• WTFE (unregistered)

    So Greg was told explicitly to NOT do something; which he proceeded to do; and gotten himself and the whole team fired... @Greg: You are a asshole!

  • gregs mortal enemy (unregistered) in reply to WTFE
    WTFE:
    So Greg was told explicitly to NOT do something; which he proceeded to do; and gotten himself and the whole team fired... @Greg: You are a asshole!

    +1... thanks greg, you douchebag

  • Adrian (unregistered)

    Sounds like they were playing The Game of Managers

  • Doctor_of_Ineptitude (unregistered) in reply to WTFE
    WTFE:
    So Greg was told explicitly to NOT do something; which he proceeded to do; and gotten himself and the whole team fired... @Greg: You are a asshole!

    Don't be so innovative. I think "do not talk to Rashmi" was a trap. Mark's budget had already been evaporated by Chris and was just waiting for a causus belli. Chris might have foreseen the downsizing and might have taken preventive steps. OTOH, I do not work in a large conglomerate, so I am just concocting a fiction to go with the WTF. Which, it seems, Ellis Morning (the author) had also decided to do.

  • RFox (unregistered)

    Don't talk to me.

  • Cliff (unregistered) in reply to WTFE

    +1 again. Great, everyone got fired.

  • Black Bart (unregistered)

    Did Greg ever get the enhancements into staging and production?

  • ANON (unregistered)

    This story sounds 90% made up.

  • rashmi (unregistered) in reply to ANON

    I assure you, that wasn't a laughing matter.

  • Dave (unregistered)

    Wrong response to being shouted at by management for doing your job.

    Correct response: wait until they quieten down or run out of breath, then quietly say, "I used to work for IT&T. I've been shouted at by the BEST". (Substitute large (former) corporate of your choice.)

    Once they calm down again, ask how you can help solve the real problem.

    If they're terminally stupid - well you needed to find a new job anyway. If not, maybe you can now solve the real problems.

  • (cs) in reply to rashmi
    rashmi:
    I assure you, that wasn't a laughing matter.
    Well, that's my brother!

    But Greg never talked to you, he only chatted via IM. And chatting via IM also strictly confirms to "You have to pretend there’s a wall here." So he didn't violate the orders given to him!

  • Chris P. Peterson (unregistered)

    Greg tried to make the best out of one of the stangest situations a person can come across. I've never even heard of a rule that says you can't talk to a co-worker. He should've followed the rule, but it worked out in the end anyway.

  • lesle (unregistered)

    Hamo, Hamo. -Company President Park

  • QJo (unregistered)

    The irony is: once the program under discussion was fixed and cleaned up in the way only an experienced code-monkey can, there is no need for any of Greg, Lenny, Rashmi, Mark or Chris. The program that the five of them were employed cleaning up over now works perfectly and the establishment, now streamlined to the extent of five dysfunctional salary cheques, takes off and flies into the metaphorical skies without that boat-anchor holding it down.

  • foo AKA fooo (unregistered) in reply to no laughing matter
    no laughing matter:
    rashmi:
    I assure you, that wasn't a laughing matter.
    Well, that's my brother!

    But Greg never talked to you, he only chatted via IM. And chatting via IM also strictly confirms to "You have to pretend there’s a wall here." So he didn't violate the orders given to him!

    Ah, that was supposed to be the joke (and his brillant "idea") here, a wall, so IM is ok? (Still wondering what the "There was no nameplate on his cubicle yet." has to do with anything.)

    Well, you have to pretend there's a firewall here. (See, I can make a lame joke too and don't need pages of creative writing for it.)

    Sorry to say so, but even Erik's recent stories were better than this.

  • neminem (unregistered)

    Yep, that certainly sounds like a WTF, but less like an "incompetence" WTF and more like a "someone higher up really wanted this project to fail and was extremely displeased at anyone trying to make it succeed" type.

    Still wish we could read the certainly-not-so-embellished version to hear what actually happened, which I'm sure in this case would still have been just as WTFy though.

  • (cs)

    PPP was a critical app, yet some insane lady (who should have been fired) was able to single-handedly get the entire team sacked? But the real problem, a member of her team who was over-committed, was an issue she couldn't handle?

    Yeah, sounds like corporate America.

  • (cs) in reply to Chris P. Peterson

    I worked in a software company where we weren't supposed to talk with people outside our "elite" development group. It was explained to me that we worked with very sensitive customer information and if I talked with "outsiders" even if I wasn't divulging these secrets, people might get worried that I was, so it would be better to avoid that situation altogether.

    So I would walk through the large open-concept office (about 80 people in one large room, no dividers or partitions) to the printer and walk back to my desk, without being able to talk to anyone.

    Of course, this was in Japan. I lasted about a year in that environment.

  • (cs)

    This is more about corporate politics than a wtf.

  • (cs) in reply to WTFE
    WTFE:
    So Greg was told explicitly to NOT do something; which he proceeded to do; and gotten himself and the whole team fired... @Greg: You are a asshole!
    MEDIC! Someone with a severe case of Stockholm syndrome. Bring a straightjacket!
  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to foo AKA fooo
    foo AKA fooo:
    (Still wondering what the "There was no nameplate on his cubicle yet." has to do with anything.)

    Rashmi didn't know his name. Hence, Chris didn't know who this "Greg" was - could have been anyone.

  • redwizard (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    This is more about corporate politics than a wtf.

    Quite often, as in this case, corporate politics IS TRWTF.

    That being said, nothing more to see here...move along...

  • radarbob (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    This is more about corporate politics than a wtf.

    Ditto; this story induced some flashbacks and so I'd say its the corporate politics when the players are actively masking their unadulterated incompetence. The incompetent's behavior is all about avoiding failure because (s)he doesn't know what success is or how to get there; really. Anyone who tries to move toward success must be squashed because it would show that the present situation is failure.

    Not only could I not speak to certain personage, other persons were assigned to my project but I was not told they were. When I found out I was then told I could not use them on the project. This along with other insane dictats created a living hell. I began to see Dilbert cartoons as tragedy.

  • koopa (unregistered)

    TRWTF is that Rashmi was... the president's daughter

  • foo AKA fooo (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    foo AKA fooo:
    (Still wondering what the "There was no nameplate on his cubicle yet." has to do with anything.)

    Rashmi didn't know his name. Hence, Chris didn't know who this "Greg" was - could have been anyone.

    So he was explicitly told not to talk to her, but did so anyway because he figured he wouldn't be caught? (Because if Rashmi's time is so valuable, probably random people are welcome to talk to her? And because computers never log anything, at least not without a nameplate on a cubicle?) And he didn't expect any ... consequences? Yeah, that makes as much sense as flying to Madrid with a ninja sword or something ...

    Oh, now I see: He had already decided to quit and arranged things in order to relieve his coworkers from their pain in the process. Genius!

  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered) in reply to Adrian
    Adrian:
    Sounds like they were playing The Game of Managers
    Or was it The Game of Drones?
  • (cs)

    It looks to me like the whole setup was designed to eliminate Mark and his team. After all, they were too expensive; look at all those worthless tickets they kept billing.

    Inevitable that Mark and his team should be laid off; already one foot in the grave, so to speak.

    Now Chris is in charge, Rashmi has 150 tasks, the budget is lower and upper management is happy, happy, happy.

    And why is Rashmi having 150 tasks a good thing? Ten-to-one she's got citizenship problems, and is therefore working for a pittance.

    Because you can get away with that with people who have citizenship issues. A rancher in the area I lived as a kid, every year, employed another bunch of illegal immigrant Mexicans to shear his sheep. Every year, when it came time to pay, he gave them what he felt they were worth--about 10% of minimum wage--and told them that if they thought that was unfair, they could take it up with the INS.

  • (cs) in reply to koopa
    koopa:
    TRWTF is that Rashmi was... the president's daughter

    The President's daughter is singed up on Dickcourse and posting.

    http://what.thedailywtf.com/users/presidentsdaughter/activity

  • (cs) in reply to Coyne
    Coyne:
    It looks to me like the whole setup was designed to eliminate Mark and his team. After all, they were too expensive; look at all those worthless tickets they kept billing.

    Inevitable that Mark and his team should be laid off; already one foot in the grave, so to speak.

    Now Chris is in charge, Rashmi has 150 tasks, the budget is lower and upper management is happy, happy, happy.

    And why is Rashmi having 150 tasks a good thing? Ten-to-one she's got citizenship problems, and is therefore working for a pittance.

    Because you can get away with that with people who have citizenship issues. A rancher in the area I lived as a kid, every year, employed another bunch of illegal immigrant Mexicans to shear his sheep. Every year, when it came time to pay, he gave them what he felt they were worth--about 10% of minimum wage--and told them that if they thought that was unfair, they could take it up with the INS.

    So labor loophole in US of A is TRWTf.

  • Anon (unregistered)

    I don't get it. If he has access to code, and tickets to close, why would he need special permission to move his changes to staging? How exactly is he supposed to close his tickets if not by making changes to the application?

    It's not like you need to tell management what your changes are. You just say "I fixed the bug", management doesn't know how the app works and doesn't look at version control. Just don't tell them "I made large scale changes in order to fix the bug".

    This aside from the fact that Rashmi's role in this is confusing. Did she go tattle on Greg that he talked to her? Is her chat monitored? If she sold him out, why cooperate by telling him what her apps consumes? And wouldn't Greg's changes mean more work for her, since she would have to change her app to match what the new PPP is sending?

  • the beholder (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    This is more about corporate politics than a wtf.
    You say that as if WTF wasn't the straight dictionary definition of "corporate politics".
  • Blah (unregistered)

    Waiting for whoever sent this in to comment saying that the system was used totally in-house, Rashmi was Chris's team and her tasks were fixing the requests to the system. This meaning that the full story goes something like this:

    1. Greg fixes horrible code and interrupts other team.
    2. Other manager gets Greg's team fired.
    3. Support tickets clear up.
    4. Rashmi's team gets laid off.
    5. Company left in hands of devs who created the mess.
    6. Company's productivity drops to 0 and profits plummet.
    7. EVERYONE is laid off

    Way to go, Greg!

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    I don't get it. If he has access to code, and tickets to close, why would he need special permission to move his changes to staging? How exactly is he supposed to close his tickets if not by making changes to the application?
    It's all there in the article:
    Mark:
    You’ll be supporting an internal application called PPP (...)
    His role is IT support, not application developer.

    And what does application support actually do?

    Lenny:
    All I can do is force the users to resend their data until this festering pile will parse it.
    Nothing but sending mails to users!
    Anon:
    It's not like you need to tell management what your changes are. You just say "I fixed the bug", management doesn't know how the app works and doesn't look at version control. Just don't tell them "I made large scale changes in order to fix the bug".
    Mark:
    It already works, you just need to keep it that way.
    He is not allowed to make any changes at all! He is hired as application support, not application developer, so even simple bugfixes are not expected or allowed.
    Anon:
    This aside from the fact that Rashmi's role in this is confusing. Did she go tattle on Greg that he talked to her? Is her chat monitored? If she sold him out, why cooperate by telling him what her apps consumes? And wouldn't Greg's changes mean more work for her, since she would have to change her app to match what the new PPP is sending?
    "I couldn't finish my tasks today because some Greg guy contacted me via IM about details from application PPP. Who gave him permission to talk to me?"

    Besides the changes to PPP should ensure that her application is fed with the correct data instead of needless conversions weirding the data:

    The article:
    6.Yet another thread removes the struct from customQueue2 and strcpy’s its data into an array of char. At this point, the data should match the original packet data from step (1). (...) For no discernible reason, the data got converted and shuffled, crimped and creased, folded and bent around numerous times. Each step provided plenty of opportunities for mangling and overflow.
  • Brett Middleton (unregistered) in reply to Chris P. Peterson
    Chris P. Peterson:
    I've never even heard of a rule that says you can't talk to a co-worker.
    Heh. My first job, in a very small outfit. Nobody was permitted to talk to the programmers in the consulting outfit that ran DP there before I was hired. Having the peons whine directly to the programmers about their trivial problems without going through the appropriate layers of management would just distract them from real work or something and mess up the billable hours.
  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to no laughing matter

    I guess I can't quite get my head around how "telling users to send the data again" is something you need a person for, or could qualify as support.

    As for the last point, [quote=Greg]“Well, what data does the destination app actually need?”[/quote] Implying that while all the app did was send the same message it had received, the message contained information that wasn't of use to the next app in the line. And then [quote]He reported the issues with the code, and how he’d rewritten it to cleanly and safely pass the data on [/b]that the downstream program needed.[/b][/quote]So he would have had to change the output somehow. Otherwise, no point in clarifying the bolded bit.

  • Random (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh

    I don't think it counts as a loophole if you have to break laws to exploit it.

    letatio - As in Let a Tio work on my ranch

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to no laughing matter
    no laughing matter:
    His role is IT support, not application developer.

    And what does application support actually do? ... Nothing but sending mails to users!

    Don't be obtuse. They wouldn't have given him access to source control if that were really the case. It's obvious that it didn't really work, and when it "broke" he was expected to hack it until it correctly worked again.

    no laughing matter:
    He is not allowed to make any changes at all! He is hired as application support, not application developer, so even simple bugfixes are not expected or allowed.
    He was both allowed and expected to, yes. Lenny's experience was just that it was so difficult to get actual code changes made (through whatever change submission process they were requiring) that in the long run it was easier to simply e-mail the users and tell them to change their data format and resubmit. Eventually they'd manage to create a packet that slipped through headfirst rather than trying to go out sideways kicking, and he wouldn't have to touch the code at all.
  • Gumpy Gus (unregistered)

    As someone intimately familiar with the situation:

    (1) It's only about 70% similar to the original events.

    (2) A couple of the main points got lost: Lenny had spent the last 6 months putting in all the useless try/catches, and the whole app that basically did nothing but garble data was about 7,000 lines of useless code.

    (3) And a final bit of irony, after that job, the next place I applied to, the interview was going swimmingly, until I learned the code had been written by the same guy that wrote the original pile of crap I had just left behind. I declined to slide into that prime opportunity.

  • Andy Canfield (unregistered) in reply to WTFE

    If I were told by my new boss not to speak to someone sitting next to me, I would instantly turn to that person and say "Hello". OK, boss, if you really mean it, fire me NOW! Better to be instantly fired than work under insane regulations.

  • (cs)

    If you're going to come up with a fictitious name, don't use a gender-neutral one and then follow it with a swarm of pronouns.

  • Spencer (unregistered) in reply to foo AKA fooo

    [quote user="foo AKA fooo"][quote user="trtrwtf"][quote user="foo AKA fooo"] (Still wondering what the "There was no nameplate on his cubicle yet." has to do with anything.) [/quote]

    Oh, now I see: He had already decided to quit and arranged things in order to relieve his coworkers from their pain in the process. Genius![/quote]

    Not to mention the costs of making the nameplate and requiring the janitor/whoever to affix it.

    Look at all the expenses Greg saved the company! He really is a team player.

  • Cheong (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    I don't get it. If he has access to code, and tickets to close, why would he need special permission to move his changes to staging? How exactly is he supposed to close his tickets if not by making changes to the application?
    Sometime you really need permission and signing another set of NDA for staging because you need access to real (not live, though) data. But that's separate issue.
    Anon:
    Is her chat monitored?
    I think companies bought Lync servers exactly for this reason. Just think about the fact that Rashmi is Chris's only programmer on hand to task with. Imagine how one would go fury when others take away time with the only resource.
  • (cs)

    Sadly this "don't touch it, even if it doesn't work" syndrome is pervasive. In my current (at least for a couple of weeks) job the build process is frought with errors, but they are ignored, as the result is OK. Any attempt to "fix" any problem is regarded as a "risk". Of course the real risk is that errors go undetected. I tried to suggest parameterizing some of the variables, so future revisions of underlying system are at least doable. Sorry, too much "risk". Life goes on.....

  • foobie (unregistered) in reply to Andy Canfield
    Andy Canfield:
    If I were told by my new boss not to speak to someone sitting next to me, I would instantly turn to that person and say "Hello". OK, boss, if you really mean it, fire me NOW! Better to be instantly fired than work under insane regulations.

    But that's the thing - his boss wasn't the one who said not to talk to her. He didn't disobey any 'orders'. A colleague, who is possibly lazy or underperforming, said "don't try and fix this, and don't talk to her".

  • Paul M (unregistered)

    Ticket Resolution: Won't fix

    I have been expressly forbidden to fix the code causing your problems, as we cannot bill for that time, only for the time that I spend copy/pasting this paragraph into the ticket system.

    Raising this ticket has cost you fifty bucks.

  • Paul M (unregistered)

    Oh, I'll bet the reason whatsherface's time was overcomitted was that she had left 9000 steaming piles of crap everywhere that only she could maintain.

  • Carrie (unregistered) in reply to no laughing matter
    no laughing matter:
    Anon:
    I don't get it. If he has access to code, and tickets to close, why would he need special permission to move his changes to staging? How exactly is he supposed to close his tickets if not by making changes to the application?
    It's all there in the article:
    Mark:
    You’ll be supporting an internal application called PPP (...)
    His role is IT support, not application developer.

    And what does application support actually do?

    Lenny:
    All I can do is force the users to resend their data until this festering pile will parse it.
    Nothing but sending mails to users!

    He is not allowed to make any changes at all! He is hired as application support, not application developer, so even simple bugfixes are not expected or allowed.

    There's support and support.

    I was hired as application support, and I do dev work on .. well not directly on the application, because it's not our application: it's bought in, supposedly stable, and any bugs that really are problems with the underlying app get escalated to the provider (or, more often, ignored and users told to put up with it), but on the endless customisation, configuration, dependencies, and other surrounding gumph it needs to work in the precise way my company uses it.

    If his job was the brand of app support that only deals with PEBKAC and administration, and escalates everything that's actually wrong with the software to someone with a different job title, why would they give him access to the code?

  • the way I love you guys (unregistered)

    this comment section is a lot nicer than that shitty what.thedailywtf.com bit.

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to the way I love you guys
    the way I love you guys:
    this comment section is a lot nicer than that shitty what.thedailywtf.com bit.
    If you change "Articles" to "Comments" in the URL, you can still get to the classic-style comments section for articles that are posted with Discus comments.
  • Your Name (unregistered) in reply to anonymous
    anonymous:
    no laughing matter:
    His role is IT support, not application developer.

    And what does application support actually do? ... Nothing but sending mails to users!

    Don't be obtuse. They wouldn't have given him access to source control if that were really the case. It's obvious that it didn't really work, and when it "broke" he was expected to hack it until it correctly worked again.

    no laughing matter:
    He is not allowed to make any changes at all! He is hired as application support, not application developer, so even simple bugfixes are not expected or allowed.
    He was both allowed and expected to, yes. Lenny's experience was just that it was so difficult to get actual code changes made (through whatever change submission process they were requiring) that in the long run it was easier to simply e-mail the users and tell them to change their data format and resubmit. Eventually they'd manage to create a packet that slipped through headfirst rather than trying to go out sideways kicking, and he wouldn't have to touch the code at all.

    The trick is to slip your fixes in piece by piece and bill them to the various support tickets, rather than try a big ol' massive rewrite/refactor all at once. Been there before, myself.

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