Feature Articles

Sergio couldn't have woken up in a better mood. When his radio turned on at 6:00AM, the weatherman predicted nothing but sunshine, warmth, happiness, smiles, and hugs. He shaved, dressed up, and got ready for the drive to the Federal Department of Government. Sergio's company had just scored a major contract after a long negotiation process, barely passing the obstacle course phase of the Federal Department of Government's rigid requirements for a bid to even be considered.

"I started work in my new job as Technical Manager full of enthusiasm, only to be thwarted by a flabbergasting array of absurd working practices imposed by the despotic dinosaur of a Development Manager I have to report to," Amanda L. writes.

We've all heard of ridiculous metrics used to measure job performance, often with disastrous results. When productivity is incentivized, employees figure out how to game the system.

All eyes were on Darrell as he swaggered past the rows of cubicles. Darrell was different than the other developers -- sharply dressed in an expensive suit with designer sunglasses dangling from his breast pocket. He left shortly after arriving with a huge smile on his face.

If Lyle could be summed up in one word, it'd be "competitive." If he could be summed up in three words, it'd be "ultra-competitive jackass." If you had $21.00 on you, Lyle would make it a point to have $21.50. If you estimated that a task would take you twelve hours, it'd take Lyle eleven hours and 45 minutes. If a distant relative died, somehow two of Lyle's distant relatives died. He was the kind of guy that would play basketball against a nine year old to win, then he'd make fun of the kid for losing, then he'd make fun of the kid for crying. If a stranger asked Lyle what time it was, he treated it as a challenge.

As you probably have guessed, I spend a whole lot of time running The Daily WTF when going through submissions, writing articles, and sending out free stickers. While I do this primarily for fun and hobby, it does tend to interfere with my day job at Inedo and, as a result, I tend to earn much less than I could otherwise. But I don’t mind. All I have to do is sacrifice a few, small things. Things like a decent lunch.

Everything was lined up for some seasonal specials at Chotchkie's (as we'll call it), a mid-size chain of family restaurants. Starting just in time for the weekend on Friday, there would be specials on Pizza Shooters, Shrimp Poppers, and Extreme Fajitas.

"This is how you set up the monitoring?" Shawn G. looked down at the system in disbelief. There was a watchdog connected to a power relay to ensure that it was always running. The power relay sat right next to the power switch in a sealed environmental enclosure.

"Welcome aboard, Colin!" Colin P. gave his boss a firm handshake, excited about his first day on the job. He'd be a member of the team that worked on an application that ran on a managed information appliance. "I'll set you up with Mike, who can show you the ropes."

Where are my keys? Cam S. had checked under every couch cushion, in every jacket pocket, under every bed, everywhere for his keys. While checking the kitchen counter for the third time, he glanced at the oven clock. 8:35. Even if the skies had opened up right that minute and his keys descended on a golden platter, he'd still be at least ten minutes late for work.

According to Wikipedia, caching is a method of storing a collection of data for which the time it takes to compute said data is longer than the time it takes to retrieve from the cache. Also, the concept of caching was invented by Mr. T. I suspect that last part may have been added by Wikipedia vandals, though...