I Could Just

You know the one, Someone comes over with a question, perhaps you've even done it yourself (many years ago).

The question usually starts out with a justification.... Some prevarication.... and then an explanation of why it's ok to do X in this case, even though normally it would not be acceptable.

"You see I need this data here, and I'd have to change all this code, so I could just.."

The phrase "I could just" is really the dead giveaway.

And everyone already knows the answer, the guy asking it knows, you know even as you hear the "You see" part.

The answer is inevitably "No, it's not OK".

Then there's "We'll go back and fix it later" - as though next week things won't be as busy as right now. If someone can explain to me why they think next week will be different than last week or the week before, fire away.

"I Could Just" is a wrong thing.

What he should be saying is "This is going to take longer than we planned, I just I'd let you know now".

edit - I've just realised that this is a repost of the same idea. It's still true though.