• NotASycophant (unregistered)

    This first comment is for Martin...is he available?

  • Aaron (unregistered)

    25" x 25" = 4.3 square feet, not 625 square feet

    Note from Alex: Sheesh, a day of typos; fixed!

  • (cs) in reply to Aaron
    Aaron:
    25" x 25" = 4.3 square feet, not 625 square feet
    he's right...It needs fixing cause that's 1 small cubicle
  • Chris (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that the dimensions are not stated using the metric system.

  • (cs)

    Cute Eye for the Windows Guy? I got nothin'. Jim should have just been a contractor, that was pretty low using Martin's name.

  • BobB (unregistered)

    Perhaps it is my locality, but I'm certain 'stink eye' involves dropping one's pants. I guess I would be disturbed if the receptionist managed to shoot me one of those. Anyways...

    I have seen a person on the job (guess where?) continue to take calls on his cell phone for his previous job. I don't say anything about it, unless it starts screwing with my tasks. The final straw was 'cover for me!' when they left to go fix something. No, doesn't work that way. Wife in trouble? Kids in the principal's office? Mother-In-Law being held at gunpoint and you wanna help the gunman aim? Sure, I'll cover. To help you make more money when all it means for me is my ass in a sling should they ask where you are or something at THIS job break, nope. Not happening.

    I have another 'job' so to speak, but I keep it apart from my day job. Oddly enough the second task is in no way related to computers...

  • Jeff L. (unregistered)

    HR sucks ass. For all the crap they make you read about things like ethical behavior, and for all the bullshit policies, they're usually the first one to abuse them by making assumptions and refusing to have honest discussions with people. Fuck HR.

  • Reggie (unregistered) in reply to Chris

    nice :)

  • (cs)

    Is Martin a slow thinker, or what? As soon as I read about the increasing levels of evil eye I had figured out what was happening. And as soon as the HR director started talking about hours of phone calls, he should immediately have clued in that it was Jim on the phone for hours a day, not him.

    I don't have any side businesses, but I volunteer with an organization that sometimes feels like running a small company. I try very hard to keep any of those calls separate from work and only answer those calls on my personal cell phone, not on a work number.

  • HR (unregistered) in reply to Jeff L.
    Jeff L.:
    HR sucks ass. For all the crap they make you read about things like ethical behavior, and for all the bullshit policies, they're usually the first one to abuse them by making assumptions and refusing to have honest discussions with people. Fuck HR.

    Please see me in my office concerning your surfing habits.

  • An Onymous (unregistered)

    Heh, from the RSS feed:

    "Brought to you by the Non-WTF Job Board: Sr. Windows Applications Developer - VS .Net/C#/WPF"

    Looks like Martin's group is indeed hiring. :)

  • (cs)
    She even starting giving him the Cute Eye.
    Yeah, but was she a Cute Ee?
  • Keith (unregistered)

    I was worried that my boss would find out I've been commenting on TDWTF, so I told him about Martin's root beer breaks. I don't think their eyes are on me anymore.

  • (cs)

    So the other programmers shunned the Windows programmer, and one guy took care of a little business on the side while still providing adequate work output for the company. Where's the WTF?

    Addendum (2008-10-07 12:00): Well, I mean besides the busybody HR witch.

  • JD (unregistered)

    No disrespect to the hardworking HR folk out there but my experience with such personnel has almost always been negative. The head of HR at my last company was an insidious woman who relentlessly attacked anyone who strayed outside her protocol whilst shamelessly ignoring all her own rules. I have since learnt to hold zero respect for HR types which is actually quite easy, considering they are generally the only people in the company who have no idea what the company actually does (after all, they don't do IT - they do HR).

    Today's tale sounds like another case of clueless HR nazis at work.

  • (cs) in reply to gabba
    gabba:
    Where's the WTF?
    His coworker set him up to be the fall guy?
  • Anonymouse (unregistered) in reply to WhiskeyJack

    I think you misunderstand the story. Martin was well aware that Jim was spending hours on the phone every day - he just thought it was related to his current job, rather than his side consulting job. The receptionist thought that they were personal calls because they would ask for Martin, who really had no business reason to receive calls at all.

  • (cs) in reply to BobB
    BobB:
    I have another 'job' so to speak, but I keep it apart from my day job. Oddly enough the second task is in no way related to computers...

    You can get cream for that.

  • (cs)
    TopCod3r masquerading as 'I walked the dinosaur':
    My company is aware of the potential problem of people taking personal phone calls, so we have our secretary screen all calls first (we have setup the phone to prevent direct dialing to an office or cube).

    This was the exact situation at my last job -- my first in the U.S.. I once got a call from my Dad back in England, and the secretary wanted to know why he was calling. After the call, she wanted to know why he couldn't call at another time, say, after work. Apparently timezones meant nothing to her.

    Oh. She was the CEO's Sycophant.

  • (cs) in reply to WhiskeyJack
    WhiskeyJack:
    Is Martin a slow thinker, or what?
    Yeah Sherlock, it's a creative effort to illustrate Martin's dawning realization that he wasn't really in the shit.
  • itsmo (unregistered) in reply to rfsmit
    rfsmit:
    WhiskeyJack:
    Is Martin a slow thinker, or what?
    Yeah Sherlock, it's a creative effort to illustrate Martin's dawning realization that he wasn't really in the shit.

    More than one slow thinker - maybe it's the whiskey, Jack

  • BobB (unregistered) in reply to itsmo
    itsmo:
    rfsmit:
    WhiskeyJack:
    Is Martin a slow thinker, or what?
    Yeah Sherlock, it's a creative effort to illustrate Martin's dawning realization that he wasn't really in the shit.

    More than one slow thinker - maybe it's the whiskey, Jack

    That's rootbeer.

  • (cs)

    I knew a "Jim" once. To this day I'm not sure exactly what he did there but I'm pretty sure his "full-time" job was just a part-time gig with free long distance for him.

    He got a lot of respect for working so hard and putting in such long hours until people realized his output just wasn't matching up with all that time. It still amazes me that he managed to get away with it for over 2 years.

    It's been several years but my recollection is he took his firing pretty well since his business was thriving by then. I think they let him go just weeks before he was set to leave on his own.

  • Zap Brannigan (unregistered)

    I remember the old days when calls from the outside had to go through the receptionist. It's been over 15 years. Does anyone still have a phone system like that? Why didn't they fire Jim immediately? At any rate, Martin should have popped him for getting him in trouble.

  • Steve (unregistered)

    All I have to say about today's story is that this is another clear proof that HR sucks and exists only to make the live's of good honest developers harder. I have no love for HR.

  • (cs) in reply to BobB
    BobB:
    I have another 'job' so to speak, but I keep it apart from my day job. Oddly enough the second task is in no way related to computers...

    I'll have 8 E's and 1/2 Oz of skunk, please :)

  • (cs) in reply to Zagyg

    I really should start using my registered name here to make comments.

  • SomeCoder (unregistered)

    I have little respect for HR. A few jobs ago, the HR ladies (there were about 5 or 6 of them) worked like 2 hours a day. They would come in at like 10:30, leave for lunch at 11:15, come back from lunch at 3:00, leave at 4:00. For that, I'm sure they got paid quite a large sum of money.

    So it was really nice when you actually needed HR, would walk up there, and see exactly zero out of six people up there.

  • Gorfblot (unregistered)
    rfsmit:
    New rule: NEVER call for arbitrary rules.

    Never use absolutes. It'll always get you in trouble.

  • Crabs (unregistered)

    It's sad to see how many people don't respect HR. My HR representative is awesome. She's so hot^H^H^H helpful and has a great ass^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H is very easy to talk to. Really, you guys need some help.

  • Just Some Guy (unregistered) in reply to Crabs
    Crabs:
    It's sad to see how many people don't respect HR. My HR representative is awesome. She's so hot^H^H^H helpful and has a great ass^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H is very easy to talk to. Really, you guys need some help.

    Our HR's pretty cool, too. I think it has a lot to do with the size of the company. We have about 50 people, and HR's job is to screen job applicants, juggle the vacation calendar, and send the payroll off each week. She does her job, we do ours, and everyone gets along famously.

  • (cs)
    The HR director profusely apologized to Martin (being the CEO’s sycophant does have some advantages) and soon thereafter went to Jim for an explanation. Within a couple weeks, Jim was fired, leaving Martin as the sole member of the Windows team.
    The real WTF was that it took two weeks to fire someone that had been essentially stealing from the company.
  • Atario (unregistered)

    I would accuse Jim of being a dummy for not using his cell phone for that purpose, but guessing by the "short-stuff" 8.3 filename thing, this is probably before cell phones (were common).

  • Jared (unregistered) in reply to Gorfblot
    Gorfblot:
    rfsmit:
    New rule: NEVER call for arbitrary rules.

    Never use absolutes. It'll always get you in trouble.

    Absolutes are good though...

  • Carlos92 (unregistered) in reply to Atario

    The RS-232 interface also suggests this did not happen in the last several years.

  • (cs) in reply to rfsmit
    rfsmit:
    TopCod3r masquerading as 'I walked the dinosaur':
    My company is aware of the potential problem of people taking personal phone calls, so we have our secretary screen all calls first (we have setup the phone to prevent direct dialing to an office or cube).

    So are we deleting trolls now? I guess it's one step removed from nuking people who disagree with alex.

  • ChiefCrazyTalk (unregistered) in reply to NotASycophant

    The real WTF is - why didn't he use his cell phone?

  • (cs) in reply to ChiefCrazyTalk
    ChiefCrazyTalk:
    The real WTF is - why didn't he use his cell phone?

    This happend over 10 year aggo, so no cell phones. One hint shoud be DOS and other hint is Starting the Windows Development. it Coud be started at Win95 or even 3.11

  • Coward (unregistered)

    At my place we had a body builder who wrote and sold a guide to bodybuilding steroids. He attributed the book to [workplacename] Laboratories, and put his work direct dial phone number in. As we are an industrial research organisation this worked for a few months before getting caught.

  • (cs) in reply to Franz_Kafka
    Franz_Kafka:
    rfsmit:
    TopCod3r masquerading as 'I walked the dinosaur':
    My company is aware of the potential problem of people taking personal phone calls, so we have our secretary screen all calls first (we have setup the phone to prevent direct dialing to an office or cube).

    So are we deleting trolls now? I guess it's one step removed from nuking people who disagree with alex.

    Yeah, I had my earlier reply deleted as well. All Hail Nazi moderation of forums!!!

  • Allen (unregistered) in reply to sstair

    Puleeze! Name one company that gets 8 hours work out of any one employee each day. In IT you are paid for what you know, not what you do.

  • (cs)

    From Wiktionary:

    Etymology

    First attested in 1537. From Latin sȳcophanta (“informer, trickster”) from Ancient Greek συκοφάντης (sukophantēs) from σῦκον (sukon, “fig”) + φαίνω (phainō, “I show, demonstrate”). The gesture of "showing the fig" was a vulgar one, whom was made by sticking the thumb between two fingers, a display which vaguely resembles a fig, which is itself symbolic of a cunt (sykon also meant "vulva"). The story behind this etymology is that politicians in ancient Greece steered clear of displaying that vulgar gesture, but urged their followers sub rosa to taunt their opponents by using it.

  • (cs) in reply to Allen
    Allen:
    Puleeze! Name one company that gets 8 hours work out of any one employee each day. In IT you are paid for what you know, not what you do.
    In my current position, we are on-call 7x24. As such, to make up for the occasional 3AM sessions, our boss pretty much lets us come and go as we please (within reason).

    My boss' boss once tried to get us to "follow the rules" w.r.t. work hours. We replied to him, in front of our boss, that we would gladly work the standard 9-5:30, but that they should not bother us on OUR time beyond that, and that they'd need to hire some more support folks to work evenings and late nights for 5 days, plus 3 shifts on weekends.

    That ended that.

  • Duke of New York (unregistered) in reply to amischiefr
    amischiefr:
    All Hail Nazi moderation of forums!!!
    Serves you right for feeding the troll. If you don't like it you can always raus.
  • Hank (unregistered)

    Just another WTF HR story -- in the mid 80's, I worked at a quasi-gov't office in NJ... an office of about 25 people with one HR/Office manager. I was young - just out of college.

    Anyway, I was the sole "IT" person.. and this place did ALOT of word processing - which translated to tons of wasted paper.

    I took it upon myself to look into the new recycling program used in other governmental offices in Trenton. I had almost everything set up to get just a couple recycle bins set up.

    Then the HR/Office manager caught wind of it, and was so wound up that I "went behind her back" to set this up, she squashed the project right there, and I got yelled at.

    Geeze -- I'm just trying to save some trees. They operated that way for many more years before recycling came into style.

    Lots of other WTFs from this office.

  • (cs)

    So what happened with Martin and the receptionist? Don't leave us hanging! Unless...

    I've got it: the Real WTF is that Martin and the receptionist started dating, but then the HR woman got jealous and enacted a strict policy against employee fraternization.

  • (cs) in reply to Carlos92
    Carlos92:
    The RS-232 interface also suggests this did not happen in the last several years.
    I still work with RS-232, though mostly using serial-over-IP tunneling.
  • 20% off! (unregistered)

    What is Window's team after all? What is Window(r)(tm) ?

  • (cs) in reply to ChiefCrazyTalk
    ChiefCrazyTalk:
    The real WTF is - why didn't he use his cell phone?

    You assume he has one?

  • Seinfeld (unregistered)
    The Betrayal (a.k.a. the Backwards Episode):
    KRAMER: Hey, FDR wants me to drop dead.

    GEORGE: FDR?

    KRAMER: Yeah, Franklin Delano Romanowski. I go to his birthday part, and just before he blew out his candles, he gives me this look...

    GEORGE: Stink eye?

    JERRY: Crook eye?

    KRAMER: Evil eye.

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