The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

WTF? There should have been a story here?!?!

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Well, that's given me a new nickname for the guys downstairs...

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

shrugs You work in IT, you get used to being blamed for everything with a sniff of technology to it "You've broken the phones again haven't you?" "Our air con isn't working" "My chair hasn't worked since you installed the new software on my computer"

Par for the course...

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

VPs of Sales are not generally known (or rewarded) for their cluefulness or sensitivity. Their social skills are limited to those absolutely necessary for prospec identification, courting, deal making and deal closing closing.

That usually means buying drinks for the mark until he's drunk enough to sign the contract.

I wouldn't expect a VP of Sales to even know that a warehouse existed, much less that it was operated by human beings.

MoSlo · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

"Explanation: It's just that... you have all these squishy parts, master. And all that water! How the constant sloshing doesn't drive you mad, I have no idea."

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Lame. But there is a wtf:

the article said:
the company (which Jordan left some time later for unrelated reasons)

If a VP of a company I worked for called the warehouse staff "meatbots" on a public website (and "About Us" is usually as public as it gets) I would start searching for other employment for exactly that reason.

Why? Because if the VP survives the fallout, this is a sure sign that a) the company has a limited idea about what negative publicity in the age of the internet can mean in terms of revenue and b) obviously the prevalent opinion in management about the workforce is that they are exactly that: meatbots, not human beings. And I wouldn't want to work for such a company.

Regarding negative publicity: a good example is "#HasJustineLandedYet" - where a private tweet led to the director of communictaions to be sacked.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Dunder-Mifflin paper company?

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

It took a complete warehouse staff replacement, but they did catch up. Naturally, the VP of Sales is still there, with an even more impressive title.

So they replaced the staff and the job got done. Where's the WTF?

When all is said and done, if there's somebody willing to put up with the crap that you won't, you're already out of a job.

The VP of Sales was an asshole but he knew when he wrote those words that they would never come back to haunt him. That gives him more foresight than the warehouse staff.

CAPTCHA: dignissim - I may not have a job any more, but at least I have my dignissim.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

What on Earth these meatbo... err whorehouse stuff... I mean, warehouse staff were doing looking at the website?? We don't pay them for that!! They should be working hard 24/7 as we expect from them. Just for all of you to know, our VP of Sales just made a slip, nothing important. Move on. And to warehouse staff: move your ass and continue working!

Yours truly, The VP of Sales

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Rupee Everet:
It took a complete warehouse staff replacement, but they did catch up. Naturally, the VP of Sales is still there, with an even more impressive title.

So they replaced the staff and the job got done. Where's the WTF?

When all is said and done, if there's somebody willing to put up with the crap that you won't , or somebody who doesn't know the crap the previous people had to suffer, you're already out of a job.

The VP of Sales was an asshole but he knew when he wrote those words that they would never come back to haunt him. That gives him more foresight than the warehouse staff.

CAPTCHA: dignissim - I may not have a job any more, but at least I have my dignissim.

Here, FTFY

Steve The Cynic · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

faoileag:
Lame. But there is a wtf:
the article said:
the company (which Jordan left some time later for unrelated reasons)
If a VP of a company I worked for called the warehouse staff "meatbots" on a public website (and "About Us" is usually as public as it gets) I would start searching for other employment for exactly that reason.
Why? Because if the VP survives the fallout, this is a sure sign that a) the company has a limited idea about what negative publicity in the age of the internet can mean in terms of revenue and b) obviously the prevalent opinion in management about the workforce is that they are exactly that: meatbots, not human beings. And I wouldn't want to work for such a company.

So you'd start the search because the company might not punish the VP and might by not punishing him show signs of all those things you mentioned? That's the stuff of which witch-hunts are made.

If you wait until the decision is made, and made public (or at least distributed to the employees, which is more or less the same thing these days), and only then start your search, then OK, that's reasonable. But going because the decision might be like that is out of order, sorry.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Well, I refer to my project manager as "the tie". In front of him. I guess he's got thicker skin than the cardboard-grunts then?

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
faoileag:

the article said:
the company (which Jordan left some time later for unrelated reasons)
If a VP of a company I worked for called the warehouse staff "meatbots" on a public website (and "About Us" is usually as public as it gets) I would start searching for other employment for exactly that reason.
Why? Because if the VP survives the fallout, this is a sure sign that a) the company has a limited idea about what negative publicity in the age of the internet can mean in terms of revenue and b) obviously the prevalent opinion in management about the workforce is that they are exactly that: meatbots, not human beings. And I wouldn't want to work for such a company.
So you'd start the search because the company might not punish the VP and might by not punishing him show signs of all those things you mentioned?

No, you must have inserted a mental "immediately" where I didn't put one after "I would start searching for other employment".

Steve The Cynic:
That's the stuff of which witch-hunts are made.

Also, no. A witch-hunt would start if the culprit could not easily be identified but someone (e.g. the union) demands that the culprit be fired asap.

Steve The Cynic:
If you wait until the decision is made, and made public (or at least distributed to the employees, which is more or less the same thing these days), and only then start your search, then OK

That was implied by the sentence "if the VP survives the fallout". Perhaps I should have worded that differently, like "if the company does not take action against the VP".

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

faoileag:
If a VP of a company I worked for called the warehouse staff "meatbots" on a public website (and "About Us" is usually as public as it gets) I would start searching for other employment for exactly that reason.
Why? Because if the VP survives the fallout, this is a sure sign that a) the company has a limited idea about what negative publicity in the age of the internet can mean in terms of revenue and b) obviously the prevalent opinion in management about the workforce is that they are exactly that: meatbots, not human beings. And I wouldn't want to work for such a company. [...]

Easy there, cowboy. Sometimes good people make mistakes. Often complete idiots make mistakes. Some days good people imitate complete idiots. If you work where there are more than a few people, there's an idiot du jour about to make a mistake. Get over it.

Corollary: everywhere you've ever worked, there was an idiot. Whether that's coincidental or causal is an open question. [Goes for all of us; not picking on you in particular.]

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

anon:
Well, I refer to my project manager as "the tie". In front of him. I guess he's got thicker skin than the cardboard-grunts then?

Nah it's just that you are constantly referring to a phallic symbol that he is wearing around his neck. I'd call that a unique way of stroking the boss's ego.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Indifferent:
*shrugs* You work in IT, you get used to being blamed for everything with a sniff of technology to it "You've broken the phones again haven't you?" "Our air con isn't working" "My chair hasn't worked since you installed the new software on my computer"
Par for the course...

Management here finally realised that was an issue, and now hires people for 'IT/facilities'. Effectively anything that moves or lights up (except in the toilets) is our responsibility, including aircon and lightbulbs.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Todd Lewis:
Easy there, cowboy. Sometimes good people make mistakes. Often complete idiots make mistakes. Some days good people imitate complete idiots. If you work where there are more than a few people, there's an idiot du jour about to make a mistake. Get over it.

While this is true in general, it depends on the role of the person who makes the mistake on what action re that person is appropriate.

If an intern makes a derogatory remark about parts of the workforce in the company newsletter, he might be given a lectore by his immediate superior and that will be it.

If a publicly visible figure makes such a derogatory remark, thinks are a bit different as such remarks have a tendency to fall back on the company.

The higher up in management the person is, the more damaging such a remark can be and the more one can expect of that person to be aware of the consequences.

So, sorry, no. The VP is a loose cannon. We don't know in which country the reported wtf took place, but if that country is the USA, then the next time he gets drunk might have more serious consequences.

"Meatbots" might upset the warehouse staff but will probably have no legal ramifications. But what if next time the VP is drunk he shares his idea about the company's female staff?

So yes, people make mistakes. And yes, for most people you will have to accept that (and I do), forgive and forget. But from a certain level upwards, some mistakes should have consequences.

levbor · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

anon:
Well, I refer to my project manager as "the tie". In front of him. I guess he's got thicker skin than the cardboard-grunts then?

I suppose that only he and some coworkers hear it, while these guys were insulted in front of all the clients.

levbor · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

I don't get it. If the company sells e-commerce software, then it doesn't have a stock-and-shipping department - its clients do. And if everything was rosy until that fateful day, then why did Jordan have to visit the client?

operagost · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

I wish I could get away with not doing my job just because I was butthurt.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Maybe the VP of Sales was insensitive.. But the warehouse workers were ridiculously sensitive.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

This story provides a poster child example of a just plain crappy salesperson attitude, and that's the attitude that renders about 98% of the people in sales a waste of oxygen. I must be a mutant, because I've done well in both sales and engineering (mostly software develpment). No insult to the pure engineers in the crowd, but I've always found sales the more difficult of the two fields. Must be because people are more difficult to predict than are the electronics and computer systems we work with.

Anyhow, a good story, and a stellar example of just another sales drone.

Stan Rogers · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

levbor:
I don't get it. If the company sells e-commerce software, then it doesn't have a stock-and-shipping department - its clients do. And if everything was rosy until that fateful day, then why did Jordan have to visit the client?

No, that's sort of the way things work in the "start running your very own business today!!!" world. Some of them are MLM (like Amway), some are just direct storefront sales, but the deal is that "clients" create a front end for what is really your business and may or may not make enough in commissions to pay for the services.

Steve The Cynic · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

faoileag:
That was implied by the sentence "if the VP survives the fallout". Perhaps I should have worded that differently, like "if the company does not take action against the VP".

I'd suggest that to avoid this kind of confusion, you'd do better to make sure the "I would start searching" is conditioned directly by "if the company does not take action", something like this:

If the VP wrote something like that on the website and the company did not take action against him(*), then I would start searching for ...

This way, it's clear that the jobsearch is conditioned on the company's reaction. It wasn't even slightly clear before. You sounded more like you were saying, "If he said that then I'd start quitting, because if they then didn't do anything they'd be the sort of people I wouldn't want to work with." For what it's worth, I wouldn't want to work with them either, but I'd definitely wait to find out if they did something first.

(*) Or "fire his arse out of a cannon", perhaps...

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Get back to work you Meatbots

Steve The Cynic · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

levbor:
anon:
Well, I refer to my project manager as "the tie". In front of him. I guess he's got thicker skin than the cardboard-grunts then?
I suppose that only he and some coworkers hear it, while these guys were insulted in front of all the clients.

No, in front of the whole world (or at least that large fraction of it who can access the Web). So including all real and prospective clients and suppliers, all current, past, and potential future employees, and a thousand and one(*) different random people who might say something to a real/prospective client or supplier, and/or a potential employee.

(*) No, I don't mean literally 1001 people. I mean it as a synonym for "many".

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

VP Sales *AND* Engineering:
No insult to the pure engineers in the crowd, but I've always found sales the more difficult of the two fields.

I would say that depends very much on what exactly you do: there are difficult and easy tasks in both engineering and sales.

For example selling a shitty overpriced product is a difficult task in sales. Preaching to the choir is an easy task in sales.

Creating a small website without high performance requirements is an easy task in engineering. Creating device drivers, operating systems or databases with high performance requirements tends to be a difficult task.

And it depends on what kind of a person you are and where your skills lie. If you find engineering more easy than sales, you probably have better technical skills than social and you should stick with it, because you will be more successful there.

TheCPUWizard · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Is the problem that they were really VegiBots?????

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Surprised they didn't take a sales hit for having an about page that sounds like the author didn't graduate high school.

Captcha: suscipere (yes indeed).

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

I love the double standard that always goes on where "desk people" aren't allowed to think of the "worker bees" as any kind of lesser beings, but it's always ok for the "worker bees" to imply that the "desk people" don't have a "real job" because they don't have to lift things or stand.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Indifferent:
*shrugs* You work in IT, you get used to being blamed for everything with a sniff of technology to it "You've broken the phones again haven't you?" "Our air con isn't working" "My chair hasn't worked since you installed the new software on my computer"
Par for the course...

"Don't you think it's a bit too much of a coincidence that you rolled out version 5.0 of your java development tool the day before 9-11?"

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Todd Lewis:
faoileag:
If a VP of a company I worked for called the warehouse staff "meatbots" on a public website (and "About Us" is usually as public as it gets) I would start searching for other employment for exactly that reason.
Why? Because if the VP survives the fallout, this is a sure sign that a) the company has a limited idea about what negative publicity in the age of the internet can mean in terms of revenue and b) obviously the prevalent opinion in management about the workforce is that they are exactly that: meatbots, not human beings. And I wouldn't want to work for such a company. [...]

Easy there, cowboy. Sometimes good people make mistakes. Often complete idiots make mistakes. Some days good people imitate complete idiots. If you work where there are more than a few people, there's an idiot du jour about to make a mistake. Get over it.

Corollary: everywhere you've ever worked, there was an idiot. Whether that's coincidental or causal is an open question. [Goes for all of us; not picking on you in particular.]

If you don't know who that idiot is, you're probably it.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

VP Sales *AND* Engineering:
This story provides a poster child example of a just plain crappy salesperson attitude, and that's the attitude that renders about 98% of the people in sales a waste of oxygen. I must be a mutant, because I've done well in both sales and engineering (mostly software develpment). No insult to the pure engineers in the crowd, but I've always found sales the more difficult of the two fields. Must be because people are more difficult to predict than are the electronics and computer systems we work with.
Anyhow, a good story, and a stellar example of just another sales drone.

The problem is: a successful and productive salesman is gold dust. Unless the sales team can land contracts for a company, that company can never make money, no matter how good the workforce that actually generate the product.

There are exceptions in fields where what you are making / producing does not need aggressive sales techniques: retail products, for example, that sit on shelves till people take them off shelves and put them in shopping carts, in which case the price is (often) the main driver of the market. But where the product is specialised and with a limited customer base, a sales team is needed whose job it is to convince the customer that he wants to be a customer.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
levbor:
anon:
Well, I refer to my project manager as "the tie". In front of him. I guess he's got thicker skin than the cardboard-grunts then?
I suppose that only he and some coworkers hear it, while these guys were insulted in front of all the clients.
No, in front of the whole world (or at least that large fraction of it who can access the Web). So including all real and prospective clients and suppliers, all current, past, and potential future employees, and a thousand and one(*) different random people who might say something to a real/prospective client or supplier, and/or a potential employee.
(*) No, I don't mean literally 1001 people. I mean it as a synonym for "many".

"You said 1001! That's an insulting reference to the culture that brought us Scheherazade! Resign immediately!"

DCRoss · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

QJo:
"You said 1001! That's an insulting reference to the culture that brought us Scheherazade! Resign immediately!"

No need to resign. Just leave the game in progress as it is and use the cards left in your library as a deck with which to play a subgame from the beginning. When subgame is over, you and your opponent shuffle these cards, return them to your libraries, and resume game in progress with any loser of the subgame halving his or her remaining life points, rounding down.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

faoileag:
Regarding negative publicity: a good example is "#HasJustineLandedYet" - where a private tweet led to the director of communictaions to be sacked.

TRWTF is the phrase "private tweet".

And it's insensitive to call them "meatbots". The correct term is "meat popsicle".

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

is that warehousepersonages looked at the web site. it is far better not to guess at what happens upstairs. makes eating sausage while watching the production line spit it out look good by comparison.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Indifferent:
"My chair hasn't worked since you installed the new software on my computer"
Par for the course...

totally feasible! The fatty IT person sat in your chair to install the new software, and that broke the poor chair.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

[quote user="Chelloveck"][quote user="faoileag"]Regarding negative publicity: a good example is "#HasJustineLandedYet" - where a private tweet led to the director of communictaions to be sacked. [/quote]

TRWTF is the phrase "private tweet".

I think "private" there means "not corporate."

Loose Bree · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Another story from "The Daily Perversions in Information Technology"...

no laughing matter · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Stan Rogers:
levbor:
I don't get it. If the company sells e-commerce software, then it doesn't have a stock-and-shipping department - its clients do. And if everything was rosy until that fateful day, then why did Jordan have to visit the client?

No, that's sort of the way things work in the "start running your very own business today!!!" world. Some of them are MLM (like Amway), some are just direct storefront sales, but the deal is that "clients" create a front end for what is really your business and may or may not make enough in commissions to pay for the services.

So they are in the franchise business and implement their own e-commerce software and CMS? Bizarre!

no laughing matter · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Jeremy:
I love the double standard that always goes on where "desk people" aren't allowed to think of the "worker bees" as any kind of lesser beings, but it's always ok for the "worker bees" to imply that the "desk people" don't have a "real job" because they don't have to lift things or stand.

Fact 1: This is not about what a desk person is allowed or not allowed to think. This is about a public insult. Fact 2: It is rather unusual for a company to allow their "worker bees" to insult the "desk people" of the company on the company's website. Without consequences.

So much about your "double standard"!

Kivi · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

QJo:
Unless the sales team can land contracts for a company, that company can never make money, no matter how good the workforce that actually generate the product.
There are exceptions in fields where what you are making / producing does not need aggressive sales techniques: retail products, for example, that sit on shelves till people take them off shelves and put them in shopping carts...

Not an exception. Someone has to convince the owners of those shelves to put those products there.

Without sales/marketing you don't have a viable company.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

QJo:
VP Sales *AND* Engineering:
This story provides a poster child example of a just plain crappy salesperson attitude, and that's the attitude that renders about 98% of the people in sales a waste of oxygen. I must be a mutant, because I've done well in both sales and engineering (mostly software develpment). No insult to the pure engineers in the crowd, but I've always found sales the more difficult of the two fields. Must be because people are more difficult to predict than are the electronics and computer systems we work with.
Anyhow, a good story, and a stellar example of just another sales drone.

The problem is: a successful and productive salesman is gold dust. Unless the sales team can land contracts for a company, that company can never make money, no matter how good the workforce that actually generate the product.

There are exceptions in fields where what you are making / producing does not need aggressive sales techniques: retail products, for example, that sit on shelves till people take them off shelves and put them in shopping carts, in which case the price is (often) the main driver of the market. But where the product is specialised and with a limited customer base, a sales team is needed whose job it is to convince the customer that he wants to be a customer.

This, plus a few other facts about sales. A good salesman is the customer's representative to the company. A company isn't going to know what its potential customers actually want (and therefore, won't know what to actually make) without going to potential customers and finding out. This is what sales people do. They find out what every potential customer wants, and if there is enough of an intersection with the products the salesman can sell, he sells them. Meanwhile, he's collecting quality marketing data for the executives to use for strategic planning.

chubertdev · 2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Be nice to Mark, he had drunk a couple of beers while he wrote the text for the article.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Rupee Everet:
It took a complete warehouse staff replacement, but they did catch up. Naturally, the VP of Sales is still there, with an even more impressive title.

So they replaced the staff and the job got done. Where's the WTF?

When all is said and done, if there's somebody willing to put up with the crap that you won't, you're already out of a job.

The VP of Sales was an asshole but he knew when he wrote those words that they would never come back to haunt him. That gives him more foresight than the warehouse staff.

CAPTCHA: dignissim - I may not have a job any more, but at least I have my dignissim.

The WTF is that the VP of Sales was not held to any kind of accountability for being a complete and utter pile of shit.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
faoileag:
Lame. But there is a wtf:
the article said:
the company (which Jordan left some time later for unrelated reasons)
If a VP of a company I worked for called the warehouse staff "meatbots" on a public website (and "About Us" is usually as public as it gets) I would start searching for other employment for exactly that reason.
Why? Because if the VP survives the fallout, this is a sure sign that a) the company has a limited idea about what negative publicity in the age of the internet can mean in terms of revenue and b) obviously the prevalent opinion in management about the workforce is that they are exactly that: meatbots, not human beings. And I wouldn't want to work for such a company.
So you'd start the search because the company might not punish the VP and might by not punishing him show signs of all those things you mentioned? That's the stuff of which witch-hunts are made.

If you wait until the decision is made, and made public (or at least distributed to the employees, which is more or less the same thing these days), and only then start your search, then OK, that's reasonable. But going because the decision might be like that is out of order, sorry.

If you wait until the decision is made, it might be too late. If you start your search right then, you've got a leg up on the others who are going to want to bolt from the company.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

no laughing matter:
Jeremy:
I love the double standard that always goes on where "desk people" aren't allowed to think of the "worker bees" as any kind of lesser beings, but it's always ok for the "worker bees" to imply that the "desk people" don't have a "real job" because they don't have to lift things or stand.
Fact 1: This is not about what a desk person is allowed or not allowed to think. This is about a public insult. Fact 2: It is rather unusual for a company to allow their "worker bees" to insult the "desk people" of the company on the company's website. Without consequences.
So much about your "double standard"!

Putting "Fact" in front of your points make them facts.
White collar must post on public website to insult blue collar, and blue collar must insult white collar in person. There is no scenario where white collar insult blue collar in person, and therefore there is no double standard.

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Valued Service:
no laughing matter:
Jeremy:
I love the double standard that always goes on where "desk people" aren't allowed to think of the "worker bees" as any kind of lesser beings, but it's always ok for the "worker bees" to imply that the "desk people" don't have a "real job" because they don't have to lift things or stand.
Fact 1: This is not about what a desk person is allowed or not allowed to think. This is about a public insult. Fact 2: It is rather unusual for a company to allow their "worker bees" to insult the "desk people" of the company on the company's website. Without consequences.
So much about your "double standard"!

Putting "Fact" in front of your points make them facts.

White collar must post on public website to insult blue collar, and blue collar must insult white collar in person. There is no scenario where white collar insult blue collar in person, and therefore there is no double standard.

Ha, well, I didn't mean in this exact scenario. Yes, obviously this situation was worth them getting upset about. (Although I'm not sure it warrants the lynch mob for the wrong guy.)

I just mean in general there are a ton of "hard labor" type workers who are very open about their thinking that the "computer guys" don't "have real jobs".

2014-03-05 Reply Admin

Valued Service:
Surprised they didn't take a sales hit for having an about page that sounds like the author didn't graduate high school.
Captcha: suscipere (yes indeed).

Yeah, because when I got to a website the first thing I do is find their 'About' page (if they have one)

We are NOT Meatbots!

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