I completely agree with you, except that I'm currently going through a situation.
The project manager has made a plan that a feature would be done by the end of the year. Two data scientists have been the only people working on it for the whole quarter. They said it's not going to be ready and they haven't even gotten it working on their local machines. The project manager turns to me and I concur with the data scientists. We had less than two weeks left when we talked, since everyone is taking time off for the holiday. I said I'm not going to work on it until it's ready and he's making out like I'm insubordinate and responsible. I honestly think I'm going to be fired.
It could be a good thing. Maybe I can work somewhere where this sort of thing isn't tolerated. I think a great many workplaces are like this though. Pushing back, even a bit, can paint a target.
You thought you were in a room with a nice friendly dog, all of the sudden the dog starts pacing and staring at you menacingly. You've found yourself in a bad situation for sure, but you should not consider how you tolerate a scary dog for any extended period of time. In the situation you can exit the room, get mauled, fight back and kill/incapacitate the dog. The grandparents comment applies only when there is an existing power balance in the engineers favor, if you don't put that power balance into place then their advice need not apply. Fuck your manager, if you do wind up fired let it roll off your back there was nothing you could do.
I’m not sure of your organizational structure, and if I had to guess it probably is designed to take power away from engineers, but if you’re able to talk to a manager about your near hostile PM it might be a good time to do so so thst someone has your back. Obvious caveat that this assumes your entire management chain isn’t complete garbage, which is a big assumption considering the story you provided.
Unfortunately, you're right and I don't really have anyone to turn to within the organization.
My manager was wrangled into this by the project manager. I explained the situation and his response was "I agree with you, but you have to do whatever the project manager says".
While that isn't word for word, I'm not paraphrasing.
I'd probably worry less about getting fired. If the manager is truly concerned about how quickly the product will be delivered then – unless they are truly idiotic – they will realize that firing the engineers on the project only works cross to their purpose.
The project manager has made a plan that a feature would be done by the end of the year. Two data scientists have been the only people working on it for the whole quarter. They said it's not going to be ready and they haven't even gotten it working on their local machines. The project manager turns to me and I concur with the data scientists. We had less than two weeks left when we talked, since everyone is taking time off for the holiday. I said I'm not going to work on it until it's ready and he's making out like I'm insubordinate and responsible. I honestly think I'm going to be fired.
It could be a good thing. Maybe I can work somewhere where this sort of thing isn't tolerated. I think a great many workplaces are like this though. Pushing back, even a bit, can paint a target.