Every time I'm asked to do "sales engineering" (a term I hate). What I mean is the sales people are going to demo the product to a prospect and they know there is a feature gap that this particular prospect will depend on. So exec asks us to design a build a bullshit feature that will never actually be launched, as quickly as possible. Nine times out of ten the prospect never eventuates and the effort is wasted.
I understand the need to put your best foot forward for a sales opportunity, but there's nothing I hate more than being asked to build something in the lowest-quality way possible in order to throw it away later. I hate hate hate it.
It could have been worse. You could have been told to then merge it and support it. "It already works, almost, so why do you need extra time on it? Now for the next feature,..."
I understand the need to put your best foot forward for a sales opportunity, but there's nothing I hate more than being asked to build something in the lowest-quality way possible in order to throw it away later. I hate hate hate it.