Yes, for an emergency change (change or there will be layoffs), this is a rather dangerous policy. The goal of any emergency fix should be "do as little as possible to solve problem".
I get the feeling that too many people in the chain did not treat this as an emergency. It seems very business as usual. When a company is talking layoffs, it is an emergency.
Yeah, I agree. The first time he told someone "Philip wants this done quickly" and they said, "Sorry, it's policy," the next move -- at least my next move -- would have been to walk to Philip's office and say, "Will you come tell this lady that this change is more important than that policy?"
I mean, they don't have a way to know it's really an emergency. Every engineer thinks everything's an emergency. There's nothing like the guy in charge standing there while they work to communicate THIS IS ACTUALLY AN EMERGENCY.
I get the feeling that too many people in the chain did not treat this as an emergency. It seems very business as usual. When a company is talking layoffs, it is an emergency.