• (cs) in reply to Azd
    Azd:
    His solution: Turn the monitor off when he left. He was so smug about that idea I didn't have the heart to tell him.
    Why not? He'll notice that it doesn't make a difference, and he'll blame his idiot computer "expert" friend Azd.
  • (cs) in reply to EpilepticFridgeBoy
    EpilepticFridgeBoy:
    no pun in ten did.
    This thread's been overrun by pundits.
  • jk (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    Asiago Chow:
    From my perspective: if you want to know whether you are an IT worker or an IT professional, think about how much of your training, how many of your tools, were provided by your employers. If you came to your job untrained, if you didn't even own a computer when you started (and I know IT people who still don't have home computers)... and you don't invest any of your income in yourself... you are a worker. If you bought and education and a tool set with you (including anything from preferred software to your own server farm) and you continue to invest in new knowledge and tools, you are a professional.

    So would you work at a company that didn't provide you with a chair or a desk and just bring your own? What if they didn't have toilet paper, or bathrooms for that matter? Would you bring in your own toilet paper? If they didn't provide you with any hardware or software, would you just bring your own?

    I'm just asking because I have this idea for a startup and I'm wondering how many other semi-retarded pushovers are out there that I can abuse.

    let's hope you provide some big file cabinets as well to handle the "output" - no, wait, implement some digital imaging so your office can be completely "paperless."

    the next thing would be to install parking meters next to each desk...

  • Edward Royce (unregistered) in reply to Mizchief
    Mizchief:
    Yea speaking of virtual PC's and needing development machines; My boss was talking about getting one of those fancy Xen VM hosts for hosting production websites.

    So I tell him that not only would that be a great way to replace our army of 10 converted-desktop dev servers that do nothing but suck power most of the day (Build box, various boxes for testing diffrent OS's, etc.), but if we had one in our dev shop we could actually stress test how many clients we could fit on one of those guys.

    Then next thing I know, he put one of those up at our production site and started moving ALL of our 20 asp.net applications to have it's own VM running Win2k3 server AND it's own MS SQL server.

    Now I have a list of "performance enhancements" i'm susposed to apply to my code because "If the Xen can't handle it your code is too slow"

    Welcome to the club.

    We've all, I assume, made the mistake of advocating something that ended up with even more work for us.

  • Edward Royce (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    Jamie:
    "I sure appreciate you two pointing out that glaring error on my part"

    I hope that was an intentional pun

    No... I was speaking to Bob and NaN, both of whom I quoted. Sorry to disappoint. Maybe I should have said, "I sure appreciate you six pointing out that glaring error on my part."

    I guess it's too late to jump on this bandwagon?

    :)

  • (cs) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    Jamie:
    "I sure appreciate you two pointing out that glaring error on my part"

    I hope that was an intentional pun

    No... I was speaking to Bob and NaN, both of whom I quoted. Sorry to disappoint. Maybe I should have said, "I sure appreciate you six pointing out that glaring error on my part."

    I still can't figure out what the hell "Jamie" was talking about there. It doesn't even make sense any other way.

    I sure appreciate you to pointing out that glaring error on my part? Nope, doesn't work.

    I sure appreciate you too pointing out that glaring error on my part? Well, maybe in a really convoluted and awkward way you could use the word 'too' or also there, but still, wtf -- it makes perfect sense the way you wrote it originally.

    Kind of reminds me of people who pat themselves on the back thinking they've managed to catch an error when they correct someone for using the word 'homage'. "Hey you dolt! You misspelled homepage!"

  • katastrofa (unregistered) in reply to me
    me:
    Why not just use ulimit to restrict the amount of CPU time the simulations are allowed to use, leaving enough to read his e-mails?

    Because he -- clearly! -- needs it to finish as soon as possible, because he's debugging it? Try rebooting your brain.

    Reboot yours first. 1% of CPU time will allow him to read emails comfortably and will not slow down the main program considerably. If he reads his mail in something like pine, he won't even use that much memory.

  • katastrofa (unregistered) in reply to Asiago Chow
    Asiago Chow:
    Maybe it's just how he (and I) was raised, but...

    To me the difference between a worker and a professional is that the professional invests in their ability to do a good job. They invest in their education. They invest in their tools. They take part of their income and put it, of their own free will, into becoming better at whatever they do.

    Buying a second computer is not an investment in education.

    For some, tools are no different. You are paid to get the job done. (...)

    What you describe is business-to-business relationship. In an employer-employee relationship, the first is supposed to provide the second with the tools they need for the job. It's a bad idea to be in one of these relationships and act as if it were the other one.

    From my perspective: if you want to know whether you are an IT worker or an IT professional, think about how much of your training, how many of your tools, were provided by your employers. If you came to your job untrained, if you didn't even own a computer when you started (and I know IT people who still don't have home computers)... and you don't invest any of your income in yourself... you are a worker. If you bought and education and a tool set with you (including anything from preferred software to your own server farm) and you continue to invest in new knowledge and tools, you are a professional.

    If you do all that and still act as and are treated as an employee (i.e. are told what to do, in what order, when and where), then you're not a professional but a naive sucker.

  • (cs) in reply to Jamie
    Jamie:
    "I sure appreciate you two pointing out that glaring error on my part"

    I hope that was an intentional pun

    http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=puns

    "Nobody Cares If Your Pun Was Intended"

  • Labguy (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    Asiago Chow:
    From my perspective: if you want to know whether you are an IT worker or an IT professional, think about how much of your training, how many of your tools, were provided by your employers. If you came to your job untrained, if you didn't even own a computer when you started (and I know IT people who still don't have home computers)... and you don't invest any of your income in yourself... you are a worker. If you bought and education and a tool set with you (including anything from preferred software to your own server farm) and you continue to invest in new knowledge and tools, you are a professional.

    So would you work at a company that didn't provide you with a chair or a desk and just bring your own? What if they didn't have toilet paper, or bathrooms for that matter? Would you bring in your own toilet paper? If they didn't provide you with any hardware or software, would you just bring your own?

    I'm just asking because I have this idea for a startup and I'm wondering how many other semi-retarded pushovers are out there that I can abuse.

    Because obviously buying a second computer to improve your output above and beyond is EXACTLY the same as the company not providing you with basics.

    I must be a toilet-paper-buying retard because I paid for a license to install our lab software on my laptop so I could optimize all the test methods after-hours. Stupid me. It's not like I got a 10% raise out of it.

    Oh wait, I did.

  • (cs) in reply to shadowman
    shadowman:
    Kind of reminds me of people who pat themselves on the back thinking they've managed to catch an error when they correct someone for using the word 'homage'. "Hey you dolt! You misspelled homepage!"
    Well, that's just inexcusable ignorance.

    Obviously these fools are so uncool that they're unable to spell "hommage," which is clearly the etymological superior.

    I mean, you say "homage" and it rhymes with "porridge," doesn't it?

    That is just not right. It's not even a very good hommage, unless you're paying your respects to Bonnie Prince Charlie's cooking.

  • Stefan (unregistered)

    Great story!

  • (cs) in reply to Edward Royce
    Edward Royce:
    I guess it's too late to jump on this bandwagon? :)
    Soitainly not!
  • (cs) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    I mean, you say "homage" and it rhymes with "porridge," doesn't it?
    I would think that would be "whorage".
  • JustChris (unregistered) in reply to Azd

    Solution: Let's produce computers that have the framebuffers in the monitors, and not the graphics cards!

  • (cs) in reply to Labguy
    Labguy:
    akatherder:
    Asiago Chow:
    From my perspective: if you want to know whether you are an IT worker or an IT professional, think about how much of your training, how many of your tools, were provided by your employers. If you came to your job untrained, if you didn't even own a computer when you started (and I know IT people who still don't have home computers)... and you don't invest any of your income in yourself... you are a worker. If you bought and education and a tool set with you (including anything from preferred software to your own server farm) and you continue to invest in new knowledge and tools, you are a professional.

    So would you work at a company that didn't provide you with a chair or a desk and just bring your own? What if they didn't have toilet paper, or bathrooms for that matter? Would you bring in your own toilet paper? If they didn't provide you with any hardware or software, would you just bring your own?

    I'm just asking because I have this idea for a startup and I'm wondering how many other semi-retarded pushovers are out there that I can abuse.

    Because obviously buying a second computer to improve your output above and beyond is EXACTLY the same as the company not providing you with basics.

    I must be a toilet-paper-buying retard because I paid for a license to install our lab software on my laptop so I could optimize all the test methods after-hours. Stupid me. It's not like I got a 10% raise out of it.

    Oh wait, I did.

    The first thing that strikes me as disgusting is the fact that your boss doesn't respect you enough to pay for the tools you need to do your job.

    The second thing is touting a "raise" which was simply an exchange for spending your own money and working unpaid overtime. What if you spent the money on the license and still didn't get a raise? What if you didn't spend the time and money, but still got the same raise? Some of us are capable of doing our jobs within the normal parameters and still getting a fat raise.

  • sewiv (unregistered) in reply to Labguy
    Labguy:

    I must be a toilet-paper-buying retard because I paid for a license to install our lab software on my laptop so I could optimize all the test methods after-hours. Stupid me. It's not like I got a 10% raise out of it.

    Oh wait, I did.

    If you spent more than .8 of an hour a day on it outside of work hours, yes, stupid you.

  • (cs)
    "Yep," Allen replied jokingly, "and once you get used to looking at it, you can see the woman in the red dress."
    No, she has always worn green one. Are you FF0000-00FF00 blind?
  • Real Old Fart (unregistered) in reply to Old fart
    Old fart:
    I earned the first CS degree offered by my university way back in '77 during the days of "big iron" (IBM mainframes with water-cooled core). I remember one of my professors telling about a special program he wrote to run just when the tour groups were paraded through the data center.

    The program did absolutely nothing except cause tape reels to spin and lights to blink. But it was much more impressive than the programs that did "real work" only in memory.

    I call BS on this one! If you were a REAL old fart, you'd know that's a multi tape sort - and yes, we used to sort data between tape drives.

  • (cs) in reply to Andy Goth
    Andy Goth:
    Sucker? It sounds like he made the right choice. He has a good job except for this one problem. Rather than put his job at risk by continuing to moan about not having a second computer, he simply fixed the problem himself and further boosted his image in the process.

    His job wasn't at risk at all. Everybody thought he did great work. HE was the one concerned about it.

    I think the real WTF is that he didn't add a flag to run the program at less than 100%... or else prepare smaller sample datasets.

  • ping floyd (unregistered) in reply to katastrofa
    katastrofa:
    me:
    Why not just use ulimit to restrict the amount of CPU time the simulations are allowed to use, leaving enough to read his e-mails?

    Because he -- clearly! -- needs it to finish as soon as possible, because he's debugging it? Try rebooting your brain.

    Reboot yours first. 1% of CPU time will allow him to read emails comfortably and will not slow down the main program considerably. If he reads his mail in something like pine, he won't even use that much memory.

    It will actually speed things up if he turns off X and uses pine at the console.... That's TRWTF! Why is he a) running the simulation on his machine instead of a dedicated cluster? b) running X on a computational machine? C) using a resource-intensive screensaver on a computational machine?

  • DV Henkel-Wallace (unregistered)
    Allen doesn't even get to wear a lab coat.
    The real WTF that you won't realize unless you've actually worked in that environment: the length of the lab coat denotes your rank. I wish I were kidding...just look at a lab coat catalogue.

    I hope old Allen F got to wear sandals and a t-shirt. And eat pizza while working....you don't want to do that in the lab either!

  • (cs) in reply to Azd
    Azd:
    xzzy:
    Getting rid of screen savers on "working desktops" is a big deal. Lot of workstations where I'm at run batch system software, and a few years ago we were getting a lot of complaints about jobs running slower during off hours. Turned out a recent OS update had put a bunch of fancy new screen savers in place and started using them.. so when everyone went home for the evening, jobs had to fight for CPU time.

    So now the only screen saver people have installed is "blank screen". ;)

    I've got a friend who is a physicist, and is always running all kinds of complex simulations (usually) in Matlab. He complained to me once that the simulation always seemed to take longer if he was away from his computer. I asked him if he was using a screen saver, and he was running some fancy 3D graphics thing.

    So, I told him that his computer was busy drawing things to the screen and that was why his process was running so slowly.

    His solution: Turn the monitor off when he left. He was so smug about that idea I didn't have the heart to tell him.

    I remember that NT Server 4.0 came with a number of screen savers built in, one of which drew pipes. If that screen saver was selected, it always maxed the CPU at 100%. Not really good on a server. Back in those days, we would see lots of other peoples servers and PDCs with this screen saver on. Why is my outlook so slow?

  • (cs) in reply to DV Henkel-Wallace
    DV Henkel-Wallace:
    The real WTF that you won't realize unless you've actually worked in that environment: the length of the lab coat denotes your rank. I wish I were kidding...just look at a lab coat catalogue.

    I hope old Allen F got to wear sandals and a t-shirt. And eat pizza while working....you don't want to do that in the lab either!

    I haven't noticed different lab coat lengths in grad school. Grad students wear t-shirts with lab coats, post-docs wear dress shirts with no coats, and professors wear dress shirts with optional jackets for seminars.

    Also, $200000 will buy you around 4000 twill or 26315 Tyvek lab coats (from VWR with institutional discount). Finding the reason that the lab needs so many coats is left as an exercise to the reader.

  • Greg (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    Some of us are capable of doing our jobs within the normal parameters and still getting a fat raise.
    Gee, Paula. You are *so* brillant.

    Enough sniping.

    This whole thread has been fascinating, in terms of different attitudes to entrepreneurship, risk, the social contract implicit in employment, perceptions of work quality, and use of own tools.

    On this last matter, my employers have all been Marxists. They insisted very firmly on owning the means of production. And they had tenable reasons.

    The title of the item (perfectly adequate productivity) might well be true, from the employer's perspective. If the scientists are fully occupied, or the production cluster runs near 100% utilisation, with work booked for weeks ahead, there's no gain to the employer in improving the developer's productivity -- see Liebig's Law.

  • (cs) in reply to Greg
    Greg:
    akatherder:
    Some of us are capable of doing our jobs within the normal parameters and still getting a fat raise.
    Gee, Paula. You are *so* brillant.

    Enough sniping.

    This whole thread has been fascinating, in terms of different attitudes to entrepreneurship, risk, the social contract implicit in employment, perceptions of work quality, and use of own tools.

    On this last matter, my employers have all been Marxists. They insisted very firmly on owning the means of production. And they had tenable reasons.

    The title of the item (perfectly adequate productivity) might well be true, from the employer's perspective. If the scientists are fully occupied, or the production cluster runs near 100% utilisation, with work booked for weeks ahead, there's no gain to the employer in improving the developer's productivity -- see Liebig's Law.

    Your case regarding Liebig's Law doesn't apply when priority is involved. Does management want the developer sitting on his hands because his workstation is locked up, or do they want him looking ahead and trying to get a simulation done that suddenly became top priority? Just because programs A, B, and C are complete doesn't mean they are going to run them in that order. They may want to run program Q next and the developer needs to be able to jump on it.

    It sounds like you aren't one of those people who are going to be getting a raise by working normal hours. So good luck with the overtime. I was going to be polite but your Paula comment was pretty lame and didn't even really fit the discussion or refute anything I said.

  • (cs)

    Tretonin? I guess Allen F is a human working in a Tok'ra lab... explains a few things but leads to many more questions.

    Kree!

  • (cs) in reply to Buzer
    Buzer:
    "Yep," Allen replied jokingly, "and once you get used to looking at it, you can see the woman in the red dress."
    No, she has always worn green one. Are you FF0000-00FF00 blind?

    How about Irish Girl?

  • (cs) in reply to Asiago Chow
    Asiago Chow:
    From my perspective: if you want to know whether you are an IT worker or an IT professional, think about how much of your training, how many of your tools, were provided by your employers. If you came to your job untrained, if you didn't even own a computer when you started (and I know IT people who still don't have home computers)... and you don't invest any of your income in yourself... you are a worker. If you bought and education and a tool set with you (including anything from preferred software to your own server farm) and you continue to invest in new knowledge and tools, you are a professional.

    So basically, anyone who is currently a 'worker' and wishes to become a 'professional' simply needs to quit their job and become re-employed?

    I'd expect that any suitable definition regarding whether someone was a worker or a professional should be based entirely off their current abilities, not the abilities they had when they started their job.

  • (cs) in reply to Azd
    Azd:
    I've got a friend who is a physicist, and is always running all kinds of complex simulations (usually) in Matlab. He complained to me once that the simulation always seemed to take longer if he was away from his computer. I asked him if he was using a screen saver, and he was running some fancy 3D graphics thing.

    So, I told him that his computer was busy drawing things to the screen and that was why his process was running so slowly.

    His solution: Turn the monitor off when he left. He was so smug about that idea I didn't have the heart to tell him.

    You know, now I'm going to have to SSH into my desktop when I've left it with the monitor turned off for a long period. Just to see what would happen. (Why not skip the screensaver if the monitor is turned off? It saves power if the CPU can be clocked down, even if there are no computational apps running.)

  • SwimTim (unregistered) in reply to Mark

    Virtual machines don't use virtual CPUs ... they use real CPUs. Emulators use virtual CPUs.

  • notme (unregistered) in reply to Miyako
    Miyako:
    Many of the modern X screensavers (including GLMatrx) use OpenGL, so most of the work is offloaded to the GPU.

    If you have one and have gone through all usual trouble to get it to work.

    Personally, I don't do that on machines where I know I'm not going to need 3D-acceleration, even if it has a 3D-accelerator. Since this is purely a work machine (and not for graphics design or CAD or something like that), chances are high 3D-card drivers were never set up.

  • Steve (unregistered)

    I work in a similar lab and just run my test code on the cluster.

    That's what it's there for.

  • (cs)

    While limiting the amount of processor time the simulations can use on his workstation would open up processor time for other things, it would also slow down test runs; possibly making him less productive. It makes better sense to have them run as quickly as possible, IMO. And I'll assume he gets paid pretty well for what he's doing so I doubt buying a 2nd workstation was a problem.

  • Xenobiologista (unregistered)

    Just want to point out that makes it look like you're doing science, download Folding@Home. You can set it to display images of the folding proteins as a screensaver.

    Okay, you will actually be doing science, but it'll be someone else's research that you get no data, citations, acknowledgements, or other benefits from.

  • Asiago Chow (unregistered) in reply to katastrofa
    Buying a second computer is not an investment in education.

    Nope... but I didn't say education was the only way you can invest in yourself or your ability to do your job.

    Consider a professional photographer... in many areas of professional photography if they think a particular camera, lens, strobe, or similar will allow them to do a better job they go out and buy it. They then use it professionally. In other words... they use it to do work for someone else. They don't expect that other party to directly pay for it even though obviously the money they are paid does pay for the gear.

    What you describe is business-to-business relationship. In an employer-employee relationship, the first is supposed to provide the second with the tools they need for the job. It's a bad idea to be in one of these relationships and act as if it were the other one.

    ...

    If you do all that and still act as and are treated as an employee (i.e. are told what to do, in what order, when and where), then you're not a professional but a naive sucker.

    Exactly right. A worker (employee if you prefer but it employment is more a legal term where worker implies social status as well) just does what they are told, using the tools they are given. If you want to claim to be a professional you must be willing to back your judgment with action and step outside the "I do what I'm told" framework and start thinking "I deliver what I am paid for". A professional must be able to judge, to deliver, and to walk away. What do you think I was talking about?

    Investing in your ability to do your job is one hallmark of professionalism. Those investments give you independence.

    I've known "IT people" who literally didn't own a computer of their own. They were nothing but workers. They got paid squat, couldn't be trusted, never got promoted... and they thought the way so many here apparently think. "I'm just trading time for money... you want me to use a tool you'd better buy it for me and teach me how to use it..."

  • Asiago Chow (unregistered)
    But you will never see me supplying my own hardware to the company. They will get what they pay for.

    He didn't supply hardware to the company. He bought himself a machine for his own use at the company. When he quits he will take it with him.

    Have you ever bought a book about a work-related subject and brought it to the office with you? Then you have done exactly the same thing. The book is a tool, the computer is a tool, and you bought and used it because it helped you to deliver what you were paid to deliver.

    If you haven't...well...whatever.

  • z0ltan (unregistered) in reply to Mark
    Mark:
    bla:
    FredSaw:
    Two words: "virtual machine".

    Two more: "Get rid of the screensaver, dummy."

    A virtual machine helps exactly how if your CPU is packed for hours?

    It uses a virtual CPU, duh. So it's only running at virtually 100% utilization.

    Of course, the pay would also be 100% virtual :P

    Captcha - dignissim (more like idiotim)

  • Asiago Chow (unregistered)
    So would you work at a company that didn't provide you with a chair or a desk and just bring your own? What if they didn't have toilet paper, or bathrooms for that matter? Would you bring in your own toilet paper? If they didn't provide you with any hardware or software, would you just bring your own?

    You have just cluelessly missed the point.

    This isn't "no chair or desk"... this s "I don't like the chair or desk you provided".

    See the difference? They gave him a computer. They were happy with his performance. He thought he could do better. He proposed a solution but they said they were happy with the status quo. He, like a professional, invested in his ability to do better because he wanted to improve. No different than being a C programmer, being paid as a C programmer, and buying learning material to find out about C++ or C# or whatever... then applying that knowledge (which the employer didn't pay for) to do your job.

    You sound like a real worker.

    And you know what... there was a time when the chair my employer provided sucked...it wasn't busted, wasn't even a bad chair, I just didn't like it...and my employer thought it was a fine chair and I should just get used to it. What I want matters. I don't use things just because they are what my employer provides. I'll quit a job rather than use the wrong tools... but I didn't have to quit. I went out and bought what I wanted, used what I wanted, because I am paid to do a job, not to sit in a company provided chair while hours tick by. Nobody minded. I still have the chair. It was an investment in my comfort which means an investment in my ability to do the job I was paid to do.

  • (cs) in reply to JustChris
    JustChris:
    Solution: Let's produce computers that have the framebuffers in the monitors, and not the graphics cards!
    Why not have one CPU per pixel? That would be fun!

    Are you the same JustChris who posted Dracula's Servants to Remix ThaSauce?

    Cerrax:
    Whether you like dancing naked, vampires, xylophones or all three together, you need to download this now. Or else Dracula will dance naked on your xylophone for eternity.

  • Marcus (unregistered)

    This is my first the daily WTF comment ever. Even though I find most of the articles on this site funny, this one I really LOL'ed at. Thanks for a great piece of text to brighen my day :)

  • Tom (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    The first thing that strikes me as disgusting is the fact that your boss doesn't respect you enough to pay for the tools you need to do your job.

    The second thing is touting a "raise" which was simply an exchange for spending your own money and working unpaid overtime. What if you spent the money on the license and still didn't get a raise? What if you didn't spend the time and money, but still got the same raise? Some of us are capable of doing our jobs within the normal parameters and still getting a fat raise.

    This strikes me as a culture clash. On the one hand, there's the attitude that you just do the job they tell you to do, and if they won't supply you with the stuff you need, you'll wait till they do. If everything takes twice as long, that's their problem, you get paid the same. After all, if you start buying your own stuff, that's what they'll expect from you in future. And if your stuff causes a problem, it'll be All Your Fault. On the other, there's the attitude that making 6-10 hours of your day a little less tedious is worth the money, and it's not like it'll be a problem to buy a new PC. You might also be able to get the money for it, once you've proved that it's useful, and it'd still be AYF if the computer you asked for broke something, even if they'd okay'd it.

    Personally, I'm on Labguy and Asiago Chow's side. If the options are "sit watching a blank screen for 4 hours", or "buy a new PC and look like a suck-up", I'd rather look like a suck-up and have a new PC. After all, it's my computer, so I can use it for stuff I want to do. Also, there's a gap between "need" and "want". I don't "need" the extra PC, I can still work without it, so it's not really part of my job reqs. But I "want" it, so I can do a better job. Also, I can take it with me if I leave, I can run my own programs on it, that kind of thing.

    But it's fairly environment dependent. If your workplace is the kind where doing something like this would seem "sucker" or suck-up like, then it's probably less attractive a prospect. That's why Mr. "My Startup Needs These Kind Of Suckers" won't get them. If you think it's a suckerish thing to do, how can that not bleed off into the workplace dynamic.

    If your workplace is the kind of environment where people are proud of what they're doing and want to produce the best stuff they can, it's probably more. Also, if your workplace is like this, I'd like a job...

  • Tom (unregistered) in reply to The Enterpriser
    The Enterpriser:
    Asiago Chow:
    If you came to your job untrained, if you didn't even own a computer when you started (and I know IT people who still don't have home computers)... and you don't invest any of your income in yourself... you are a worker. If you bought and education and a tool set with you (including anything from preferred software to your own server farm) and you continue to invest in new knowledge and tools, you are a professional.
    I'd expect that any suitable definition regarding whether someone was a worker or a professional should be based entirely off their _current_ abilities, not the abilities they had when they started their job.
    I'd agree, but I'd change the word abilities to attitude. Professionalism's more about how you approach your job, rather than your skill set. That said, he did mention investing your income in yourself.
  • Dark (unregistered)

    After realizing that almost half of his day was spent staring at his screen, Allen requested a second workstation so that he could focus on email, requirements analysis, and other tasks while his computer slaved away. Well there's your problem! A second workstation? Such extravagance! You should have asked for a dedicated testing rig instead. Same effect, but it doesn't come out of the "employee status indicators" budget.

  • (cs) in reply to Jon
    Jon:
    Why not just use ulimit to restrict the amount of CPU time the simulations are allowed to use, leaving enough to read his e-mails?
    There we have The Real WTF! (I was wondering when it was going to turn up...)

    This is because ulimit is there so that you can kill processes that use too much resources over time, not to assist the scheduler. The right tool is 'renice', and screensavers should be low priority as they're never as important as doing real work, the likes of Folding@Home notwithstanding.

    Of course, the real question is why the original submitter is using large datasets for testing on small hardware. If he's tuning for the production servers, he probably needs to run the test jobs on those servers too so that he's getting the right memory/interconnect performance. If he's doing main development, he'll be better with something with a run time of a few seconds so that the test turnaround time is minimal.

  • Mark! (unregistered)

    In my opinion, the true, real and only WTF is that he used his OWN money to buy a computer for work purposes.

  • The real wtf fool (unregistered) in reply to Tom
    Tom:
    If your workplace is the kind of environment where people are proud of what they're doing and want to produce the best stuff they can, it's probably more. Also, if your workplace is like this, I'd like a job...

    I dream of a workplace like that. This place is so full of people who just do enough, and then the management layer are surprised when the product is awful and full of bugs. Not that management layer are any better...

  • AF (unregistered) in reply to shadowman
    shadowman:
    FredSaw:
    Jamie:
    "I sure appreciate you two pointing out that glaring error on my part"

    I hope that was an intentional pun

    No... I was speaking to Bob and NaN, both of whom I quoted. Sorry to disappoint. Maybe I should have said, "I sure appreciate you six pointing out that glaring error on my part."

    I still can't figure out what the hell "Jamie" was talking about there. It doesn't even make sense any other way.

    I sure appreciate you to pointing out that glaring error on my part? Nope, doesn't work.

    I sure appreciate you too pointing out that glaring error on my part? Well, maybe in a really convoluted and awkward way you could use the word 'too' or also there, but still, wtf -- it makes perfect sense the way you wrote it originally.

    Kind of reminds me of people who pat themselves on the back thinking they've managed to catch an error when they correct someone for using the word 'homage'. "Hey you dolt! You misspelled homepage!"

    I struggled with this too, and was only left thinking that Bob + NaN != two people.

    Bob + NaN = NaN, who is only one person.

  • Cope with IT (unregistered) in reply to Andy Goth
    Andy Goth:
    Sometimes it's better not to fight! And you know, in many places it takes an even bigger fight to get a personal computer integrated in the company network, so he's quite lucky in this instance.
    Ab. so. lute. ly. At the current place it's strictly forbidden. So... there's plenty of memory sticks flying around and with a 4 or 8 GB stick the transfer rate isn't too bad on average. Alas, I'd be better of with a few kB/s instead of having those bursts of bytes when the stick moves from on machine to another. (And that being possible apparently doen't improve security a lot...)

    Ah well, I better move that stick again....

  • Joel Button (unregistered)

    You know, maybe those scientists should be more careful. There might be a resonance cascade you know...

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