• Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Merrick
    Merrick:
    How the hell do you not run away screaming after a first day like that? Who in their right mind would stay with such an idiot of an employer?

    I call bullshit. Even in this tough economy, I can't see sticking around to deal with the level of idiocy seen in this "story". Work of fiction this, through and through.

    Hello Merrick and welcome to the wonderful world of IT. You're obviously fresh out of school and I commend your optimistic outlook on the IT industry. I can assure you it won't last for long so relish it while you can.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Steve
    Steve:
    Yeah, this story is total BS. I've seen some REALLY dumb managers and others who were obsessed with irrational processes... but this? sounds totally made up.
    Hello Steve and welcome to the wonderful world of IT. You're obviously fresh out of school and I commend your optimistic outlook on the IT industry. I can assure you it won't last for long so relish it while you can.
  • (cs)

    I am always amazed that a SOFTWARE COMPANY can be so absolutely stupidly clueless. Some company selling Widgets that have non-technical people calling the shots, I can see (although it's still stupid), but a company that is dedicated to software, and presumably owned and operated by someone with a software background doing such idiotic things? Ridiculous.

  • ideo (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Melissa eh? I guess that makes the story about 10 years old.
    The Walking Network 2010-12-07:
    Amada fought her instinct to run out the door and never look back. Everything's worth a try, she told herself, and at least I'll get plenty of walking in. And try it she did, for two full years. Though it was just as bad she imagined it would be on the first day, she got plenty of walking in.
    Caffeine:
    http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Overdue-Retirement.aspx

    I was having a bad case of de ja vu.

    Overdue Retirement 2008-05-28:
    Amanda has been on the job for a few months now, and already feels that her retirement is overdue. Perhaps she should email her official resignation — once the email PC is free, that is.

    Hmmm... Two articles describing the same situation. One from 2008 where Amanda had been working for a couple of months, the other from 2010 where Amanda had worked for two years.

    I think Amanda worked there from 2008 to 2010, but the company may have had no network for 10 years.

  • trwtf (unregistered) in reply to ideo
    ideo:
    Hmmm... Two articles describing the same situation. One from 2008 where Amanda had been working for a couple of months, the other from 2010 where Amanda had worked for two years.

    I think Amanda worked there from 2008 to 2010, but the company may have had no network for 10 years.

    The phrase "desperate cry for help" comes to mind.

  • Kmandew (unregistered) in reply to boog

    No the person that thinks he can write the best code ever without ever looking at a book or the internet, is worst kind of developer to have on any project. Pretentious prick, grow up!

  • neminem (unregistered) in reply to Ajtacka
    Ajtacka:
    I don't know everything there is to know about any language, framework or tool that I use. Being able to admin that only means that I am willing to find out more when it's required, instead of thinking "If I don't know it, it must be impossible!"
    I don't either. But even if I did - I've had to work with a number of various flavors of external frameworks/APIs, and I certainly wouldn't already know *those*, since I'd never even heard of them until I started working on that piece of the codebase. This goes doubly for when, for instance, the company we were getting our imaging library from decided to be entirely unreasonable, and the company thus had to switch to a different library.

    Granted, their online reference was a giant steaming pile of crap, but it was still better than not having any documentation at all.

  • Anomaly (unregistered) in reply to Bobbo

    Not always true! My current job (that I'm supposed to be doing right now) greeted me on my first day with a PC with dual monitors all set up, a "sorry for giving you an old one, there was a shipping delay for the new system we're giving you in a few days", a personal printer, and on top of that, my entire cube had been wiped clean and sanitized.

    Oh, but we don't use the sprinternet. We have a real network here.

  • suscipit (unregistered)
    Anonymous:
    Caffeine:
    http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Overdue-Retirement.aspx

    I was having a bad case of de ja vu.

    Good catch, this is clearly a re-hashed version of that 2 year old article. Interesting that names have not been anonymised, unless two editors independently picked out "Amanda" as the anonymised name. I'd wager this company went out of business thanks to its awful practices, so no anonymisation required.

    StupidTheKid:
    Nice eye indeed, it is a re-hash of an old story.

    Not to re-hash myself a tired meme, but TRWTF would be to use USB keys to prevent virus propagation. A simple google scan on "USB virus" returns no less than a quarter million hits ...

    Did either of you consider that Amanda L. (anonymized last name) submitted a WTF a couple of months after starting work for the company without a network and submitted another WTF after she finally quit?

    drachenstern:
    I'm willing to bet she finally quit
    At least one person did.
  • (cs) in reply to The DailtyWTF Staff
    The DailtyWTF Staff:
    The world's supply of wtfery is running low. Scientists aren't sure why this is - some blame a world-wide explosion of competence, while others call that "ludicrous" and "impossible" and claim instead that we have reached the limit of divisibility for types of idiocy, but that individual acts of stupidity are as common as ever.
    I have a theory. Perhaps it is due to a world-wide explosion of incompetence. As more idiots enter the software development industry, the percentage of individuals who are capable of recognizing perversions in I.T. (curious or otherwise) plummets.

    Furthermore, those of us who are capable of recognizing these "WTFs" have become desensitized, due to being immersed in such incompetence on a daily basis. As a result, we have little motivation to submit the many WTFs that we see as "normal".

  • (cs) in reply to Kmandew
    Kmandew:
    No the person that thinks he can write the best code ever without ever looking at a book or the internet, is worst kind of developer to have on any project. Pretentious prick, grow up!
    Yeah, I'll work on that.

    In the mean time, would you be interested in these batteries to replace the dead ones in your sarcasm detector?

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to ideo
    ideo:
    Hmmm... Two articles describing the same situation. One from 2008 where Amanda had been working for a couple of months, the other from 2010 where Amanda had worked for two years.

    I think Amanda worked there from 2008 to 2010, but the company may have had no network for 10 years.

    Good point, looks like she did indeed work there from 2008-2010. I believe that most commercial anti-virus packages of the day had their definitions updated for Melissa as of the beginning of April 1999. So, assuming the specifics are actually accurate, it means that these clowns have been working without a network in order to avoid a virus that has been effectively protected against for over 11 years. That, my friends, is the very definition of WTF?!

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to suscipit
    suscipit:
    Did either of you consider that Amanda L. (anonymized last name) submitted a WTF a couple of months after starting work for the company without a network and submitted another WTF after she finally quit?
    Probably, but there are absolutely no new details in this second write up so why the hell did she bother? Amanda, if you're reading this would you please stop wasting our time with duplicate submissions, we're busy people you know. Well... I'm kinda busy... I'm just on my lunch break you see...
  • Spearhavoc! (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous

    TRWTF is suburbs, amirite?

  • Guest (unregistered) in reply to anon

    We have a mixed environment in my company.

    Servers are predominantly Win 2003. But we also have Win 2000 and NT4. And Xserves. And Solaris. And CentOS.

    When it comes to desktops, we have Windows 7, XP, 2000, 98 and a few Windows 95 that kick around for a couple of horrific legacy applications. We also have OS X and Mac OS 9.

    I try to remain positive by reminding myself we don't have any Windows ME machines.

  • JJ (unregistered)

    I have a huge "manual" called the MSDN Library installed locally on my machine. I could survive for quite a while without an Internet connection, not that I'd want to.

  • Jon (unregistered)

    TRWTF is that she didn't get hit up on her first day.

  • Englebart (unregistered) in reply to The DailtyWTF Staff

    Maybe they need to run articles through turnitin.com?

  • zdux (unregistered) in reply to anon

    98? Lucky We are on 95 for many of our production systems. The company is in manufacturing so they need a well tested OS. We are still vulnerable to jpeg virii

  • ÃÆâ€â„ (unregistered) in reply to Jon
    Jon:
    TRWTF is that she didn't get hit up on her first day.
    They learned their lesson after their bout with Melissa.
  • Englebart (unregistered) in reply to Spearhavoc!
    Spearhavoc!:
    TRWTF is suburbs, amirite?
    True. Give me the ex-urbs with good broadband. I need it for my NetFlix streaming since there is no video store within 9 miles of my house.
  • Sigivald (unregistered)

    What, no inevitable virus that spread via those damned USB keys being moved from machine to machine rather than the absent network?

    I was waiting for that one.

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to F
    F:
    But they did. In fact, they went one better. One network per machine, all completely separate.
    Sun: The network is the computer. Microsoft: The computer is the network.
  • (cs) in reply to Sigivald
    Sigivald:
    What, no inevitable virus that spread via those damned USB keys being moved from machine to machine rather than the absent network?

    I was waiting for that one.

    They probably do have a virus. They just don't know about it because they don't run virus scans, and they don't run virus scans because they know their machines are "safe".

  • (cs) in reply to Bob
    Bob:
    You need a book / Google to write code? Small tip: don't mention that in interviews.
    Unless your last job hired you for knowing one language but had you producing code in two others within a month. Not that that would ever happen.;-)
  • (cs) in reply to StupidTheKid
    StupidTheKid:
    Nice eye indeed, it is a re-hash of an old story.

    Not to re-hash myself a tired meme, but TRWTF would be to use USB keys to prevent virus propagation. A simple google scan on "USB virus" returns no less than a quarter million hits ...

    If this is during the Melissa timeline, USB virii hadn't been spawned yet. However, floppy-borne virii were pretty common back then, even some boot sector ones like Eek and CIH/Chernobyl. I would've been weary even without the USB virus pandemia.

  • Machtyn (unregistered) in reply to Bobbo
    Bobbo:
    the_article:
    ...setting up Amanda's work area ahead of her arrival.

    This has to be made-up. I've never seen that happen anywhere!

    First day = sitting around waiting for things to be installed and permissions granted.

    Permissions to what? There is no network, there is no domain. All of the permissions are local and have likely been setup when the PC was built

  • (cs) in reply to Bob
    Bob:
    You need a book / Google to write code? Small tip: don't mention that in interviews.

    If you don't need Google for coding, please anwser:

    1 - How do you make sure that there isn't a library out there doing the exact same thing you will just spend the next few weeks coding? Do you know every library?

    2 - How do you manage the tools used for each project (you know, compilers, editors, version contol software)? Do you use the same tools for all? Do you use a stale repository?

    3 - Do you really remember all the APIs of all the languages and libraries you ever worked whit? You don't restict yourself to one language and its core library, do you?

  • ÃÆâ€â„ (unregistered) in reply to Mcoder
    Mcoder:
    Bob:
    You need a book / Google to write code? Small tip: don't mention that in interviews.

    If you don't need Google for coding, please anwser:

    1 - How do you make sure that there isn't a library out there doing the exact same thing you will just spend the next few weeks coding? Do you know every library?

    2 - How do you manage the tools used for each project (you know, compilers, editors, version contol software)? Do you use the same tools for all? Do you use a stale repository?

    3 - Do you really remember all the APIs of all the languages and libraries you ever worked whit? You don't restict yourself to one language and its core library, do you?

    1. For a lot of people, that's a yes.
    2. Do you constantly change tools that you need Google all the time? Normally these things can update themselves without Google too.
    3. You don't need Google to check cplusplus.com, python.org, or php.net.
  • Crabs (unregistered) in reply to Ajtacka
    Ajtacka:
    Bob:
    You need a book / Google to write code? Small tip: don't mention that in interviews.
    This is an attitude I just don't get. Yes, I can write good code on my own. But it's also helpful to have a manual or Google handy, for those times when you think "Which way do the parameters go?" (yes, PHP), "Oh, I think x function does this exact thing, but I've never used it before" and of course, "There *must* be a better way to do this!". When those situations come up, I want to spend a maximum of a few minutes finding what I want.

    I don't know everything there is to know about any language, framework or tool that I use. Being able to admin that only means that I am willing to find out more when it's required, instead of thinking "If I don't know it, it must be impossible!"

    Don't feed the troll.

  • Charlie (unregistered) in reply to boog
    boog:
    Kmandew:
    No the person that thinks he can write the best code ever without ever looking at a book or the internet, is worst kind of developer to have on any project. Pretentious prick, grow up!
    Yeah, I'll work on that.

    In the mean time, would you be interested in these batteries to replace the dead ones in your sarcasm detector?

    I'm confused. How can I get these batteries? Can you send them to our email laptop?

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to snoofle

    If people could instead just show some cojones and leave such idiots would not be around, making the next unlucky employee's life so bad.

    People that keep crap jobs are responsible for this.

  • (cs) in reply to Charlie
    Charlie:
    boog:
    In the mean time, would you be interested in these batteries to replace the dead ones in your sarcasm detector?
    I'm confused. How can I get these batteries? Can you send them to our email laptop?
    No need, it seems yours still have some juice left.
  • Mike (unregistered)

    Next story is from Michael: "Hey, remember when that new developer we hired actually believed the practical joke we set up? We had her going for what, TWO YEARS, actually believing we didn't have a network and the spare PC was the "Email PC"..?? ROTFL... but I have to admit, the best part was the USB stick thing.. hilarious!"

  • (cs) in reply to The DailtyWTF Staff
    The DailtyWTF Staff:
    boog:
    Ryan:
    1. Name is identical 2. Email PC 3. Transferring by USB drives 4. Version control on a laptop 5. Little known about backing up version control 6. Inter-office emails are printed and handed to user
    7. Networks. BAD!! Beer. GOOD!!

    Ladies and gentlemen (and frits), we have a problem. The world's supply of wtfery is running low. Scientists aren't sure why this is - some blame a world-wide explosion of competence, while others call that "ludicrous" and "impossible" and claim instead that we have reached the limit of divisibility for types of idiocy, but that individual acts of stupidity are as common as ever.

    Whatever the cause, clearly there is a shortage of humorous tales of moronic behavior for your delectation, and the "daily" wtf will be scaling back to a monthly publication schedule in order to conserve this valueble resource.

    On the non-wtf days, we will feature cute pictures of charismatic mammals in endearing poses. (To appeal to the broadest possible audience, some of these photographs will not be pornographic in nature.)

    Thank you. That is all.

    Sorry, this is what I was trying to post:

    Okay, here's a story that might amuse you all: I used to work with a woman called Paula who spent all her time rearranging her email files and customizing her desktop (never saw her do a stroke of actual "work" as such) and - get this - she had this odd idiosyncrasy: whenever she appreciated the irony of a situation, she would enthuse: "Brillant!"

  • (cs) in reply to Jon
    Jon:
    TRWTF is that she didn't get hit up on her first day.

    She might have been a bit of a growler, possible?

  • (cs) in reply to Mike
    Mike:
    F:
    But they did. In fact, they went one better. One network per machine, all completely separate.
    Sun: The network is the computer. Microsoft: The computer is the network.
    If only this weren't true.
  • Herby (unregistered) in reply to Xero
    Xero:
    How is it that no one thought of an internal only and external only network?
    The answer to this is pretty simple: Management. They have no clue, and in this (and other) cases they probably never will. This is the greatest WTF for sure!
  • (cs) in reply to ca1977a
    ca1977a:
    Bob:
    You need a book / Google to write code? Small tip: don't mention that in interviews.
    Unless your last job hired you for knowing one language but had you producing code in two others within a month. Not that that would ever happen.;-)

    Any programmer who would feel seriously uncomfortable with that scenario would probably not survive long in the industry nowadays. There are a few at my place of "work" who refuse to update their skills, which explains why they're still in the same position they started at over a decade ago, I suppose.

  • (cs) in reply to danixdefcon5
    danixdefcon5:
    StupidTheKid:
    Nice eye indeed, it is a re-hash of an old story.

    Not to re-hash myself a tired meme, but TRWTF would be to use USB keys to prevent virus propagation. A simple google scan on "USB virus" returns no less than a quarter million hits ...

    If this is during the Melissa timeline, USB virii hadn't been spawned yet. However, floppy-borne virii were pretty common back then, even some boot sector ones like Eek and CIH/Chernobyl. I would've been weary even without the USB virus pandemia.
    Assuming you meant to say "wary" instead of "weary", I congratulate you on crafting a comment that works well with or without the misspelling.

  • (cs) in reply to Mike
    Mike:
    Next story is from Michael: "Hey, remember when that new developer we hired actually believed the practical joke we set up? We had her going for what, TWO YEARS, actually believing we didn't have a network and the spare PC was the "Email PC"..?? ROTFL... but I have to admit, the best part was the USB stick thing.. hilarious!"

    +1

  • Ben L. (unregistered)

    They probably have a computer dedicated to getting viruses.

  • Ben L. (unregistered) in reply to anon

    Windows 7 is NT6.1. Your point?

  • You'd think that...but you'd be wrong (unregistered) in reply to Merrick

    My current place of employment may not be as bad...but it's not for lack of trying.

    Let me give you an example. See, we recently set up an AD domain. Not having any experience with AD, it was set up pretty much as you'd expect it to be ( ie: piss poor ). However, this place took it even further.

    See, when you join a workstation to the domain it prompts you for credentials. Obviously, you can't use your own credentials...you're an admin! It's a security risk! So instead, they set up a new user account for every machine they joined to the domain. And true to form, it was not in the domain admin group...but rather in the administrators group ( because, obviously, a non-local admin can't join a computer to the domain ( yes, I know non-admins can join machines to the domain )! Thus, the user account used to join the machine to the domain was put in the domain administrators group in the hopes that it would somehow wind up in the local workstation's admin group. And in a way, it did ).

    Why didn't they go back and remove these accounts after they joined the workstations to the domain? Because workstations need their own accounts in the domain...duh! Well, that, and they used REAL names for the accounts. Like Sally Jenkins, or Mark Coal.

    So no, I have no problem finding this story believable. In fact, I'm wondering if this is my company 10 years ago.

  • Someone who actually interviews developers (unregistered) in reply to Bob

    You honestly believe you know every single thing there is to know about your chosen platform(s) and can do everything without the aid of a book or google?

    Small tip: Don't mention that in interviews.

  • Scotty (unregistered)

    SRA, I wonder if management would approve of running usb cables into to the repository machine room. Then you could have a rostered repository operator by the machine and on the phone who could patch you in and send teh codez. Then secretary could do a similar thing with email by patching to peoples Email USBs (EUSB) and copying the email text as it arrives - attachments are also bad and images are frivolous. That way if you needed email you could just plug in the EUSB and you've got the latest. Then they could brag to clients about our inhouse datacomms solution that's superceded ethernet.

    Heck I should be on a management fast-track

  • (cs) in reply to danixdefcon5
    danixdefcon5:
    StupidTheKid:
    Nice eye indeed, it is a re-hash of an old story.

    Not to re-hash myself a tired meme, but TRWTF would be to use USB keys to prevent virus propagation. A simple google scan on "USB virus" returns no less than a quarter million hits ...

    If this is during the Melissa timeline, USB virii hadn't been spawned yet. However, floppy-borne virii were pretty common back then, even some boot sector ones like Eek and CIH/Chernobyl. I would've been weary even without the USB virus pandemia.

    "Virii"? Really?

    The plural of virus is viruses.

    Virii doesn't even make sense in Latin, let alone in English. The Latin word virus is a mass noun, like traffic or music in English — it can't be pluralized.

  • Gunslinger (unregistered)

    Sneakernet FTW!

  • (cs) in reply to the beholder
    the beholder:
    Ah, the joys of using a Sneakernet! I've never worked with one but in my college there were labs where that was the only network available. Once I even had to dig up a box of 3.5 in. disks I had forgott^Wstored somewhere.
    I used a SneakerNet system, once. It was 1983, and a computer operator ran around with one of those big magnetic tape reels to pick up pending source code changes and dump them onto our main development computer. I don't miss it.
  • R C (unregistered)

    Well, first thing that came to mind when I read about the "no network" and "USB stick versioning system" was: Mercurial (other people would probably puke at "mercurial" and say "git" instead). OK, so no network, but that shouldn't prevent me from committing as often as I bloody like to. For emails, I'd probably make use of an off-line mailer which piles up all the messages I want to send, and just push them all and get my new messages (a la fetchmail) when I get to the email machine. Everyone else can suffer more than me though :)

    I would dissent the fact that I can't access Wikipedia whenever I feel like. I'd put in a request for a Wikipedia computer. Or better: a Wi-Fi Access Point to which I can connect my own laptop and laugh in everyone else's face :)

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