The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2012-06-15 Reply Admin

It's the "...and 55 seconds" that has me giggling helplessly. Yes, congratulations to that development team, you thought of formatting your time estimate in a way that looks a little more human and less mechanical, but you forgot to put in a sanity check to see if you are telling users that they should have started the process IN THE LATE CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD.

2012-06-15 Reply Admin

Jack:
Matt Westwood:
A colleague asked me to get her a bottle of some fizzy drink once when I was in the supermarket next door. They didn't have single bottles, but they had 6-packs, so I broke one of the 6-packs open and took one of them to the checkout. The kerfuffle that caused occasioned the general manager of the store to emerge from his office to remonstrate with me: "If we split up multipacks to sell the stuff separately," he told me, "it causes our automatic inventory systems to fail." My reply was: "The fact that you haven't got single bottles of this fizzy drink on your shelves proves that your inventory system has already failed." He had no answer to that.
Manager: If we sell you just one bottle, it screws up our inventory system. Please understand. Matt: Too late, I already screwed you by ripping open merchandise I haven't paid for. Just give me this one bottle I want. Manager: ...
I can see why he was speechless.

Buyer: I want to give you money.

Seller: We don't want your stinking money.

WTF?

2012-06-15 Reply Admin

The Oracle message makes sense (a little) if you read the title: Exit / Do you really want to...

2012-06-15 Reply Admin

sharth:
The PDF only opens in adobe reader. If you open it in Preview on the mac, it will look like that.

Other people don't have your computer.

2012-06-15 Reply Admin

No "The Magnificent", as in iToad The Magnificent? This really is a WTF.

Coyne · 2012-06-15 Reply Admin

On that Citi site: Someone altered something below the line--and they got what they deserved, too.

2012-06-15 Reply Admin

Someone should try buying -1 shirts. I bet their system will credit your account.

2012-06-15 Reply Admin

I dream of a future where banks will legally forced to comply with some minimum computer security and stability standards.

ERROR: THE ANSWER TO YOUR SECURITY QUESTION MUST HAVE EXACTLY FOUR CHARACTERS AND MUST HAVE AT LEAST ONE NUMBER, SYMBOL, UPPERCASE LETTER AND LOWERCASE LETTER --> > /*************STOP TOUCHING BELOW THIS LINE DAMMIT!********// -->

2012-06-15 Reply Admin

Captcha: luctus:
I dream of a future where banks will legally forced to comply with some minimum computer security and stability standards.

I feel your pain, but legislators in New York recently wanted to make anonymous posts (like most everything here) illegal. Are these really the people you want designing your bank's security?

2012-06-15 Reply Admin

iK the Alcoholic:
God, I don't even read this site and I can already tell there's one repeat from last week.
Captcha: vulputate - Latin for dismembering a fox.

I don't even post to this site, and I can tell you're lying.

2012-06-15 Reply Admin

IF ANYONE HAS SEEN OUR TUESDAY WTFS - PLEASE CALL THE HEAD OFFICE

WE WILL RESUME SCHEDULED WTFS SHORTLY

And the legalese one is due to font data in the printer getting screwed up. The one where that happened on a shipping label (and the package got delivered!) was much better.

Matt Westwood · 2012-06-15 Reply Admin

Corbin:
Jack:
Matt Westwood:
A colleague asked me to get her a bottle of some fizzy drink once when I was in the supermarket next door. They didn't have single bottles, but they had 6-packs, so I broke one of the 6-packs open and took one of them to the checkout. The kerfuffle that caused occasioned the general manager of the store to emerge from his office to remonstrate with me: "If we split up multipacks to sell the stuff separately," he told me, "it causes our automatic inventory systems to fail." My reply was: "The fact that you haven't got single bottles of this fizzy drink on your shelves proves that your inventory system has already failed." He had no answer to that.
Manager: If we sell you just one bottle, it screws up our inventory system. Please understand. Matt: Too late, I already screwed you by ripping open merchandise I haven't paid for. Just give me this one bottle I want. Manager: ...
I can see why he was speechless.
Buyer: I want to give you money.

Seller: We don't want your stinking money.

WTF?

Or better: "Our computer system has gone wrong so our tills don't work."

"But I have the correct money here, I have a can in my right hand, the correct money in my left, and I'm thirsty."

"No I'm sorry but ... " etc.

Matt Westwood · 2012-06-15 Reply Admin

Ken:
Captcha: luctus:
I dream of a future where banks will legally forced to comply with some minimum computer security and stability standards.
I feel your pain, but legislators in New York recently wanted to make anonymous posts (like most everything here) illegal. Are these really the people you want designing your bank's security?

I cancelled half way through posting a comment on a website about some girl photographing her school lunch earlier when it asked me for my date of birth. Fuck off, no, you are not going to get my fucking date of birth you nosy cunts.

2012-06-15 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
"Our computer system has gone wrong so our tills don't work."
"But I have the correct money here, I have a can in my right hand, the correct money in my left, and I'm thirsty."

"No I'm sorry but ... " etc.

I've heard that, in the United States, if you offer a shopkeeper the posted price and he refuses the money, you can take it for free. Maybe this was a desegregation thing from when some weirdos would refuse to do business with certain people based on their skin color.

Note: I haven't tested this, not wanting the ride with the nice police officer if I'm wrong.

Also, if they send you something in the mail you didn't order, you don't have to send it back. Or pay for it. This came in handy when I ordered product X, consisting of A B and C, from Oracle, and they only ever sent me A and B. Since they never sent C, I never paid. No consequences.

Of course now that I'm more experienced, you couldn't pay me to accept something from Oracle.

2012-06-15 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
you are not going to get my fucking date of birth you nosy cunts.

My date of birth is -1.

See, that wasn't so painful, was it?

2012-06-16 Reply Admin

Corbin:
Jack:
Matt Westwood:
A colleague asked me to get her a bottle of some fizzy drink once when I was in the supermarket next door. They didn't have single bottles, but they had 6-packs, so I broke one of the 6-packs open and took one of them to the checkout. The kerfuffle that caused occasioned the general manager of the store to emerge from his office to remonstrate with me: "If we split up multipacks to sell the stuff separately," he told me, "it causes our automatic inventory systems to fail." My reply was: "The fact that you haven't got single bottles of this fizzy drink on your shelves proves that your inventory system has already failed." He had no answer to that.
Manager: If we sell you just one bottle, it screws up our inventory system. Please understand. Matt: Too late, I already screwed you by ripping open merchandise I haven't paid for. Just give me this one bottle I want. Manager: ...
I can see why he was speechless.
Buyer: I want to give you money.

Seller: We don't want your stinking money.

WTF?

Haha, reminds me when I was working as a sales person for an electronic store.

Sometimes we'd get deals for TV's/Computers, priced well and ordered in bulk, but they'd all sell out before they even arrived in store.

In those cases, we didn't bother with salesman crap. It was full price/pay at counter and we'll call you when it comes in, or try another place. They tried to get us to knock the price down a bit or anything like that, and we'd just say we weren't interested.

2012-06-16 Reply Admin

Paul:
I've heard that, in the United States, if you offer a shopkeeper the posted price and he refuses the money, you can take it for free.

You heard incorrectly. The deal is that if you offer cash in payment of a debt, it must be accepted or the debt is discharged. The key word here is "debt". If you try to make a mortgage payment in cash and it is turned down, you can go to court and get the mortgage discharged. If you go to a sit down restaurant and eat something, and they present you with a bill, and you offer cash, they can't say "give us a credit card or we'll have you arrested for theft of services". If you go to a fast food joint, on the other hand, they can demand anything they want as payment since you pay before you get the food (there is no debt).

2012-06-16 Reply Admin

Sumdood:
Paul:
I've heard that, in the United States, if you offer a shopkeeper the posted price and he refuses the money, you can take it for free.
You heard incorrectly. The deal is that if you offer cash in payment of a debt, it must be accepted or the debt is discharged. The key word here is "debt". If you try to make a mortgage payment in cash and it is turned down, you can go to court and get the mortgage discharged. If you go to a sit down restaurant and eat something, and they present you with a bill, and you offer cash, they can't say "give us a credit card or we'll have you arrested for theft of services". If you go to a fast food joint, on the other hand, they can demand anything they want as payment since you pay before you get the food (there is no debt).

Yeah, as someone who's worked in retail, if that rule were true, you'd have big issues.

Even to the other poster who said it was ridiculous that he couldn't buy a can because the systems were down even though he had the exact change in cash: That could cost the cashier his job. Even if he were honest, any manager now had the wriggle room in his paperwork should the tills be down in money (They ALWAYS are), and any operation off the record just messes with the systems stocktaking system.

Even a delayed record of transaction (Putting it through the system once it was online again) is risky, and I'd bet even illegal in some places (The customer should always be present at a transaction).

2012-06-16 Reply Admin

Buyer: I want to give you money and don't care that you can't sell the rest of the items I've vandalised.

Seller: Get out of my shop.

And the -1 inventory is almost certainly due to a crappy back-ordering setting. Heavily discounted clothing would normally have back-ordering disabled, but either somebody's taken a shortcut, or the inventory system is bollocks.

tin · 2012-06-16 Reply Admin

Sumdood:
Paul:
I've heard that, in the United States, if you offer a shopkeeper the posted price and he refuses the money, you can take it for free.
You heard incorrectly.

There's all sorts of stories like that regarding retail... Some based on anti-discrimination, some based on incorrectly assuming a chain-store policy is law, and some purely based on fantasy.

2012-06-16 Reply Admin

Dude, you are watching TV on mute at 1 am. WTF were you really watching? ;)

flabdablet · 2012-06-16 Reply Admin

Short-sold Wall Street shirts?

OK, that makes sense.

2012-06-16 Reply Admin

That's going to get annoying pretty soon.

Rodnas:
/******************************************************

 *

******************************************************/

2012-06-16 Reply Admin

Corbin:
Jack:
Matt Westwood:
A colleague asked me to get her a bottle of some fizzy drink once when I was in the supermarket next door. They didn't have single bottles, but they had 6-packs, so I broke one of the 6-packs open and took one of them to the checkout. The kerfuffle that caused occasioned the general manager of the store to emerge from his office to remonstrate with me: "If we split up multipacks to sell the stuff separately," he told me, "it causes our automatic inventory systems to fail." My reply was: "The fact that you haven't got single bottles of this fizzy drink on your shelves proves that your inventory system has already failed." He had no answer to that.
Manager: If we sell you just one bottle, it screws up our inventory system. Please understand. Matt: Too late, I already screwed you by ripping open merchandise I haven't paid for. Just give me this one bottle I want. Manager: ...
I can see why he was speechless.
Buyer: I want to give you money.

Seller: We don't want your stinking money.

WTF?

It's not that complicated: the point of the automated inventory is to keep costs (barely) below income. If you want a single drink and their automated system can't handle the transaction, doing it manually could easily push the cost of the transaction above what they'd charge you for it. So, basically, they don't want to sell you something if they're going to lose money by doing so.

2012-06-16 Reply Admin

Paul:
Matt Westwood:
"Our computer system has gone wrong so our tills don't work."
"But I have the correct money here, I have a can in my right hand, the correct money in my left, and I'm thirsty."

"No I'm sorry but ... " etc.
I've heard that, in the United States, if you offer a shopkeeper the posted price and he refuses the money, you can take it for free. Maybe this was a desegregation thing from when some weirdos would refuse to do business with certain people based on their skin color.

Consumer law in the US was reformed in the '50s by the Uniform Commercial Code, coincidentally at about the same time as Brown v. Board of Education was decided. So, no, it's not a desegregation thing because the fallout from Brown took about a decade.

Since the states (prior to PPACA, at least) have the statutory authority to regulate intra-state commerce, the UCC isn't actually a law itself, but the guidelines by which 49 states agreed to pass identical laws and Louisiana passed mostly compatible laws.

Under UCC, a sale is considered a contract, so if you and the merchant haven't agreed on how you're going to pay, you haven't formed a contract yet, ergo, there's no sale.

2012-06-17 Reply Admin

Fred:
I forget:
I just love those inventory systems that assume their data is always 100% perfect. I've seen cashiers often do things like scan off a single item twice, not scan the next item even though it is different, and then not bother to correct it because the items happen to be the same price.
That's why I always have a "Quantity On Hand" column plus a "QOH Error" column. Taken together, you can calculate the true quantity.

Great! What did i win? A slap in the face? Code snippet that won't compile? Or just a sodding cash prize?

2012-06-17 Reply Admin

Fred:
I forget:
I just love those inventory systems that assume their data is always 100% perfect. I've seen cashiers often do things like scan off a single item twice, not scan the next item even though it is different, and then not bother to correct it because the items happen to be the same price.
That's why I always have a "Quantity On Hand" column plus a "QOH Error" column. Taken together, you can calculate the true quantity.

Great! What did i win? A slap in the face? Code snippet that won't compile? Or just a sodding cash prize?

2012-06-17 Reply Admin

Meep:
Corbin:
Jack:
Matt Westwood:
A colleague asked me to get her a bottle of some fizzy drink once when I was in the supermarket next door. They didn't have single bottles, but they had 6-packs, so I broke one of the 6-packs open and took one of them to the checkout. The kerfuffle that caused occasioned the general manager of the store to emerge from his office to remonstrate with me: "If we split up multipacks to sell the stuff separately," he told me, "it causes our automatic inventory systems to fail." My reply was: "The fact that you haven't got single bottles of this fizzy drink on your shelves proves that your inventory system has already failed." He had no answer to that.
Manager: If we sell you just one bottle, it screws up our inventory system. Please understand. Matt: Too late, I already screwed you by ripping open merchandise I haven't paid for. Just give me this one bottle I want. Manager: ...
I can see why he was speechless.
Buyer: I want to give you money.

Seller: We don't want your stinking money.

WTF?

It's not that complicated: the point of the automated inventory is to keep costs (barely) below income. If you want a single drink and their automated system can't handle the transaction, doing it manually could easily push the cost of the transaction above what they'd charge you for it. So, basically, they don't want to sell you something if they're going to lose money by doing so.

And how much is that? The price for a single item? This would seem to be a puzzle since the product isn't in the system.

Anyway, however the price is determined, they have only themselves to blame if it is below their total costs.

Buyer: I see these are 6 for $3.99. How much for one?

Seller: We're running a special today. Buy one for $3.99 and get the next 5 free.

But that witty response will never happen. Because the seller is no longer present in the store. The seller is a faceless corporate headquarters far away, and the employees, based on what I've experienced lately, couldn't figure out which end of a broom to hold if the system didn't show them a picture. Not in the system == situation too bewildering to imagine.

Strolskon · 2012-06-17 Reply Admin

Is it weird that I actually want to ...?

2012-06-17 Reply Admin

RE thesharperedge....it's obviously an advertising ploy, and it's probably working. How many people visit that site just because they hear about their wacky titles and suffixes? Sooner or later, one of the visitors might buy something.

Seems interesting that they have 'c/o' (lowercase = 'care of') as an option. I wonder if that allows me to have an account someone else is charged for....

Perhaps they merely want to appear like they have a wide userbase....other than Prisoner#666 I think the other titles are valid and in use somewhere in the world. Equally, I think only 'The Alcoholic' is a suffix that you wouldn't normally use....That said (as someone else pointed out) supporting HRH but not HM strongly suggests that the queen is not one of their clients....

2012-06-17 Reply Admin

Paul:
Matt Westwood:
"Our computer system has gone wrong so our tills don't work."
"But I have the correct money here, I have a can in my right hand, the correct money in my left, and I'm thirsty."

"No I'm sorry but ... " etc.
I've heard that, in the United States, if you offer a shopkeeper the posted price and he refuses the money, you can take it for free. Maybe this was a desegregation thing from when some weirdos would refuse to do business with certain people based on their skin color.

Note: I haven't tested this, not wanting the ride with the nice police officer if I'm wrong.

Also, if they send you something in the mail you didn't order, you don't have to send it back. Or pay for it. This came in handy when I ordered product X, consisting of A B and C, from Oracle, and they only ever sent me A and B. Since they never sent C, I never paid. No consequences.

Of course now that I'm more experienced, you couldn't pay me to accept something from Oracle.

I suspect it's probably an obscure clause in some legislation that has at some stage been used in court to set a precedent....

Although your thought might make sense too...because initially the way around it would be to leave the money on the counter, but then the shop keeper complains that he never got it, so someone felt the need to have some law to ensure the buyer is not ripped off...

2012-06-17 Reply Admin

Art:
Meep:
Corbin:
Jack:
Matt Westwood:
A colleague asked me to get her a bottle of some fizzy drink once when I was in the supermarket next door. They didn't have single bottles, but they had 6-packs, so I broke one of the 6-packs open and took one of them to the checkout. The kerfuffle that caused occasioned the general manager of the store to emerge from his office to remonstrate with me: "If we split up multipacks to sell the stuff separately," he told me, "it causes our automatic inventory systems to fail." My reply was: "The fact that you haven't got single bottles of this fizzy drink on your shelves proves that your inventory system has already failed." He had no answer to that.
Manager: If we sell you just one bottle, it screws up our inventory system. Please understand. Matt: Too late, I already screwed you by ripping open merchandise I haven't paid for. Just give me this one bottle I want. Manager: ...
I can see why he was speechless.
Buyer: I want to give you money.

Seller: We don't want your stinking money.

WTF?

It's not that complicated: the point of the automated inventory is to keep costs (barely) below income. If you want a single drink and their automated system can't handle the transaction, doing it manually could easily push the cost of the transaction above what they'd charge you for it. So, basically, they don't want to sell you something if they're going to lose money by doing so.
And how much is that? The price for a single item? This would seem to be a puzzle since the product isn't in the system.

Anyway, however the price is determined, they have only themselves to blame if it is below their total costs.

Buyer: I see these are 6 for $3.99. How much for one?

Seller: We're running a special today. Buy one for $3.99 and get the next 5 free.

But that witty response will never happen. Because the seller is no longer present in the store. The seller is a faceless corporate headquarters far away, and the employees, based on what I've experienced lately, couldn't figure out which end of a broom to hold if the system didn't show them a picture. Not in the system == situation too bewildering to imagine.

I always thought Matt Westwood was a bit of a wuss, and buying a single stubby of beer rather than the whole six-pack helps confirm my opinion.....

I have heard (I suspect widely exageerated) stories that in certain parts of outback Australia (especially WA) there are hotels who charge more for a 6-pack than for a carton. The primary reason is that they simply can't move 6-packs if they split a carton, so they want to discourage people buying them. Of course these days the "responsible service of alcohol" nazi's would probably get a bit upset at this sort of price-model....

There's also a pub in Canberra that used to have pints (568mL) for $4.50 and schooners (425mL) for $5. I know their pints have gone up in price since then....not sure on the schooners though....Incidentally, it's a pub that seems to make the bulk of its money as a night club (with much higher prices after 7PM) but offers cheap alcohol (and reasonably priced meals) during the day in an attempt to lure public servants....and it seems to do a roaring trade between about 11:30 and 14:00 most days....

2012-06-18 Reply Admin

Ken:
Stay away from short sales - you'll lose your shirt.

I don't really care as long as I can still keep my shorts.

2012-06-18 Reply Admin

Here in NZ the cans of fizzy drink in cartons are labelled differently and have text on them saying 'Not for individual sale' - you may not find single cans in the supermarket at all. However, this doesn't stop dairies (convenience stores?) from breaking down the cartons and selling cans individually. Discount supermarkets have signs saying "max 10 per person" when Coke is on special because the dairy owners and their kids all go down to restock the shop as it's cheaper than wholesale.

2012-06-18 Reply Admin

Gare.Chicago:
Do you really want to... be The First?

To be 'The First' requires that there is a 'The Second' which in turn usually requires producing offspring.

Don't think that's likely around here.

Lockwood · 2012-06-18 Reply Admin

The Great and Powerful Trixie:
The Great and Powerful Trixie demands to know why her title is missing!

You win an Internets.

Addendum (2012-06-18 06:53): The Great and Powerful Trixie could be known as "Agent Powerful Trixie The Great"

PedanticCurmudgeon · 2012-06-18 Reply Admin

Ken:
Captcha: luctus:
I dream of a future where banks will legally forced to comply with some minimum computer security and stability standards.
I feel your pain, but legislators in New York recently wanted to make anonymous posts (like most everything here) illegal. Are these really the people you want designing anything?

FTFY

2012-06-18 Reply Admin

Oh, how much I do long for...

2012-06-18 Reply Admin

Gurth:
The TV thing reminds me of some years ago, when a local TV station where I live would sometimes show nothing but a Windows 2000 (or so) desktop with some icons, a task bar, and … an alert window saying VLC had crashed.
This only happened during weekends and would last until Monday morning — I suppose nobody was around the office to restart the what-passed-for-shows on that channel, and couldn't be bothered to go there either when (if?) they discovered the problem.

But to do that they'd have to watch the channel. You're not seriously suggesting they'd do that, are you?

2012-06-18 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
I forget:
I just love those inventory systems that assume their data is always 100% perfect. I've seen cashiers often do things like scan off a single item twice, not scan the next item even though it is different, and then not bother to correct it because the items happen to be the same price.
A colleague asked me to get her a bottle of some fizzy drink once when I was in the supermarket next door. They didn't have single bottles, but they had 6-packs, so I broke one of the 6-packs open and took one of them to the checkout. The kerfuffle that caused occasioned the general manager of the store to emerge from his office to remonstrate with me: "If we split up multipacks to sell the stuff separately," he told me, "it causes our automatic inventory systems to fail." My reply was: "The fact that you haven't got single bottles of this fizzy drink on your shelves proves that your inventory system has already failed." He had no answer to that.

Wow! What an asshole your are.

Of course if the store doesn't have what you want you should have free reign to just tear up anything else in their store.

2012-06-18 Reply Admin

It can be useful to prepay a whole number of coming months payments, then you aren't required to send in that payment and don't risk getting caught short, or having to pay it while on vacation, etc.

You just pay an extra amount equal to some multiple (could be one or more) of the amount due. Or pay a partial amount so you have a lesser bill next month.

Paying towards principal cuts your principal balance, but you are still required to make your next payment as scheduled.

It is a WTF that you can't prepay and have your principal go down and be able to skip the next payment, you should be able to make it early and not pay interest on it anymore since you gave it to the bank, but life ain't fair.

2012-06-19 Reply Admin

so tell me what you want, what you really really want I'll tell you want I want, what I really really want

2012-06-19 Reply Admin

Gurth:
The TV thing reminds me of some years ago, when a local TV station where I live would sometimes show nothing but a Windows 2000 (or so) desktop with some icons, a task bar, and … an alert window saying VLC had crashed.
This only happened during weekends and would last until Monday morning — I suppose nobody was around the office to restart the what-passed-for-shows on that channel, and couldn't be bothered to go there either when (if?) they discovered the problem.

Means no one from the TV station watched their own station!

2012-06-20 Reply Admin

Not sure I'd have phrased it like they did, but it certainly made sense. No WTF on that particular one.

pauly · 2012-06-21 Reply Admin

Mcoder:
TRWTF is that "Pay extra and apply toward your next payment due". Yeah, I'm paying 10% over some money that I own you, but I'm just going to lend you some money, interest free.
It should be a crime just to display that option, somebody could be mislead into marking it.

What the fuck are you on about? If you pay the loan off early, you're not giving the creditor a loan. You're reducing your interest paid.

If you have a loan that penalizes you for paying it off early, you are a retard.

2012-06-22 Reply Admin

pauly:
What the fuck are you on about? If you pay the loan off early, you're not giving the creditor a loan. You're reducing your interest paid.

What the fuck are you on about? You can pay extra to either a) reduce your principal or b) avoid missing the next minimum payment. Not both. The former is smart if you can afford it, the latter is plain dumb (and is what this bank is trying to get people to do).

2012-07-11 Reply Admin

Dirtbag:
Yes, I really want to...

Having tried to install Oracle RAC 11g, the answer is no. No I really don't want to.

2013-03-30 Reply Admin

I can't believe you're so... nevermind. Anyway, it is clear that first error is in fact message from starship Enterprise that got back in time (again) and lost somewhere their chief engineer. Find Scotty, damnit!

2014-03-12 Reply Admin

Eugene:
In case anyone missed this, the prefix "H.R.H." stands for "His/Her Royal Highness" (the standard form of address for British princes and princesses). Unfortunately, the prefix H.M. is missing from the list.
In the suffix list, all abbreviations are valid and serious (for example, D.O. is Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and M.L.A. is Master of Liberal Arts).

MLA is also Member of the Legislative Assembly in Canada, though why this would be on a UK site, I don't know.

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