• Expert (unregistered)

    LIKE 'Ｆｉｒｓｔ'

  • (cs)

    Moirae? Really? It doesn't sound like they had any actual ability to do things to devs other than scold so calling them the fates seems blown out of proportion.

  • OneOfTheFew (unregistered)

    Why didn't Miguel just quit? That's what I would have done.

  • (cs) in reply to locallunatic
    locallunatic:
    Moirae? Really? It doesn't sound like they had any actual ability to do things to devs other than scold so calling them the fates seems blown out of proportion.
    They controlled the projects everybody worked on and the hours everybody must work.

    Plus, they sounded like the borg. Anybody who can talk in unison would scare the shit out of me...

  • (cs)

    I wonder whether the problem was one of racism? Surely a "Miguel" has no status in relation to a "Stephen" as he's Hispanic while Stephen's a WASP.

  • (cs)

    So was Stephan the company owner? I can't fathom he'd be able to work for another company and continue his current role if he wasn't the guy in charge at WTF, Inc.

    I wonder what sort of punishments were doled out by the Moirae for timesheet errors.

  • Yanman (unregistered)

    Those 3 women can commit to my source control!

  • Tangoman (unregistered)

    What's he complaining about? 40h weeks??

    So the management system in place was inefficient - welcome to the real world!

    I once worked at a place where you had to decide what changes were needed, email those to the company owner who made the changes who would make the changes in the obscure language he used and then run the program through a custom-built translator which produced the most evil VB you've ever seen. We then had to compare the output VB with the original to see if the changes we'd planned had come out right.

    Quite often the company owner would decide that the changes you'd requested weren't quite correct and put in place something different....

    Now that set-up was a bitch - simply having a crap source-control.... nothing to see here, move along please...

  • MojoMonkeyfish (unregistered)

    Steven is right, and Miguel should be fired or something for having bad thoughts and be thankful for his job in this economy!

    TROLL FRIST!

    CAPTCHA: consequat - the forbidden fruit!

  • MojoMonkeyfish (unregistered) in reply to Tangoman
    Tangoman:
    What's he complaining about?
    MojoMonkeyfish:
    TROLL FRIST

    Dammit.

  • (cs)

    In situations like this, the correct answer is always to quit immediately - no notice, no two weeks, just immediate I quit. If you're feeling particularly vengeful send a scathing email that basically says words to the effect of "In case you can't tell, this is a software department. Your ridiculous standards and lack of trust for your developers clearly show that you have no clue how to run a modern software department, or any kind of software department. In fact, I wouldn't trust you to run a bath. Go away and grow up."

    There is nothing wrong with burning a bridge that should never have been erected in the first place.

  • Machtyn (unregistered)

    Why didn't Miguel just quit? That's what I would have done.

    (just need one more to fill the quota.)

  • (cs) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    In situations like this, the correct answer is always to quit immediately - no notice, no two weeks, just immediate I quit. If you're feeling particularly vengeful send a scathing email that basically says words to the effect of "In case you can't tell, this is a software department. Your ridiculous standards and lack of trust for your developers clearly show that you have no clue how to run a modern software department, or any kind of software department. In fact, I wouldn't trust you to run a bath. Go away and grow up. Sincerely, Bert Glanstron."

    There is nothing wrong with burning a bridge that should never have been erected in the first place.

    FTFY

    There's no harm in extending a little professional courtesy, even when dealing with someone who is being completely unprofessional. Yeah, it probably won't impress them in the slightest, but it may well impress your co-workers.

    If you need a reference down the line, would you rather be remembered as the guy who ragequit with zero notice, or the guy who kept his cool in the face of such madness?

  • Nagesh (unregistered) in reply to Tangoman
    Tangoman:
    What's he complaining about? 40h weeks??

    So the management system in place was inefficient - welcome to the real world!

    I once worked at a place where you had to decide what changes were needed, email those to the company owner who made the changes who would make the changes in the obscure language he used and then run the program through a custom-built translator which produced the most evil VB you've ever seen. We then had to compare the output VB with the original to see if the changes we'd planned had come out right.

    Quite often the company owner would decide that the changes you'd requested weren't quite correct and put in place something different....

    Now that set-up was a bitch - simply having a crap source-control.... nothing to see here, move along please...

    How is one collecting overtime pay to feeding family when work only 40 hours?
  • lesle (unregistered)

    You choose your fate By the things you do If you are good Your fate will be too

    Fate does not choose you It won’t take time to choose you Just watch what you do And fate will be good to you

    A fate worse than death For being bad that’s what you get I’ve been there and back So I know the facts

    Take my advice Live life right Just do onto others good And fate will do onto you

    Follow one of the golden rules Do onto others what you, Want them to do onto you And that’s how you choose your fate

    -Fate Factor, LaTisha Parkinson

  • (cs) in reply to Justice
    Justice:
    FTFY

    There's no harm in extending a little professional courtesy, even when dealing with someone who is being completely unprofessional. Yeah, it probably won't impress them in the slightest, but it may well impress your co-workers.

    If you need a reference down the line, would you rather be remembered as the guy who ragequit with zero notice, or the guy who kept his cool in the face of such madness?

    Funnily enough my original version included a line that said "Signing it Bert Glanstron optional".

    Anyways, given that most places I've seen would blackball someone based only on the fact they dared to leave, I'm of the opinion that someone who gives no courtesy or respect deserves neither courtesy nor respect.

    To put it in layman's terms: A douchebag deserves a douchy response. There's no logical reason to eat shit and pretend to be all smiles when someone is obviously a sociopathic lunatic that has no business being part of the human race, let alone in the workforce. Being nice to "be the better man" in the fact of a scumbag like this does nothing except empower them. If more people were reluctant to take shit and were more apt to just say "Screw this" and leave, scum like this wouldn't be able to exist.

    These people are hostis humani generis, enemies of the human race, and should not be allowed to exist.

  • Charlie (unregistered)
    the addition of a trio of new project managers. That was their title, in any case. The three women hired to fill the role had no PM experience, no software experience, and knew nothing about the company or the projects they were going to work on
    Sounds like 9 out of 10 PMs I've ever worked with! Who needs experience? Knowledge? Understanding? All you have to do is ask "what percent complete is it?" and "when will it be done?" and punch the answers into that Microsoft thingie.
  • EatenByAGrue (unregistered) in reply to locallunatic
    locallunatic:
    Moirae? Really? It doesn't sound like they had any actual ability to do things to devs other than scold so calling them the fates seems blown out of proportion.

    Really, it was the wrong classical reference. The right one would be to call them Erinyes (Furies)

  • some guy (unregistered) in reply to Machtyn
    Machtyn:
    Why didn't Miguel just quit? That's what I would have done.

    (just need one more to fill the quota.)

    Weak anthropic principle. Those who quit didn't have a story to submit. It would be more like, "I worked for a jerk and quit immediately". There wouldn't barely be room for a unicorn in that.

  • Chelloveck (unregistered)

    I worked at a place like that. Except the Stephan there, the lead developer, didn't actually do the other developers' checkins. He didn't understand source control, or the need for it. He just worked in his private copy of the code for days at a time, then locked everything and committed. No merge, just commit what he had. Hilarity ensued. He did this repeatedly and could not be convinced of the error of his ways.

    Oh, and 40 hours was unacceptably low. 50 hours was minimal, and 60 was average. Their motto was, "Work harder, not smarter." The absolute worst coder in the place got kudos from management because he actually slept under his desk and only went home to shower a couple times a week.

    And yes, I did quit.

  • (cs)
    "Only I access source control."
    In other words, Stephan wasn't able to figure out how to properly set up security for multiple users in SVN.
  • Roger (unregistered)
    "We suspect," they said, "that you are forging your timesheet. It is implausible that you have been working exactly 40 hours a week for an entire month. It is completely unrealistic, and you are not the only one with a suspicious timesheet.
    Throughout my lengthy career, there has been one rule that has served me well and without fail: when the time-clock Nazis show up, it is time to leave.

    New companies are full of energy and ideas and everyone gives their all to make something great. Then they get market success, which means big$bucks, which attracts layers of managers and various antiproductive gatekeepers. You may be able to survive that for a while, but when the time-clock Nazis come to ask why you spend 30 hours a week in meetings and exactly how many minutes did it take you to debug the XX module, that's the final omen. Run. Start over someplace else.

  • callcopse (unregistered) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:

    Funnily enough my original version included a line that said "Signing it Bert Glanstron optional".

    Anyways, given that most places I've seen would blackball someone based only on the fact they dared to leave, I'm of the opinion that someone who gives no courtesy or respect deserves neither courtesy nor respect.

    Original version? Please tell me you are adequately developer-y to keep your comments in a special source code repository and version them? That would be so cool!

    I disagree with your fundamental premise though. Never under such circumstances should one be disssuaded from an icy yet professional demeanour. I see your point of view but let's face it, it will never do anyone any good and can only do you down.

  • My name (unregistered) in reply to some guy

    When commenting on a Remy Porter story, look first at the source.

  • (cs)

    Also weren't the Fates the Gracae or something like that? The three hags with one eye that they shared? My Greek mythology is rusty.

  • Seriously forget StarWars HR (unregistered) in reply to Justice
    Justice:
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    In situations like this, the correct answer is always to quit immediately - no notice, no two weeks, just immediate I quit. If you're feeling particularly vengeful send a scathing email

    There's no harm in extending a little professional courtesy,

    I think ObiWayneKenobi is trolling.

    In case anyone actually feels that way, consider someone called in to HR after two days on the job. HR says "We received a copy of the e-mail you sent to all the employees at your last job on your last day. We found it extremely unprofessional. We cannot trust someone capable of doing that. Security is outside and will escort you off the premises." That person had moved several hundred miles for the new job.

    It's not so much about not burning a bridge that should not have been built, it's about the burning bridge falling into the replacement bridge and the resulting wreckage stopping you from building a new bridge anywhere else in the whole state . . .

  • Jeff (unregistered)

    So I wonder why Miguel didn't just quit, because that's what I would have done.

  • (cs)
    "We suspect," they said, "that you are forging your timesheet. It is implausible that you have been working exactly 40 hours a week for an entire month."
    I would smile and say: Our work week is 40 hours.
    "It is completely unrealistic, and you are not the only one with-"
    Our work week is 40 hours.
  • (cs)

    You aren't allowed to write comments. Only I access the database. Only I enter the comments, after I've confirmed that you haven't written crap. Can you imagine the chaos if we just let any developer write comments? We like to keep things nice and organized around here.

    Regards, Stephan

  • Tangoman (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    Tangoman:
    What's he complaining about? 40h weeks??
    How is one collecting overtime pay to feeding family when work only 40 hours?

    Overtime pay!!!???

    Do you work for the Civil Service perchance??

  • Tim (unregistered)

    I worked one place that did this.

    1. You must report your time every week using this new system.

    (later) 2. You must not report more than 40 hours because we don't pay overtime.

    (later) 3. You must not go home at 2:30 on Friday afternoon just because you hit 40 hours for the week.

    That was long long before TDWTF. Now, I can just stop by here and blow a half hour now and then whenever I start getting too far ahead of the target.

  • (cs) in reply to Seriously forget StarWars HR
    Seriously forget StarWars HR:
    Justice:
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    In situations like this, the correct answer is always to quit immediately - no notice, no two weeks, just immediate I quit. If you're feeling particularly vengeful send a scathing email

    There's no harm in extending a little professional courtesy,

    I think ObiWayneKenobi is trolling.

    In case anyone actually feels that way, consider someone called in to HR after two days on the job. HR says "We received a copy of the e-mail you sent to all the employees at your last job on your last day. We found it extremely unprofessional. We cannot trust someone capable of doing that. Security is outside and will escort you off the premises." That person had moved several hundred miles for the new job.

    It's not so much about not burning a bridge that should not have been built, it's about the burning bridge falling into the replacement bridge and the resulting wreckage stopping you from building a new bridge anywhere else in the whole state . . .

    No, I'm not trolling. I'm sick and tired of the "bad guys" winning and getting to stay in business, make life miserable for people working for them, because nobody has the balls to realize that idiots are idiots and need to realize that you should NOT get ahead in life by being a total douchebag and not knowing anything about anything.

    I've deal with WTF places like this hellhole for my entire IT career, and the places have always prospered and flourished despite doing everything flat out WRONG, because people go with the flow or pretend that everything is fine, or when they leave they say there is no problems when there are enough problems to fill this site for an entire year.

    You should not be forced to put on a show of courtesy for somebody who deserves to have the shit kicked out of them and run out of business for being an absolute clueless moron.

    To whit: What any smart person should think if they got wind of that would be "What an absolute hellhole that company must have been for an employee to be forced to resort to that. Let's make sure that we never do anything like that to OUR employees". In fact I would go as far as to say that any company that felt the way your example did is another hellhole filled with clueless morons who pull the status quo.

  • Chelloveck (unregistered)

    The exactly 40 hour week is surprisingly common. I worked at a place that wanted to track hours worked on various projects. We were all salaried, so it's not like it mattered to our pay. We just filled in what we worked. Then management said that our hours must add up to 40, every week. If we worked more we had to fudge all the times proportionately to total 40. They could have changed the web app collecting the data to scale everything to 40 hours if they wanted, but that didn't seem to occur to anyone in power.

    And speaking of the web app, it was an IE-only beast. A huge matrix of input boxes mapping out hours worked per project per day. It took 30 seconds to move from one box to another; I think it was submitting data to the server onblur() for each box. It was so bad that everyone in engineering just stopped using it after a while. And you know, no one ever said anything about it.

    Then there was this other place who wanted our time broken down into 10-minute intervals. Each interval had to be accounted for in the proper category -- Requirements, high-level design, low-level design, code, write testplan execute testplan, debug, review HLD, review LLD, review code... Each feature request and bug report had a full set of categories, and there were a lot of categories for overhead tasks as well. Yes, there was a category for filling out timesheets.

  • Jerry (unregistered)

    Here's one of my favorites:

    1. Every hour must be billed to a project code.

    2. There is a mandatory two-hour all-hands meeting.

    3. The meeting has no project code.

    And of course, when you bill the 2 hours to one of your projects:

    1. Take that out of my project! I'm not paying you to attend some stupid meeting!
  • (cs)

    The biggest WTF was the Moirae. Stephan's kind of a douche, but StephanSVN (while idiotic) doesn't bother me as much. I usually install an SVN repository locally for my own shit anyway. I have notes, research, random scripts and such that I don't want cluttering up the company repository. And when any of it becomes relevant, I add it to the company repository at that point.

    So in Miguel's situation, I'd just maintain my changes in my local SVN. When I'm ready to "commit" my changes to StephanSVN, I'd just request the latest copy of the file, merge my changes into it, and immediately send it back. Stephan is less likely to get conflicts that way.

    As for defending my changes, I'd probably handle it like Miguel - argue my case, but let Stephan decide. Besides, when his solution doesn't work, I've still got my solution in my local SVN, so I can just merge it back in.

  • (cs) in reply to QJo
    QJo:
    I wonder whether the problem was one of racism? Surely a "Miguel" has no status in relation to a "Stephen" as he's Hispanic while Stephen's a WASP.
    You know I think you hit the nail right on the head. Well, except you spelled the name wrong. But hey, they can't all be accurate AND hilarious, right?
  • (cs) in reply to boog
    boog:
    When I'm ready to "commit" my changes to StephanSVN, I'd just request the latest copy of the file,
    Stephan's system was a black hole. Code went in, but didn't ever come back out.
    boog:
    Besides, when his solution doesn't work, I've still got my solution in my local SVN, so I can just merge it back in.
    Stephan's system was a black hole. Code went in, but didn't ever come back out.
  • ih8u (unregistered) in reply to My name
    My name:
    When commenting on a Remy Porter story, look first at the source.

    Indeed. The best part about the Remy stories are the comments sprinkled throughout -- tee hee!

  • TheJonB (unregistered) in reply to OneOfTheFew
    OneOfTheFew:
    Why didn't Miguel just quit? That's what I would have done.
    You may have missed the broader macroeconomic situation.

    Perhaps try watch the news instead of the cartoons?

  • Satan (unregistered)

    Those bitches foiled my UN stink-bomb plot!

  • (cs) in reply to Tim
    Tim:
    I worked one place that did this.
    1. You must report your time every week using this new system.

    (later) 2. You must not report more than 40 hours because we don't pay overtime.

    (later) 3. You must not go home at 2:30 on Friday afternoon just because you hit 40 hours for the week.

    Well, that pretty much encourages sliding off the back of the dinosaur as soon as the whistle blows at the quarry, doesn't it? I feel sorry for the guy who's standing under the boulder.

  • (cs) in reply to Sutherlands
    Sutherlands:
    boog:
    When I'm ready to "commit" my changes to StephanSVN, I'd just request the latest copy of the file,
    Stephan's system was a black hole. Code went in, but didn't ever come back out.
    Ah, yes. I didn't take that statement too seriously when I read it; I just assumed the only way to even make changes was to first get the files-to-be-changed from Stephan. I realize now that unofficial versions of all files existed in the developer's hands, and that Stephan cherrypicked whatever changes he liked from them to make his own private, official version. Okay, now I'm more bothered by this.
    Sutherlands:
    Stephan's system was a black hole. Code went in, but didn't ever come back out.
    Then clearly he must be stopped. For the sake of us all.
  • Bryan the K (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that I didn't read the source first.

  • (cs) in reply to TheJonB
    TheJonB:
    OneOfTheFew:
    Why didn't Miguel just quit? That's what I would have done.
    You may have missed the broader macroeconomic situation.

    Perhaps try watch the news instead of the cartoons?

    I would hardly recommend that anyone watch the news these days. Cartoons FTW!
  • (cs) in reply to operagost
    operagost:
    Tim:
    I worked one place that did this.
    1. You must report your time every week using this new system.

    (later) 2. You must not report more than 40 hours because we don't pay overtime.

    (later) 3. You must not go home at 2:30 on Friday afternoon just because you hit 40 hours for the week.

    Well, that pretty much encourages sliding off the back of the dinosaur as soon as the whistle blows at the quarry, doesn't it? I feel sorry for the guy who's standing under the boulder.

    That pretty much encourages exercising whistleblower protection laws because they're really asking you to forge your timesheet, which is fraud, and can (as part of its own sequence of wtf's involving federal agencies and the crime of "lying to a federal officer") be a felony offense that can send you to prison (because you're an overprivileged white-collar criminal!!11)

  • Ralph (unregistered) in reply to TheJonB
    TheJonB:
    Perhaps try watch the news instead of the cartoons?
    Cartoons are targeted to two-year-olds.

    The news is targeted to three-year-olds. And is approximately as accurate as the cartoons.

    Every time I have been at a newsworthy event, the media has screwed up the story so badly it might as well have been totally fake. For example: 10,000 people marching in the streets, pretty much taking over downtown. News story: close up of one young mom and her kids attending the "rally". Yes, it was true, but they neglected to mention the other 9,997 people and what they were doing.

  • Tim (unregistered) in reply to fennec
    fennec:
    operagost:
    Tim:
    I worked one place that did this.
    1. You must report your time every week using this new system.

    (later) 2. You must not report more than 40 hours because we don't pay overtime.

    (later) 3. You must not go home at 2:30 on Friday afternoon just because you hit 40 hours for the week.

    Well, that pretty much encourages sliding off the back of the dinosaur as soon as the whistle blows at the quarry, doesn't it? I feel sorry for the guy who's standing under the boulder.

    That pretty much encourages exercising whistleblower protection laws because they're really asking you to forge your timesheet, which is fraud, and can (as part of its own sequence of wtf's involving federal agencies and the crime of "lying to a federal officer") be a felony offense that can send you to prison (because you're an overprivileged white-collar criminal!!11)

    Yes, reading between the lines, that's what they really wanted. "Slave until 9PM but report that you went home at 5."

    Or, in other words, "We want you to put a lie in an official record, but we won't say so, because we don't want to put the truth in an official record."

    Well F that! (WFT?)

  • (cs) in reply to MojoMonkeyfish
    MojoMonkeyfish:
    Tangoman:
    What's he complaining about?
    MojoMonkeyfish:
    TROLL FRIST

    Dammit.

    You have to get up early in the morning to be first troll 'round these parts.

  • Doc Brown (unregistered) in reply to boog
    boog:
    Sutherlands:
    boog:
    When I'm ready to "commit" my changes to StephanSVN, I'd just request the latest copy of the file,
    Stephan's system was a black hole. Code went in, but didn't ever come back out.
    Ah, yes. I didn't take that statement too seriously when I read it; I just assumed the only way to even make changes was to first get the files-to-be-changed from Stephan. I realize now that unofficial versions of all files existed in the developer's hands, and that Stephan cherrypicked whatever changes he liked from them to make his own private, official version. Okay, now I'm more bothered by this.
    Sutherlands:
    Stephan's system was a black hole. Code went in, but didn't ever come back out.
    Then clearly he must be stopped. For the sake of us all.

    Pah, it can't be serious. Withing a week all developers would have wildly different versions and the whole thing would crash and burn on it's own. Which would be a good thing though.

  • someone (unregistered) in reply to Tangoman
    Tangoman:
    So the management system in place was inefficient - welcome to my little world

    The whole "real" world is exactly the same as my little world. nothing to see here, move along please...

    FTFY

Leave a comment on “The Source of Control”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #368739:

Log Out

« Return to Article