There is another reason why Engineers and programmers get fed up in  a project. Its because they don't get the right tools and resources at the right time, while still the deadline is fixed. Lets imagine a construction project say in Tamilnadu in India. The builder who employs the engineer would have got money from the clients, promising that he would deliver the house on time, and that would be fixed.

The plans would have been laid and all would seem okay. The engineer would have told the builder and client with a time with some padding but it would have been forcibly been reduced by the builder so that costs would come down. The engineer would have been sweet talked and would have made to accept it.

With all enthusiasm, the engineer would go into the project and would hit his first road block. Tamilnadu, India has worst power supply history and power goes off frequently thus making the machinery to halt from now and then. the Engineer talks to the builder and explains the situation, asks for a backup generator. If the company is run by engineers the seriousness off the problem would have been visible, but if the company is run by MBA's politics would settle in.

An MBA run company would force the engineer to do some paper work, force him to attend unnecessary meetings, make him give unnecessary explanation, would advice him to make people work a little extra, will show the time pressure on him and force him to complete on time. MBA's can't think out of the box,  and if they ever do, then the universe will get destroyed as soon as it happened.

So the project gets delayed and delayed then the stupid management now really feels the pressure after some time. They realize that the power problem is delaying the project (holy shit what a great enlightenment) and they hurry now to do what. Knowing that some thing needs to done, some one in the management comes up with a a bright idea why not provide backup generator to the building team. The boss notices it, the MBA smiles as he knows that he will get a salary hike and promotion for his excellent solution. The person is tasked with the work of providing a generator to the engineer and he does it immediately.

By now the engineer and his workers are fed up with power cuts, their enthusiasm with the project is diminished, they know that what they ask for will almost be not delivered at the right time. With less moral, the work still stalls and with deadline approaching, nothing much can  be done as their energies were sapped in bureaucracy and working extra time to offset the power cut a bit.

Now nearing the deadline, the MBA who came up with the brilliant idea pulls up the engineer frequently and asks for project report, gets reminded how he gets what he asked for, the engineers struggles to explain progress and thinks about quitting while the MBA thinks of replacing him.