Comment On Classic WTF: Behavioral Deficiencies

iToad:

As a software developer with the usual total lack of social skills, we have to admit that we actually learned something useful from this.

FTFY

Julia:

“There's no 'I' in 'team'. ...”

Yeah, well there's no 'U' in team either. So if I'm not on the team and you're not on the team,... THERE'S NOBODY ON THE GODDAMN TEAM! The team sucks.

Denholm Reynholm:

Team! Team team team team team! I even love saying the word team!

Hello? What? Well if you can't work as a team you're all fired. That's it, you heard me, fired! Get your things and go.

We quit!

Damn, that's right, 'cause there's no 'he' in team either.
But wait, there is an 'e in team, so 'e's on the team, and 'e's bloomin' 'appy, too, 'cause there's also a 't' in team. So 'e's alone on the team, and 'e's got a nice cuppa.

And he's also got some sausages - there's also scrambled 'meat' in team.

I love dickwad DBAs that say things like: "I'm too busy to help you".

They're too busy yanking each others nobs.

Opposite day! The entire story was the WTF, and the part that was presented as the WTF (perhaps in the submitter's mind) was actually the somewhat-reasonable part.

Calli Arcale:

trtrwtf:

"the absurdity of the last hour of his life"

Okay, this was out of nowhere. When did he get sentenced to death, and how did we find ourselves in a Camus novel?

"Last" as in "preceding", not "last" as in "final".

Thanks, Anti-Joke Chicken!

I love these WTFs that arrogantly miss the point, always misconstruing bosses/managers as idiots and developers/dba's as hot shit. Have none of you been on the other side of that story before?

The "using we, not I" is actually a good rule to live by. It's not about substituting the word "I" for the word "we", it's about thinking as a team, not as an individual. Obviously individuals on a team are going to have certain responsibilities themselves, but the state-of-mind should be the team.

Of course, a lot of this could be a problem with the way the company is structured. If the company structured it so that Shawn and the other non-existing DBAs are their own department taking requests from other departments, then of course he's not going to think as part of the team.

Secondly, Shawn's boss probably kept pounding it into him because he's not an idiot that's easily appeased by Shawn _pretending_ to understand what he was saying just to get him to stop talking.

Bob:

"team buy-in" and other horrible bullshit phrases are created and used by people too stupid to realise that everyone else is sufficiently intelligent that they needn't be treated like retarded children.

When I do something, I say "I". If I'm talking about something the company has done, I say "we". This is "English".

"Our policy is _______ " vs "My new policy is __________ ".

"I'm going to require you to write tests before I pull this code" vs "We're required to write tests before code is pulled"

The outcome is the same, but the meaning and tone is different.

I hardly see how that's treating people like children, versus throwing a hissy over changing the way you talk to people for the greater good.


This is EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION.

Julia:

“There's no 'I' in 'team'. But then there's no 'I' in 'useless smug colleague', either. And there's four in 'platitude-quoting idiot'. Go figure.”

"There's no 'I' in 'team'."

"Yeah? Well there's no 'U' either. And if you're not on the team, and I'm not on the team, then no one's on the god-damn team! The team sucks!"

AN AMAZING CODER:

Obviously ... the state-of-mind should be the team.

How is that obvious?

For example I was recently on a project team. At the end of the project we added up our hours. I worked 120, the other three people worked 12 each. So I did 10 times the work.

But wait, it gets better. Their 12 hours were all meetings to ask how I was coming along and what I was going to do next. Excuse me, how we were coming along and what we were going to do next.

So, subtracting my 12 hours in those same meetings, I could have completed the work in 108 hours vs. the 156 actually spent.

How did my customer benefit from paying for those extra 48 hours, increasing costs by over 40%? Why is that "obviously" better?

Tucker:

Julia:

“There's no 'I' in 'team'. ...”

Yeah, well there's no 'U' in team either. So if I'm not on the team and you're not on the team,... THERE'S NOBODY ON THE GODDAMN TEAM! The team sucks.

There's no 'I' in a team, but flip the 'm' and rearrange the letters to get a 'we'. This circus is entirely appropriate given how the so-called managers try to invent a "team spirit" for no reason.

Vic:

Now the network admins... they were Shawn**2. Not only wouldn't they work with the developers, they would arbitrarily make changes without any notification or documentation.

Don't forget that they'll categorically deny that they changed anything at all after the fact, and they'll also make it totally clear that they never ever ever EVER change firewall configurations live on the master routers without keeping any kind of backup. (Despite this being common practice in reality, as becomes clear when a backhoe-induced power glitch causes the routers to spontaneously reboot.) After all, this is the same group of people who claim that the network is fine despite their total inability to deploy DHCP (no PXE booting for you!) their crazy custom DNS system, and the fact that they can't keep broadcast packets to any subnet. I could go on but I don't wish to remember all the pain…

There's a reason why I configure my systems to be not critically dependent on the network actually being there, and to not rely on any kind of firewall between myself and the Big Bad World.

Johnny:

Shawn sounds like an arsehole.

Well, it DID say he's a DBA. Aren't they synonyms?

JV:

This is why WE do not have a DBA on our team. We're smart enough to be developers AND handle the database as well.

Good for you. However in most places you have at least one idiot, and having someone sane as a database protector is a good thing.

At my previous job, we had one of those "I structure my tables like I do my Java objects"-kind of developers. He was quite proud of his system and obviously thought it rocked. Did I mention I don't work there anymore?

Moral is, not having a DBA is just like dictatorship. If it's a good Saddam, it's super-efficient and awesome. If not, poverty hits 99% and you lose your arm if coughing after 8 PM.

Sounds like Shawn let the "Senior" title go to his head. I agree with his boss.

Mr Glass:

JV:

This is why WE do not have a DBA on our team. We're smart enough to be developers AND handle the database as well.

Good for you. However in most places you have at least one idiot, and having someone sane as a database protector is a good thing.

At my previous job, we had one of those "I structure my tables like I do my Java objects"-kind of developers. He was quite proud of his system and obviously thought it rocked. Did I mention I don't work there anymore?

Moral is, not having a DBA is just like dictatorship. If it's a good Sodom, it's super-efficient and awesome. If not, poverty hits 99% and you lose your arm if coughing after 8 PM.

ftfy

EmperorOfCanada:

Oracle DBAs like this douche are why WE went with MongoDB. Development with Mongo trusts the developers to not be jackasses; trust being the operative word. If you can't trust a developer then get a new developer. Not trusting them results in scaring the good ones away.

So.... you don't care about any of the traditional benefits of an RDBMS: atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability?

Whitespace cause for rejection? I would just fix that, accept and send back the changes.

Mr Glass:

JV:

This is why WE do not have a DBA on our team. We're smart enough to be developers AND handle the database as well.

Moral is, not having a DBA is just like dictatorship. If it's a good Saddam, it's super-efficient and awesome. If not, poverty hits 99% and you lose your arm if coughing after 8 PM.

Sounds just like having a DBA, too.

The Meta-Moral is that having kind and decent co-workers makes any job awesome, while needing to babysit clueless ones can suck the joy out of even the most amazing jobs.

> The developers insisted upon changing things immediately and fixing problems later

As a developer, I say, WTF?!

Kasper:

The entire wording of the emails may have a different impact than what the boss suggesting. Using we instead of I may give Shawn's emails more authority, at least in the developers' perception.

Actually, I suspect that's exactly what the boss had in mind. If something is official policy, the plural "we" helps convey that. Whereas the singular "I" makes you sound like a petty dictator.

not frits at all:

Julia:

“There's no 'I' in 'team'. But then there's no 'I' in 'useless smug colleague', either. And there's four in 'platitude-quoting idiot'. Go figure.”

But there's a 'me' in 'team' !

There's also 'meat'. We should have a barbecue!

And 'mate'... uh, never mind.

Tucker:

Julia:

“There's no 'I' in 'team'. ...”

Yeah, well there's no 'U' in team either. So if I'm not on the team and you're not on the team,... THERE'S NOBODY ON THE GODDAMN TEAM! The team sucks.

Oh, you've seen the Red Sox, then.

We would like to play.

not frits at all:

Julia:

“There's no 'I' in 'team'. But then there's no 'I' in 'useless smug colleague', either. And there's four in 'platitude-quoting idiot'. Go figure.”

But there's a 'me' in 'team' !

A co-worker used to say it as "without M E, there is no team"

Sir Twist:

Steve The Cynic:

Noread:

DELETE FROM POSTS WHERE POST_TEXT == "Frist!"

FTFY.

No you didn't.

Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Line 1

Incorrect syntax near '='.

Edit: bah, sniped already.

Notice the string is surrounded with " instead of '. I think it's reasonable enough to think it's neither MSSQL nor Oracle.

Team is an anagram for meat.

http://teddziuba.com/2009/08/stop-using-the-word-we.html

rosko:

not frits at all:

Julia:

“There's no 'I' in 'team'. But then there's no 'I' in 'useless smug colleague', either. And there's four in 'platitude-quoting idiot'. Go figure.”

But there's a 'me' in 'team' !

A co-worker used to say it as "without M E, there is no team"

There's no 'I' in 'team'. But there are 6 I's in 'dissociative identity disorder'.



Although if there's 6 of you that probably counts as a 'we'.

dkf:

Vic:

Now the network admins... they were Shawn**2. Not only wouldn't they work with the developers, they would arbitrarily make changes without any notification or documentation.

Don't forget that they'll categorically deny that they changed anything at all after the fact, and they'll also make it totally clear that they never ever ever EVER change firewall configurations live on the master routers without keeping any kind of backup. (Despite this being common practice in reality, as becomes clear when a backhoe-induced power glitch causes the routers to spontaneously reboot.) After all, this is the same group of people who claim that the network is fine despite their total inability to deploy DHCP (no PXE booting for you!) their crazy custom DNS system, and the fact that they can't keep broadcast packets to any subnet. I could go on but I don't wish to remember all the pain…

There's a reason why I configure my systems to be not critically dependent on the network actually being there, and to not rely on any kind of firewall between myself and the Big Bad World.

You know, not *every* network admin is an ass-covering cowboy. Just like not every DBA is a sanctimonious prick, and not every developer is a demi-god.

But I'm sure you'll figure that out once you've moved on to your *second* professional job.

rosko:

not frits at all:

Julia:

“There's no 'I' in 'team'. But then there's no 'I' in 'useless smug colleague', either. And there's four in 'platitude-quoting idiot'. Go figure.”

But there's a 'me' in 'team' !

A co-worker used to say it as "without M E, there is no team"

So if you kick "me" out of the team, you get thanked for it: you get "ta".

That sobers a man up.

<drumroll>
But if you look really hard you'll find a me.....
</drumroll>

We think it is a real classic, one good guy busts many bad guys by the team synergy ways. Shawn must go on!

Bob:

"Our policy is _______ " vs "My new policy is __________ ".

sorry, but they both sound like bollocks to me.

What's wrong with "THE new policy is".

Avoid any responsibility!

"Sorry, it's THE policy"

Lone Marauder:

You know, not *every* network admin is an ass-covering cowboy.

Sure, and the team that handle the external networking — as opposed to the internal net — are very good and approachable; yes, they'll make sure you understand the consequences of your request, but that's just fair. Internal networking are a shambles managed by an ass-covering clown who thinks that he's a dictator. It wouldn't be nearly so frustrating if it wasn't for the fact that it's clear (even from examples form within the same organization) that there are better ways of running things. Better yet, once you can get past the manager and talk to one of the poor folk on the ground, you find out that they know that things are wrong too and want to improve…

They're not the most dysfunctional part of round here, but they're close. (By comparison, the DBAs are reasonable and the devs mostly just need more experience.)

AN AMAZING CODER:

I love these WTFs that arrogantly miss the point, always misconstruing bosses/managers as idiots and developers/dba's as hot shit. Have none of you been on the other side of that story before?

I agree, the boss has clearly spotted an "us and them" situation developing
between dba and dev and is trying to defuse it with a gentle prod.

That said DBA's do tend to be arses.

Bob:

"team buy-in" and other horrible bullshit phrases are created and used by people too stupid to realise that everyone else is sufficiently intelligent that they needn't be treated like retarded children.

When I do something, I say "I". If I'm talking about something the company has done, I say "we". This is "English".

if ( people_too_stupid_percentage > .5) {
comms_mode='say_WE';
}

This is reality (or Sparta)

EmperorOfCanada:

Oracle DBAs like this douche are why WE went with MongoDB. Development with Mongo trusts the developers to not be jackasses; trust being the operative word. If you can't trust a developer then get a new developer. Not trusting them results in scaring the good ones away.

nice trolling :)

Jay:

tharpa:

One thing that's unusual is that Shawn O, who appears to be the submitter, is the problem. WTF?

Because arrogant people rarely recognize that the problem is that they are arrogant. Rather, they always see the problem as being that the peasants refuse to submit to their obviously superior wisdom.

Just minutes ago I came across the following quote in a magazine: "The proud man thinks he is humble. The humble man thinks he is proud."

That's no magazine, it's a kung fu movie transcript

Tried to picture bing [Oracle DBA robe] (no quotes) and got 4 pictures, only 2 of them have something to do with robes:

The Query:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Oracle+DBA+robe&go=&qs=ds&form=QBIR

The Results (from a Switzerland IP):
http://www.davidgis.fr/download/denisemilani_9qww9c.jpg
http://www.davidgis.fr/download/denisemilani_2m7glyd.jpg

Might not precisely reflect the word sense in the article, but at least there's some darkness...

AN AMAZING CODER:

I love these WTFs that arrogantly miss the point, always misconstruing bosses/managers as idiots and developers/dba's as hot shit. Have none of you been on the other side of that story before?

The "using we, not I" is actually a good rule to live by. It's not about substituting the word "I" for the word "we", it's about thinking as a team, not as an individual. Obviously individuals on a team are going to have certain responsibilities themselves, but the state-of-mind should be the team.

Of course, a lot of this could be a problem with the way the company is structured. If the company structured it so that Shawn and the other non-existing DBAs are their own department taking requests from other departments, then of course he's not going to think as part of the team.

Secondly, Shawn's boss probably kept pounding it into him because he's not an idiot that's easily appeased by Shawn _pretending_ to understand what he was saying just to get him to stop talking.

The "WE" talk exists only to protect people against their own insecurity - it's wise to use it but that has nothing to do with a team and everything to do with wanting insecure people feel safe reading you.

Vic:

The Oracle DBAs I've worked with were strict but reasonable. If you made a reasonable case for a change, they'd come up with a solution which worked for both the developers and the admins.

Now the network admins... they were Shawn**2. Not only wouldn't they work with the developers, they would arbitrarily make changes without any notification or documentation.

Seems like you haven't met many security "experts" ;) //

LAME!

Julia:

“There's no 'I' in 'team'...

No, but there is a 'U' in 'cunt'.

There is no "F" in "way".

L.:

AN AMAZING CODER:

I love these WTFs that arrogantly miss the point, always misconstruing bosses/managers as idiots and developers/dba's as hot shit. Have none of you been on the other side of that story before?

The "using we, not I" is actually a good rule to live by. It's not about substituting the word "I" for the word "we", it's about thinking as a team, not as an individual. Obviously individuals on a team are going to have certain responsibilities themselves, but the state-of-mind should be the team.

Of course, a lot of this could be a problem with the way the company is structured. If the company structured it so that Shawn and the other non-existing DBAs are their own department taking requests from other departments, then of course he's not going to think as part of the team.

Secondly, Shawn's boss probably kept pounding it into him because he's not an idiot that's easily appeased by Shawn _pretending_ to understand what he was saying just to get him to stop talking.

The "WE" talk exists only to protect people against their own insecurity - it's wise to use it but that has nothing to do with a team and everything to do with wanting insecure people feel safe reading you.

It's more than that. It goes both ways. Rather than the fuck-up being YOUR fault and YOUR problem, the fuck-up is now nobody's fault and OUR problem. If you're an otherwise sharp guy who made a huge mistake, this mentality is a real boost.

However, this can lead to coddling of weak team members, so be sure to only hire people who are worthy of it.

There's no "U" in "TEAM". Get the hell out.

Bob:

"team buy-in" and other horrible bullshit phrases are created and used by people too stupid to realise that everyone else is sufficiently intelligent that they needn't be treated like retarded children.

When I do something, I say "I". If I'm talking about something the company has done, I say "we". This is "English".

I used to be an individualistic asshole like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee...

Just kidding - I actually agree with you. Whooops. We agree.

JV:

This is why WE do not have a DBA on our team. We're smart enough to be developers AND handle the database as well.

I imagine that when you accidentally wipe out or, worse, corrupt some data and your customers sue you, you'll also be "smart" enough to represent yourselves in court.