• Observing more (unregistered) in reply to Sudo

    TRRWTF is that women can't see that the only way the described bimbo can get through the interview and get her promotion to head ICT is that she slept her way there. guess the bimbos are annoyed that they're found out.

  • Spike (unregistered)
    Still, it's a poor workman who blames his tools

    What a tool, yeah a poor workman blames his tools, but a good workman chooses his tools carefully. This is TRWTF, since without that very poor rationalization, the rest of the story wouldn't have happened

  • UNR_JohnSmith (unregistered)

    tl;dr

  • Pontormo (unregistered) in reply to biff

    On this theme, I'm wondering which executive she was sleeping with.

  • Sudo (unregistered) in reply to Pontormo
    Pontormo:
    On this theme, I'm wondering which executive she was sleeping with.
    Because everyone knows that the only way an incompetent coder can get work is by sleeping with the boss.

    Perhaps, just maybe, she got the job in the same way an incompetent male programmer gets a job - by waving meaningless certifications, spouting trendy jargon, and generally over-selling themselves in the interview. This happens all the time, and no sexual favours are ever exchanged.

    Seriously guys, some of these comments are just embarrassing. It's like being in a 1950's working men's club in here. Some of you have clearly spent more time with porno than you have with real women.

  • A Man (unregistered) in reply to Sudo
    Sudo:
    Some of you have clearly spent more time with porno than you have with real women.

    I see nothing wrong with this statement.

  • oheso (unregistered) in reply to A Man
    A Man:
    Sudo:
    Some of you have clearly spent more time with porno than you have with real women.

    I see nothing wrong with this statement.

    The word "some".

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to A Man
    A Man:
    Sudo:
    Some of you have clearly spent more time with porno than you have with real women.

    I see nothing wrong with this statement.

    If all "real women" were like Alicia then I agree.

    CAPTCH = saluto... In Alicia's case a corporate slut-ho.

  • dstf (unregistered)

    These articles are making me sick - I mean this one is an extraordinary sickness, but it just cant be true. I know these authors take a lot of artistic licence, but this is too far!

    I've never met one single American who spoke like Jaimy - someone so nice and very professional, full of empathy and patience. This is TRWTF.

  • (cs)

    This is fairly worse than the last management crap I've read about.

  • Not of this Earth (unregistered)

    Competent rabbit has no chances vs incompetent wolf. The jungle law.

  • J.D. (unregistered)

    We have a guy almost like this in our firm. He's been living in our country for over ten years, and he still hasn't learned any of the language, which is rather odd. We've had foreigners in our company before, and the worst of them learned the local language within a few years.

    Now this guy has been promoted to a project-leader, which is one of the worse decisions made by management here. This guy writes code, commits it, but doesn't compile it before that. Actually, he asks me (or some other person, who's been affiliated with the project at some point) to compile it for him, because he doesn't know how to do it.

    The most hilarious time was, when I asked him for some specifications for a program he wanted me to make. Two months went by and he multiple times asked me the situation of the project. Always responding, that without specification I can't do anything, since I have no idea what is required. Finally he responded to me about the specification with the following mail: "No, there none at the moment. I have them in my head, but no time so far to put them on paper. The spec also has been changing so I was glad I didn't write it down yet.". And at that point I went to management and told them, I wouldn't be working with this guy anymore.

  • J.D. (unregistered) in reply to wheler
    Simon:
    I was hired for a job for which I feel vastly underqualified about 9 months ago. I think they were desperate. Having seen the calibre of the developers I've come to realise I could never be a real developer. I'm not that smart. I was shit-hot at all my previous jobs but now I feel like an idiot.

    Luckily, I tell everybody that asks me to do something that I can't, I don't have a clue how to, I've no idea what my job is and I don't understand how I got through the interview. They laugh and go and ask someone else. I figure, when the shit eventually comes down and they rumble me, I can point to the fact that I've been completely honest all along.

    Within that time you could've learned at least something about the job, right? It's not bad to admit you've no idea what to do, but you could always try to work something out. So what if it doesn't work? At least you've learned something (hopefully) within that time. I've seen the kind of people that come out of people, who don't even give a chance to themselves to try and solve the problem.

  • Christian (unregistered)

    I don't know what's more sad, the fact that this did happen or that I can think of two similar experiences I had on my own. And I'm only 30.

  • J.D. (unregistered) in reply to Bollinger
    Bollinger:
    I was not saying that Technical people don't make Good Managers, but rather that (good) Technical People (in my experience) have no aspirations toward management.

    Perhaps I've worked in Govt work too long, but I have never met a manager who used anything beyond MS Office - in fact, I've only met a handful of managers who were even vaguely technical. My experience of managers (and sadly, even Technical Leads) is that their role seems more about managing people, projects and meetings rather than anything even remotely technical (anything technical gets delegated to technical resources).

    Even in non-government roles I've held, I've experienced managers who barely understood the technologies we were using (let alone staff capabilities in different technologies) well enough to optimise any resource allocation. They tend to recognise that some people get things done quicker (or slower) than others, but they appear not to be able to realise that that could be because some people are using technologies that they don't understand (or simply don't know).

    Yes, this seems to be the global way of approaching management. People, who haven't got the faintest idea of what the company does, still make decisions based on their experience in the field. This usually leads to situations that can't later be fixed even with a ten ton hammer.

    I had a long discussion about one old code and tried to convince the manager of the group, that it would be easier, better and more efficient if we wrote the whole code from scratch. I've had this conversation more than once, but the most fruitless was a small programs, which didn't have all the original source-codes left. It took me three weeks to convince them, that I couldn't compile a code without all the sources, and those sources didn't exist anywhere. After three weeks I was finally given permission to write the program from scratch. Too me a whole of 1,5 days to do it. I've no idea how long it would've taken to try and fix the original, broken and insufficient, and not to forget, OLD code.

    But back to management. I've heard there are a couple of managers that have acknowledged that they've no idea about the technical stuff, and by admitting that, they hire a few experts in the field to consult him, so he can do the job as it is best for the company. Wish I had a manager like that.

  • (cs) in reply to Bob Slydell
    Bob Slydell:
    C-Octothorpe:
    Some Jerk:
    Simon:
    I was hired for a job for which I feel vastly underqualified about 9 months ago. I think they were desperate. Having seen the calibre of the developers I've come to realise I could never be a real developer. I'm not that smart. I was shit-hot at all my previous jobs but now I feel like an idiot.

    Luckily, I tell everybody that asks me to do something that I can't, I don't have a clue how to, I've no idea what my job is and I don't understand how I got through the interview. They laugh and go and ask someone else. I figure, when the shit eventually comes down and they rumble me, I can point to the fact that I've been completely honest all along.

    This might be the best post here so far. Too often I wish all ignorant fools could just be honest about it. I suspect that many of my previous work environments would have been more enjoyable that way.

    I don't know "Simon", but AFAIK, inexperienced != ignorant. Ignorant is being inexperienced and thinking that you know everything.

    Simon sounds like a nice guy, but he would have been canned pretty quickly in most places (unless it was government, in which case, everybody is Simon).

    I'd like to move us right along to a [Simon]. Now we had a chance to meet this young man, and boy that's just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.

    Honest or not, Simon applied for a developer position. According to his own words he was incompetent when he was hired. What upsets me is that he tells us that after 9 months in a developer role he still does not have a clue. I would at least expect some evolution. Or why TF did he apply in the first place?

  • (cs) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    visual basic is not for serious programmer. experience in visual basic is totally useless. in our company we don't hire any visual basic programmers. java and c are real languages, but any talk of it, then it become flaemwar in forums. so i try to stay away from such talk.

    You are useless, too, because you don't know what you are talking about. India is Javaland (because it's free). Doesn't mean that the programs are better. Programming quality does not depend on the programming language. You should listen and learn. Apparently, you are too young and too stupid to judge programming language and keep that apart from the discussion of how to write good programs. Indian programs are usually a horrible conglomeration of unproductive code. You can actually see in the code that the people didn't know what they were doing. Indian programming means: do process a lot but with no effect. At the end they are paid by the line, aren't they?

  • (cs)

    BTW, I must be a good programmer. I never made my way (some 20 years) into management.

  • Luke (unregistered)

    Women.

    (TRWTF)

  • (cs) in reply to J.D.
    J.D.:
    ...and not to forget, OLD code.

    Old code: X = X + Y

    Brandnew code: int a = Integer.parseInt(args[0]); int b = Integer.parseInt(args[1]); int sum = a + b;

    Can anybody tell me how much processing is involved in either of these methods and, therefore, which one is better, faster, more efficient?

  • (cs) in reply to Sudo
    Seriously guys, some of these comments are just embarrassing. It's like being in a 1950's working men's club in here
    Any time a beautiful incompetant female gets hired and promoted, the natural suspicion is that she's screwing her way to the top. The safe thing to do is to stay out of her way, whether it's true or not. Treat her like she's the CEO's girlfriend - be polite but work around her.
  • Sylver (unregistered) in reply to Sudo
    Sudo:
    Observing:
    TRWTF is that he gives up the free fucks he has been getting from her by resigning.
    Because everyone knows that women love to sleep with men they clearly hate.

    TRWTF is the fact that anyone thinks there was any sexual tension in this story. I guess some kids just see a story with a man and a woman in it, and assume it's sexual in some way... after all, most of what they view through their browser window is...

    In this case, I guess it's an attempt to explain why this guy let that dame walk all over him, and why he went an extra mile or ten to help someone treating him like dirt.

    It's very unlikely that sex was actually involved.

    Anyway, for what's it's worth, there was many ways and many opportunities to salvage the situation, and it's a crying shame that it wasn't done.

    Day One. Mrs "Know It All, You Ain't Worth Shit" gives the tech lead (her boss) lip. Answer? Give her a standard assignment. No guidance or advice or anything. Pass the word around that no one is allowed to help her. Let her find out that she doesn't actually know.

    Come back after a reasonable amount of time for the task and check what she has done. If she still gives you lip, get her fired for being unable to do the job she was hired for.

    Later on? Look through your commits and make a list of the bugs you fixed, and the consequences of these bugs if allowed to go into production.

  • anon2 (unregistered) in reply to ClaudeSuck.de

    let's see. Integer.parseInt sounds very java to me. The old code takes something, and either adds or concatinates another number.

    the brandnew code, takes the name of the program and whatever the first argument is, tries to parse both to a number (which i suspect will fail for 'progname'), and doesn't even make it to the concationation/addition.

    Assuming X and Y are numbers; I suspect the old code to run faster

  • Marty (unregistered)

    Three pages, and nobody's mentioned how this reads like something straight out of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"? just do a find&replace on a chapter, switching out every instance of "train" with "vb code", and it could be this story.

  • Sparkle (unregistered)

    ...

    "English, obviously," she scoffed.

    Jaimy laughed softly-- only to see her stern, pale face draw into a deeper frown. She hadn't been joking.

    "F**k off Alicia"

    Done.

  • Rocks (unregistered)

    We really need pics in here. Alicia must have EPIC boobs.

    CAPTCHA: minim... no way, they must be maxim

  • (cs)

    Now THIS has to be made up, or else very very very very highly embellished. Too much is wrong with it; not the incompetent person being promoted (that happens all the time) but the constant flux of people who don't know programming? A few I can see, but the management in this story would have to be complete idiots who never stepped out of their offices for all of it to be true.

    I believe some of this story, but the whole thing is really far-fetched even for me, and I've worked in dozens of WTFy places.

    Addendum (2011-03-10 07:27): Now THIS has to be made up, or else very very very very highly embellished. Too much is wrong with it; not the incompetent person being promoted (that happens all the time) but the constant flux of people who don't know programming? A few I can see, but the management in this story would have to be complete idiots who never stepped out of their offices for all of it to be true.

    I believe some of this story, but the whole thing is really far-fetched even for me, and I've worked in dozens of WTFy places.

    Being a WoW player this almost reads like something there: Hot/pretends-to-be-hot girl gets into raiding guild, doesn't know shit about raiding but schmoozes (and or sleeps around/sends nudie pics/cybersexes) with guild leadership, gets promoted to Raid Leader after being carried through raids, brings on other incompetent people to make the guild larger but who can't raid for shit and expect to be carried, good raider(s) see this happening and leave.

  • (cs)

    Wow, fuck this 5-minute edit window shit. It appended the entirety of my post to the post itself. Now that's the WTF (and a 5-minute window to edit is pretty WTF-y in and of itself)

  • (cs) in reply to Sudo
    Sudo:
    Some of you have clearly spent more time with porno than you have with real women.

    Wait.. there are REAL women? <shudders, hiding under desk>

  • Stevie D (unregistered)

    I've started reading the source code for extra comments. TRWTF in the code today was that ALL 50 paragraphs in the story have a

    tag. Come on guys, and join the 21st century!

  • sorrybloke (unregistered)

    Sometimes, you have to let the sick animal die or even help it so as to aleviate everyone's pain.

    If you can't do any of the above, then just get the hell out of there before you get sick yourself and die.

  • Jim Blog (unregistered) in reply to Ucoder
    Ucoder:
    Jaimy:
    Still, it's a poor workman who blames his tools

    No offense Jaimy, but maybe it's better you're where you are instead of, say, construction--your boss might be pissed that you just spent all day smashing your lunch against the side of building because you couldn't find a hammer.

    Agreed. I always figured the point of that saying is that a good workman will always ensure he has the appropriate tools before starting the job. Of course, the matter is muddied somewhat when workmen aren't responsible for their own tools - if your boss is insisting that you knock down a wall with your lunch because they don't have any hammers, then you have a problem. Personally I think it's always best to polish up your CV and start looking for a new job once it becomes clear your boss is an idiot and is making decisions that will harm your company's ability to deliver - self-respect is worth a lot.

  • (cs) in reply to SQLDave
    SQLDave:
    Sudo:
    Some of you have clearly spent more time with porno than you have with real women.

    Wait.. there are REAL women? <shudders, hiding under desk>

    Yes. I went to a grocery store yesterday and there was a woman. Weird thing is, I stood there for an entire 5 minutes and she didn't offer to "have fun".

  • Sanderman (unregistered)

    This story makes me cringe on the inside. TRWTF here is to help the newbie and have your own work suffer because of it, which in this case, led to decreased credibility and less options to avoid disaster.

    On another note. This is one example of why I think programming should not be easy. To blur the line between programming and scripting macros (as happened with VB) or spreadsheets opens the floodgates with idiots thinking they know how to program.

    It also relates to the increasing ease of use for lots of applications and operating systems, which causes all kinds of problems because users don't really know what they are doing but think they do.

  • chris (unregistered) in reply to Ja
    Ja:

    True. Irrespective of the benefits or lack there of from using VB, it does (possibly as a direct result of MS Macros) seem to be the language that attracts the most incompetent programmer's (NOTE: I am not for a second claiming that all (or even most) VB programmer's are incompetent)

    I'm guessing it's because some people (often who can barely navigate to the Excel Icon to open it) [s]write[/s] record a macro and suddenly think that they are the gun programmer

    Maybe that's why. I've wondered why there aren't a bigger proportion of Java WTF's, as I can't imagine it's much less accessible for newbies than VB -- it's got fairly WYSIWYG syntax, a choice of good IDE's, huge inbuilt libraries, 10 different ways of doing everything - what more could you want? ;-)

  • (cs) in reply to Stevie D
    Stevie D:
    I've started reading the source code for extra comments. TRWTF in the code today was that ALL 50 paragraphs in the story have a

    tag. Come on guys, and join the 21st century!

    (not to feed the trolls, but...)

    There's a "Paste from Word" function in the article editor, to keep the pasted text's formatting. Though, given how much Word-cruft it carries over, next time I'll go through the pain of re-bolding the protagonist's name manually.

  • foo (unregistered) in reply to Matt B
    Matt B:
    If you find that someone with NO SKILLS gets past your interview process, you really need to speak up and do something, unless you would rather see your team wither away, quality go down the drain, and to see yourself eventually back out on the job market.

    I work somewhere like that. Can be entertaining some days, frustrating others, but who cares, the pay's good, and there's enough good coders in the team to last longer than the product's lifespan, so it won't cost hurt us before the product's dead anyway.

  • Pauladin (unregistered)

    i can't help but read it in Paris Geller's voice.

  • (cs) in reply to Lorne Kates
    Lorne Kates:
    Stevie D:
    I've started reading the source code for extra comments. TRWTF in the code today was that ALL 50 paragraphs in the story have a

    tag. Come on guys, and join the 21st century!

    (not to feed the trolls, but...)

    There's a "Paste from Word" function in the article editor, to keep the pasted text's formatting. Though, given how much Word-cruft it carries over, next time I'll go through the pain of re-bolding the protagonist's name manually.

    Isn't it unfair to call someone a troll just because they make a comment you don't like? In fact, Stevie D. cared enough to check your article for "hidden" information, which was actually very complimentary.

  • Remy Bowytz (unregistered) in reply to Rob
    Rob:
    Generally, when asked, I advise people never to quit a job unless their next job is lined up.

    This story is an exception.

    The truly frightening part is that it probably did happen. One would hope that, perhaps, Jaimy can come back and tell us when that horror house of cards finally collapsed.

    He could make some extra money in the interim by reporting his former employer to the BSA. I normally wouldn't advise this, but this story is an exception.

  • Rich (unregistered) in reply to HellKarnassus
    HellKarnassus:
    Mythran:
    Visual Studio 2000?!? Wow, they were so cheap they had to invent an old version of Visual Studio...(IIRC, there is no VS2k).
    Please God, let this be evidence that this story is fictional.

    Of course it's fictional. Nothing on this site is real anymore.

  • Platypus (unregistered) in reply to ClaudeSuck.de
    ClaudeSuck.de:
    It is for sure not fictional at all. We once received a new IT manager. A protegé of the CEO. He was trying to impress us with his outstanding knowledge but failed, for example, to set up an ODBC connection from Excel to Access (???, WTF!).

    Your response exhibits exactly the problem Alicia had: a belief that specialization equals skill, that whatever you happen to know represents the apex of knowledge, and that anyone who might struggle in your specialty is an idiot no matter how much you might struggle in theirs. Where I work, I'm surrounded by a lot of the most prolific and talented kernel hackers in the world. We also have compiler hackers, GNOME hackers, security experts, and plenty of others. Every one of them might need to check a manual to set up an ODBC connection from Excel to Access . . . because that's highly Windows-specific knowledge and what we build is Linux. Heard of it? Like much of the world we don't give a crap about Excel or Access, or for that matter ODBC. Maybe that one little snippet of knowledge makes you valuable where you are now, but out in the wider world it's utterly useless.

    Here's a hint: if everybody should know what you know, then it's low-value knowledge. That's simple supply and demand. Instead, you should actively seek out knowledge that's not common, and profit from the fact that you're the best expert that employers or your peers are likely to find in that area. Otherwise your career will consist of nothing better than making ODBC connections between Excel or Access, and that's an epic WTF.

  • Cube Free (unregistered) in reply to anon

    [quote user="anon"]TRWTF is Jaimy going the extra mile to "help".

    If you aren't helping yourself, you're hurting yourself.[/quote

    The real code for all workers to live by is CYA. We've all encountered bitches like Alicia & as long she wears her high heels she will keep climbing those corporate ladders.

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to Compulsion

    The real WTF is not leaving after that happened!

  • J (unregistered)
    "'Computer language'? Not everyone knows your fancy made-up terms for common words," she stated bluntly, "I used Excel."

    Please raise your hand if you would seriously hand a production-level assignment to anyone dumb enough to utter that statement of WTFness.

    Those lines alone would've dropped her to "No commit for you!" status.

  • Who? (unregistered)

    Lorne Kates?

    Well, I for one welcome our new TDWTF overlords.

  • Santiago (unregistered)

    This is a sad story. I miss the KAPOW!

  • Penguin Strangler (unregistered) in reply to Platypus
    Platypus:
    ...what we build is Linux. Heard of it?
    It a religion practiced by snobs, communists, and High Priests of the Ivory Tower. Am I right?
  • AT (unregistered) in reply to Platypus
    Platypus:
    ClaudeSuck.de:
    It is for sure not fictional at all. We once received a new IT manager. A protegé of the CEO. He was trying to impress us with his outstanding knowledge but failed, for example, to set up an ODBC connection from Excel to Access (???, WTF!).

    Your response exhibits exactly the problem Alicia had: a belief that specialization equals skill, that whatever you happen to know represents the apex of knowledge, and that anyone who might struggle in your specialty is an idiot no matter how much you might struggle in theirs. Where I work, I'm surrounded by a lot of the most prolific and talented kernel hackers in the world. We also have compiler hackers, GNOME hackers, security experts, and plenty of others. Every one of them might need to check a manual to set up an ODBC connection from Excel to Access . . . because that's highly Windows-specific knowledge and what we build is Linux. Heard of it? Like much of the world we don't give a crap about Excel or Access, or for that matter ODBC. Maybe that one little snippet of knowledge makes you valuable where you are now, but out in the wider world it's utterly useless.

    Here's a hint: if everybody should know what you know, then it's low-value knowledge. That's simple supply and demand. Instead, you should actively seek out knowledge that's not common, and profit from the fact that you're the best expert that employers or your peers are likely to find in that area. Otherwise your career will consist of nothing better than making ODBC connections between Excel or Access, and that's an epic WTF.

    Your overall point is a great one--but keep in mind the person mentioned FAILED to set up an ODBC connection. Anyone capable of hacking the Linux kernal could pretty quickly figure out or find out how to setup an ODBC connection.

  • (cs) in reply to Simon
    Simon:
    Having seen the calibre of the developers I've come to realise I could never be a real developer. I'm not that smart.

    This acknowledgment alone puts you ahead of about 80% of people who get paid to program computers (I hesitate to use the word "professional").

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