• Jon (unregistered)

    Raise your rate, take the contract.

  • Dan (unregistered)

    I think the only position I'd accept then is CFO there.

  • Dan (unregistered) in reply to boog

    Very punny. TCLSs me to death.

  • RV6 (unregistered)

    August 13th. But nobody stated which year.

  • RV6 (unregistered) in reply to APH

    Same issue here. We hit the deadline of May 1, just not the right year.

  • Gary Olson (unregistered) in reply to Slim
    Slim:
    Wait... a 5-digit date?
    The data fields were to align with natural input methods to minimize user errors. Five fingers, five digit dates. Seems simple enough to me.
  • (cs) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    Bryan the K:
    Nothing a coders death march can't fix.

    Just have people work hours and hours of unpaid overtime. Then hire a bunch of Jr. Level developers and a bunch of contractors....

    I'm sure it'll work

    Where's Nagesh when you need him...

    Offshoring anyone?

    I am here only, but was not able to logon ot WTF yesterday. First I think it is blocked, so I start getting tense, but now I realize it is not. That was one WTF in making already.

  • Kjella (unregistered) in reply to fritters
    fritters:
    My fellow developers and I, knowing that we had little more than prototype code at that point, estimated another 2-3 months, easily. (...) "I really need it done in 3 weeks", boss says. (...) At least I got lots of overtime pay.

    If my boss is ready to pay me 150%/200% overtime for it, I could easily put in some crazy hours. It's the people that don't get overtime and still do it that confuse me. You have to be very desperate to do that...

  • Sudo (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    ping floyd:
    Slicerwizard:
    Hey Remy, Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. It is not a form of chitchat or idle banter.

    There's a Snobol's chance in hell that the younger folks got that...

    Ada minimum, I'd say fifteen percent got it. Tops, 20.

    Congratulations! You are officially turning into your parents.

    Now say something about the music and fashion that those "young folks" have these days. Ooh, and rant a while about how they all take drugs and go around stabbing each other in their hoodies. For bonus points, use the phrase "in my day".

  • Gunslinger (unregistered) in reply to Slim
    Slim:
    Wait... a 5-digit date?

    2 for the day, 2 for the month, 1 for the year. Ensures that you update the system at least every 10 years. The developers probably figured that they'd be the ones doing the updating, so it's a job security feature. Too bad they forgot to inform the company about that bit.

  • keith (unregistered) in reply to ping floyd
    ping floyd:
    Slicerwizard:
    Hey Remy, Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. It is not a form of chitchat or idle banter.

    There's a Snobol's chance in hell that the younger folks got that...

    +1 Minitels for you, sir!

  • aikimark (unregistered)

    Have the CFO write a certified check for $7.3 million and then submit his letter of resignation.

    Hire a tiger team. Complete the conversion with $3-$4.5 million resources. Pocket the rest as profit.

  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to Sudo
    Sudo:
    trtrwtf:

    Ada minimum, I'd say fifteen percent got it. Tops, 20.

    Congratulations! You are officially turning into your parents.

    Now say something about the music and fashion that those "young folks" have these days. Ooh, and rant a while about how they all take drugs and go around stabbing each other in their hoodies. For bonus points, use the phrase "in my day".

    Whoosh!

  • (cs)

    This job sounds like a cash cow. TRWTF is the programmer refusing to milk it.

  • Bit Head (unregistered) in reply to some guy
    some guy:
    trwtf:
    EatenByAGrue:
    chron3:
    martiert:
    Actually, I'm 24 and the first thing I thought of was Smalltalk the OO language, not Smalltalk as in smalltalk. Maybe I'm just damaged.

    Probably... and I bet you speak with a Lisp also... and geeky enough to have a pet Python at home...

    So many perls of wisdom here, I'm just sitting here gawking.

    That's what she sed.

    Groovy.

    These are terrific! I'm assembling a list of them. Watfor, I don't know...

  • (cs)

    A really ambitious, self-reliant person would say, "See, I know why the project failed last time, and I can show you. I'll take the job under the following conditions: I get a one year no-cut contract. I won't quit in that time if the remainder of the terms are kept; otherwise I quit and I get the remainder of the year's pay. If I am fired for any reason I get a full year's pay from the date of firing.

    I will take two weeks to analyze the project and come up with a rational timeframe. Based on that project plan, I can hire anybody I need, and pay them 20% above grade with one year no-cut contracts. I will then meet with the CFO, who can either accept the timeframe and the headcount, or pay me my severance on the spot. My pay rate is double the rate of the previous project manager.

    If I beat the deadline my team and I get an additional 20% bonus for the year. If I make it within one month of the deadline, we get a 10% bonus. Once the project is done, you and I have a mutual option for me to stay here for the rest of the year, or I leave and take the rest of the year as severance. Take it or leave it - but you'll take it because you have no choice."

    If they're desperate enough, they'll take it. Heck, it works in the movies.

  • Eyes on South Asia (unregistered) in reply to gar37bic
    gar37bic:
    A _really_ ambitious, self-reliant person would say, "See, I know why the project failed last time, and I can show you. I'll take the job under the following conditions: I get a one year no-cut contract. I won't quit in that time if the remainder of the terms are kept; otherwise I quit and I get the remainder of the year's pay. If I am fired for any reason I get a full year's pay from the date of firing.

    I will take two weeks to analyze the project and come up with a rational timeframe. Based on that project plan, I can hire anybody I need, and pay them 20% above grade with one year no-cut contracts. I will then meet with the CFO, who can either accept the timeframe and the headcount, or pay me my severance on the spot. My pay rate is double the rate of the previous project manager.

    If I beat the deadline my team and I get an additional 20% bonus for the year. If I make it within one month of the deadline, we get a 10% bonus. Once the project is done, you and I have a mutual option for me to stay here for the rest of the year, or I leave and take the rest of the year as severance. Take it or leave it - but you'll take it because you have no choice."

    If they're desperate enough, they'll take it. Heck, it works in the movies.

    Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt

    Next!

  • (cs) in reply to Sudo
    Sudo:
    trtrwtf:
    ping floyd:
    Slicerwizard:
    Hey Remy, Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. It is not a form of chitchat or idle banter.

    There's a Snobol's chance in hell that the younger folks got that...

    Ada minimum, I'd say fifteen percent got it. Tops, 20.

    Congratulations! You are officially turning into your parents.

    Now say something about the music and fashion that those "young folks" have these days. Ooh, and rant a while about how they all take drugs and go around stabbing each other in their hoodies. For bonus points, use the phrase "in my day".

    Hmph. In my day we were properly intimidated by yoof and didn't dare antagonize them by stereotyping them unfairly like this, you were likely to get bogwashed and then whipped with a wet towel.

  • (cs) in reply to Bit Head
    Bit Head:
    some guy:
    trwtf:
    EatenByAGrue:
    chron3:
    martiert:
    Actually, I'm 24 and the first thing I thought of was Smalltalk the OO language, not Smalltalk as in smalltalk. Maybe I'm just damaged.

    Probably... and I bet you speak with a Lisp also... and geeky enough to have a pet Python at home...

    So many perls of wisdom here, I'm just sitting here gawking.

    Cobol together a stand-up-comedy routine.

    That's what she sed.

    Groovy.

    These are terrific! I'm assembling a list of them. Watfor, I don't know...

  • synp (unregistered) in reply to Slim
    Slim:
    Wait... a 5-digit date?

    Because some have really never worked on a mainframe, 5-digit dates is two digits for the year, and 3 digits for day. 11001 would be January 1st, 2011 (or 1911).

    Today's March 2. January had 31 days, February 28, plus 1 day because we're not zero based and plus 1 for March 1st, so today is 11061.

  • Kempeth (unregistered) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    Offshoring anyone?
    Yeah. That CFO should be offshored - I think 10 miles would suffice...
  • Not of this Earth (unregistered) in reply to jpaull

    Computer hardware is complex and well engineered. Computer software is complex and shitty. Can anybody tell me why?

  • Kempeth (unregistered) in reply to gar37bic
    gar37bic:
    A _really_ naive and overconfident person would demand pay and privileges far, far beyond anything the company is willing to give and think they are hot stuff for making such a cool appearance.

    FTFY

    The situation is clear: Nothing has changed - get out of there asap. Given that the CFO is so influential and stingy with the deadline he's probably going to be stingy with your pay too. Unless you're willing to pull a Paula Bean on them and use the time to catch up with your favorite blogs and webcomics there's nothing to be gained from that job...

    Tell them how fascinating the project sounds, how nice their workplace seems to be, yadda yadda and then politely decline saying they should give you a call when the CFO no longer calls the shots in technical matters.

  • Spoc42 (unregistered) in reply to Slim
    Slim:
    Wait... a 5-digit date?

    Yup. Seen that before: YYJJJ where JJJ is the "Julian" date (i.e. number of days in the year).

    Of course, making it a true Julian date would have let it last a bit longer (some 273 years instead of 99) from 1/1/1900. Oh well...

  • Spoc42 (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    ping floyd:
    Slicerwizard:
    Hey Remy, Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. It is not a form of chitchat or idle banter.

    There's a Snobol's chance in hell that the younger folks got that...

    Ada minimum, I'd say fifteen percent got it. Tops, 20.

    CICS himself for not getting such a BASIC joke,

  • (cs) in reply to Spoc42
    Spoc42:
    trtrwtf:
    ping floyd:
    Slicerwizard:
    Hey Remy, Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. It is not a form of chitchat or idle banter.

    There's a Snobol's chance in hell that the younger folks got that...

    Ada minimum, I'd say fifteen percent got it. Tops, 20.

    CICS himself for not getting such a BASIC joke,

    Well I'm not a Native English speaker and I Managed to understand your jokes.

  • grumpy (unregistered) in reply to ping floyd
    ping floyd:
    Slicerwizard:
    Hey Remy, Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. It is not a form of chitchat or idle banter.
    There's a Snobol's chance in hell that the younger folks got that...
    PL/ease don't go there - it was bad enough as it was.
  • xntriq (unregistered) in reply to Matt Westwood
    Matt Westwood:
    Bit Head:
    some guy:
    trwtf:
    EatenByAGrue:
    chron3:
    martiert:
    Actually, I'm 24 and the first thing I thought of was Smalltalk the OO language, not Smalltalk as in smalltalk. Maybe I'm just damaged.

    Probably... and I bet you speak with a Lisp also... and geeky enough to have a pet Python at home...

    So many perls of wisdom here, I'm just sitting here gawking.

    Cobol together a stand-up-comedy routine.

    That's what she sed.

    Groovy.

    These are terrific! I'm assembling a list of them. Watfor, I don't know...

    I guess you're CLU-less?

  • The Ancient Programmer (unregistered)

    The five digit year going to six digits is obviously based on the number of days since the system start date. The system I currently use, and the previous one, both used this method. The current system is the number of days since 31st December, 1967. Simples!

  • Yitscar (unregistered)

    I must say, I've often heard (and seen) upper management (including. CEO) set deadlines when they had no idea of what they were talking about, but CFO, that's a new one.

  • Rhialto (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    Tops, 20.
    Yes, that was a nice operating system, on serious big iron.
  • Sylver (unregistered)

    Again, a WTF which is really a communication failure.

    "You know, actually, I was selected for this job X months ago, but I didn't take it because I wasn't sure I could do it within your time frame.

    Do you think I could have a talk with your CFO and go over the project timeline with him?"

    Chat a bit with a CFO and sell your solution.

    I get the feeling that a lot of contractors selling their services forget that they are salesmen, at that stage of the process, and if you just walk away the minute a customer submit a stupid or unpractical request, you are certainly not doing your job.

  • just me (unregistered) in reply to Not of this Earth
    Not of this Earth:
    Computer hardware is complex and shitty. Computer software is complex and shitty. Can anybody tell me why?

    FTFY

    Our company builds PCIe hardware and I'm always amazed by the lists of known bugs in PC chipsets. It's just that the normal user / high-level developer doesn't see them because they're hidden behind multiple layers of work-arounds.

  • Rnd( (unregistered)

    So why not 5 digit day counter from linux epoch? Or some other arbiterary year. Wouldn't make sense but when it does?

  • trwtf (unregistered) in reply to Rnd(
    Rnd(:
    So why not 5 digit day counter from linux epoch? Or some other arbiterary year. Wouldn't make sense but when it does?
    Sense would when does make? Try for go some amount orange squared.
  • JohnO (unregistered)

    I shudder when I hear the word 'just'

  • (cs)

    In the article text, toward the bottom, click on the phrase "how long will it take to fix this?", and be stabbed in the brain by a unicorn.

    On topic: this is why CFO's should not be making IT decisions. I know of one company where IT USED to be a subset of Accounting.

    W

    T

    F

  • (cs) in reply to synp
    synp:
    Slim:
    Wait... a 5-digit date?

    Because some have really never worked on a mainframe, 5-digit dates is two digits for the year, and 3 digits for day. 11001 would be January 1st, 2011 (or 1911).

    Today's March 2. January had 31 days, February 28, plus 1 day because we're not zero based and plus 1 for March 1st, so today is 11061.

    But gasp you're wasting 6 numeric values for that middle digit. And 8 values for the first. What you need to do is shift the entire year value to reclaim the upper 4 bits of the day value, then you can squeeze in another digit for century. That way, you'll only have to rewrite it every 100 years. Now THAT is enterprisy good use of system resources.

  • (cs)
  • trwtf (unregistered) in reply to hoodaticus
    hoodaticus:
    In the article text, toward the bottom, click on the phrase "how long will it take to fix this?", and be stabbed in the brain by a unicorn.
    For one of the regulars you sure took your sweet time discovering the 'corns. Remy's hidden 'corns in every single article he's ever written, as far as I know.
  • Lefty Middlewright (unregistered) in reply to boog
    boog:
    trtrwtf:
    ping floyd:
    Slicerwizard:
    Hey Remy, Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. It is not a form of chitchat or idle banter.
    There's a Snobol's chance in hell that the younger folks got that...
    Ada minimum, I'd say fifteen percent got it. Tops, 20.
    Eiffel like you shouldn't make fun of younger folks' lack of experience.

    I simpli don't understand.

  • Finbot Saunders (unregistered) in reply to EatenByAGrue
    EatenByAGrue:
    chron3:
    martiert:
    Actually, I'm 24 and the first thing I thought of was Smalltalk the OO language, not Smalltalk as in smalltalk. Maybe I'm just damaged.

    Probably... and I bet you speak with a Lisp also... and geeky enough to have a pet Python at home...

    So many perls of wisdom here, I'm just sitting here gawking.

    That's what she sed

  • Design Pattern (unregistered) in reply to EatenByAGrue
    EatenByAGrue:
    chron3:
    martiert:
    Actually, I'm 24 and the first thing I thought of was Smalltalk the OO language, not Smalltalk as in smalltalk. Maybe I'm just damaged.

    Probably... and I bet you speak with a Lisp also... and geeky enough to have a pet Python at home...

    So many perls of wisdom here, I'm just sitting here gawking.

    Perls you find in shells, but other GEM should count, too. Like a ruby. So maybe you should change your scheme!

  • anonymous_coder() (unregistered) in reply to EatenByAGrue
    EatenByAGrue:
    chron3:
    martiert:
    Actually, I'm 24 and the first thing I thought of was Smalltalk the OO language, not Smalltalk as in smalltalk. Maybe I'm just damaged.

    Probably... and I bet you speak with a Lisp also... and geeky enough to have a pet Python at home...

    So many perls of wisdom here, I'm just sitting here gawking.

    You sed it...

  • anonymous_coder() (unregistered) in reply to anonymous_coder()
    anonymous_coder():
    EatenByAGrue:
    chron3:
    martiert:
    Actually, I'm 24 and the first thing I thought of was Smalltalk the OO language, not Smalltalk as in smalltalk. Maybe I'm just damaged.

    Probably... and I bet you speak with a Lisp also... and geeky enough to have a pet Python at home...

    So many perls of wisdom here, I'm just sitting here gawking.

    You sed it...

    And I'm M4 it for duping jokes. Guess I was being a Pascal. C what I did there?

  • K&R (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    ping floyd:
    Slicerwizard:
    Hey Remy, Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. It is not a form of chitchat or idle banter.

    There's a Snobol's chance in hell that the younger folks got that...

    Ada minimum, I'd say fifteen percent got it. Tops, 20.

    I C what you did there.
  • (cs) in reply to K&R
    K&R :
    trtrwtf:
    ping floyd:
    Slicerwizard:
    Hey Remy, Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. It is not a form of chitchat or idle banter.
    There's a Snobol's chance in hell that the younger folks got that...
    Ada minimum, I'd say fifteen percent got it. Tops, 20.
    I C what you did there.
    Me too; and Eiffel over laughing.
  • Sylver (unregistered) in reply to Not of this Earth
    Not of this Earth:
    Computer hardware is complex and well engineered. Computer software is complex and shitty. Can anybody tell me why?
    Probably because you are not hardware savvy enough to understand in which ways computer hardware sucks.
  • Someone who can't be bothered to login from work (unregistered) in reply to free-range user.
    free-range user.:
    Slim:
    Wait... a 5-digit date?

    Three-digit Julian with two-digit year?

    That would be my guess.

    I was going to go with COBOL integer dates, but 99,999 would be sometime in the 18th October 1874, I think, so it seems unlikely.

  • Doozerboy (unregistered) in reply to fritters
    fritters:

    When I come back, I ask how the demo went. Was the customer wowed? And of course you guys can all guess the answer: "Err, well, we didn't really have time to show them."

    This has happened more times than i can remember

    fritters:
    At least I got lots of overtime pay.

    Unfortunately, this hasn't.

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