The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
GoatCheez:
Please excuse my poor spelling on my previous post. I meant "too small" for "two small", and "train of thought" instread of "train of though". It was probably obvious, but I figured I'd still mention it in case the spelling and grammar police show up.

What do you think this is? Slashdot?

Mod parent up!

Sgt. Zim · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
This site no longer posts the type of WTFs I've been accustomed to over the years.

I'm leaving!!!

Well ... Bye!

Disgruntled DBA:
snoofle:
Sorry - I hit POST instead of HTML while editnig....

Interesting asiide: My sister is a very non-technical psychogist. I recently introduced her to TDWTF, just to get her slant on the folks who participate. She had some interesting observations:
- we, as a group, tend to yammer on, no matter how boring/trivial we think the WTF is
- we tend to bash naysayers more than stupid posts ("we lack confidence")
- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.
Interesting
I like ice cream.

Put Paula in a Ninja-ette suit, on a wooden table. Put the ice cream on Paula ... Get digital camera. Hmm, we never found out if Paula was a hot as Bean-bag girl.

Never mind.

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Paula Bean...where are you when we need you most?!?

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

SilverDirk:
... but Foosball Girl is in an advertisement for an "online community for software development", so there's a chance that she is a programmer chick.

In much the same way that there's a chance of it snowing in New York next weekend ...

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

snoofle:
- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts ...

I've more than once seen lengthy Usenet theads triggered by an empty post with a subject like 'test - please ignore'

Richard Nixon · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

snoofle:
Sorry - I hit POST instead of HTML while editnig....

Interesting asiide: My sister is a very non-technical psychogist. I recently introduced her to TDWTF, just to get her slant on the folks who participate. She had some interesting observations:
- we, as a group, tend to yammer on, no matter how boring/trivial we think the WTF is
- we tend to bash naysayers more than stupid posts ("we lack confidence")
- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.
Interesting

I have no use for psychologists or their opinions. There are very few psychologists helping people that have serious issues.

sincerely,
Richard Nixon

snoofle · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Richard Nixon:
snoofle:
Sorry - I hit POST instead of HTML while editnig....

Interesting asiide: My sister is a very non-technical psychogist. I recently introduced her to TDWTF, just to get her slant on the folks who participate. She had some interesting observations:
- we, as a group, tend to yammer on, no matter how boring/trivial we think the WTF is
- we tend to bash naysayers more than stupid posts ("we lack confidence")
- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.
Interesting
I have no use for psychologists or their opinions. There are very few psychologists helping people that have serious issues.

sincerely,
Richard Nixon

Neither do I, but she babysits for free, and she cooks really well :)

BTW, she doesn't really discuss her practice, but over time, I've noticed that the folks she sees seem to want help, as opposed to some folks who actually need help, but won't admit it (I'll leave it to your imagination to come up with some [public] names)

smbell · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Sgt. Zim:
Anonymous:
This site no longer posts the type of WTFs I've been accustomed to over the years.

I'm leaving!!!

Well ... Bye!
Disgruntled DBA:
snoofle:
Sorry - I hit POST instead of HTML while editnig....

Interesting asiide: My sister is a very non-technical psychogist. I recently introduced her to TDWTF, just to get her slant on the folks who participate. She had some interesting observations:
- we, as a group, tend to yammer on, no matter how boring/trivial we think the WTF is
- we tend to bash naysayers more than stupid posts ("we lack confidence")
- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.
Interesting
I like ice cream.
Put Paula in a Ninja-ette suit, on a wooden table. Put the ice cream on Paula ... Get digital camera. Hmm, we never found out if Paula was a hot as Bean-bag girl.

Never mind.

Paula Bean. Bean Bag. Come on. Anybody can tell they're the same person.

snoofle · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
SilverDirk:
... but Foosball Girl is in an advertisement for an "online community for software development", so there's a chance that she is a programmer chick.
In much the same way that there's a chance of it snowing in New York next weekend ...

I work in NY, and leave nearby. Every winter, I make about 2 dozen snowballs, and put them in the downstairs freezer. On what I perceive as the hottest summer day, I usually take them out and have a (short) snowball fight with the kids. Guess what I'm going to do tonight?

frosty · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

marvin_rabbit:
OneFactor:
SilverDirk:
Anonymous:
Anonymous:
As this isn't really much of a WTF... I would like to suggest a new conversation topic and direct everyone's attention to the new "Beanbag Girl", if your attention wasn't there already.

hmmm..... "Beanbag Girl".... I like...
Hmm... Beanbag Girl is hotter, but Foosball Girl is in an advertisement for an "online community for software development", so there's a chance that she is a programmer chick. So she still wins.

There's also the possibility that Foosball Girl actually looks as good in real life as she does in the picture. I'd bet money that the Beanbag photo has been digitally altered or something.

This sound like a sit-comm plot...

Several Sumo Lounge Beanbags get delivered to the Cambrian House. Wackiness ensues. Probably with pajamas and pillow fights.

But the fooseball girl pushes the limits of work-safe with the cleavage shot.

R.Flowers · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

snoofle:
Interesting asiide: My sister is a very non-technical psychogist. I recently introduced her to TDWTF, just to get her slant on the folks who participate. She had some interesting observations:
- we, as a group, tend to yammer on, no matter how boring/trivial we think the WTF is
- we tend to bash naysayers more than stupid posts ("we lack confidence")
- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.
Interesting

We're no different than any other forum on the Internet, in that regard.

My opinion is that your sister is a really weird person to have read enough of this forum to make those observations, if she's not involved in the subject matter. (This is not a criticism! If she's a professional psychologist, I guess that explains it; I could not read more than a post or two from a professional psychology forum!)

mnature · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Dagur:
I agree.

Yesterday I locked myself out of the house, but i'm not going to post that here.

The sad part is, it probably only took you 15 seconds to break in, but when you have a key it takes you 20 seconds to open the door.

mnature · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

snoofle:
Sorry - I hit POST instead of HTML while editnig....

Interesting asiide: My sister is a very non-technical psychogist. I recently introduced her to TDWTF, just to get her slant on the folks who participate. She had some interesting observations:
- we, as a group, tend to yammer on, no matter how boring/trivial we think the WTF is
- we tend to bash naysayers more than stupid posts ("we lack confidence")
- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.
Interesting

Arguing with a programmer is like wrestling with a pig in the mud. After a few hours, you realize the pig likes it.

I like pie, by the way.

Satanicpuppy · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
As this isn't really much of a WTF... I would like to suggest a new conversation topic and direct everyone's attention to the new "Beanbag Girl", if your attention wasn't there already.
Or we could share stories of similar dumb goofups that we've made.

Meh, maybe I'm old fashioned, but I still prefer foosball girl. WTF is a "Top quality foam bead" anyway. There are levels of quality for foam beads?

Satanicpuppy · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

snoofle:
Sorry - I hit POST instead of HTML while editnig....

Interesting asiide: My sister is a very non-technical psychogist. I recently introduced her to TDWTF, just to get her slant on the folks who participate. She had some interesting observations:
- we, as a group, tend to yammer on, no matter how boring/trivial we think the WTF is
- we tend to bash naysayers more than stupid posts ("we lack confidence")
- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.
Interesting

1) Forums like TDWTF always strike me as more narcissistic, because of the lack of conversational threading. I often post something then wander off, without bothering to check to see if anyone ever replied to it. Regular reading of the comments suggests I am not alone.

2) Technical people are all about why it wouldn't work. Stupid posts are to be ignored.

3) This is standard messageboard meme propagation, and quite common on the internet. Check slashdot for "Soviet Russia", "Beowulf clusters" and other such staples.

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

The real WTF is you needed a psychologist to tell you this.

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

GoatCheez:
marvin_rabbit:

It took me a couple of reads to get to the hidden meaning. I think that when he said he "probed a little" (and we all know how painful that can be), he was referring to asking a few probing questions. These probing questions being directed to Chicken Little. And thus, at the end of the probing, he was saved the necessity of having to look at the situation himself.

AHHHHHHHHHHH! That makes much more sense now... All you need is to add "her" after the word probed and it all makes sense.

The last thing filler TDWTF entries need is all the sniggering that would induce...

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Satanicpuppy:
Anonymous:
As this isn't really much of a WTF... I would like to suggest a new conversation topic and direct everyone's attention to the new "Beanbag Girl", if your attention wasn't there already.
Or we could share stories of similar dumb goofups that we've made.

Meh, maybe I'm old fashioned, but I still prefer foosball girl. WTF is a "Top quality foam bead" anyway. There are levels of quality for foam beads?

You wouldn't get far with Beanbag girl anyway.

Sure, you might get to second base one night at a party, after she's drunk half a bottle of Vodka. You'd think you actually had a chance. Especially after you discover that she works for an Airline, and invites you to spend a week with her on tropical Langkawi, 'cause she can get real cheap tickets.

But then the deal will fall through because all the tickets are sold out, and you will end up travelling up the coast by train with kids running up and down the aisle all night and them vomiting all over everything. And when you get there you end up spending the week on the couch because it she will say that it was just the alcohol talking 'that night' and she only wants to be friends. breathing faster

So you will spend a couple of months as friends and discover that she answers her mobile phone in the middle of movies and that no amount of make-up can cover bad-breath. And 'friends' really shouldn't be that needy or get pissed off when you stop calling them. Or invite you up to their apartments late at night. And despite everything you will still feel as stupid as George from Seinfield did, when he turned down the 'coffee', when you tell her that you "really don't need to borrow an umbrella".

But you move on, you move upwards, and just when you think you've found something else - SHE will ask YOU out, and you'll say 'no', you will actually say no, and she will turn into a CRAZY psycho DEMON freak and plunge your already punctured confidence into a bottomless pit of black, tar-like despair. Your entire life will shatter, will pop like a bubble, and you'll wish you had never crawled away from the inky-green glow of that Wyse50 terminal you used to play Nethack on when you were 6 years old.

So yeah. The moral of the story is, don't kid yourself.

Hanneth · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Let me guess, your girlfriend just broke up with you?

Bus Raker · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:
As this isn't really much of a WTF... I would like to suggest a new conversation topic and direct everyone's attention to the new "Beanbag Girl", if your attention wasn't there already. Or we could share stories of similar dumb goofups that we've made.

Mmmm....women. You dont see too many of those in IT, well, none with such obvious talents.

What I'm pondering is that guy below. Is that Patrick Moore (The gamesmaster himself), and is he wearing the class action suit of which he speaks?

Actually scrub that, he looks more like Steve Ballmer on a bad day.

Sincerely, Me

The advertisers must love the slow WTF days...

Bus Raker · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

marvin_rabbit:
I think that when he said he "probed a little" (and we all know how painful that can be), he was referring to asking a few probing questions. These probing questions being directed to Chicken Little. And thus, at the end of the probing, he was saved the necessity of having to look at the situation himself.

By probing a little, I think he meant in the back office ... how else would he know not to see if the columns were cut off by the window? That's like working for a help desk and not asking 'is the power cord plugged in?'

Bus Raker · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Disgruntled DBA:
snoofle:

- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.

Interesting

I like ice cream.

Cool. me too. What's your favorite flavor? I like Chocolate Fudge Brownie

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Hanneth:
Let me guess, your girlfriend just broke up with you?

Naaaaaah. That's an old story. I just mention it here as a cautionary tale for those of us eyeballing leggy blondes. And to keep in practice. Gotta keep up that self-pitying air of pathos, you know.

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

GoatCheez:
I'm confused. In the second paragrah, it is stated:

Being the de facto VSS administrator (since nobody else had a clue how it worked), I probed a little, and discovered that apparently the filenames of all the checked-in files were truncated. All of them -- every single file.

That states that the filenames were truncated. Meaning something like "somelongfilename.file" got changed to "somelongfi". If that happened, how would stretching the filename column solve the problem. If the filenames were changed in VSS, as it was stated, then widening the column would do nothing.

Now, if what we are meant to believe actually did happen (the filenames weren't truncated, the column was just not wide enough), then I would have scolded her for wasting my time. It's complete and utter stupidity. Frankly, I can see how something of this nature would result in the person either being demoted or fired as well. Let's go through what her train of though would have been.

"The filenames in VSS look wrong. They suddenly stop all at the same place as if they were truncated..."
"I must assume that VSS got corrupted. I need to go to the SS master to tell him so."

No where in her train of thought had it occured to her that it could possibly be something that she had done. Also, she never attempts further investigation. The right thing to do after seeing that the names appear wrong (Aside from looking at the columns at the top) would be to change the working folder, and to get the latest version of all of the files. If she had done this, then it would have been obvious that it was something wrong with the sourcesafe client (like the column being two small).

Stupidity.

If everyone who made a dumb mistake got fired, no one would be working. Including you.

olddog · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

All appearances would indicate that a sub-culture has developed within this forum. References to topical legacies abound, probably none greater than the famous Paula Bean reference... or the all too common "classic WTF"... or the "Goggles". Or Brillant. OMG.

Not to mention that wonderfully crafted "Wooden Table" solution. I still laugh when I think that - as retarded as it sounds, it would actually work.

I can't help but think there are some fun metrics here just itching to be discovered. For instance - it seems inevitable that a thread will eventually run off-topic ( at least they all seem to at some point ). An interesting measurement would be at what point, or which 'nth' thread did that occur. Perhaps the measure of "A Classic" is the thread's ability to maintain focus.

Or the number of legacy references to past topics. Or the number of alternate solutions offered...Word count, Word popularity...

This post is itself and indication that WTF stew needs some stirring up with fresh ingredients. Heck, I'd accept a WTF that was a fabricated tale, as long as it involved a plausible solution that performed horribly. To me, the best posts are the ones that make me say "Wow - this actually works? Why would they do that?" Or the ones that are so convoluted that it takes some time to unravel the real purpose.

None the less - there's still a panoply of old posts to ponder.

ParadisePete · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Not a WTF either, but it's in the same spirit as today's.

My boss, angrily punching over and over again the keys of his calculator (the kind that sits flat with the big giant tilted number display) calls me over to show me that it was broken. I ask him what's wrong and he says "I'm trying to take ten percent of this number and nothing happens!"

I guess he hadn't noticed the little dot shifting over. I didn't see any point in asking why he needed a calculator for that.

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

This is not a WTF. It is just a pathetic excuse for the braggers to brah about how good they are and the others are not.

Bring the real thing, the real WTF, on real systems live out there. Expose the true nature of this IT world we work on. Some poor girl lack of computer awareness has got nothing to do with it.

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
As this isn't really much of a WTF... I would like to suggest a new conversation topic and direct everyone's attention to the new "Beanbag Girl", if your attention wasn't there already.

oh its there

olddog · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
This is not a WTF. It is just a pathetic excuse for the braggers to brah about how good they are and the others are not.

Bring the real thing, the real WTF, on real systems live out there. Expose the true nature of this IT world we work on. Some poor girl lack of computer awareness has got nothing to do with it.

Aaargghh...( like a pirate ) Aaargghh...don't vend me this sissy scallie-wag swill. Feed me the the tough knuckle of the true enemy... the code so perverse that mere mortals pale at it's mention. The code so fowl that it's presence defies common sense. The code so vile that no man or beast could have conjured it and lived to claim it.

Find Paula Bean.

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

I wanna be her beanbag.

Not saying I have any resemblance...

Some Idiot · 2006-08-03 Reply Admin

snoofle:
Sorry - I hit POST instead of HTML while editnig....

Interesting asiide: My sister is a very non-technical psychogist. I recently introduced her to TDWTF, just to get her slant on the folks who participate. She had some interesting observations:
- we, as a group, tend to yammer on, no matter how boring/trivial we think the WTF is
- we tend to bash naysayers more than stupid posts ("we lack confidence")
- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.
Interesting

WTF!?! The real WTF is that your sister thinks she understands anything about the posts on this site.

No, the really real WTF is that you even bothered to post what your sister thinks about the post on this site. In my extensive experience, people who post observations by other people about people posting comments on other peoples comments are WTFs in themselves. Enough said!

What's your sister's name anyway, Paula? I'm surprised you didn't put her comments on a wooden table, take a photograph, .....

Actually, I'm with goatcheez - I wanna see more observations.

2006-08-03 Reply Admin

OneFactor:
SilverDirk:
Anonymous:
Anonymous:
As this isn't really much of a WTF... I would like to suggest a new conversation topic and direct everyone's attention to the new "Beanbag Girl", if your attention wasn't there already.

hmmm..... "Beanbag Girl".... I like...
Hmm... Beanbag Girl is hotter, but Foosball Girl is in an advertisement for an "online community for software development", so there's a chance that she is a programmer chick. So she still wins.

There's also the possibility that Foosball Girl actually looks as good in real life as she does in the picture. I'd bet money that the Beanbag photo has been digitally altered or something.

The minds of most posters here have been digitally altered as well, so who the hell cares?

2006-08-03 Reply Admin

snoofle:
Sorry - I hit POST instead of HTML while editnig....

Interesting asiide: My sister is a very non-technical psychogist. I recently introduced her to TDWTF, just to get her slant on the folks who participate. She had some interesting observations:
- we, as a group, tend to yammer on, no matter how boring/trivial we think the WTF is
- we tend to bash naysayers more than stupid posts ("we lack confidence")
- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.
Interesting

Theres a type of humor that work by a emulation layer. Theres good examples on slashdot, and here is a mirror. You can't check if this mirror is original or only a clone to mock of the slashdot humor. Maybe we have normal humor senses, and we only pretend to have the broken geek version.

Also the broken geek humor sense has some interesting features. Its for smartasses, is dark than darkness and is easy to generate, because is cliche based. You can generate normal humor trough absurd repetition of broken geek humor cliches. Check Andy Kauffman and other Absurd Masters.

IMHO the broken geek humor sense is not more than a thin "smiley" layer all over our comments. The friendly way to speak ones to another, even IF theres nothing to comment than "I am happy to be alive".

We, the geek, have profound non-trivial layers, and the visible absurdy lame surface. And your comments are "surface-related" comments, nothing to do with what is really beyond the surface. Thanks anyway for tryiing :D

--Tei

draken · 2006-08-03 Reply Admin

I know we use VSS at my place as well, not my choice believe me (subversion all the way).

Maybe I ought to run about office (no cubes this time) screaming 'The sky is falling, we're using VSS, nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo'.

forteagent · 2006-08-03 Reply Admin

snoofle:

I quite agree. Which is why I never read the comments or post a reply.

2006-08-03 Reply Admin

Good story, but more importantly..

I kind of like that beanbag sofa on the right side.. :)

forteagent · 2006-08-03 Reply Admin

snoofle:
Interesting asiide: My sister is a very non-technical psychogist. I recently introduced her to TDWTF, just to get her slant on the folks who participate. She had some interesting observations:

- we, as a group, tend to yammer on, no matter how boring/trivial we think the WTF is

-

I quite agree. Which is why I never read the comments or post a reply.

2006-08-03 Reply Admin

Surely the real WTF is that the company had a SourceSafe repo. that wasn't actually corrupted already.

2006-08-03 Reply Admin

I for one am getting sick and tired of the previous WTF references. As soon as i start reading about something wooden, I scroll down.

And I always read every single reply, even if they make no sense whatsoever (like this tei guy, who never seems to have constructed one coherent sentence).

2006-08-03 Reply Admin

Bus Raker:
Disgruntled DBA:
snoofle:

- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.

Interesting

I like ice cream.

Cool. me too. What's your favorite flavor? I like Chocolate Fudge Brownie

Really? I prefer foosball girl, looks more natural.

2006-08-03 Reply Admin

Well hello there beanbag girl. How are you?

2006-08-03 Reply Admin

Richard Nixon:
snoofle:
Sorry - I hit POST instead of HTML while editnig....

Interesting asiide: My sister is a very non-technical psychogist. I recently introduced her to TDWTF, just to get her slant on the folks who participate. She had some interesting observations:
- we, as a group, tend to yammer on, no matter how boring/trivial we think the WTF is
- we tend to bash naysayers more than stupid posts ("we lack confidence")
- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.
Interesting
I have no use for psychologists or their opinions. There are very few psychologists helping people that have serious issues.

sincerely,
Richard Nixon

Are you gonna finish that placenta?

masklinn · 2006-08-03 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
VSS is not evil. At least it's versioned. Half the battle seems to be getting the development team actually *using* some kind of versioning system instead of somebody's desktop PC....

I'm a ClearCase person myself, but of course you need a fair bit of money in your organization to afford that. Subversion is a more affordable (i.e. free) alternative. It's spoiled me; I tend to chafe a bit at the older version control systems because they don't have the flexibility. But the old systems do work, even if some of them have dopey GUIs.

VSS IS evil. It barely does the versioning you need, and makes pretty much everything a pain. On top of that, it actually has the ability to destroy your files.

In fact, I think that anyone using SourceUnsafe should read two interresting articles called Visual SourceSafe Version Control: Unsafe at any Speed? and Visual SourceSafe: Microsoft's Source Destruction System, I found that they pretty much said what I had experienced with SS, and i learned many more reason to hate that thing.

ParkinT · 2006-08-03 Reply Admin

So that's where Paula went! <g>

GoatCheez · 2006-08-03 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
GoatCheez:
I'm confused. In the second paragrah, it is stated:

Being the de facto VSS administrator (since nobody else had a clue how it worked), I probed a little, and discovered that apparently the filenames of all the checked-in files were truncated. All of them -- every single file.

That states that the filenames were truncated. Meaning something like "somelongfilename.file" got changed to "somelongfi". If that happened, how would stretching the filename column solve the problem. If the filenames were changed in VSS, as it was stated, then widening the column would do nothing.

Now, if what we are meant to believe actually did happen (the filenames weren't truncated, the column was just not wide enough), then I would have scolded her for wasting my time. It's complete and utter stupidity. Frankly, I can see how something of this nature would result in the person either being demoted or fired as well. Let's go through what her train of though would have been.

"The filenames in VSS look wrong. They suddenly stop all at the same place as if they were truncated..."
"I must assume that VSS got corrupted. I need to go to the SS master to tell him so."

No where in her train of thought had it occured to her that it could possibly be something that she had done. Also, she never attempts further investigation. The right thing to do after seeing that the names appear wrong (Aside from looking at the columns at the top) would be to change the working folder, and to get the latest version of all of the files. If she had done this, then it would have been obvious that it was something wrong with the sourcesafe client (like the column being two small).

Stupidity.

If everyone who made a dumb mistake got fired, no one would be working. Including you.

This isn't a dumb mistake in my book. This person had no desire to investigate the issue further on her own, and instantly sought out advice. Put it like this:

I pull down the latest version of a project from sourcesafe, and open the project up in visual studio.
I open a source file to start adding functions. I notice that the end of the function declaration has been truncated. I go to my boss. He comes over and looks at the window, and starts clicking the right arrow in the text editor. I go "Oh...".

If he DOESN'T fire me, I'd be really surprised, and would SEVERLY question the capability of everyone else that boss had hired. It goes far beyond stupidity and into the realm of total retardation.

marvin_rabbit · 2006-08-03 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Satanicpuppy:
Anonymous:
As this isn't really much of a WTF... I would like to suggest a new conversation topic and direct everyone's attention to the new "Beanbag Girl", if your attention wasn't there already.
Or we could share stories of similar dumb goofups that we've made.

Meh, maybe I'm old fashioned, but I still prefer foosball girl. WTF is a "Top quality foam bead" anyway. There are levels of quality for foam beads?

You wouldn't get far with Beanbag girl anyway.

Sure, you might get to second base one night at a party, after she's drunk half a bottle of Vodka. You'd think you actually had a chance. Especially after you discover that she works for an Airline, and invites you to spend a week with her on tropical Langkawi, 'cause she can get real cheap tickets.

But then the deal will fall through because all the tickets are sold out, and you will end up travelling up the coast by train with kids running up and down the aisle all night and them vomiting all over everything. And when you get there you end up spending the week on the couch because it she will say that it was just the alcohol talking 'that night' and she only wants to be friends. breathing faster

So you will spend a couple of months as friends and discover that she answers her mobile phone in the middle of movies and that no amount of make-up can cover bad-breath. And 'friends' really shouldn't be that needy or get pissed off when you stop calling them. Or invite you up to their apartments late at night. And despite everything you will still feel as stupid as George from Seinfield did, when he turned down the 'coffee', when you tell her that you "really don't need to borrow an umbrella".

But you move on, you move upwards, and just when you think you've found something else - SHE will ask YOU out, and you'll say 'no', you will actually say no, and she will turn into a CRAZY psycho DEMON freak and plunge your already punctured confidence into a bottomless pit of black, tar-like despair. Your entire life will shatter, will pop like a bubble, and you'll wish you had never crawled away from the inky-green glow of that Wyse50 terminal you used to play Nethack on when you were 6 years old.

So yeah. The moral of the story is, don't kid yourself.

Wow. And I thought I was bitter...

2006-08-03 Reply Admin

The most disturbing part of his tirade was this line:

Anonymous:
no amount of make-up can cover bad-breath.

Gross.

Digitalbath · 2006-08-03 Reply Admin

GoatCheez:
Anonymous:
GoatCheez:
I'm confused. In the second paragrah, it is stated:

Being the de facto VSS administrator (since nobody else had a clue how it worked), I probed a little, and discovered that apparently the filenames of all the checked-in files were truncated. All of them -- every single file.

That states that the filenames were truncated. Meaning something like "somelongfilename.file" got changed to "somelongfi". If that happened, how would stretching the filename column solve the problem. If the filenames were changed in VSS, as it was stated, then widening the column would do nothing.

Now, if what we are meant to believe actually did happen (the filenames weren't truncated, the column was just not wide enough), then I would have scolded her for wasting my time. It's complete and utter stupidity. Frankly, I can see how something of this nature would result in the person either being demoted or fired as well. Let's go through what her train of though would have been.

"The filenames in VSS look wrong. They suddenly stop all at the same place as if they were truncated..."
"I must assume that VSS got corrupted. I need to go to the SS master to tell him so."

No where in her train of thought had it occured to her that it could possibly be something that she had done. Also, she never attempts further investigation. The right thing to do after seeing that the names appear wrong (Aside from looking at the columns at the top) would be to change the working folder, and to get the latest version of all of the files. If she had done this, then it would have been obvious that it was something wrong with the sourcesafe client (like the column being two small).

Stupidity.

If everyone who made a dumb mistake got fired, no one would be working. Including you.

This isn't a dumb mistake in my book. This person had no desire to investigate the issue further on her own, and instantly sought out advice. Put it like this:

I pull down the latest version of a project from sourcesafe, and open the project up in visual studio.
I open a source file to start adding functions. I notice that the end of the function declaration has been truncated. I go to my boss. He comes over and looks at the window, and starts clicking the right arrow in the text editor. I go "Oh...".

If he DOESN'T fire me, I'd be really surprised, and would SEVERLY question the capability of everyone else that boss had hired. It goes far beyond stupidity and into the realm of total retardation.

Yeah, good point. There was this new guy a few weeks ago at my company who didn't know how to make coffee. He asked me how to do it. I kicked him in the face and said RTFM. I then sent him a link to google. He said it would probably just be faster if I told him how. Just then, our boss was walking by and saw the new guy's bloody lip. He asked what was going on and once he found out, he fired the new guy on the spot while high fiving me.

Just in case...that was a joke. Seriously, yes it was silly, but she wasted maybe 5 minutes of this guy's time tops? Oh no!!! That's like $3.50 down the tubes. How many wtf's have we seen here that have wasted much, much more time and money.

If you seriously think that's grounds for dismissal, I sure hope I never work for you. And you probably won't be in charge of people very long after you get sued.

2006-08-03 Reply Admin

This is not a WTF.

2006-08-03 Reply Admin

snoofle:

- someone could post "I like ice cream", and we would still generate 75 posts commenting on such related topics as: Paula, FileNotFound, Wooden tables, etc.

Hmmm, Paula + FoosBall Girl + Bean Bag Girl + wodden table + pictures,

I need a cold shower

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