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Admin
Some of those WTFs make real glad that i dont live and work anywhere near the USA :)
captcha: praesent - wtf is a praesent anyway? 0.o
Admin
Oh look, a commenter who encourages stupid acts of violence. That's new.
I'm sure being arrested for assault, losing your job, not being able to find a new job because you have a record of attacking your bosses, and probably having your life-savings drained by a deliberately drawn-out civil lawsuit would TOTALLY be worth it.
Admin
Buddy, if you're lookin' to start a fight, well you got one! C'mon, put 'em up!
Admin
I'm just a violent person like that. No, I do not believe it would be a wise decision on my part. Yes, I would probably regret it. No, I do not encourage others to act like I would.
That's just my frank prediction of how I would react.
Admin
I've been in that situation as well. Once had a meeting with my manager who had absolutely no idea how Systems Administration worked, he was only put in charge of the department because upper management felt uncomfortable with someone who was relatively junior (I was 26 at the time) running a department themselves. This guy was a programmer, and not a very good one at that, and went through a 4 hour review giving me 3 and 2 out of 5 for knowledge on things he couldn't spell, let alone do.
It was the most insulting thing I've ever been through, and the only reason he left that meeting intact was the boardroom table was too wide for me to leap out of my chair and successfully throttle him in one smooth motion.
Shortly after that I left for a much better paying position. So I guess in retrospect I should thank the SOB. That, and the look on his face when both myself and my colleague (the entire IT department) handed in resignations on the same day was priceless.
Admin
Good theory, but this company is a retailer. ISO certification is mostly useful when you're trying to sell to sell B2B or B2G.
Admin
Pfft. The more I work in this business, the more I realize that most people who job-hop are just fleeing the consequences of their own incompetence. Of course there are crap jobs out there but one look at their WTF order entry system should have sent him running for the door or at least brought up the thought of a consulting gig to fix it.
Don't get me wrong, I understand and empathize with Christian, but let's face it, he approached the problem wrong and didn't handle the regional manager situation very well either. Yeah, the RM was a jerk, but let's face it, no matter what business you're in, you're going to deal with some jerks and if you can't handle that you're in the wrong job.
Admin
On the off chance that you aren't simply trolling or being an internet tough guy, you should seriously seek counseling.
Admin
Well, there are big/small retailers that also happen to sell to businesses other than through a standard brick'n'mortar storefront that regular consumers use. In fact, I just recently bought RAM and a USB cable at a local one.
Admin
Lose what little money I have and possibly my ability to care that idiocy is happening when it should not? No, thanks, I'll pass. In any case. This is, IMO, offtopic.
Admin
Or threaten to leave. Those are the only two ways to get ahead. No company is just going to volunteer to pay you more money.
Admin
Better still, start up your own competing business and poach his customers/employees :)
One shouldn't have to be a moron to become management, right?
Admin
MORTAAAAAAAL KOMMMMMMBAAT
Admin
Admin
I don't know how people like this guy can keep their cool. Maybe its something with the situation as it happens, I don't know, but I can't see going through either of those meetings without screaming my head off.
Admin
Stop rationalizing how much you hate your job and start trying to find a life you can enjoy, and maybe you'll see the WTFs.
Admin
I'm kind of wondering why he doesn't just scan the barcodes off the screen. Save some paper. ;-)
(I'm pretty sure from empirical testing that bar code scanners don't work on CRT displays...but I wonder about LCD panels? Damnit, and here I am with no barcode scanner handy to try it...)
Admin
Parsing emails with PHP? WTF?!
Admin
Reminds of my first job where I wrote a ticket management system, while management was still discussing the implementation of such a system up to the day the department closed down. It had rather crappy internals because it was my first application ever but it did the job.
Admin
Is it me or ar the two bosses playing Good Cop Bad Cop ?
Admin
Could it be the going out of business compusa?
Admin
what makes you think larry doesnt have a special "underlings repellant" baseball bat/club hidden under his desk?
captcha: quis, i guess real men dont use quiche for their captchas either
Admin
^ Internet Tough Guy ^
Admin
"I know I'm not perfect and admit that I have made mistakes, but you will be the ones to suffer for it."
-mitm
Admin
I was kind of wondering about the same thing... Could he possibly have kept his copyright in such a way that he could deny the company to continue using it after he left? THAT sure would be a fun thing to do...
(Though of course, Larry most likely wouldn't really care about it personally until someone shows him the decreased productivity, and then blame Christian for it...)
Admin
ISO certification means very little to me. All you need is a process and it doesn't matter how good or bad the process is. Sadly some companies are so hung up on things like ISO certification that how bad you are at something doesn't matter so long as you tick the necessary boxes.
Admin
The thing I find most annoying about ISO certification is that the suppliers of ISO certified companies (eg us) are expected to fill in lengthy "quality" forms to keep the ISO certified company happy. Often we won't fill them in (eg if the customer was someone who bought one thing from us 3 years ago) or just put the bare minimum in. If they don't pay for the return postage (as many don't!) they can go swing..
ISO certification is only 'impressive' to people who don't know what it is - as long as I document my really poor quality processes I can be ISO certified. It says nothing about quality, just how much spare money you have to pay quality technicians to write lots of stuff, and how many trees are murdered pointlessly on their behalf.
ISO 9000 certification is a WTF all on its own.
Admin
When corruption is at nature with one's self, everything looks like justice.
Admin
I actually did something like that once that caused a big change in the place I worked. Wrote one app at work under specification, re-wrote it at home using DotNet. My home version ran ten times faster. Showed the PHB the two apps running side by side and told him he actually didn't want the faster one because he didn't want DotNet in the office. Needless to say, we were a DotNet shop within a month and it was my job to get the rest of the team up to speed.
Admin
Admin
But I have logged in. It just doesn't always stay that way any more.
BTW this CAPTCHA wasn't for you! Just a very low key hint to Alex that there is something up with keeping members logged in.
Admin
Ok one more WTF from this forum. If I am not logged in I am posting as a non-registered user, but when doing so I can spoof a registered users name. Why does it allow that? If I wanted to look like dubya, I could log out and use that name to post under.
Admin
I appreciate what you're saying, Poor Contractor. ISO requirements -- which range from mission critical to labeling coffee pots -- are not optional. However, I have a few responses:
A computer retailer, ISO compliant? I could walk into any consumer tech retailer and cite three dozen ISO 9001 violations within ten minutes, with neither specialized training nor needing to go into the back areas.
The way the employee was handled was atrocious. He should have been counseled on the specific reasons a rogue application (and, yes, it was that) is not appropriate in this environment. Then his application should have been sent to corporate for validation, or at least attached to a piquant memo comparing Christian's performance to the corporate development team's.
Larry's behavior -- especially at review -- belied a psychotic streak in the company's culture. For goodness' sake, Larry, have the cojones to fire him for violating corporate policy. Don't start with the chicken-feces nitpicking and intimidation.
Admin
I'm so glad that with a deadpan sarcastic comment about ISO 9xxx, I was able to cause more intelligent discussion of something relevant to the story than constant "FIST!" and "CAPTCHA" exclamations than normal.
Yes, the real WTF about ISO 9xxx certification is that like many things posted as stories on this site, it does something in reality that's quite different from what it claims to do: in the case of ISO 9xxx, it is held up by many to be something that helps product quality, when the unspoken (but recognized by managers as the selling point) is that it makes it dead easy to figure out who to blame when something isn't done exactly the way they want it, and that's why managers love it: they can point to the system as derived from following how they've set things up to be ISO certified, and say, "I really have no lattitude in the whole matter, you are the weakest link, goodbye!" and be done with it. ISO 9xxx certification, if a workplace follows it religiously, can be summarized in exactly one word (valid or not in a dictionary): traceability.
Admin
Yarr, I catch your drift, but I always make sure to bring both me arms and pegleg in all combat situations. No landlubber talks me down, with or without his arms!
Admin
ISO certs are merit badges for MBAs. They only matter because the guys in $3000 wingtips at your work say they do, and they only say they do because of the guys in $3000 wingtips at my work say they do. Stupidity is stupidity, no matter how many people do it.
Admin
That's as may be, but...
If they had been operating under an ISO certification requirement, his more efficient solution would never have gotten off the ground.
Apparently no mention was made by the doofus at the main office of "Violating ISO". He was just burned about looking bad.
If I were this guy, I would have detailed all my code, and equipment for my process, passed on to the regional managers boss with a note that said "See what I was able to do in a few days that Mr. Fancy Pants and his team couldn't do in months!"
Oh, and maybe copyright your code first so the weasel doesn't steal it and pass it off as his own.
Admin
So, to summarize the logic of the sentence above: if you are in a job (any job), but cannot handle a boss that borders on psychotic, then you are in the wrong job (whether you have such a boss or not, since "you're going to deal with some jerks"). This implies that, unless you are good with psychiatric cases, you should not have a job.
Hmm, wouldn't it make more sense to assert that, if you are not a trained psychologist or psychiatrist (better for the drugs), you should find a job where you are not dealing with a superior who should be wearing a specialized jacket?
Admin
Admin
I suspect that you hit the nail firmly on the head.
Admin
Err... darn... I meant to quote the guy who said ISO was the casue when I said that he hit the nail on the head...
Admin
Because management is unhappy with the program and the hero would be leaving soon all copies should be uninstalled. Continue to use the copy until the last day of work, then remove it as well.
Admin
Well, it`s not a problem to create the appropiate docs afterwards while still submitting your 'evolvement' to the appropiate qa-process.
In fact, that`s one thing i sometimes tell clients... Overprocessed/ruled improvement processes quite often lead to no improvement at all...
So it`s often better to check out-of-line improvements for compliance with the standards and hack the docs thereafter, saving time and brain.
dwe (an auditor) ;-)
Admin
There's also such a thing called 'not being a nob'.
The most appropriate approach would have been 'I'm sorry, while I can see the benefits you'll have to stop using that process immediately as it can end up with us failing ISO compliance, if I find you using it again I'll have to enforce a disciplinary - I hope you'll understand'.
It sets out the message loud and clear, provides cover in the event that it's breached again in the future and allows adequate praise of the individual's innovation.
Having worked within a compliance based organisation I can vouch that you will NEVER be 100% compliant while you have human beings in your office. However, you do need to demonstrate that failings in procedure and policy are dealt with swiftly and correctly.
If you believe that simply laying the law down will provide a 100% impact you're in for a rude shock.
Admin
I wish this would be considered a WTF, but truly is almost SOP in the corp world. I've been through strikingly similar issues in at least my last 3 jobs. The most forward thinking one simply decided they owned a personal app I wrote on my own time, hosted on my own internet connection, running on my personal web server.
It's pays to be a mediocre sheep in corporate America kiddies.
Admin
And the problem with this is . . . ?
I develop applications in many languages, and PHP has become very robust in 5+, and is an excellent multi-purpose language overall. It's not right for everything, but that's why there are other languages.
Most comments about PHP on this site are extremely ignorent of what has become. It's a tool, just like every other language.
And just like you.
Admin
I had this same problem numerous times while working for Wal-Mart. Some managers, who in and of themselves were upstanding employees and an example to the rest of the staff, loved me because I had great technical knowledge, I was very helpful to both employees and customers, and I wasn't afraid to make recommendations when I thought them necessary. Other managers, the ones who were stupid to the point of illiteracy, and had severe authority issues that made the recommendation of better business practices insulting to their intelligence, hated me with a serious passion. Unfortunately, the store manager was in the latter group, and I was never held in high enough regard to illicit any praise.
The real moral? Only show off to those adequate enough to appreciate it.
Admin
Aye, it's not the first time that a deficient ISO environment leads to skunkworks springing up. I think an important lesson here for implementors is that, if you're not going to address an inadequacy in time you risk untutored solutions arising. And I mean inadequately tested, dangerous, untutored solutions. With all the best intentions in the world, as is obviously the case here.
The real WTF here is the dunderheid corporate reaction. Having had an A1 sit-up call that their impending solution has been impending way too damn long, the proper response here is to incorporate the hand-knitted solution into an interim, approved, safe solution. And if they can't do that they're just not up to the job.
Admin
Yup, it just bakes the proverbial noodle that something promoted as the finest business standard of out time (ISO 9001) is something that actually causes stagnation, obsessive micromanagement, burdens people with procedure after procedure, usually ones that involve copious amounts of paperwork.
People usually focus on the part about process, without the part about IMPROVING process.
I remember going through ISO certification at my first job ; in fact, it was probably part of the reason I left (after blowing my stack in a meeting about how MY process wasn't acceptable but apparently, when I followed THEIRs my output wasn't good enough.)
It's completely mental in IT. It's effectively a certification that you're a hidebound, inflexible, monolithic barge of a company that can't adapt to changes without a three ring binder instructing you how to do it. But people alas, see those magic three letters "ISO" and make business decisions based on it.
Meanwhile, people are stuck in a process that usually consists of recording copious amounts of information that noone cares about and noone reads ; remember, the key to ISO 9001 cert is not that you have a GOOD process, just that you have and follow a process. Somewhere between "we just hack on it until it works" and "we have an approval committee that approves whether the approvals committee can approve the decisions of the coding approval committee", there is a line where apparently on one side you have no process, and on the other, you do. Alas, it's usually always nearer Brazil than Fiji.
Admin
That's a pretty broad brush you paint with there. I guess I'm some of the "trash" you speak of, because I have left companies for better opportunities 3 times in my 9 year career. Of course, in none of the cases was I in any danger at all of losing my job and all my performance reviews were extremely positive.
Sorry, but when presented with a budgeted $1500 raise that no amount of protesting or threatening will change, or another job that will give me $10,000 more, I'll just have to live with the fact that I guess I'm not 'as good as I think I am at what I do".