I agree. Requiring things like stakeholder signoffs, code review, good test processes, and respect for team resource management is annoying, but it can also be incredibly important when you're trying to keep a big ship afloat.
Without those steps there's another article waiting to be written: "Rogue developer brings down business for six days with a seemingly innocuous 1-line change"
I've worked in two kinds of companies: Places where it's kind of a hassle to get code past a code review, and places where everyone's always having to put out fires all the time.
Of the two, I've had to unexpectedly work nights, weekends or even vacations at only one kind.
It's very unlikely. Peer-reviews are spreading information across team, so at least two team members are understanding every area of the code, so project manager can always add more members to urgent or problematic task quickly.
Except the end result was the boss said DO IT NOW and it got done now.
This seems to be a pretty clear example of not making the process work for you. Unwritten policies. Having to escalate twice because of silly reasons. Hot fixes being miscategorized as features. Is a very urgent fix really the place to be fixing a bunch of other tech debt?
cost to business of occasional goof is less here than prohibitively high costs of making any change from these inappropriate and frankly insane processes (I've held management positions at such companies and easily recognise these kind of processes, in fact the post may have triggered some mild PTSD)
Without those steps there's another article waiting to be written: "Rogue developer brings down business for six days with a seemingly innocuous 1-line change"