We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction

It's not just me. I'm swapping technical notes with a colleague who says:

"Got very exasperated last week, so I sent e-mail upstairs setting out the work I thought I had on and explaining why I thought, without working about 300 hours a week, it might be difficult to acomplish. All I have got back are a couple of e-mails pointing out what I have missed off the list! In two of the cases missing off list was quite reasonable as no one had mentioned anything to me about what was going on."