quick question” that transformed into a multi-year project and one firing. I think this happens because nearly all of the time managers and regular users have zero idea the complexity involved in anything, don’t do any research beforehand, and have no idea at all what they are asking for.

And then IT gets cursed with “quick question” poorly-scoped projects and tasks.