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Admin
I've worked (or idled, more to the point) at gov't agencies (no more, thank God!), and there was NO way I could have worked on an open-source project there. Most of the time I didn't have internet access, either.
Admin
I need a "proper" one myself. Sometimes i prefer to remain logged on longer while waiting for AV to pop an hour and half later. I notice a character in my server that is obviously botted constantly targetting friendly characters in Ironforge. I am wondering how that can be setup in a macro....
Admin
I've BTDT as well. My first job out of college, I was hired on to begin developing a new client server system in VB6 that would eventually replace their mainframe system. After 8 months, the project stalled and I had literally almost nothing to do.
I tried to keep myself up on my skills, but it was hard because even though I didn't have a lot to do, I was micromanaged. A few times my manager would come over and see my with a few programming books open and writing code, and would question what I was doing. When I explained I was either trying to enhance the part I had already written, he'd scold me for "fixing what isnt' broken", even though there were plenty of improvements I could make. When I explained I was planning for when we actually did start the other phases, I was told not to and that I should be "learning" the mainframe system. Which I had been told from day one I didn't have to do since it was going away. Basically it was kind of nervewracking trying to sneak around doing programming. By the end of my time there, I had almost given up and basically just showed up. They did no internet logging, so I could surf to my heart's content. Some days I felt like I had actually gotten to the end of the internet. And there was actually another developer like me. He brought in several PC games and we spent some days playing the whole day. I remember one week my manager was on vacation and I literally spent the entire week surfing and playing Black&White.
Luckily not long after that I found a new job that let me actually develop.
Admin
Seriously.. Create work for yourself, make that nifty application you always wanted, play with some new software tools, or create some reusable software modules.. Hell surf /. all day long!
Admin
I actually did something very similar several years back, Fresh out of high school I was hired to help restore
the user privliges in a ERP system.
All priviliges were wiped, and to ensure buisness continuity they gave everybody(thousnds of employees)
all the priviliges for the entire system(including making large purchases by the company and other sensitive info).
I was brought in to help fix this before anyone discovered they have excessive priviliges.
The process of restoring was mostly automated aside for the need to press 'F5' button
for each record, due to the emulation this was done in, we did not know how to simulate the 'F5' key.
After pressing 'F5' at a steady pase, (must not click to fast) for 5 hours, I went home and tried building a lego
contraption to press F5, I failed, I could not build a device that would:
a. click reasonably fast(close to the maximum speed)
b. never exceed the speed limit.
c. not press any other button.
I ended up pressing F5 for 2 days. I probably pressed F5 aproxematly 50,000 times.
I was much more efficent then expected and was not given another task for the next month
but I was 16 years old I had my own private office with a fast internet connection(this was when 56kbps
was standard) and I was getting paid twice what my burger flipping friends were making.
Me.
Admin
When you have nothing to do...
Find an entertaining website or forum to read. Preferably a humorous one.
Admin
How about disabling the screensaver???
Admin
This is the difference between a sweat shop and The Enterprise.
I found myself writing a bash version of a "Yahtzee" dice game at one job. Once I got it working in bash, I modified it to work under ksh. Then carefully made a single version that worked nicely in both shells. But I didn't have to move the mouse in that job. This certainly is a HFS.
Admin
I'm currently working as a security guard on the late-shift. My job description is "sit there and stay alert, waiting for nothing to happen." with no end in sight. The internet is lightly filtered, though I wager I could work around that if I tried. I plan to get my CDL and take up trucking for a while, slightly better pay and I'll actualy be DOING something. My advice is to create side-projects that you can do in your copius spare time. Start by automating the annoying-and-mindless-but-predictable things and try to create other projects that will either entertain you or act as another source of income, while you search for more meaningful employment.
Currently on my to-do list: Research nearby CDL training centers,learn to read/speak Japanese, make a new set of lock-picks, begin submitting articles to RPG magizines.
I'm off to go look for more flaws in this site's security. Later!
Admin
I am kinda jealous, I wish I could get paid to do nothing.
Who cares about a dream! Im not MLK!
Admin
Sounds like a government job I was in. I could not sit still and started fishing for jobs within the organization so I would be productive. When my boss found out, she threatened to fire me for disobeying her direct orders for me to sit still in my office and DO NOTHING. I complained about her, to her boss's boss, and got around her, and kept myself busy and did a bunch of good projects, while my ex-boss stayed on the same project for 7 years. The administration, finally gave up on her, and outsourced that project to another company.
Admin
Absolutely right - I'm there right now (which is why I am responding to 2 year old WTF's). Working on 'something else' is all v laudable and OK when it happens the first time, but try 3,4, 5 times donw the line and you will truly understand why the Daily WTF exists!
Admin
This is quite unsurprising. Needless to say, when we get 70% of GDP from Fortune 1000 (just before the crash), but then something happens to upset the apple cart, we have a crash because the reality is that the US economy is all just a Potemkin Village and has been for decade or more. It's "real life" stories like this that show why.
Just to point out - it really wasn't always this way. Before the 1990s, 70% of GDP (as well as similar levels of productivity) came from SMEs (companies with at most a few thousand employees but mostly in the hundreds). Unfortunately plenty of the big boy Potemkin Village illusion also started to filter down into the SMEs in the US.
Admin
Admin
You can't be forced to help develop something - specific performance is almost never in those contracts. Yes, thy can claim stuff you do on the clock as an employee, but that's about it.
/bumping 3 year old article.