- Feature Articles
- CodeSOD
-
Error'd
- Most Recent Articles
- Stop Poking Me!
- Operation Erred Successfully
- A Dark Turn
- Nothing Doing
- Home By Another Way
- Coast Star
- Forsooth
- Epic
- Forums
-
Other Articles
- Random Article
- Other Series
- Alex's Soapbox
- Announcements
- Best of…
- Best of Email
- Best of the Sidebar
- Bring Your Own Code
- Coded Smorgasbord
- Mandatory Fun Day
- Off Topic
- Representative Line
- News Roundup
- Editor's Soapbox
- Software on the Rocks
- Souvenir Potpourri
- Sponsor Post
- Tales from the Interview
- The Daily WTF: Live
- Virtudyne
Admin
Only if you work in some country without workers rights. Where I live, once your contract is signed, they would have a very hard job firing you for stuff you had done, PRIOR to your employment.
Working in a country where it would be acceptable to be fired, after you were hired, for something you had done prior to your employment, is the real WTF.
Admin
Wait, so they got a replacement bridge up before the original tumbled over...and they put it in the path of the wreckage? I applaud them for their speed, but...
Admin
Stop right there.
Admin
Miguel should have used the opportunity to learn from Stefan rather than complain about him. I like his style. Give developers latitude to do their work, but have final say as the source control conduit, giving him an opportunity to leverage his more senior knowledge and experience to improve upon his team's work. It's win-win.
Had Miguel been on board with that, he'd be in management by now.
Admin
Admin
I would have told her that "It's fine to have 40 hour week. But don't complain if any project deadline is sliped because of this."
If she is sane enough, she would have backed off.
Admin
Can't tell if you are trolling or not.
In any case, it is depressing how low the quality bar is, for crappy source control to be "nothing"....
Admin
I guess they put the replacement bridge up because they recognised that the original bridge was a fire hazard. If this was the case, it would be pretty stupid to build the replacement bridge underneath the old flammable one, unless geography or budget prevented a choice, in which case the problem of flaming wreckage falling on the new bridge is a calculated risk.
In any case, I am assuming that the wreckage is causing a blockage or other damage to the new bridge, preventing travel to the only other parts of the state that need bridges. If this was the case, wouldn't that be impetus to build yet another bridge?
Admin
Why are so many folks out here trying to show how smart they are by claiming that the WTF is NotReallyTF
Admin
Have you seen the cost of milspec paperclips?
Admin
Reminds me of my last job where I had to fill in timesheets the same way. When I entered the really number of hours my PM told me that I was too slow. When I entered the expected number of hours he told me that I was not working enough.
Admin
The timesheet nightmare, when it happens, is nothing more than that you are no longer in the role that you envisaged for yourself. If the tedium and irritation of filling in the timesheet outweighs the delight and joy of doing a good job, then either you've reached the points where your job is no longer enjoyable, or your manager has nothing better to do which means the management structure has either become too top-heavy or (worse) the actual prospects for further sales to customers have dried up.
Timesheets as such are not completely useless. If done properly (stop laughing at the back, you incorrigible cynics) then they provide an indication (possibly only an approximation, but better than guesswork) of how much it really cost to deliver that project.
Admin
This is just a sign of a rotting culture. That incompetent gatekeepers of HR just can't seem to deal with reality. They probably "think" because someone was unsatisfied with a job therefore he will be unsatisfied with every job. Stereotypical thinking at its best. Some people are so overly sensitive that they seem to be hurt by a simple fact. Problems are "solved" by sweeping them under the rug because "We are too weak-spined to deal with them." It's all about "saving face".
Admin
This post, like so many on this site, reads like it came from an underachiever who is upset that they have not been handed the promotion he believes he deserves. If "Steven" and co were so incompetent, why were they headhunted by another company? Why were they kept on in a consultant role? Why was the OP not offered the job, if he was such an expert in software development and delivery?
There is no context as to why management decided to disallow carte-blanche access to the source code, but there are several perfectly legitimate business reasons for code to be audited by a trusted, proven programmer.
Judging by the tone of the original post, in this case this safety net may well have been the difference between product delivery as close as possible to on time and within budget, vs a PR disaster. The only "WTF" I can see here is the spoilt-kid attitude of the OP, presuming the story is true and not just the tantrum of an ungrateful man-child "leet coder". Grow up.
Admin
TRWTF is SVN
Admin
:o
Out-trolled!
Admin
If indeed you do have a genuine grievance with a company you are leaving for another, then: a) Express your concerns in your exit interview b) Share your reasons for believing you are hard done by with your manager, in a polite and non-confrontational manner c) Once you have landed your next job, bring your experience at the previous one into the public domain by suggesting where certain potential (or actual) policies at your new company may have possible shortfalls.
Anything else is pointless, and is also damaging to both yourself and the software industry as a whole. The "general public" have already got an image of us as a selfish bunch of overpaid prima-donnas who act like a bunch of child supermodels as it is. Don't go compounding the problem.
Admin
But with more donuts...
Admin
+1 FTW
And pizza.
Addendum (2011-12-07 06:39):
+1 FTW
And pizza.
You can buy a lot of goodwill amongst your staff by sending out on occasion (particularly when they're contributing far beyond the call of duty) for lashings of pizza. Caveat: You also need to make sure they are also compensated either with appropriate remuneration or with time off in lieu. But a little appreciation and good-vibes goes a very long way.
Admin
This is a great point. Cream rises to the top in an organization. The most senior developers on staff get to their stations for a reason -- they are the best at what they do. New hires would do well to follow their lead. Two ears, one mouth.
Admin
Yes. Be quiet and listen, geoffrey.
Admin
SVN uses snvserve (usually) to serve localhost (its client-server, not filesystem like git). Its accessible to the network.
Admin
Why talk? its friday ,14:30. You need two more hours to ship the software but just hit the 40.
So email: " Could not finish shipping cause of the 40h rule. Stoped working as told."
then leave.
Where is the problem?
Admin
Preee ciselayh
If only people had balls --
Admin
Not always true ... In "The Social Network", suckermountain's speech to the investors actually succeeded due to its 'notgivinashit' attitude - .. and who are you to say a movie is wrong,seriously ?
Admin
But seriously though ... packaging the "you are a moron and should never even touch a computer or a computer-related decision" in a beautiful ice cold professional letter .. can be a pleasure too ;)
Admin
The broader macroeconomic situation is for fags .
I don't give a shit that it's recession or whatever.
I rock at what I do and I can demonstrate it, I don't need to be afraid because half a million useless fools want the same job as I do.
The worse the situation, the bigger the difference between the good and the bad.
Always been like that, always will be.
And for the most ridiculous proof ever : in WoW,there is almost no way to see the difference between a good healer and bad healer on overstuffed routine content.
Now go for new content, without overstuff and lots of wipes... there you can see who's good and who just plain sucks.
Same for work : when there's no crisis, companies spend left and right and don't quite care what they get for it.
Then recession hits and hey .. maybe we should get something for what we pay ? maybe we should outsource ? maybe we should consider people who deliver rather than partners with with a business volume over 35mil a year ?
And that's where the good will shine and the bad will go back to cleaning up the streets. Amen !
Admin
40-hour limit? Maybe it's some kind of incentive system. A nearby defense contractor allows their employees to take every other Friday off if they work 9 hours-per-day. In this company, could you work 10-hour days and take a day off per week?
Better yet, what if they let you CHOOSE the days that you worked. Personally, unless I'm doing a two-day project, I would much rather have my times off spread out. Think Sunday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Saturday. If you went down to a 4-day work-week, you could make it work out where you only have to do two consecutive days one time.
Admin
I think the problem I have with this is the "obviously a psychopathic lunatic". Most likely this person is a perfectly reasonable person in normal life (most people are, you know) but has a problem in that they are in a position to which they are unsuited. Maybe the constraints from higher up (with whom he has problems himself of a similar nature to those you have with him) are giving him problems to solve which are insoluble because of their inherently contradictory premises. The poor guy may be as close to a nervous breakdown as you are to throwing a paddy-tantrum.
To use language borrowed from the I Ching: the superior man will attempt to communicate with this boss, to request a meeting in which points of view are expressed, understandings are approached, and communication is opened. Find a way to get through to him,and offer to collaborate on the supposedly insoluble problem that he has.
If you insist on thinking of him in the stereotypical language of the gutter, then that is how you will continue to view him, and your attitude towards him will show to such an extent that he will then view you in exactly the same way. And, from the tenor of some of the egregious comments on this forum, fully justifiably.
Admin
Good grief! Are you on crack or something?
Admin
You forget the major fact about HR :
They are Htotally Ruseless .
They would not survive a single second outside of the warm cocoon of corporate bullshit, and they have to keep budgets for themselves so they're parasites, no way they'll speak against their host --
Admin
Are you delusional? In my experience, management is either a) not technical enough to properly evaluate technical prowess, or b) too technical to excel in staffing decisions. In publically-traded companies, it has been worse, because many decisions are driven by investors demanding increasing profits every quarter. Technical resources are treated like commodities: Price is a major factor
Exibit A: Prevalence of "dual-shoring" Exibit B: "Built by the lowest bidder." Exibit C: Reliance on contractors (lower caliber/higher pay, but for a shorter period of time)
Also, realize that management does not make its decisions based on competence alone:
Exibit D: Nepotism Exibit E: Height Premium Exibit F: Attractiveness Bonus
Not spam, askimet. You would think there would be an advantage to being a registered user.
Admin
Yes he is referring to Europe . However the reality is not so. Both France (35h) and Belgium (38h) are far from their official hours a week.
Most of the people I know (engineers, IT) work over 50 hours a week and are expected to do so for free.
Admin
HR: Hot Retards
Admin
based on these comments, I surmise the academic semester is over?
Admin
Admin
Your argument does not hold once you separate those who do the work from those who sell it.
There is NO valid reason to have devs in the same place as phone-call-addicted project managers or sales people.
That's where your issue came from, and most companies simply solve that by not having the smart-but-annoying guys on another floor.
It's not like you can be that picky to get only smart-and-socially-brilliant people, and I don't believe any company should avoid smart-but-annoying types . They're often a good source of value for a reasonable price.
Admin
Admin
Admin
You sir are correct.
However you imply that there is a good justification for this investment, which often does not exist.
It could take a whole f*ton of skills, energy and time to get to some of those people, while at the same time you can get a better job in two days.
The big question is :
Why should a technical expert be required to be vastly superior in social skills in order for him to do his job correctly ?
Why do companies insist on wasting time and money by not addressing this obvious problem ?
It's been an eternity that management could not understand experts, and yet they still expect the social solution to come from them although they have selected them for their particular skill diagram, which mostly has a spike in their area of expertise.
That is the real WTF, and it includes as usual our favorites : management and HR .
If I had to manage some of the socially inept but technically excellent members of the dev community, I would not hesitate one second, yes it may cost a person full time just to balance out the social ineptitude, but who cares ?
Admin
Smaller companies are frequently limited as to space.
Given the choice, assuming there is one, between the two types you mention, most companies will go for the former. Therefore it behooves you to learn social skills.
Admin
Hey MeanDean, how would you like to work at our place as an outside "consultant"? wink wink
Admin
Exit interview? Last two I "had" were "sorry (they weren't), we're downsizing so we've got to let you go". The last-in first-out rule was in full force as was the "sack them before a year is up or you have to pay redundancy". So they did it on the last day before a year's employment in a 5 minute "fuck off" one-sided chat.
The only time you get an exit interview is when you quit, because then you control the timescale, not them.
Admin
Well, quite.
But then the parameters of this argument were the situation where the choice is between:
a) walk out without giving notice and sending a rude email to your former boss, or: b) work your notice, leave politely and take away the lessons learned.
Clearly the situation where you are dismissed is a whole different ball-game ... but I would still counsel politeness wherever possible. "Not surprised he got fired, he's a rude man" doesn't pay for many pizzas.
Admin
Followed by a law suit. If an HR dept actually forwarded an old email of mine to another employer, I would feel it my duty to send copies of internal emails to the WSJ.
Captcha: Paratus. What's left after the ap has been committed.
Admin
As someone working in defense (gov employee, not contractor), I'll just pass along that milspec hasn't been used for around 15 years, it's all NAS/ASME/ASTM or other industry-produced standards now. Not that it makes much of a difference. We've still got a storeroom full of MS fasteners, but that's all residual stock and all new designs don't use it. Of course this is from an engineering perspective - those office types might very well be 20 years behind, considering they still make us fill out paper timesheets. Even the contractors sitting next to me fill out their time cards online.
Admin
Admin
I once sat in a status meeting with two PMs and a developer who was working on changes to a system I was familiar with. At one point, this guy said, "I didn't know what that code was doing, so I took it out." (as opposed to asking first, or doing any analysis.
Yes, this guy was as incompetent as they come. Without fail, anything he touched would have bugs which needed to be addressed.
Needless to say, the two PMs and I extended the meeting a bit to discuss this. The only time in my long career where I've actively campaigned for getting rid of a particular person.
Just a couple of weeks later, he put in his notice, saying he was moving to Atlanta. To this day, I'm still not sure if he saw the writing on the wall, or that was totally coincidental.
Admin
That is fact, but there is also trickel down effect. So I get some project bonus for not abandon ship mid-way, every year I complete in it.
Admin
Because we develop in the real world, and projects evolve, rather than the whole thing being planned from the start.
Stephen is probably the original developer of the legacy system. At least he has source control. He's the "coding champion" and it's only successful projects that are still going, something to bear in mind for all "legacy app" situations.
I guess as is often the case, he wants job security, although from a business perspective, there is always the danger of a new developer not fully understanding everything.
In a perfect world, there are no egos involved in software development but we work in the real world where successful software was written by people who want to feel they are now going to be secure in what they have done.