• Not a Feminist (unregistered) in reply to HP PhaserJet
    HP PhaserJet:
    C-Octothorpe:
    HP PhaserJet:
    C-Octothorpe:
    [I would be] in jail for insider trading. Either way it would have been a helluva ride.

    And then some guy would have a helluva ride on your ass.

    Is this your way of proposing?

    The things I am thinking I am ashamed to utter.

    Hey lucidfox, are you still wondering what keeps the gals away from this site, and IT in general? This is why.

  • (cs) in reply to boog
    boog:
    PedanticCurmudgeon:
    It's an unwritten law that senior management is allowed to refer to advertisements as whitepapers without fear of reprisal. This is because some whitepapers are nothing more than unpaid advertisements, so the distinction is no longer useful.
    Indeed. Saying "I read a white paper" is certainly a way for not-so-smart people to sound smart.

    That sounds like:

    "I read a book once." Pause for timing. "It was green."

  • Pr0gramm3r (unregistered) in reply to Not a Feminist
    Not a Feminist:
    HP PhaserJet:
    C-Octothorpe:
    HP PhaserJet:
    C-Octothorpe:
    [I would be] in jail for insider trading. Either way it would have been a helluva ride.

    And then some guy would have a helluva ride on your ass.

    Is this your way of proposing?

    The things I am thinking I am ashamed to utter.

    Hey lucidfox, are you still wondering what keeps the gals away from this site, and IT in general? This is why.

    Who's to say that HP PhaserJet isn't a girl?

  • (cs) in reply to Not a Feminist
    Not a Feminist:
    HP PhaserJet:
    C-Octothorpe:
    HP PhaserJet:
    C-Octothorpe:
    [I would be] in jail for insider trading. Either way it would have been a helluva ride.

    And then some guy would have a helluva ride on your ass.

    Is this your way of proposing?

    The things I am thinking I am ashamed to utter.

    Hey lucidfox, are you still wondering what keeps the gals away from this site, and IT in general? This is why.

    Oh yeah, I remember now, girlies don't got no sense of humour. Sad.

  • (cs) in reply to operagost
    operagost:
    "Superior security is vitally important. Your company will either comply in 30 days or we will withhold payment."

    Your investment will increase by $x,000 to cover this change in scope or we will halt the project.

    Or my favorite: We can implement any change you want, as long as you give us the time and the money to do it; is it worth it to you to wait and pay $$$ for feature x?

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to Harrow

    that was too funny :))

  • Decius (unregistered) in reply to ih8u

    You use your address as your password? ******* works so much better for me...

  • chris (unregistered) in reply to Coyne
    Coyne:

    Okay, maybe I wasn't clear enough; my bad.

    Both doors went from the same hallway, through two walls that met in an "L", into the same auditorium: A single door with no lock, and a set of double doors that had a lock.

    Not only was it silly to have a lock on the double doors, but I was ordered to lock the double doors; when all you had to do to unlock them was go through the unlocked (and unlockable) single door into the auditorium, go around the corner, and turn the knob on the double doors from inside.

    I was accused of not securing the auditorium. No joke. (Well, it was a joke, but the person giving the orders was dead serious.)

    Truly ridiculous.

    An insurance policy that states all lockable doors must be locked, and doesn't have a clause exempting doors that can be walked around?
  • (cs) in reply to chris
    chris:
    Coyne:

    Okay, maybe I wasn't clear enough; my bad.

    Both doors went from the same hallway, through two walls that met in an "L", into the same auditorium: A single door with no lock, and a set of double doors that had a lock.

    Not only was it silly to have a lock on the double doors, but I was ordered to lock the double doors; when all you had to do to unlock them was go through the unlocked (and unlockable) single door into the auditorium, go around the corner, and turn the knob on the double doors from inside.

    I was accused of not securing the auditorium. No joke. (Well, it was a joke, but the person giving the orders was dead serious.)

    Truly ridiculous.

    An insurance policy that states all lockable doors must be locked, and doesn't have a clause exempting doors that can be walked around?

    Possibly, I suppose. At the time, I thought "bureaucratic idiot" was probably more likely.

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    I was the dev lead on a project where, before our new application was developed, a single person had literally hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars worth of confidential/secret trading information in an MS Access forms database they wrote themselves... on their laptop that they took home everyday and let their kids play with...

    I mean, loosing the data would be bad, but the potential for reputational damage was incredible should any of the information leak.

    Needless to say they lost their laptop until the database was removed and secured and had their laptop scrubbed.

    "Needless to say"? I don't think so. I expected you to tell us that nothing was done about the security hole. That something was done provided an unexpectedly happy ending. Thanks!

  • (cs) in reply to operagost

    TRWTF is a contract that allows the customer to withhold payment if you don't agree to make massive changes to the scope 92% of the way through the project.

  • some dude (unregistered) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    I mean, loosing the data would be bad

    Well, keep that shit tied up TIGHT then, mothafucka. Wouldn't want to loose it.

  • Dirk (unregistered)

    Did anyone else think 'Fat Bastard' when they read this?

  • Shinji (unregistered)

    The biggest security holes have always been, and always will be, human nature. (^_^;)

  • (cs) in reply to some dude
    some dude:
    C-Octothorpe:
    I mean, loosing the data would be bad

    Well, keep that shit tied up TIGHT then, mothafucka. Wouldn't want to loose it.

    [image]

  • lizardb0y (unregistered) in reply to Dirk
    Dirk:
    Did anyone else think 'Fat Bastard' when they read this?
    Oh hey, I used to work for him.
  • Nick (unregistered)

    How do you burn through a smart card?? Why don't you just re-program it?

  • (cs) in reply to Matt Westwood
    Matt Westwood:
    boog:
    PedanticCurmudgeon:
    It's an unwritten law that senior management is allowed to refer to advertisements as whitepapers without fear of reprisal. This is because some whitepapers are nothing more than unpaid advertisements, so the distinction is no longer useful.
    Indeed. Saying "I read a white paper" is certainly a way for not-so-smart people to sound smart.

    That sounds like:

    "I read a book once." Pause for timing. "It was green."

    I read a Brown book once:

    [image]
  • Le Forgeron (unregistered) in reply to Nick
    Nick:
    How do you burn through a smart card?? Why don't you just re-program it?

    Security cards are made with paranoia in the hardware: too many failures locks the card (definitively: it burns fuse so the information cannot be changed or accessed anymore).

    They are a bit like the old telecom card we had in the 80's for the public phone: you bought 50 or 120 units card. Each unit is a fuse that is destroyed when inserted in the public phone when used.

    The difference is that the logic is all inside the card, not controled by the terminal anymore.

  • Dirk (unregistered)

    Odd narrative twist to describe the Head of Global Security in the second meeting. Was he invisible in the first? If he was, then there surely is more to this story.

    Captcha: "abbas"

  • oheso (unregistered) in reply to LiterateCoward
    LiterateCoward:
    I don't know why it was difficult to comprehend, it just seemed very oddly worded.

    That was the worst bit, certainly, of a really horrible, mangled bit of prose. There's a reason it was difficult to comprehend, which had nothing to do with the reader (card or otherwise).

    In light of which, the comments about "my" vs "his" amount to polishing the handrails.

  • dwaz (unregistered)

    Where's the WTF? If I had a smart card with the PIN written on the back, I'd want a new one too.

  • HP PhaserJet (unregistered) in reply to Not a Feminist
    Not a Feminist:
    HP PhaserJet:
    C-Octothorpe:
    HP PhaserJet:
    C-Octothorpe:
    [I would be] in jail for insider trading. Either way it would have been a helluva ride.

    And then some guy would have a helluva ride on your ass.

    Is this your way of proposing?

    The things I am thinking I am ashamed to utter.

    Hey lucidfox, are you still wondering what keeps the gals away from this site, and IT in general? This is why.

    I don't understand your response, but maybe I should just run with this.
  • Schol-R-LEA (unregistered) in reply to Dirk
    Dirk:
    Did anyone else think 'Fat Bastard' when they read this?
    I think "Fat Bastard" all the time. Especially when looking in the mirror, sadly.

    Austin Powers? Who's that?

  • Niten (unregistered)

    TRWTF is not proof-reading an article before you release it.

  • Moritz (unregistered)

    The not-so-RWTF is "quid". ;-)

    British Pounds to all you non-Commonwealthers.

  • Quirkafleeg (unregistered) in reply to English Major

    "globel"?

    I now demote you to English Minor...

  • (cs) in reply to PedanticCurmudgeon
    PedanticCurmudgeon:
    It's an unwritten law that senior management is allowed to refer to advertisements as whitepapers without fear of reprisal. This is because some whitepapers are nothing more than unpaid advertisements, so the distinction is no longer useful.

    +1

  • Jay (unregistered)

    Hmm, shouldn't the punch-line of a joke have something to do with the lead-in? I mean, I was expecting the end of this story to have something to do with the sudden requirements change. Like, maybe somebody brought up a contractual issue of why they couldn't make this change, or there was some reason why the new cards were unacceptable and they had to go back. But instead, we get a whole story about requirements changes and smart cards, and then suddenly a new character is introduced who is sloppy about hiding his PIN number. That had nothing really to do with any of the preceding material. You might as well have ended it with, "And then as we were walking into the meeting I remembered seeing an old Charlie Chaplin movie where he slipped on a banana peel and boy, was that funny to see!"

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to chris
    Coyne:
    Both doors went from the same hallway, through two walls that met in an "L", into the same auditorium: A single door with no lock, and a set of double doors that had a lock.

    I used to work at a military base where the colonel's office had a partition in the middle to separate his office space from his secretary's. The partition didn't reach the walls, so it looked something like this:

    +----------------------------------+
|                                  |
|        +----+                    |
|        |Col |                    |
|        |desk|                    |
|        +----+                    |
|                                  |
|                                  |
|      -------- Door ---------     |
|                                  |
|              +----+              |
|              +Sec +              |
|              +desk+              |
|              +----+              |
|                                  |
+-------------- Door --------------+

    One day I happened to be talking to the Colonel as he was leaving at the end of the day. And I saw his secretary carefully lock the door between their offices. Umm, why? Anyone could just walk around the partition -- it would require them to walk an extra ten feet maybe. And you'd have to be blind to not immediately see that you could do that. I wondered if she did this every day.

  • Jay (unregistered)

    I used to work at a company where every few months the Big Boss would go to some conference or convention and learn about some new product or idea, and then he'd come back and whatever project we were working on would suddenly be changed to use this great new technology. Sometimes it would be no big deal, like, oh, okay, instead of ordinary disk storage we'll use RAID drives. Other times it would totally change fundamental design decisions, like instead of a relational database we're going to switch to this new experimental type of database somebody came up with. But my absolute favorite was when he told us that we were required to use some new software product that he had heard about at a conference over the design team's objections that it was not really appropriate to this project, and then two weeks later he hauled us all into a meeting where he demanded, "Can you GUARANTEE to me that this design approach will work?!" I wanted to say, "No, of course not, when you told us we had to do this I said I thought it was a bad idea." But I figured that would just get me fired and sat silently while my boss assured him that it would work.

  • (cs) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    I used to work at a company where every few months the Big Boss would go to some conference or convention and learn about some new product or idea, and then he'd come back and whatever project we were working on would suddenly be changed to use this great new technology. Sometimes it would be no big deal, like, oh, okay, instead of ordinary disk storage we'll use RAID drives. Other times it would totally change fundamental design decisions, like instead of a relational database we're going to switch to this new experimental type of database somebody came up with. But my absolute favorite was when he told us that we were required to use some new software product that he had heard about at a conference over the design team's objections that it was not really appropriate to this project, and then two weeks later he hauled us all into a meeting where he demanded, "Can you GUARANTEE to me that this design approach will work?!" I wanted to say, "No, of course not, when you told us we had to do this I said I thought it was a bad idea." But I figured that would just get me fired and sat silently while my boss assured him that it would work.

    Your boss sounds like he has pointy hair...

    Unless you're a junior dev who doesn't know any better, then it's your duty to correct him and tell him he's wasting everybodies time and company money by going down that rabbit hole.

    I'd like to see what his reason for firing you would be: "The jerk tried to keep the project on track, on time and on budget by not obeying my misguided orders and make sweeping changes to the project by using an unproven and still beta [framework\application\pattern\etc.]".

    Um, yeah, fek off...

  • (cs)

    The global security guy really had the right idea. After getting past the double-secure code, one would neeed physical possession of his card to get the PIN.

    Depending on your pedanticness, this is either triple secure or double-double secure.

  • (cs) in reply to D-Coder
    D-Coder:
    The global security guy really had the right idea. After getting past the double-secure code, one would neeed physical possession of his card to get the PIN.

    Depending on your pedanticness, this is either triple secure or double-double secure.

    Or stupid.

  • (cs) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    I'd like to see what his reason for firing you would be: "The jerk tried to keep the project on track, on time and on budget by not obeying my misguided orders and make sweeping changes to the project by using an unproven and still beta [framework\application\pattern\etc.]".

    Um, yeah, fek off...

    Doesn't matter if you're right; it's always a bad idea to embarrass somebody higher up by pointing out how they are wrong. They will find a reason to fire you, even if they have to make one up.

  • (cs) in reply to dohpaz42
    dohpaz42:
    C-Octothorpe:
    I'd like to see what his reason for firing you would be: "The jerk tried to keep the project on track, on time and on budget by not obeying my misguided orders and make sweeping changes to the project by using an unproven and still beta [framework\application\pattern\etc.]".

    Um, yeah, fek off...

    Doesn't matter if you're right; it's always a bad idea to embarrass somebody higher up by pointing out how they are wrong. They will find a reason to fire you, even if they have to make one up.

    Oh yeah, you don't want to make it public. I would talk to him later, and give him a chance to back out as if it was his idea to do so (sometimes you need to pander to the little man syndrome). And if even under those circumstances there is still a danger of retribution, then it's time to update the resume and look for a work environment that isn't toxic. I mean really, WTH is a manager doing making design decisions?

    It also gets to a point where it will start to reflect badly on you as a developer involved in these projects because if/when you do look for another role, you may be asked "and WHY did you decide to go with [failed beta technology that was forced onto you] for this project?" If you shrug your shoulders, you look very junior and if you blame your boss, well, you know how it looks when an interviewee starts blaming his ex-coworkers...

  • (cs) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    D-Coder:
    The global security guy really had the right idea. After getting past the double-secure code, one would neeed physical possession of his card to get the PIN.

    Depending on your pedanticness, this is either triple secure or double-double secure.

    Or stupid.

    You've been whooooshed. Should I add smilies to my posts to help you?

  • (cs) in reply to D-Coder
    D-Coder:
    C-Octothorpe:
    D-Coder:
    The global security guy really had the right idea. After getting past the double-secure code, one would neeed physical possession of his card to get the PIN.

    Depending on your pedanticness, this is either triple secure or double-double secure.

    Or stupid.

    You've been whooooshed. Should I add smilies to my posts to help you?
    whooooosh...

    Try again.

  • Lone Marauder (unregistered) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    I'd like to see what his reason for firing you would be: "The jerk tried to keep the project on track, on time and on budget by not obeying my misguided orders and make sweeping changes to the project by using an unproven and still beta [framework\application\pattern\etc.]".

    Um, yeah, fek off...

    Actually the reason for termination would be best summed up as: "Insubordination."

  • (cs) in reply to Lone Marauder
    Lone Marauder:
    C-Octothorpe:
    I'd like to see what his reason for firing you would be: "The jerk tried to keep the project on track, on time and on budget by not obeying my misguided orders and make sweeping changes to the project by using an unproven and still beta [framework\application\pattern\etc.]".

    Um, yeah, fek off...

    Actually the reason for termination would be best summed up as: "Insubordination."

    I realize that, which is why I said that if this really is the case, leave as soon as is feasible.

  • (cs) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    if you blame your boss, well, you know how it looks when an interviewee starts blaming his ex-coworkers...
    "The decision was outside of my control and my recommendations against were not considered" sounds nice and indirect.
  • (cs)

    Personally, if I tried to force a dumbass idea on my team, I'd fire them if they DIDN'T argue against me.

  • (cs) in reply to Pecos Bill
    Pecos Bill:
    C-Octothorpe:
    if you blame your boss, well, you know how it looks when an interviewee starts blaming his ex-coworkers...
    "The decision was outside of my control and my recommendations against were not considered" sounds nice and indirect.

    Perhaps, but I think we can all agree that working in those conditions would be on a "until I find something better" basis. When you have an overbearing manager wasting money on hotels and flights to every tech conference, only to have him come back and derail projects because "we should be using xyz instead of abc", then this is a sinking ship and is unsustainable. Either he'll get canned, the company will fold, or you'll have every decent employee abandoning ship one at a time until you're left with a skeleton crew of morons and "yes" men/women.

  • (cs) in reply to ThePants999
    ThePants999:
    Personally, if I tried to force a dumbass idea on my team, I'd fire them if they DIDN'T argue against me.

    But that's because you're likely a normal person and not a megalomaniac with an acute napoleon complex...

  • oheso (unregistered) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    I'd like to see what his reason for firing you would be: "The jerk tried to keep the project on track, on time and on budget by not obeying my misguided orders and make sweeping changes to the project by using an unproven and still beta [framework\application\pattern\etc.]".

    Bought that t-shirt. The boss, who was very effective in other ways, did not appreciate me telling him the project wasn't going to work in the time allotted, with details about why it wouldn't, and afterwards me pointing out that things had come down exactly as I had predicted.

    Because he was (as I said) in other ways an effective boss, his snit over that did not prevent him recommending me to replace him when he left.

  • oheso (unregistered) in reply to Pecos Bill
    Pecos Bill:
    "The decision was outside of my control and my recommendations against were not considered" sounds nice and indirect.

    Yes, but you're publicizing the fact that people ignore your recommendations. People see you as being ineffectual.

    Hard to find a win from this situation (I've been looking for a while).

  • (cs) in reply to oheso
    oheso:
    Pecos Bill:
    "The decision was outside of my control and my recommendations against were not considered" sounds nice and indirect.
    Yes, but you're publicizing the fact that people ignore your recommendations. People see you as being ineffectual.

    Hard to find a win from this situation (I've been looking for a while).

    Just say "I wasn't involved in making that decision, but from what I understand my former employer's research indicated..." and regurgitate whatever bullshit reasoning your employer gave you (even if it's just because the vendor took the CEO out to dinner: "the deal for product X offered more free perks for our company"). That way, it was their dumb decision, but it makes you sound like an informed employee (without suggesting an opinion either way).

    If they ask what your opinions on it were, say "I was skeptical, but the research they presented seemed to support it at the time. Looking back however, I think what we really should have done was..." and follow it with something really smart.

  • (cs)

    "I can't, I just can't," he heaved deeply...

    He threw up?

  • (cs)

    Her Majesty's Telecom? Now there are a couple of female monarchs in Europe (the Netherlands and Denmark, for example), but when "Her Majesty" is mentioned, one tends to think of "British".

    I used to work there once... never again. Because your team's performance is measured against other teams, it's advantageous to, shall we say, help other teams make mistakes. This is the company that decided they had a patent to hyperlinks, and where backstabbing has been elevated to a fine art.

  • (cs) in reply to boog
    boog:
    oheso:
    Pecos Bill:
    "The decision was outside of my control and my recommendations against were not considered" sounds nice and indirect.
    Yes, but you're publicizing the fact that people ignore your recommendations. People see you as being ineffectual.

    Hard to find a win from this situation (I've been looking for a while).

    Just say "I wasn't involved in making that decision, but from what I understand my former employer's research indicated..." and regurgitate whatever bullshit reasoning your employer gave you (even if it's just because the vendor took the CEO out to dinner: "the deal for product X offered more free perks for our company"). That way, it was their dumb decision, but it makes you sound like an informed employee (without suggesting an opinion either way).

    If they ask what your opinions on it were, say "I was skeptical, but the research they presented seemed to support it at the time. Looking back however, I think what we really should have done was..." and follow it with something really smart.

    If the interviewer asks the right line of questions and doesn't dig too deep, you could probably get away with it, but it still doesn't change the fact that you shouldn't be there if you can help it. I brought this point up only as an aside; you should leave before getting so deep as to start considering how you're going to potentially answer some of these questions in future interviews...

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