• Greg (unregistered) in reply to Yarrr
    Yarrr:
    Practically every article here makes me wonder whether anyone ever has the balls to say, "I think this is a bad idea" ...

    The problem is that too many people don't know how to pull it off right. The situation I come up against most often is that management doesn't like my project time estimates. When this happens I usually say something along the lines of: 'I can tell you any amount of time you want. You can even tell me how much time you want me to tell you, but what I told you initially is the only estimate that I actually sat down and worked out.'

  • (cs) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    The Grammar Avenger:
    Anakin Somebody:
    I find your lack of faith, disturbing.
    I find your shocking abuse of the noble and blameless comma even more disturbing.
    C'mon, it was a direct quote from Star Wars. Agreed: even in a screen-play, it should be an ellipsis and not a comma,
    Uh, except that it shouldn't be either an ellipsis OR a comma. There should be no punctuation at all; it's one continuous clause with no pause or inflection between "faith" and "disturbing".

    "I find your lack of faith disturbing." Listen here -> http://members.tripod.com/SoundBytes1/star_wars/swfaith.wav

    real_aardvark:
    but the difference is nugatory.
    Mmmm, nougat-ory ... <drools>
  • A Gould (unregistered) in reply to Alan
    Alan:
    Well, at least the CEO was generous. I hate it when the boss gets all the latest kit when you are slugging away with yellowing 5 year old stuff.

    Agreed. Little Bonus Story:

    My company finally moved to a new warehouse/office last year (and by "finally" I mean "people didn't have their desks in the warehouse anymore"), and as part of the new construction we went through the usual blue-sky "let's get all new stuff" phase. And of course, a lot of the bells and whistles don't quite work out properly. For instance, each boardroom has a large TV installed on the wall for presentations (and to watch shows). Except that the video feeds don't work with our laptops, and most of them only get one channel (the lucky folks get sports; the receptionist had to deal with Ontario provincial legislature for three months).

    My favorite, however, is the LCD screens - the original plan was to replace all the old tubes and have LCDs at every desk. This may sound bad, except that most of the computers are respectably old, and many have seniority by this point. Each cubicle and office even has that little swingy arm to attach the monitors to. Problem is, the budget came in a bit tight, something had to go.. and now there are about a hundred desks with little swingy arms and nothing attached to them. (Unless you're a Manager or above - they still got the LCDs. Vice-Presidents also got their own color printer. They use them to show how far we're over budget.)

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to TomatoQueen
    TomatoQueen:
    Your tax dollars at work.
    Back when I worked for the government, and one of my co-workers pointed out yet another example of mind-boggling waste, I came up with a standard response: "Don't worry, it's not like it's real money. It's only tax dollars."
  • (cs)

    The real wtf is the irritating manner in which Weng always keeps chancing upon the other dude whilst he's in the midst of a new unloading. Spoiled the whole narration.

    Bleeeccccccccccccchhhhh.....

  • (cs) in reply to DOA
    DOA:
    I wonder why the recycling company didn't just open a second-hand computer branch. Screw non-profit, they could be getting filthy rich.

    Because then people wouldn't be giving them the donations of used equipment that the companies can then use as a charitable donation write-off (to a non-profit).

  • obligatory (unregistered) in reply to tin

    You had PEDALS?!

  • Endo808 (unregistered) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    The Grammar Avenger:
    Anakin Somebody:
    I find your lack of faith, disturbing.
    I find your shocking abuse of the noble and blameless comma even more disturbing.
    C'mon, it was a direct quote from Star Wars. Agreed: even in a screen-play, it should be an ellipsis and not a comma, but the difference is nugatory.

    Us Grammar Nazis have meatier fish to fry than this.

    Addendum (2008-05-24 11:02): Did I say "Us?"

    I meant "U.S." of course.

    Sadly as a grammar nazi you're not a very good one. Neither a comma nor an ellipsis should appear here. Just because someone pauses for effect during speech it will not always affect the punctuation when transcribed.

    The problem often stems from school english teaching where in attempting to "dumb-down" the real nature of lingustic punctuation symbols like commas and periods etc are often explained as being "pauses" such as the nature of taking a breath at the end of a sentence to begin next one.

    However should someone pause for dramatic effect there is no "correct" way to represent this in written text, obviously all of us make attempts to capture the real meaning in someone's dialogue when they transcribe it and thus make us of all manner of symbols to denote the nuances of the original oral statment; however, in this case the comma could be argued as being just as "correct" as an ellipsis, semi colon or even an em dash in that none of them truly correct english and the only truly correct way to write this statement is: "I find your lack of faith disturbing."

    See? No punctuation at all except for the full stop.

    Anyway I call shenanigans at you for making me explain this boring dreck!

  • Mike (unregistered)

    But I expected this story to end:

    "... and six months later the guy comes back and asks me, 'Do you know where I can get a truckload of CRT monitors?'"

Leave a comment on “The Upgrade Treadmill”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article