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Admin
So, did he accept the next job?
Admin
I'm curious what this existing API was? Uhh... C++? Lol... The $500 was great but at $500 per nineteen weeks, this is more like picking up babysitting jobs... with the aggravation.
Admin
i'll do it
Admin
I'd take the job. Sounds like they'll pay for minimal results, and the accountability is nearly nil. Where's the downside?
I mean, sure, they're asking the impossible and they (kind of) want it now, but...it's like like they're trying to GET it.
Addendum (2007-07-25 16:24): *edit - meant "but it's not like they're"
Admin
Of course they might be terrorists on the cheap...
Admin
Were either of the PCs they lent him filled with used pinball machine parts?
Admin
Don't you just hate cliffhangers?
Admin
Yes I took the next job, and story as usual: haven't heard from him in over a week after accepting the job via e-mail
I chose to use C++ to interface with the API, but it has other extensions. The main hang up with the API is that it is very obscure, and essentially the only reference I had was staring at the documentation. Essentially, no actual code examples exist.
No pinball parts, just dust and ancient defective PC parts. The radio cards alone were worth more than every other piece of equipment combined. Just one of the cards on it's own, that is.
Was there a 4th question?...
Admin
3 Weeks x 10 Hours x $5.50 = $825 > $500 payed.
Admin
How did you suddenly change into Alex when knocking?
Admin
I've always wondered about people that buy into the whole "OMG! We might Miss A Deadline! Gotta crunch so that The Schedule is kept intact!" If you've spent any time in software (of course the protagonist of the story had not) you'd know that every non-trivial project slips behind the schedule (usually because the schedule was decided without regard to achievability).
I still see it all the time at my day job. Programmers with 20 years of experience still busting their butts to try to meet deadlines that are obviously completely arbitrary (as in the story).
I could see maybe if you were in a career with a future - maybe Indian programmers might want to try to save The Schedule to look good to the bosses. Can't see the point for Americans though.
Admin
What?
Admin
6 Weeks x 15 Hours/Week x $5.50/Hour = $495.00
yay maths!
Admin
Now that is a WTF.
Admin
"three weeks ... ten hours of work per week....$5.50/hr."
3 x 10 = 30 hours of work
30 hours x $5.50 = $165.00
Am I missing something?
Admin
"three weeks ... ten hours of work per week....$5.50/hr."
3 x 10 = 30 hours of work
30 hours x $5.50 = $165.00
Am I missing something?
Admin
Ah, "Tight Deadline Meets Lazy Boss" should be a children's book and mandatory reading. Can't count the number of times I've pulled an all nighter, only to have arbitrary delays for a month and a half.
Admin
Sorry for the double post... :(
Admin
hmm
3 weeks * 10 hours/week *5.5 dollars/hour = 30 hours * 5.5 dollars/hour = 165 dollars
165 < 500 (by 335)
I ain't no genius, but by simply cancelling the units, I came up whole different number.
maybe I missed something?
(we now know the REAL WTF)
Admin
Yes, at one point they bumped it up to 15 hours a week, making it $250. The double in pay, well they probably just screwed up in his favor.
Admin
Uhh that's 10 hours a week, NOT 10 hours/day...
3 Weeks x 10 Hours x $5.50 = $165 < $500
Admin
OK, I'm going to break the habit of a lifetime and not read the other posts.
Oww. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.
We are all doomed.
Admin
darn those companies that only allow 10 hours per day.
Admin
Yup, I see it too. In fact I'm involved in a project like that, which is supposed to finish in 2 1/2 weeks time which incidentally is when I leave on holiday. Seeing as we still don't even have a design laid out yet (because the people involved can't even be bothered to have a meeting) I'm pretty sure there's no chance in hell to pull it off. In fact I've just emailed my concerns to the team which I'm sure will be met with the usual but-it's-simple-why-are-you-being-negative reply. Only thing to do now is wait for the fireworks and try to act in a civilized manner if anyone makes the mistake of trying to pin it on me. Gotta love IT.
Admin
All this failed math is giving me a headache. Stop it!
Admin
Admin
Indian programmers in California work one way. Indian programmers in Bangalore work another way. Indian programmers here in Birmingham work yet another way ... strangely enough. Some of it is to do with cultural differences, and some of it is to do with what PHB wants them to do.
It has bugger-all to do with the schedule, unless you get a responsible Indian programmer. (I'd recommend a Sikh, but then I'm prejudiced.)
Interesting that you think that American programmers have a future, whereas Indian programmers don't, though ...
Admin
Obviously you were using the OMGWTF contest winner to do that math...
Admin
Looks like someone read 10 hours per day instead of per week.
Admin
The real WTF is that man was nice enough to pay Steve D the money considering that Steve D was completely ignoring his client for weeks at a time. It sounds like Steve D should have done better planning so he could have met the original three week deadline instead of taking nineteen weeks or however long he took. He's lucky that C++ programmers are in high demand!
Admin
Did I miss a bunch of the story or is it that you didn't read the story or are you just trolling? It sounds like a "need it yesterday" deadline was easily pushed back by the boss because new stuff seems more important all of a sudden. I was working on a project that I was told had to be done by months end. It was vital it be completed as work had to be started right away. It's been months since anyone has looked at it and that was only when I gave someone training on the program.
Admin
Admin
I had this a few months ago. We absolutely, positively had to have this code written in 2 weeks or so. I wrote it up, tested it, and deployed it to the internal server in about a week. There it sat for months before anybody decided to use it or even look at it.
Really irritated me how they acted like it was a huge fire originally, then promptly forgot about it.
Admin
I only started reading this site a few weeks ago and even I've picked up already that Top Cod3r is a troll.
Admin
I had a similar 'must be done yesterday' thing at another job, not code related. A piece of equipment was 'must have yesterday', so me, a junior engineer, was sent driving quite literally from one side of the city to the other to pick it up and bring it back. Took a whole day.
Two weeks later the box was where I left it, still unopened.
Not that I was complaining - easiest day's work I ever did.
Admin
I interpreted that to mean the opposite. Indian programmers have a future (stealing American jobs).
I'm maintaining faith that once the last American programmer is gone, there'll be nobody to clean up after the get-what-you-paid-for guys in Bangalore, and we'll all get to say "I told you so".
Admin
From the unemployment line, you mean?
Yeah, that'll be satisfying.
Admin
The client didn't really care about the software. They just wanted to know how much idiocy Steve would take. There's probably an English major somewhere writing a summary of War and Peace in 3 weeks at $5.50 an hour, and somewhere else an accounting major dissecting the books of a fake business.
Steve's client was a grad student in psychiatry.
capcha: burned. What he was.
Admin
I think your abacus needs adjustment.
Captcha: doom (I think that sums this WTF up pretty well.)
Admin
Admin
Admin
He's trolling. He did the same for yesterday's story as well.
Admin
Man, $5,50/h, now thats low! I'd never take a job for less than $20/h. Shit, those $165 you'd initially make for three weeks of work would what, last you a week in food etc.? Fuck that, paperboys make far more money than this!
Admin
or perhaps he meant "a grad student locked in the psychiatry ward".
Admin
Admin
What's so strange about this? This is my office daily! Oh, except that it's multiple must haves and it sounds like this guy's equipment was better than mine, BTW, the company I work with is a BILLION $$ company, that's a WTF x 2
Admin
Admin
I had a job once, as a technician at an electronic engineering firm. (In case you don't know, a technician is someone who knows as much as an engineer, works twice as hard as an engineer and gets paid half as much as an engineer.) There was one time when the engineers basically insisted for three of us to work a 19-day week (three weeks and two weekends straight through) building test equipment to meet a deadline.
The gear we bust a gut to get together spent the next fortnight gathering dust on the engineer's desk, completely untouched.
And they wondered why morale was so poor in that company!
Admin
Obviously it took so long because he needed time to find all that junk.
Admin
A technician is someone who couldn't even pass calculus, and can't imagine what an engineer does, and therefore thinks he does an engineer's job.
I dropped some donut crumbs over in 7G- go make yourself useful, and clean them up.