• neminem (unregistered)

    That's depressing... what's the onclick() do? Apparently it includes a javascript file that websense is blocking. Google indicates that it does, in fact, have something to do with unicorns, but... stupid websense.

    Anyway, yeah. I was not expecting a happy ending. The moron gets fired, and the problem is easily fixed by someone competent? What site am I on, again?

  • Lone Marauder (unregistered) in reply to neminem
    Remy Porter:
    Apologies on the double-dashes sneaking around. I made the horrible mistake of writing this article using a word processor instead of a text editor. Although the fact that it breaks the Firefox parser is kinda hilarious. You never have those kinds of problems in grown-up browsers, like Lynx.

    Pardon us, sir. We'll be getting off your lawn, now.

  • (cs)

    If I was Darrell, I would have been monitoring the situation, and preparing my own fix so that when, inevitably, I'm called on to fix it, I can do it -- instantly.

    If Darrell had some kind of delete-script ready to go that would delete the old build versions, he would have solved the problem within seconds and would emerge as the hero of the day.

    Of course, assuming there was no passive-aggressive intention and no long-standing conflict between Darrell and Tim, one wonders why he didn't bring this up long ago...

  • trwtf (unregistered) in reply to WhiskeyJack
    WhiskeyJack:
    If Darrell had some kind of delete-script ready to go that would delete the old build versions, he would have solved the problem within seconds and would emerge as the hero of the day.

    Strategic mistake. "So, Darrell... if you knew exactly what was going on and exactly how to fix it... why didn't you say something a few hours ago?"

    Best to have the delete script ready, and spend an hour or so looking frazzled and then run the script. After making pretty damn sure that your fix didn't screw up anything else (not likely in this case, but this would be a bad time to screw up, don't you think?)

  • (cs) in reply to trwtf
    trwtf:
    WhiskeyJack:
    If Darrell had some kind of delete-script ready to go that would delete the old build versions, he would have solved the problem within seconds and would emerge as the hero of the day.

    Strategic mistake. "So, Darrell... if you knew exactly what was going on and exactly how to fix it... why didn't you say something a few hours ago?"

    Best to have the delete script ready, and spend an hour or so looking frazzled and then run the script. After making pretty damn sure that your fix didn't screw up anything else (not likely in this case, but this would be a bad time to screw up, don't you think?)

    I think WhiskeyJack was implying that. I certainly inferred it. You have your fix ready, you run it, but you don't say, "Nyah, nyah, I coulda fixed this hours ago!"

  • (cs)

    TRWTF is people who leave voicemails that say, "Did you get my e-mail?"

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered)
    Darrell wasted ten minutes prying his palm from his face with his stapler

    Huh?

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward:
    Darrell wasted ten minutes prying his stapler from his palm with his face

    Huh?

    FTFY

  • dagushurst (unregistered)

    They do a build on every check-in? TARWTF!

  • leo (unregistered) in reply to jpers36
    jpers36:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Darrell wasted ten minutes prying his face from his stapler with his palm

    Huh?

    FTFY

    FTFY

  • Nome de Plume (unregistered) in reply to Greg
    Greg:
    OK, but the part about "nice"... Maximum == nicest?

    Also, would "nice" make any real difference for a process that's hogging disk I/O?

    A well-defined find-remove shouldn't hog disk I/O. It just marks the directories or files as garbage.

    Also, nice can't be much help. The empty disk space should be available even before the process finishes.

    I love ideal operating systems!

  • C.K. (unregistered) in reply to Whatever
    Whatever:
    Eh, I thought that it was an interesting enough read. OTOH, it's gotta be fiction. Why would Tim be so useless? Four hours to come up with a plan to delete some files? He can obviously use the find command, and knows what nice does...

    The fact that he "niced" a process that should be a background task to a higher priority suggests that he really doesn't know nice that well.

  • quarryman (unregistered) in reply to leo
    leo:
    jpers36:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Darrell wasted ten minutes with his palm

    Huh?

    FTFY

    FTFY

    FTFY

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Remy Porter's articles suck.

  • (cs) in reply to Whatever
    Whatever:
    Why would Tim be so useless? Four hours to come up with a plan to delete some files? He can obviously use the find command, and knows what nice does...
    Obviously Tim was a time-waster. A dawdler. Worse yet, he had no problem with wasting others' time as well. The first part of the story makes that pretty clear.

    Even if he was knowledgeable (though that's still up for debate), his lagging ended up being his downfall when he failed to realize that management didn't appreciate him wasting their time.

  • Gunslinger (unregistered)

    TRWTF is a management failure. Tim obviously isn't the head of the IT department, so he shouldn't have had final say on the server retention policy. Also, someone should have noticed the server getting full sooner, there's usually a warning when it's getting low.

    It's not really a problem to have it keep all builds, as long as someone is using them to check that the build works and delete the old ones when that's done. So, that's a policy failure, but not Tim's.

    Tim's obviously incompetent and deserved to be fired, but the server getting full wasn't his fault alone.

  • ctw (unregistered)

    Remy, this was funny as hell. Well done.

    The Burn Notice thing was kinda funny too.

  • English Man (unregistered)

    You have to laugh at a bunch of coders complaining about another's writing style when they think that "pwn" is a word.

  • BRad (unregistered) in reply to jpaull

    I think you should first try to identify the "Tim" in your group. If you can't, then you are probably Tim.

    Then you try to identify Darrell.

  • trwtf (unregistered) in reply to English Man
    English Man:
    You have to laugh at a bunch of coders complaining about another's writing style when they think that "pwn" is a word.

    Hey man, are you trying to take my job? I'm the resident language snob. Keep away from my rice bowl.

  • Spearhavoc! (unregistered) in reply to Lone Marauder
    Lone Marauder:
    Remy Porter:
    Apologies on the double-dashes sneaking around. I made the horrible mistake of writing this article using a word processor instead of a text editor. Although the fact that it breaks the Firefox parser is kinda hilarious. You never have those kinds of problems in grown-up browsers, like Lynx.

    Pardon us, sir. We'll be getting off your lawn, now.

    It's arguably our fault for going to websites.

  • XXXX (unregistered) in reply to quarryman
    quarryman:
    leo:
    jpers36:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Darrell wasted ten minutes stapling his palm to his face

    Huh?

    FTFY

    FTFY

    FTFY
    FTFY

  • (cs) in reply to XXXX
    XXXX:
    quarryman:
    leo:
    jpers36:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Darrell wasted ten minutes stabling his palamino in his family room

    Huh?

    FTFY

    FTFY

    FTFY
    FTFY
    FTFY

  • Aninnymouse (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that Remy screwed up that Dilbert reference. It's Ted who sent Dilbert the e-mail, not Wally.

  • Aninnymouse (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that Remy screwed up that Dilbert reference. It's Ted who sent Dilbert the e-mail, not Wally.

  • frits (unregistered) in reply to Mit
    Mit:
    The unicorns were especially cute!
    Indeed. There's not a classier way to proclaim your homosexuality.
  • Gunslinger (unregistered)

    I'm glad NoScript prevents me from clicking on the silly Javascript thing at the beginning.

  • (cs) in reply to Whatever
    Whatever:
    I think it's more likely that the firing squad needed someone to shoot, NOW, and Darrel was under the radar.

    You misunderstand. The only reason Darrell was asked to fix the problem was because Tim was "out" and they needed someone else at bat.

    Darrell was merely the manager's best hope of the moment.

  • (cs) in reply to frits
    frits:
    XXXX:
    quarryman:
    leo:
    jpers36:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Darrell wasted ten minutes stabling his palamino in his family room
    Huh?
    FTFY
    FTFY
    FTFY
    FTFY
    FTFY
    Huh?
  • napernik (unregistered)

    btw, I was cleaning build files last week, 60 GB in 2,5 mln files, it did took 4 hours :)

  • SaturnNiGHTS (unregistered)

    some call me...maurice?

  • Furiousity Considered Harmful (unregistered) in reply to phleabo

    [quote user="phleabo"][quote user="The Typinator"][quote user="Article"]One day, , Darrell sat down[/quote]Okay, look. English is like Lisp: you can't just throw a bunch of extra commas around and hope it works.[/quote]

    Well, except that the syntax of English isn't formally specified and parser implementations have much more slop tolerance built into them, even if they sometimes insist on acting like dicks about minor problems that don't affect intelligibility.[/quote] [quote user ="Furious with commenters"]Can't handle a typo or two? Leave! Nobody wants you here anyway. Everyone should know if this is directed to them.[/quote]It really doesn't take much work to catch a typo or two, especially one as obvious as a double comma. And sock puppeting is never the answer.

  • ClaudeSuck.de (unregistered) in reply to Jeff
    Jeff:
    Seriously, who just sits around waiting for disks to get full and break something, instead of proactively monitoring space consumption?

    People who don't deserve to be employed in IT, that's who.

    Yes, but they exist

    persto: type-o of presto?

  • luis.espinal (unregistered) in reply to David S.
    David S.:
    I... I simply don't understand. How could anyone be that stupid?

    It happens. I've seen it almost like in the story (w/o "Tim"'s firing.) And no, I'm not making shit up. It does happen in real life just like that from time to time.

  • (cs) in reply to GettinSadda
    GettinSadda:
    There is a FireFox bug^H^H^H feature where any double-dash inside a comment block breaks the parser.

    Guess what this article includes

    Works OK for me in FF 4 beta 7

  • (cs) in reply to cloudberry
    cloudberry:
    frits:
    XXXX:
    quarryman:
    leo:
    jpers36:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Darrell wasted ten minutes stabling his palamino in his family room
    Huh?
    FTFY
    FTFY
    FTFY
    FTFY
    FTFY
    Huh?
    Wait ...... What?
  • luis.espinal (unregistered) in reply to Coyne
    Coyne:
    Whatever:
    I think it's more likely that the firing squad needed someone to shoot, NOW, and Darrel was under the radar.

    You misunderstand. The only reason Darrell was asked to fix the problem was because Tim was "out" and they needed someone else at bat.

    Darrell was merely the manager's best hope of the moment.

    Bingo. It's not like management was looking for blood. They were looking for someone to his job and pick up the ball (and after all, picking up the ball is part of one's job, always.)

    Management was forced to fire Tim due to his incompetency and complete disrespect to the deadlines that needed to be met. The guy (if he was real) was completely out of touch with the urgent needs of the company that was writing him a paycheck. It was beyond incompetence. The guy didn't give a shit and/or had his mind completely somewhere else while on payroll.

    As I said in my previous post, people like that actually do exist, beyond technical redemption (and unfortunately, it takes a long chain of WTF moments smeared with steaming, maggot festering goat poop to get them fired.)

  • Not Remy (unregistered) in reply to Not Tim

    I too hate Remy's writing style. Not only is it incredibly incoherent, and quite confusing sometimes, but also he doesn't seem to grasp the concepts of paragraphs AT ALL; every line is double spaced, there is no apparent, "natural" pause in the writing.

  • Not Not Remy (unregistered) in reply to Not Remy
    Not Remy:
    I too hate Remy's writing style. Not only is it incredibly incoherent, and quite confusing sometimes, but also he doesn't seem to grasp the concepts of paragraphs AT ALL; every line is double spaced, there is no apparent, "natural" pause in the writing.

    The lack of proper punctuation in this comment invalidates your authority on writing styles.

  • (cs) in reply to XXXX
    XXXX:
    quarryman:
    leo:
    jpers36:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Darrell faced ten palms wasting his staple to his minute

    Huh?

    FTFY

    FTFY

    FTFY
    FTFY
    FTFY

  • Yamazaki (unregistered)

    First off, I DO HATE this kind of managers:

    “Well, I’ll need at least four hours,” Tim stammered.

    “You have four hours.”

    "AT LEAST" means "at least". So if anyone says "at least 4 hours" it means that will probably take more than 4 hours and that 4 hours is the best case, so dont spect the work to be done in 4 hours.

    I would like to say somthing more. If Tim wasnt able to delete the files in 4 hours, Tim asked for help (or told he had problems with this) and Darren knew how to do it and dindt say anything, its Darren's fault, not Tim's.

    If I were a software manager and found out that anyone didnt know how to do somthing and didnt ask for help I would get really angry. If I know that someone asked for help and doesnt get it (if possible, ofc) I would get really really really angry.

    I read this site to know code that I should NEVER write, why? first time I read this site I found a WTF code that I myself wrote (not the same code, just similar) in my early years as a software developer. Everybody fucks up, specially if you are a junior developer with the tasks of a senior one. Most of the WTF code I read in real life is managers' fault not developers' fault. The work that has to be done by a man, has to be done by a man. Not by a boy just because he is cheaper.

    I know my english is not good enought, sorry in advance.

  • Sambo (unregistered)

    OM NOM NOM = OMG PONIES!

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to Furiousity Considered Harmful
    Furiousity Considered Harmful:
    It really doesn't take much work to catch a typo or two, especially one as obvious as a double comma. And sock puppeting is never the answer.
    Nor does it take much work to use the "Preview" button and check that your post doesn't contain garbled BBcode which screws up its appearance. Note that it is particularly advisable to do this when you are complaining about someone else's typographical errors.
  • trwtf (unregistered) in reply to Yamazaki
    Yamazaki:
    First off, I DO HATE this kind of managers:

    “Well, I’ll need at least four hours,” Tim stammered.

    “You have four hours.”

    "AT LEAST" means "at least". So if anyone says "at least 4 hours" it means that will probably take more than 4 hours and that 4 hours is the best case, so dont spect the work to be done in 4 hours.

    If Tim had come back in four hours with something there might be a case to be made here. Coming back with "I'm going to work on it on Monday" is impossible. I doubt that he was fired in the actual event - remember, this is a "Fortune 500 company", and that's a big organization that probably doesn't give mid-level managers the authority to fire employees on a whim - but he would probably have been kicked off to some other department, and in any case, he wouldn't have been allowed to diddle around with this for the next month, which is clearly what he had in mind.

    If I were a software manager and found out that anyone didnt know how to do somthing and didnt ask for help I would get really angry. If I know that someone asked for help and doesnt get it (if possible, ofc) I would get really really really angry.

    True. However, there's no suggestion that Tim asked for help. Now, you might have thought it sporting for Darren to offer to help, but that's a kettle of fish of a different color.

    I know my english is not good enought, sorry in advance.

    Oh, you're fine. Learning English is tough. We only pick on people who should know better, or care more.

  • (cs) in reply to Peter

    Hey everyone! There's hope for humanity!

    TRWTF WASN'T MANAGEMENT! WOOO!

    Will this company be hiring in the summer?

  • Homer (unregistered) in reply to Gunslinger
    Gunslinger:
    TRWTF is a management failure. Tim obviously isn't the head of the IT department, so he shouldn't have had final say on the server retention policy. Also, someone should have noticed the server getting full sooner, there's usually a warning when it's getting low.

    It's not really a problem to have it keep all builds, as long as someone is using them to check that the build works and delete the old ones when that's done. So, that's a policy failure, but not Tim's.

    Tim's obviously incompetent and deserved to be fired, but the server getting full wasn't his fault alone.

    It appears that Tim was the System Admin or Computer Op, therefore it absolutely was his job to monitor disk space.
  • Homer (unregistered) in reply to Yamazaki
    Yamazaki:
    First off, I DO HATE this kind of managers:

    “Well, I’ll need at least four hours,” Tim stammered.

    “You have four hours.”

    "AT LEAST" means "at least". So if anyone says "at least 4 hours" it means that will probably take more than 4 hours and that 4 hours is the best case, so dont spect the work to be done in 4 hours. ...

    True...but Tim had already made major screwups by letting the build fail, and by not knowing the reason. Tim was on very thin ice at this point, and had no idea.
  • Homer (unregistered) in reply to Yamazaki
    Yamazaki:
    ... I would like to say somthing more. If Tim wasnt able to delete the files in 4 hours, Tim asked for help (or told he had problems with this) and Darren knew how to do it and dindt say anything, its Darren's fault, not Tim's. ...
    Realize, Darren was visiting the HQ of a large company that had recently purchased Darren's small company. It wasn't his responsibility to administer HQ systems...they had someone for that, Tim.

    Darren could have made quite a mistake if he tried to interfere with the way they did things at HQ. If Tim had been successful, Management then might have looked at Darren unfavorably, as someone to be "integrated" out the door. Company mergers are dangerous.

  • Homer (unregistered) in reply to Yamazaki
    Yamazaki:
    ... Most of the WTF code I read in real life is managers' fault not developers' fault. ...
    Oh, there were plenty of managerial WTF's in this, but it can be hard to say because it's a very short story; poetic license is often used to spice it up; and some things may be obfuscated to protect the innocent.
  • Shea (unregistered)

    Inbox:

    Can anyone come by my cube and tell me what time it is?

    -Tim Admin

    Captcha 'causa' - I'm still employed causa have disk space left.

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