The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

I'm pretty sure if Steve would have tried to make a deal with me that I couldn't refuse, he would be sleeping with the fishes-or at least a horse head.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Anon:
Wilhelm Svenselius:
Steve had altered Gary’s letter to indicate that it would take six weeks to finish the project.
TRWTF is that he did not quit right there and then.

If you quit your job every time something marginally shitty happens, I doubt you'd be in any job for more than about....six weeks.

you sir, will make a great manager.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

I'm sorry but I don't see the WTF here at all? This is standard business practice at most companies. You give an estimate, sales and management determines their own estimate, and then you get blamed because you couldn't complete the work with half the people in 1/3 the time.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

"Steve also used this meeting to announce his wife was pregnant, and Gary wondered if she would be due in six weeks."

L.O.L.

snoofle · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

wheaties:
I'm sorry but I don't see the WTF here at all? This is standard business practice at most companies. You give an estimate, sales and management determines their own estimate, and then you get blamed because you couldn't complete the work with half the people in 1/3 the time.

That's what the CC button is for on your mail program. When you say it will take x units of time and someone insists it will take x/<whatever>, you CC the end users/boss+1 so they see the conflict and become aware of the dispute - just be damn sure you know what you're talking about.

CaptainCaveman · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

This kind of thing has never happened in the Scrum shops I've worked in.* Timelines are derived from velocity of a team in addition to negotiations made with the Product Owner. If things take too long, reduce scope. If they don't like it, pull the plug on the project, or get over it and give us more money.**

the ones actually using Scrum, not the ones who say they use Scrum just because they have daily meetings

** this also assumes you don't have a shitty PO or Scrum master who will undoubtedly try to pull a Steve, but with the transparency provided by the methodology everyone sees the bullshit for what it is (usually). if not it gets nasty pretty quick.

*** I'd also like to add that I completely agree that agile methodologies aren't optimal or even possible in all situations. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

boog · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

wheaties:
I'm sorry but I don't see the WTF here at all? This is standard business practice at most companies.

Poorly-written code seems to be standard business practice as well, but many articles here continue to feature it. Maybe frequency of occurrence has no bearing on WTF-ness, but instead on how desensitized we are to it?

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

TRWTF is that you did not publish the full name of this Steve Six Weeks guy. Retards and liars like him who make life difficult for others should be publicly shamed, if not hanged.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

The ironic thing is, I'm actually working with software that was was develooped EXACTLY as you described just now. Seriously, it has it's own custom language, compiler, IDE, and database!

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

It's not always an unhappy ending. 10 years ago I had a nice new consulting job for a vendor. I was sent on my first project after training - nice and easy - requirements gathering before implementation of software at a media customer. End date was fixed - about 4 months in the future when we started, which was tight but doable if everyone pulled their fingers out. So, started reqs gathering - we had actions, customer had actions. Next session, our actions done, their actions - nope. And so we continued. At no point did the customer do anything or make any of the decisions necessary to get the project going. So, we've wasted a month, our end date is now 3 months away, and I'm getting very worried.

Big meeting with lots of client people (quite high up as well). I raise our concerns, and say that without some fairly basic information we can't get started, and the end date is looking very unlikely. The response was that the end date was immutable - it HAD to go live then. I laid out a few basic truths, and said how it couldn't be fitted into the time available - EVEN if they'd actually done any of the necessary actions, which they hadn't yet.

Response: Surely you can just work harder and still meet the deadline.

My reply: I accept 16/18hour days as a consequence of meeting milestones. They happen. I refuse to schedule 16 hour days in a project plan to meet an artificial deadline, as we have nowhere to go when the problems happen (as they will). (unspoken - you cheeky git - you don't think we work hard?)

Silence.

At which point I cut my losses. I removed me and my team. I told them that when they are serious about starting this project they should give my boss a call, but that there was no point in us eating up day rate whilst they did nothing.

And away we went.

The nice bit - hell let loose. All sorts of shennanigans. Until someone noticed how much money their division was bleeding with no results - and they were slapped by upper management. Who also noticed how we'd gone off site to stop wasting our time and their money. They re-assessed, got their act together, we came back 2 months later, and delivered a realistic project to a realistic deadline.

Oh yeah, and I got a promotion and a raise. Sometimes the fairytale does happen :-)

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Agreed. Why quit? A proportional response is skip a layer up in management and explain the schedule situation. They can still lie to the customer, as most consultancies do, but there is no reason not to be honest with management.

Getting mad and quitting is just cowardice. Grow a pair and be heard!

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

frits:
boog:
If Steve wanted to change the estimate to 6 weeks, I'm pretty sure I would have strangled him before he had a chance to change it.
I'm pretty sure you would find yourself in jail in addition to being unemployed.
I bet you don't think your so smart now, do you?

You're witless sense of humor makes be go dryer than the Sahara.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Steve's obviously incompetent. There's no way those projects should have taken more than 4 weeks.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

boog:
What may have helped...is..outlining smaller project phases

Exactly. IMHO, You don't have a project estimate until you break it down into actionable tasks and assign time to each one. "8/80 rule": if a task is less than 8 hours it does not need to be broken down, but if it's more than 80, it needs more detail. A six week project should have at a bare minimum 6 tasks in the estimate, and more likely about 40.

Also, when upper management says "Why isn't it done in six weeks", you should respond "where did you get six weeks, I estimated 5 months?". Sure, Steve is going to be pissed at you, but it's not like your life is going to suck any more than it does currently, and he still really, really needs you to finish the project. Perhaps then Steve's boss will straighten him out for the next project, and Steve will know not to pull that kind of sh*t on you next time because you will rat him out.

Shoruke · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Management: Demonstrating the lack of capacity for basic learning since for-goddamn-ever.

"Should take about six weeks. All of my other estimates have been right, right?!?"

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

"A few weeks later, Steve asked Gary for a new estimate, this one on a "medical doctor program" that could diagnose any disease given any set of symptoms. It was Steve’s pet project to save the company. Having some background in machine learning."

Huh? That application sounds pretty simple from tech stand point. I'm not sure what Gary is smoking but I would like some of it.

esoterik · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

@Deprecated:
I think in the suit meeting, Gary should have bluffed.
"My estimate was 5 months! Whatever gave you the idea it would be done in six weeks?"

I don't think bluff means what you think it means!

He totally should have brought that up but in so many of these TDWTF stories the main character always seem to have a great lack testicular fortitude.

My Name · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Aleksey Korzun:
"A few weeks later, Steve asked Gary for a new estimate, this one on a "medical doctor program" that could diagnose any disease given any set of symptoms. It was Steve’s pet project to save the company. Having some background in machine learning."
Huh? That application sounds pretty simple from tech stand point. I'm not sure what Gary is smoking but I would like some of it.

Difficulties one might have: Symptoms are not true or false but numeric values indicating how intense they are. Identifying a disease has to happen on basis of approximation. This can go wrong causing diagnosis of wrong disease. And the killer of them all: Given the patient has a disease that is not in the database. A wrong diagnosis is almost inevitable.

In a perfect world, including a complete database, exact user input and perfect, only known diseases having humans, the application is indeed quite simple. You have, however, forgotten to count in the real world.

Hasteur · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

CaptainCaveman:
This kind of thing has never happened in the Scrum shops I've worked in.* Timelines are derived from velocity of a team in addition to negotiations made with the Product Owner. If things take too long, reduce scope. If they don't like it, pull the plug on the project, or get over it and give us more money.**

the ones actually using Scrum, not the ones who say they use Scrum just because they have daily meetings

** this also assumes you don't have a shitty PO or Scrum master who will undoubtedly try to pull a Steve, but with the transparency provided by the methodology everyone sees the bullshit for what it is (usually). if not it gets nasty pretty quick.

*** I'd also like to add that I completely agree that agile methodologies aren't optimal or even possible in all situations. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Seconded. Agile was rolled out as this "method to solve all problems". We had a PO that delegated all of the responsibility and none of the authority to a underling and 4 Scrum Masters who all wanted their pet projects on top and refused to co-operate with each other to come up with a unified workplan

esoterik · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Not Steve:

... I've flatly rejected requirements for projects containing implementation details ...

As you should, implementation details should, (almost), never be put in the requirements.

frits · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Aleksey Korzun:
"A few weeks later, Steve asked Gary for a new estimate, this one on a "medical doctor program" that could diagnose any disease given any set of symptoms. It was Steve’s pet project to save the company. Having some background in machine learning."
Huh? That application sounds pretty simple from tech stand point. I'm not sure what Gary is smoking but I would like some of it.

So we have that whole AI thing figured out now? Cool.

Phase 1: Collect Symptoms Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit

SQLDave · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Severity One:
stillinbeta:
How could anyone think that writing your own version of a library would take LESS TIME? Maybe I haven't worked in industry enough...
Why, have you worked for less than six weeks?
Reminds me of a manager at work, who stated that implementing a certain feature would take "half a page of code". After our, um, comments, he doesn't use that particular turn of phrase any longer. We, however, do. :)

Well... in SQL Server (later versions) a page is 8K. That's a lot of code, so he might have been right, depending on the "feature".

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Aleksey Korzun:
"A few weeks later, Steve asked Gary for a new estimate, this one on a "medical doctor program" that could diagnose any disease given any set of symptoms. It was Steve’s pet project to save the company. Having some background in machine learning."
Huh? That application sounds pretty simple from tech stand point. I'm not sure what Gary is smoking but I would like some of it.

yeah i liked the "machine learning" part in the context of diagnosing any disease...

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Pytry:
The ironic thing is, I'm actually working with software that was was develooped EXACTLY as you described just now. Seriously, it has it's own custom language, compiler, IDE, and database!

You work for Joel Spolsky?

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

jesus-2.0:
Aleksey Korzun:
"A few weeks later, Steve asked Gary for a new estimate, this one on a "medical doctor program" that could diagnose any disease given any set of symptoms. It was Steve’s pet project to save the company. Having some background in machine learning."
Huh? That application sounds pretty simple from tech stand point. I'm not sure what Gary is smoking but I would like some of it.

yeah i liked the "machine learning" part in the context of diagnosing any disease...

Hey, guys, we need a few volunteers for the training phase of the diagnosis program, and you're drafted.

jdavidbakr · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

"A few weeks later, Steve asked Gary for a new estimate, this one on a "medical doctor program" that could diagnose any disease given any set of symptoms. It was Steve’s pet project to save the company. Having some background in machine learning."

I think I saw this in Idiocracy.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Ann E. Chick:
frits:
boog:
If Steve wanted to change the estimate to 6 weeks, I'm pretty sure I would have strangled him before he had a chance to change it.
I'm pretty sure you would find yourself in jail in addition to being unemployed.
I bet you don't think your so smart now, do you?

Your witless sense of humor makes be go dryer than the Sahara.

FTFY. How many tries did it take you to graduate Kindergarden?

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

May I be the first to say...

I for one welcome our new Scott Selikoff overloard.

SQLDave · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

worker_bee:
Agreed. Why quit? A proportional response is skip a layer up in management and explain the schedule situation. They can still lie to the customer, as most consultancies do, but there is no reason not to be honest with management.
Getting mad and quitting is just cowardice. Man up and be heard!

FTFY

SQLDave · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Gary’s first project with the team was to create an application that maintained a database of every herb and mineral sold in America, linked to any and all diseases they might treat...

How hard can it be to make a DB containing one table, with one row and one column, that just says "None"?

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

No one has mentioned yet the stalker-ish nature by which Steve found Gary.

SQLDave · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Bushea:
I used to work for a company with a slightly different take on things. The product was high profile, since it related to compliance management; but the management used.. interesting tactics to get things done.
First project I was on, we all got called in, told we had six months to complete, otherwise the department would need to be "pruned". We worked weekends and late nights (three of us becoming dads for the first time while working on a laptop in the delivery room).. and just scraped the product out. This was just around the time of the 9/11 attacks in the US. Did we get a small bonus for the 12-month project we delivered in 6 months? No.. hell no. We all got 12% knocked off our salary because "times were hard", but obviously not too hard for the directors to get new company mercedes that year..

Fast forward to next big project. We all got called in, told we had six months to complete otherwise the department would need to be "pruned". We worked weekends and late nights, through birthdays, anniversaries and divorces. We managed. This time we got a major bonus: 6% of our 12% lost salary in vouchers for the cheapest shop in town. Super.

Fast forward to next big project. We all got called in, told we had six months.. I think you get the picture.

Companies do this, and they get away with it for a long time; most often because they prey on environmental situations: is there a recession on? Time to cut the salaries. Is there major instability in country xyz? Time to drop bonuses. Employees typically get entrenched out of fear in these companies.

6% of 12%? So you got about seven-tenths of one percent of your pre-cut salary? That's a 72-cent voucher for Wal-Mart (or wherever).

Addendum (2011-01-25 16:42): Meant to say "... 72-cent voucher assuming a $100K salary..."

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

frits:
Aleksey Korzun:
A few weeks later, Steve asked Gary for a new estimate, this one on a "medical doctor program" that could diagnose any disease given any set of symptoms.
So we have that whole AI thing figured out now? Cool.

There's an open source library to do the AI, but you'd really be better off reimplementing your own.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

wheaties:
I'm sorry but I don't see the WTF here at all? This is standard business practice at most companies. You give an estimate, sales and management determines their own estimate, and then you get blamed because you couldn't complete the work with half the people in 1/3 the time.

and twice the features.

WhiskeyJack · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

SQLDave:
6% of 12%? So you got about seven-tenths of one percent of your pre-cut salary? That's a 72-cent voucher for Wal-Mart (or wherever).

If you're going to be pedantic, at least get it right. That "our" in there changes the whole phrase.

6% * (our 12% lost salary [from previous context])

not 6% * 12%

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Anon:
Wilhelm Svenselius:
Steve had altered Gary’s letter to indicate that it would take six weeks to finish the project.
TRWTF is that he did not quit right there and then.

If you quit your job every time something [b]marginally shitty [\b] happens, I doubt you'd be in any job for more than about....six weeks.

I think that changing a time estimate from 5 months to 6 weeks ( more than 70% reduction ) and then attempting to throw someone under the bus for being behind schedule is a wee bit more than marginally shitty.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Grammer Nazi:
Ann E. Chick:
frits:
boog:
If Steve wanted to change the estimate to 6 weeks, I'm pretty sure I would have strangled him before he had a chance to change it.
I'm pretty sure you would find yourself in jail in addition to being unemployed.
I bet you don't think your so smart now, do you?

Your witless sense of humor makes be go dryer than the Sahara.

FTFY. How many tries did it take you to graduate Kindergarden?

Oh, come on! Not this shit again.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Mike:
If you quit your job every time something marginally shitty happens, I doubt you'd be in any job for more than about....six weeks.

Let me guess, you're in sales or in management?

Repeatedly lying to your clients and disregarding the recommendations/input of the people you hired (because you supposedly trusted them and valued them) isn't "marginally shitty". Perhaps compared to losing your life or limb in a blue-collar job it could be "marginally shitty", but in context of technical work it's a slap in the face over and over again.

It's called "ethics" and "integrity", and to some people those are important values instead of taking part in manipulative, ignorant, & shortsighted schemes.

Clap Clap Clap !! Very well said

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

I have had several bosses do that. It's the 'I only accept what I want to hear' filter. Getting it in writing doesn't even help sometimes.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

esoterik:
He totally should have brought that up but in so many of these TDWTF stories the main character always seem to have a great lack testicular fortitude.

From the article: "Steve was pretty friendly with the rest of the upper management and had already laid the groundwork for why this was all Gary’s fault."

Never underestimate the power of a boss who can keep his underlings segregated from his superiors.

I just escaped from one of those bosses last year, and it's amazing how well sitting as the gatekeeper between the two sides allows credit to flow to you and blame to flow away.

Silverhill · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

If you're going to be pedantic, at least get it right. That "our" in there changes the whole phrase.
6% * (our 12% lost salary [from previous context])

not 6% * 12%

I think he meant that the "bonus" amounted to 1/2 of the lost 12%, so that they only lost 6%....

ObiWayneKenobi · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Sadly every bit of this story seems to be SOP in companies. I mean, we all know the development is the most trivial part, right? And all the hard work is done by the executives and sales managers and marketing guys.

I'm reminded of this: http://blog.ethanvizitei.com/2008/04/all-i-need-is-programmer.html

I used to work for a guy (you might remember me from a previous story "Hot Water Costs Money?!") who would be similar to "Six Weeks Steve" in this story except he was the owner of the company. Luckily he was just clueless enough that every time he would try to pull that "Why isn't this done yet? It's taking to long!" card I could just calmly say it will be done soon and he would be like "Attaboy, Wayne!" and go back to starting scam businesses.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

We had a team asking every day "is it done yet" when they hadn't even settled on requirements yet. So finally we said "Yes, it's done."

Oh goodie! Can we try it now?

Sure!

Hey, but it doesn't do THIS.

(Quickly jotting down a note: Requirement #1 - THIS)

And that's how we got them to tell us what they really wanted.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Silverhill:
If you're going to be pedantic, at least get it right. That "our" in there changes the whole phrase.
6% * (our 12% lost salary [from previous context])

not 6% * 12%
I think he meant that the "bonus" amounted to 1/2 of the lost 12%, so that they only lost 6%....

Hmmmm... To be precise - 6% bonus of 12%-reduced salary does not give you 6% reduced one. Let x be the original salary:

(x * .88 ) * 1.06 ~= x * 0.93 != x * .94

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

SQLDave:
Bushea:
I used to work for a company with a slightly different take on things. The product was high profile, since it related to compliance management; but the management used.. interesting tactics to get things done.
First project I was on, we all got called in, told we had six months to complete, otherwise the department would need to be "pruned". We worked weekends and late nights (three of us becoming dads for the first time while working on a laptop in the delivery room).. and just scraped the product out. This was just around the time of the 9/11 attacks in the US. Did we get a small bonus for the 12-month project we delivered in 6 months? No.. hell no. We all got 12% knocked off our salary because "times were hard", but obviously not too hard for the directors to get new company mercedes that year..

Fast forward to next big project. We all got called in, told we had six months to complete otherwise the department would need to be "pruned". We worked weekends and late nights, through birthdays, anniversaries and divorces. We managed. This time we got a major bonus: 6% of our 12% lost salary in vouchers for the cheapest shop in town. Super.

Fast forward to next big project. We all got called in, told we had six months.. I think you get the picture.

Companies do this, and they get away with it for a long time; most often because they prey on environmental situations: is there a recession on? Time to cut the salaries. Is there major instability in country xyz? Time to drop bonuses. Employees typically get entrenched out of fear in these companies.

6% of 12%? So you got about seven-tenths of one percent of your pre-cut salary? That's a 72-cent voucher for Wal-Mart (or wherever).

Addendum (2011-01-25 16:42): Meant to say "... 72-Kcent voucher assuming a $100K salary..."

FTFY

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Severity One:
stillinbeta:
How could anyone think that writing your own version of a library would take LESS TIME? Maybe I haven't worked in industry enough...
Why, have you worked for less than six weeks?
Reminds me of a manager at work, who stated that implementing a certain feature would take "half a page of code". After our, um, comments, he doesn't use that particular turn of phrase any longer. We, however, do. :)

Depends on the page, doesn't it?

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

Six weeks? I look back to biblical times and note that "40 days (and nights)" was the estimate for "a long time, but I just don't know". Now by my calculations, 6 weeks is 42 days, which in my estimation is just about right. So... the estimate "in biblical terms" is on the order of "a very long time", which is just about right in my book.

About as long as needed. Just add the term "in biblical time"

CaptainOblivious · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

One time I had a boss who always gave an estimate of two weeks for any milestone. He was actually a decent boss because he was a very good engineer who was one of the owners of the company. Just for some strange reason he said every part of a project would take two weeks. That is, until I proposed a good command line syntax to replace the old Hayes modem commands we'd been using. Then he said it was just not even worth doing because it would take so long and would be so complex. I responded by just going ahead and implementing English-like commands like "set speed=1200" to replace the old "ATS96=7" commands, together with full command line editing with history in... two weeks!

MarkJ · 2011-01-25 Reply Admin

boog:
What may have helped Gary out is if they followed a policy of outlining smaller project phases with individual estimates. For example, if the herbal remedy (or "HR") database needed eight months, I'm sure Gary could easily break that down to a 20 or 30 smaller chunks, each with its own estimate.
If Steve wanted to change the estimate to 6 weeks, he'd need to provide estimates for all of those chunks. Since each phase would be estimated at roughly a day of work, it'd become obvious very quickly that 6 weeks is nowhere near enough time.

A former colleague of mine had a unique way of looking at the cost of software - he compared it to civil engineering. He said something like, "Software is like dirt - it costs money to change it and move it around". Just because you can't see it, it doesn't weigh anything, and you can't drill a hole in it and stick a rivet into it doesn't mean it's free.

If managers want to shave your estimate to give the customer a better price, knowning they're taking a hit on profit to get business, that's one thing. Trying to compress an 8 month schedule into six weeks by writing custom tools? That's just insane.

2011-01-25 Reply Admin

A lot of people believe in this "not burning bridges" crap. Don't ever rock the boat. Those are the people who will always wonder why they stumble from one crappy job to another. Man-up and put Steve on the spot for once. Quit being so scared of what might happened and realize what will happen if you don't stand up for yourself.

I used to be the timid type. But in the last few years I have really started to speak my mind. It has gotten me in trouble a few times but I have never been pigeon-holed as a weak underling who takes the fall for someone else. I can't say that I have ever burned a bridge that I had no interest in ever crossing again. If you don't learn to stand your ground, you will always be employee and never the boss. And if you burn a bridge, then chances are you weren't going to need it.

Six Weeks Steve

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