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Admin
Excuse my lack of knowledge, but what is MENSA ? In england it's the group of sad and slightly suspicious muppets who think it impresses others to be 'certified as cleverer than you' when it doesn't...
Admin
People on this forum fail to "Think out of the box".
If some people want tuesday something that will be ready monday. Maybe a word document. Send him a corrupt file, maybe bytes from /dev/random.
The guy will reply "I can't open the file!". And you will ask that him send it to you. So you gain 1 day. Then you send another /dev/random snipper. The guy will fail again to open the file. That dawn Microsoft Word!.. Is crashing on his machine, while on mine works. Yer another day.
[Mo] him: Imposible request [Tu] you: Send random as .doc him: request again [We] you: send random again as .doc him: request again [Thu] him: is corrupt again! you: no problem, I will use .rtf you: send .rtf will actual correct data [Fri] him: Ok, thanks! you: Nice, but you sould check your Word, seems bad
Anyway I will not do that, because as most people here, I am naif.
Admin
I had this a few years a go. I was envolved with merger, it started to go wrong when the CRM systems merger deadline started to slip quite badly, unfortunately the Data Warehouse system I was working (that could not be late!) needed to pull data from the CRM system. Long story short the PM re-did the time in such a way that the DW would have go live 2 weeks before the CRM system.
Admin
Amen. It is even more so in government ... CYOA's the word. In that situation I would have reported in writing on Thursday that no survey addressee has taken the survey - and would have omitted the word "yet".
Admin
In Soviet Russia, space-time bends YOU!
Admin
First!
( rtfa ! )
Admin
On the mensa: I suspect the same ....
On the military IQ test thing: that only means that you are able to walk on two legs and saluted everything painted green at the same time ...
Admin
Doesn't matter. It should.
Admin
That's easy.
You use the 'reply' button to start a new thread, instead of replying to an old one. You have to use the 'quote' button to do that.
The DailyWTF Forum design wins again!
Captcha: muhahaha. Indeed.
Admin
It's always managements fault, that is why they are management. In theory a manager is supposed to facilitate the actual business activities. Even if the employee actually screwed up, it's still managements fault because they signed on as boss...they carry responsibility for what their underlings do. I can't emphasize this enough, managers should be held accountable for what they do and what their departments/projects do, no matter who actually screwed up they are the ones who should've made sure it didn't happen.
However, assuming the story is at all true and/or accurate, in this case it is 100% managements fault. To blame the employee for not being able to communicate such an obvious problem is just silly. Management is supposed to be better at communicating so unless the employee was a complete social retard with turrets and aphasia then the manager is responsible for communicating with him (even then actually). Obviously this is not the way it works in the real world, but that is just one of the problems with the world. Managers tend to focus on their rear ends rather than good of the company. This extends to covering other managers, because you may need the help someday.
I really have a hard time believing this story however. If its an impossible task meant to get rid of the employee, that I can believe. Somebody actually being that stupid...I hope not.
Admin
in colloquial Mexican Spanish, 'mensa' means 'stupid woman'.
Admin
I must add here that "mensa" doesn't mean anything in French.
I think.
Admin
Even assuming that the CPC (chronology protection conjecture - you can't travel to the past) is false, most suggestions for time machines nowadays won't allow you to travel to a time before the time machine was built. Let that be a warning. Make sure you build your time machine before you get into this sort of problem.
Disclaimer: I used to be a member of Mensa.
Admin
I blame Paula. Why couldn't she receive the results before Martin sent them?
Admin
There's a better option than NaN
http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/105841.aspx
Admin
Just out of interest, which part of "cause traditionally comes before effect" is particularly hard to communicate?
And FWIW, I've worked in promotions and community management roles, I'm a fairly skilled communicator, and I've had managers like this and ended up in exactly this situation.
The relevant equations are:
Manager promised something impossible = Manager's problem
Manager ignores the impossibility of the order = Employee's problem
Employees problem => !Manager's problem
This only works if you either can't escalate the dispute further up the tree, or if, when the dispute is escalated, the higher-up managers work on the basis of:
Interpretation: Sub-manager's idiocy => Sub-manager is an idiot, with some splash damage for those who employed him (ie, me)
Action: Punishing Sub-manager => Loss of face for management in general, truculent underling
Interpretation: Employee being difficult => Reprimand employee
Action: Reprimanded employee = Safe. Management officially loses no face, my underlings are still motivated and the only fuming person is so far down the ladder that they simply don't matter to me.
It's intellectually dishonest to a point that is skirts insanity, but I've seen this mindset in management time and time again in different companies.
Tackle the problem, put managers' noses out of joint but get it resolved, or paper over the problem and the only people who get pissed off are irrelevant peons.
"Right" and "wrong" isn't as important as "management happy" and "management sad".
If you've never worked somewhere like that, then you're a very lucky person - pray your luck continues.
However, never, ever, ever, under any circumstances assume that it doesn't happen.
Oh, and insanely frustrating as the situation is when it occurs, nothing makes it worse than some smart-ass on the internet immediately blaming you because "nobody's that stupid". They are.
Admin
I think the way Martin handled the situation wasn't that good(we just can't avoid such suckers in real world everywhere we work).
If I am Martin, I would setup the survey using those web 2.0 survey website which takes only few minutes to be done instead of developing the site. By doing so, you won't need any testing and thus can immediately email the participants to join it. You can tell the PM "yes, you can get the real-time result NOW but to get complete result, it will depend on how fast everybody responds..you can give them phone calls individually as a PM if you want"
Admin
With only 8 items, you could have reasonably replaced it with a "check all that apply" series of check boxes. But then someone (possibly the same client) would complain that shift didn't work, forcing them to perform as many as six (count 'em, six!) extra steps.
Mega bonus points for anyone who finds (or creates) a site that uses JavaScript to add shift-click behavior to a series of check boxes.
Admin
It does exists, but it is only used in some countries of South America, never in Spain.
And it is "registered" by the RAE. You can check it here: menso
Admin
Yes, that's what I thought, too.
Admin
The programmer simply needs to create a report page and email it to the PM (CC'ed to the manager).
"Here is the report which provides results for the survey. Per our discussion, I completed my portion of this project and delivered the survey to you ahead of schedule. As you can see by the report, no one has taken the survey yet, but the results will be available once you have communicated to the users and they have taken the survey."
That is the act of a rational human being who has decent communication skills and wants to CYA. Being belligerent is another option if you don't value your job.
Admin
I just found this article about mensa. Thought that one or two of you might find it interesting:
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/For+love+of+the+Gaussian+curve/1135224349312
Greetings from Finland ;-)
Captch: alarm
Admin
I think MENSA gives people something to do and makes it easy for them to associate with other, like-minded people. For example, playing intellectually challenging games with other intelligent people in order to keep themselves amused.
Me, I do that with booze and computer games but everyone is different.
Admin
I always found the concept of a group of people who feel the need to demonstrate their pro-athlete-level physicality by joining a gym rather suspect.
Admin
Sadly, this sort of crap goes on all the time. When I first became a webmaster in early 1996, I was expected to do things JavaScript just couldn't do at the time. And yes, I got fired for arguing about the impossibility. It comes of morons being promoted to "boss"/ project manager, as well as politics. I came across a post this week saying "geeks need to be managed by geeks". Too true.
Admin
Yes, it does exist, at least in Mexico, where "mensa" is a stupid woman and "menso" a stupid man.
Admin
i only know one guy who's in mensa, and it cemented my opinion that it's a book club for pretentious w******. by the way, i know a few people who took the entrance test--including myself--we all scored 142, which is the highest iq on that specific test. mensa, people, is blatantly a sham.
Admin
Google says it does and translates mensa as stupid. Case closed as far as I am concerned.
Admin
@ Anonymous Mensa-Member "Beeing a membeer of Mensa myself ..."
BWAHAHA!! Mensa member my ass.
Beeing. Classic.
Admin
@ Anonymous Mensa-Member "Beeing a membeer of Mensa myself ..."
BWAHAHA!! Mensa member my ass.
Beeing. Membeer. Classic.
Admin
Your joking right? How is it the managements fault? If anyone is to take the blame, it should be the HR department for hiring a completely incompetent manager.
It should be common sense to EVERYONE that survey results arent pulled out of thin air (well, not all survey results :P) and they require people to take a survey...and to be able to take a survey, they must know how to access the survey.
Admin
There are FOUR quarters! </picard>
Admin
I got chewed out once for selecting SSL as the solution for secure communications on a program. Not because I chose SSL, per se, but because the requirements did not SPECIFY SSL. I guess I could have implemented a custom, non-standard solution that would have cost 50X more, but I chose that darn SSL and took the hit for the team. What was I thinking?!
As for MENSA, as soon as someone identifies themselves a member, I deem them irrelevant. They're compensating. And they always seem to underachieve.
Admin
What do mounted guns have to do with this?
Admin
I like that solution! And you can say stupid things like "we have yet to see any negative feedback." : )
Admin
An IQ test measures certain cognitive abilities. Common sense is not one of them. The quality of the test is fine, but do not assume that high IQ means any better ability to interact with people or things.
To be honest, having a high IQ simply means one thing: You are able to do really well on an IQ test. There are some peripheral findings, such as good visualization, some math skills, and some problem-solving abilities.
However, you will find these skills (an by looking at the membership of MENSA, this is very obvious) spread across all the stratum of employment opportunities and incomes. Some MENSA members are in prison, others are in congress, some of them run companies, and some do computer support. Some make millions of dollars per year, and some are on welfare.
Admin
An IQ test measures certain cognitive abilities. Common sense is not one of them. The quality of the test is fine, but do not assume that high IQ means any better ability to interact with people or things.
To be honest, having a high IQ simply means one thing: You are able to do really well on an IQ test. There are some peripheral findings, such as good visualization, some math skills, and some problem-solving abilities.
However, you will find these skills (and by looking at the membership of MENSA, this is very obvious) spread across all the stratum of employment opportunities and incomes. Some MENSA members are in prison, others are in congress, some of them run companies, and some do computer support. Some make millions of dollars per year, and some are on welfare.
Admin
I see they came to an agreement on the voting procedure:
Admin
Well, I turned down a MENSA invite because they didn't measure up to my peers who can bend space and time :-)
Admin
What's IQ? ;)
Admin
Quite simple: you shouldn't let a customer decide your "working procedure" (dividing? that's sooo technical) and just stick to requirements. If in need, use external references to point out how you DO complain with the requirements.
Something like dict.org:
Quarter
Captcha: craaazy... that for sure!
Admin
Jesum criminy...good thing they didn't ask the poor kid if he'd sign the write-up, or else they could've gotten him for not knowing in advance if he would've or not...
Admin
Things never change. In the 80s during my mainframe days, I had a boss who publicly berated me because I was either "unwilling or just too stupid to help a customer squeeze just a few more bytes onto..." an already full tape. Gah!
Admin
LOL! I've been "released from my commitments" at a couple of jobs for inabilities to perform certain things with superpowers I don't have, so I hear ya. But I've also been known to return the public berating with an extra dose of public retribution of my own...(whispering) that means ripping away any last bastion of credibility the "boss" might have had until then. Doesn't seem to keep me gainfully employed, but it sure does wonders for the satisfaction part of the old brain. =)
Admin
I think this is a true story. Mostly because i heard the dumbest set of phonecalls in my life on the internet RE: a phone company's charges to a customer, and their inability to figure out that .02 Cents was different than .02 dollars. It went through THREE people on the recording (service rep, that rep's manager, and then another manager), the whole time saying that .02 dollars == .02 cents... I know 5 year olds that can tell you that they're different. and he was communicating very effectively, but because the data (billing rate was 2 tenths of a cent per minute, so $0.002 per minute) showing on their screen looked to them as though it was .02 cents per minute when in fact it was 10 times as much as that. UGH! MISANTHROPY FOR THE WIN!
I swear to god, some people are just so brain-dead that it's amazing ANYTHING gets done on this planet.
Admin
I think this was one of those cases where the message was given implicitly: To fabricate the results instead of conducting an actual survey.
This sort of 'get the result regardless of the means' mentality is increasing in todays highly competitive business world, and the consumers (whom the workers also are for countless other businesses) are the ones paying the price (usually not through product costs but rather as consequences to the society those consumers live in).
Admin
Not plausible, whatsoever. Sounds like a story someone made up during a frustrating coding session of a stereotypical office scenario. But I didn't believe a word of it.
Admin
Obviously NOT a HERO....hehehe.
Admin
According to translate.google.com the German word 'mensa' means refectory, a communal dining-hall. Hence the confusion. Haven't you people ever heard of the internet?
Admin
If you wanted it the day before yesterday, why didn't you tell me the day after tomorrow?