Comment On The Service Awards Ceremony

OMFG! I can't believe they didn't audit the list. I'm sure the "hours worked" part would've been very obvious.

Oh.. and lovely graphic, by the way. That's how I feel at any "awards" gathering that most companies do. It's almost insulting.

I worked with a POS before, and I don't mean Point of Sales...

This isn't a huge WTF, in my opinion. (Unless it signals something much more troubling, like architectural defects in their system.)

I used to work as a bus driver for a university. They once gave out an award (a hat) for not being late or missing a shift for an entire semester.

One of the winners was a very punctual test account with the more or less unexpected name of Gandhi Barfaronious.

JJ:

This isn't a huge WTF, in my opinion. (Unless it signals something much more troubling, like architectural defects in their system.)

Well, there is the fact that the store manager wouldn't instantly know that a name she didn't recognize hadn't actually worked there for 5 years. I would expect the manager to know everyone who had worked there for that long unless that particular local computer shop had 10,000 employees.

Erik:

JJ:

This isn't a huge WTF, in my opinion. (Unless it signals something much more troubling, like architectural defects in their system.)

Well, there is the fact that the store manager wouldn't instantly know that a name she didn't recognize hadn't actually worked there for 5 years. I would expect the manager to know everyone who had worked there for that long unless that particular local computer shop had 10,000 employees.

Yeah, I was just about to say something like this. The WTF isn't that a dummy account wound up in their report, it's that a company that obviously has no sense of community and friendship forces everyone to attend these stupid conferences. I'm told this company has entitled these quarterly meetings: "Mandatory Fun Day!"

Geez, if you're going to use a test record, at least get the city and state to match the zip code.

12345 is the zip code for Schenectady, New York.

(The real WTF: I didn't have to look this up.)

The real WTF is that the manager gave out the awards from behind a podium. Was she trying to hide?

In 15 years I should change my name to Poss Training and go in looking for my retirement options. Judging from this, they won't have any clue that I'm not Poss Training.

for five years a pen and pencil set, for ten years a corporate logo pocketknife.

Egad, how demeaning. For my five year recognition I received, in addition to the standard lapel pin and refrigerator magnet, a very nice genuine leather carrying case (with the company logo, of course) which I still use every day, three years later.

I probably won't get anything at 10 years, though. Back then they did the recognitions at our quarterly meetings. They don't do that any more.

This reminds me, how come video stores stock so many copies of "Security Device Enclosed"? I don't remember it being that popular.

Benanov:

Geez, if you're going to use a test record, at least get the city and state to match the zip code.

12345 is the zip code for Schenectady, New York.

(The real WTF: I didn't have to look this up.)

All of my test orders are for 123 Fake St. Schenectady NY, 12345.

Zylon:

This reminds me, how come video stores stock so many copies of "Security Device Enclosed"? I don't remember it being that popular.

For diehard fans. I remember wating in line for two and a half months when it first came out in theaters.

-Harrow.

Heh heh

This reminds me of this little story: Once when I was a little boy, my parents and me were driving around in the italian-speaking part of switzerland, during summer vacation time. At some point I asked, from the back of the car, where we were. My mom looked out the windows and said: "Oh, we have just arrived in 'Gasolina'".

Perhaps they should go down to HR and "Fix the glitch", so Poss does not get a paycheck every week. It will sort it self out organically over time. We like to avoid conflict in these situations, you see.

I don't know. I like using:

123 Forth Street
Beverly Hills, Ca 90210

I am surprised more people don't use that zip.

Hehe,

good one :)

No where's my red stapler?

MindChild:

I don't know. I like using:

123 Forth Street
Beverly Hills, Ca 90210

I am surprised more people don't use that zip.

Being in the UK, I've always used that zip for anything that required me to 'be American'.

Nitehawk:

All of my test orders are for 123 Fake St. Schenectady NY, 12345.

TRRWTF would be if that was a real address, however the only Fake Rd's I can find are in 17309, 22835 and 17406 (thanks to google maps).

Nitehawk:

Benanov:

Geez, if you're going to use a test record, at least get the city and state to match the zip code.

12345 is the zip code for Schenectady, New York.

(The real WTF: I didn't have to look this up.)

All of my test orders are for 123 Fake St. Schenectady NY, 12345.

Believe it or not, the building I work in is actually located on 123 S. Main St.

Derek Hartley:

MindChild:

I don't know. I like using:

123 Forth Street
Beverly Hills, Ca 90210

I am surprised more people don't use that zip.

Being in the UK, I've always used that zip for anything that required me to 'be American'.

+1 for that....lots of news sites require you to enter a zip code.

Someone You Know:

I used to work as a bus driver for a university. They once gave out an award (a hat) for not being late or missing a shift for an entire semester.

"They gave me a hat,” Mr. Someone You Know says. “I have the hat to this day,” he declares, rising to pull it from his briefcase. “I have the hat."

I had just opened Firefox for some R & D on POS for a system I just today resumed work on.

Makes people feel great to know that if they stick it out, they will be bestowed honors on par with a great test account.

But who was the employee of the month?

The sky's no limit!

We have these types of things quarterly but in addition to years of service awards we get recognition if the client said something nice about you. Last time the name of someone who works for a competing contractor was called to receive this award.

Damn!
I thought that Paula Bean will receive the award :( .

We have these types of things quarterly but in addition to years of service awards we get recognition if the client said something nice about you. Last time the name of someone who works for a competing contractor was called to receive this award.

I use my own name and address for a test account. Once I got sent an order after placing a test order through an ecommerce shopping cart. The client's vendor refused to cancel the order.

More specifically, it's the zip code for the GE Energy plant in Schenectady, NY. Yes, the plant is big enough that it has its own zip code.

Completely off-topic, but my favorite address:

1234 Cherry Ln. (In Provo, UT)

It just sounds charming...

Whenever possible, I enter "Denial" as the state in our test accounts.

I knew that this sort of thing sounded familiar. I am surprised that nobody else has mentioned

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Ive-Got-The-Monkey-Now.aspx

You wouldn't believe how many Mickey Mouses there are in our production system...

Sebastian:

I think the WTF is, while technically rather minor, rather major on a social level. The goal of such awards ceremony is to foster employee loyalty and create the feeling of personal recognition. What better way to spoil the "personal" part than grantin an award to a test account. That says: The person reading the list doesn't spot the error, implying she doesn't know the people she's awarding at all, she didn't even try to look at the employee's file, the list was generated automatically, no one cared to look over it.

Sebastian

Sorry, who are you already?

In the well loved Infocom ('Zork') adventure game series, I was amused to find as I poked around in the code that the player was internally known as 'The Idiot' or some such.

I've warned employees in the past not to use insulting names for test clients. Odd how these leak out to release versions all too often.

Just Some Guy:

I worked for an ISP whose very first customer was Mr. Blank. For real. So the very first row in our customer database was "ID: 1000 NAME: BLANK". That account got deleted more than once by well-meaning and unsuspecting customer service people.

I have a colocated server which was rented from a small CA hosting company whose CTO's surname is Blank. (I still have the server, but the hosting company was sold; he's just moved to a nearby startup company, IIRC.)

It's the most common one I use. Yup, thanks to the TV show.

123 main st.

then I gather some local town/zip combos that I know off the top of my head.

It probably wasn't a 'test user that made its way into production'. It was probably exactly what it said it was: It was the dummy user for training people on the POS System.

The idea being that you can train a new cashier on a real piece of hardware in the store, but the system will recognize any transactions processed by that user as fake and not counted towards any real totals.

KattMan:

So who was collecting the paychecks and did Poss get audited by the IRS recently? Lack of a SSN? Are they an illegal alien?

I'm sure there was a SSN. No need to worry. It was 123-45-6789. Or was it 000-00-0000? 999-99-9999?

DOA:

In my experience test accounts are very robust. You create one now and 10 years down the line it's still lurking in some dark corner of the system.
In fact I'm pretty sure that in the case of nuclear war only the insects and tests accounts will survive...

In the case of nuclear war, it's likely that the test accounts were the cause!

TheRider:

Heh heh

This reminds me of this little story: Once when I was a little boy, my parents and me were driving around in the italian-speaking part of switzerland, during summer vacation time. At some point I asked, from the back of the car, where we were. My mom looked out the windows and said: "Oh, we have just arrived in 'Gasolina'".

One of Dave Barry's books has a story of him driving around Germany, getting lost in every town and somehow alwasy ending up on a street called "Einbahnstrasse".

Really? you must be from the bible belt.

boomzilla:

Someone You Know:

I used to work as a bus driver for a university. They once gave out an award (a hat) for not being late or missing a shift for an entire semester.

"They gave me a hat,” Mr. Someone You Know says. “I have the hat to this day,” he declares, rising to pull it from his briefcase. “I have the hat."

The Real WTF is that I didn't understand that reference at all.

JD:

KattMan:

So who was collecting the paychecks and did Poss get audited by the IRS recently? Lack of a SSN? Are they an illegal alien?

I'm sure there was a SSN. No need to worry. It was 123-45-6789. Or was it 000-00-0000? 999-99-9999?

Actually perhaps it was this...

121-00-8734

Which looks like a valid social security number and in actuality is used as one. The problem, real SSN's can not have all 0's in any of it's three parts. The usage, military hospitals in Iraq need a way to track foreign nationals they treat through a system designed for US citizens. So they use the three digit identifier for the hospital then two zeros then a four digit sequence.

It works for what it is, but the problems start when those patients need to be transferred stateside. This number is then seen as a real SSN when it is not.

Benanov:

Geez, if you're going to use a test record, at least get the city and state to match the zip code.

12345 is the zip code for Schenectady, New York.

(The real WTF: I didn't have to look this up.)

The real WTF is that someone would be living at the GE plant.