The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2013-03-29 Reply Admin

bkDJ:
Rewriting this TDWTF, which spans multiple articles and days, seemed like an afternoon job, so I tried it in a comment at the request of a co-commenter:
Tye is a shitty in-your-face manager. Mack does as he is told, except when the boss is out; then he goads coworkers (probably only to throw them under the bus when the boss gets back). Aargyle couldn't follow orders or keep his mouth shut, succumbs to peer pressure, and in trying to be clever, wastes company resources to produce objectively slower code. Aargyle gets fired.

I wouldn't assume that not knowing what the use case for the sorted data is.

2013-03-29 Reply Admin

X:
So basically... Low-level grunt goes against orders and tries to show up his boss.
TRWTF is why he didn't expect to get fired.

Because in any country with halfway-decent labour laws, it is illegal to fire an employee simply because the employee has tried to do the job correctly. If you do so, there is a hearing by an independent court and then the employer gets to reinstate the employee and censure the manager. This means that employees and managers can concentrate on doing the job together instead of having an adversarial relationship.

Presumably, things work differently in your country. I'm glad I don't live there!

Please tell me in what country you live and what is the major job board. I am willing to move.

Matt Westwood · 2013-03-29 Reply Admin

ObiWayneKenobi:
GCoder:
Also, letting someone go like that, the company's best to get a second opinion on that or risk a lawsuit on the grounds of workplace harassment, hostile work environment, and being fired over following an engineer's code of ethics. Especially if you know there's a problem, know how to fix it, being told to keep your thoughts to yourself or do something that is dangerous or can have severe consequences if you follow through.

Assuming this story is in the US, 99% of employment is "at will" which means you can be fired for any reason or no reason at all barring obvious (i.e. proven) discrimination. If you reported something illegal (think Enron) and were fired for it, you could sue for wrongful dismissal but in these circumstances it's just insubordination (i.e. he did something his boss didn't tell him to do) and there's no legal recourse.

Given this story takes place a number of years in the past, things might have been different then but in the current day and age Aargle wouldn't have a leg to stand on; in some states (especially Florida) a hostile and abusive environment isn't even a justified reason to quit (i.e. if you quit, you are denied unemployment).

Yet another top-hole reason not to go within 1000 miles of that shittycunt nation.

chubertdev · 2013-03-29 Reply Admin

I can't hear you over my freedom.

Murica

2013-03-29 Reply Admin

X:
Because in any country with halfway-decent labour laws, it is illegal to fire an employee simply because the employee has tried to do the job correctly.

Yup.

X:
If you do so, there is a hearing by an independent court and then the employer gets to reinstate the employee and censure the manager.

Nope. Who's going to afford the better lawyers, the employee who got fired for trying to do the job correctly, or the WTF company that's still in business with all its corporate resources? The employer gets to keep the manager and the honest former employee gets to hope that McDonald's won't phone the former employer.

2013-03-30 Reply Admin

GCoder:
Also, letting someone go like that, the company's best to get a second opinion on that or risk a lawsuit on the grounds of workplace harassment, hostile work environment, and being fired over following an engineer's code of ethics. Especially if you know there's a problem, know how to fix it, being told to keep your thoughts to yourself or do something that is dangerous or can have severe consequences if you follow through.

Your grammar is FUBAR so that the meaning of the above gets lost in translation.

Lorne Kates · 2013-03-30 Reply Admin

Aargle Zymurgy:
Story was submitted a bit ago. Maybe it'll turn up.)

Out of curiosity, what was the title you used for the submission?

Matt Westwood · 2013-03-30 Reply Admin

Norman Diamond:
X:
Because in any country with halfway-decent labour laws, it is illegal to fire an employee simply because the employee has tried to do the job correctly.
Yup.
X:
If you do so, there is a hearing by an independent court and then the employer gets to reinstate the employee and censure the manager.
Nope. Who's going to afford the better lawyers, the employee who got fired for trying to do the job correctly, or the WTF company that's still in business with all its corporate resources? The employer gets to keep the manager and the honest former employee gets to hope that McDonald's won't phone the former employer.

Aha, now we begin to put our collective finger on what's really wrong. The real WTF is living in a country where the winner of a legal dispute is the one who has most money, as opposed to the one who is on the right side of the law.

2013-03-30 Reply Admin

Please tell me in what country you live and what is the major job board. I am willing to move.

South Africa (careers24, pnet, and careerjunction are OK boards), but it's hardly unique. A lot of non-US countries don't allow employers to simply fire you whenever they feel like it.

2013-03-30 Reply Admin

There's a downside to employee's rights, too. Starting up your own company is becoming near-impossible in some places due to mega bureaucracy. Also, if you hire other people, you're at the mercy of the laziest idiot that manages to cheat you into hiring him; not doing the job he was hired to do is not a good reason to fire someone here. (In Finland.)

2013-03-30 Reply Admin

ObiWayneKenobi:
Assuming this story is in the US, 99% of employment is "at will" which means you can be fired for any reason or no reason at all barring obvious (i.e. proven) discrimination.

Yes you can be fired for any reason, except all the reasons you cannot be fired. All of those reasons come from case law more than statute. And the first rule of contracts, a clause in a contract only matters if a court will enforce it. Employment contracts are rife with unenforceable clauses. It seems very hard for many people to get their head around, if it's generally not enforceable, that you signed it, doesn't make it enforceable.

One common way companies get tripped up is if they has procedures, either written or unwritten for when and how to terminate employees. If those aren't followed then it's a violation of the contract between the employer and employee and actionable.

2013-03-31 Reply Admin

CleanCode:
Couldn't resist - had to read the story early. TRWTF is that Mack is still there.

Don't you see? Mack threw Aargle to the wolves so that he could himself keep the job... That was the point of writing the second sort implementation. Just shows how clueless Aargle was, not to see it coming.

2013-03-31 Reply Admin

gnasher729:
I think it must be an American thing. Freest country in the world

It's true. For corporations.

shimon · 2013-03-31 Reply Admin

he also tried to ban the use of the ternary operator on the grounds that he didn't understand it.

While I understand the ternary operator, I would ban it too, along with the comma operator, due to the fact that abusing it provides a great way to write barely comprehensible and bug-ridden code.

I have spent the most bizarre Friday of my life refactoring code that was filled with ternary operator nightmare in the same way as the Europe was filled with snow this March.

Matt Westwood · 2013-03-31 Reply Admin

shimon:
he also tried to ban the use of the ternary operator on the grounds that he didn't understand it.

While I understand the ternary operator, I would ban it too, along with the comma operator, due to the fact that abusing it provides a great way to write barely comprehensible and bug-ridden code.

I have spent the most bizarre Friday of my life refactoring code that was filled with ternary operator nightmare in the same way as the Europe was filled with snow this March.

What, a little scattering here and there that made the wussies hide under their blankets sucking their thumbs whimpering?

2013-03-31 Reply Admin

Old Crow:
There's a downside to employee's rights, too. Starting up your own company is becoming near-impossible in some places due to mega bureaucracy. Also, if you hire other people, you're at the mercy of the laziest idiot that manages to cheat you into hiring him; not doing the job he was hired to do is not a good reason to fire someone here. (In Finland.)

In the US rules for smaller companies are different than large outfits for that reason. I work for a small company, they could just let me go anytime they want. Firing is a different story because it effects unemployment benefits. My boss says that the biggest problem with hiring someone is making sure they have a constant supply of work they can do, followed by managing health insurance plans.

2013-03-31 Reply Admin

"Real Escape String" in the title? Looks like whatever PHP code was hacked in to block access to future articles is the real WTF.

operagost · 2013-04-01 Reply Admin

I could hear every line spoken by Tye in the voice of Alice from "Workaholics".

operagost · 2013-04-01 Reply Admin

Brent:
bkDJ:
Rewriting this TDWTF, which spans multiple articles and days, seemed like an afternoon job, so I tried it in a comment at the request of a co-commenter:
Tye is a shitty in-your-face manager. Mack does as he is told, except when the boss is out; then he goads coworkers (probably only to throw them under the bus when the boss gets back). Aargyle couldn't follow orders or keep his mouth shut, succumbs to peer pressure, and in trying to be clever, wastes company resources to produce objectively slower code. Aargyle gets fired.

"Objectively"? I don't think Tye's results can be said to be objective at all... you'd be better off trusting reports on the health benefits of smoking from studies commissioned by the cigarette companies. For starters, I'd be asking how many tests she ran before she found a result she could use.

And at a stunning 0.2% margin.

operagost · 2013-04-01 Reply Admin

gnasher729:
Almafuerte:
I've been working in IT for 15 years now.
Even when I was a noob, a junior, barely out the oven, I would have never taken that kind of abuse.

I was never afraid to talk to the boss of my boss, and stand my ground if I knew I was right. And if anyone had treated me that way, I would have told that colossal, unprofessional bitch to fuck off.

What the hell is with every story of management abuse in TDWTF?, everyone is so fucking afraid. This stories should be way shorter ... "Management did something stupid, and contradicted the most basic common sense, so I told them this was the right way, and told them to go eat a bowl of dicks, then proved I was right, and they had to STFU and embrace my solution". Or, simply "That place sucked, so when I noticed everyone was insane, I quit and went to work somewhere else". Or maybe: "I told them to go fuck themselves, and they fired me. Good".

Everyone in this stories have water instead of blood in their veins.

I think it must be an American thing. Freest country in the world, the boss is free to fire you any time, which means the lowly employee is not even free to speak up against a disgustingly incompetent manager.

When I went to school, one thing you would be taught is how to stand your ground against any authority. Not how to shut up, but how to speak up. Somehow I managed to always have bosses who would rather have you speak up when something is wrong. Needless to say, none of these jobs were in the USA.

Employers don't have freedom?

operagost · 2013-04-01 Reply Admin

X:
So basically... Low-level grunt goes against orders and tries to show up his boss.
TRWTF is why he didn't expect to get fired.

Because in any country with halfway-decent labour laws, it is illegal to fire an employee simply because the employee is incompetent.

FTFY.

Scarlet Manuka · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

dc:
eVil:
So, given that everyone here is somehow involved in the software development game (or, the laughing-at-badly-developed-software game), we can assume the readership has at least some minimum level of intelligence.
You owe me a new keyboard.

Why? He didn't say the minimum was above zero.

2013-04-04 Reply Admin

Gibbon1:
I work for a small company, they could just let me go anytime they want. Firing is a different story [...]

Please explain the difference between "letting someone go" and "firing someone."

2013-04-04 Reply Admin

bkDJ:
Aargyle couldn't follow orders [...] Aargyle gets fired.

"Aargle." Either you're partial to a certain type of sock or you've played a lot of Fallout 3.

2013-04-06 Reply Admin

shimon:
he also tried to ban the use of the ternary operator on the grounds that he didn't understand it.

While I understand the ternary operator, I would ban it too, along with the comma operator, due to the fact that abusing it provides a great way to write barely comprehensible and bug-ridden code.

I have spent the most bizarre Friday of my life refactoring code that was filled with ternary operator nightmare in the same way as the Europe was filled with snow this March.

I wrote C code for the better part of 15 years, and I don't think I used the ternary operator more than once, and that was when I was still pretty green. It's one of those tools that looks cool on paper, but its actual use tends to muddy things.

But preprocessor abuse is a crime and should be punished severely.

2016-12-02 Reply Admin

a comment reminded me of something from one of Scott Adam's books: a company gave out questionnaires with a section called "areas you could improve on"...fortunately, a co-worker warned him that anything he wrote there would go on his record as "poor performance"!

The Tye That Binds ...(part 2 Real Escape String)

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