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Admin
The name "Sten" made me think of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sten which, despite its faults, was probably less dangerous than Sten Of The Many Girlfriends.
Admin
On the upside, the names of babies those girlfriends might have birthed were not used. At least, some things are still sacred to Sten.
Admin
Ahh.. Novell Netware 3.x,
vrepair, purge.exe; 1GB storage requires >= 8 MB RAM on the server, Client: config.sys-shenanigans to preserve memory for cd-rom (mscdex.exe, LOADHIGH whatever.sys) -> uptime was measured in years.
Sweet memories can be had here, life was "simple" then. /remote access via Zyxel 1496 (or Telebit Trailblazer), if one cannae solve the problem with 9somethingbaud it's gonna be a >2hr drive instead //don't get me started on "a worm per CPU as screensaver"
fuck, I feel old just right now...
///had not many girlfriends 'cos I was on the road all the time
Admin
I actually thought you were linking to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sten_Chronicles
Also probably less dangerous than this Sten. Although the Alex Kilgore Jokebook (not referenced in the article) could likely be weaponized, especially the one about the spotted snakes.
Admin
88 Lines (Of Code) About 44 Women
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwUotTbF2aw
Nails it.
Admin
Team, when you fire him, pin on him all the books I cooked at Global Crossing. Yeah. Crisis response: Fall Guy. PS: In case anyone doesn't know this already, the only reason I hire people is to have someone take the blame, or take a bullet.
And don't steal all his stuff like you do when we always fire someone. His chair, his desk, his computer, everything, straight to the dumper. And wear gloves. We all know Renfield here has been humping the 17" NEC we gave him.
Admin
The workspace requests all sound reasonable to me. I've had to climb on many a desk to remove flickering fluorescent light bulbs...
Admin
One question. How can you tell that a pill is "homeopathic?"
Admin
Thank you, didn't know it. Had great fun singing along :)
Admin
"In the long ago, wild-west days of the late 90s, there was an expectation that managers would put up with a certain degree of eccentricity from their software developers."
Oh, I can assure this is still the case. I recently read a book where they basically presented them as a desired business practice. A book written in 2020. I guess that makes us only 30 years behind, which is a great step forward from the usual 40-50 years I claim about. /s
Admin
If it works it wasn't
Admin
It's written in big fat letters on the package?
Admin
Sad thing is, nowadays the managers would not dare firing him just because of his peculiar pronouns.
Admin
Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, especially if the story is exaggerated significantly - but mostly I just felt like Sten has mental problems and needs help. Of course he doesn't belong anywhere on a team working with other people, but I'm not comfortable with just letting him go without at least trying to find out if he has anything going on in his life that has made him this way, and suggesting he gets help.
Admin
This isn't peculiar. This is a full blown mental illness. And judging by the description of pills (I'm assuming that's accurate and not Remy's invention), he either doesn't have a therapist or has the wrong one... While in this state he should certainly be nowhere near an active workforce, I also do hope he eventually got the help he needed. I feel simultaneously sorry for him, and glad that I wasn't there.
Admin
Sten obviously watched "Hackers" and thought "THAT'S how I get a job!"
Admin
I know all the names here are pseudonyms, but the one time I hired a real-life Sten in the mid-2000s it was a disaster.
He wasn't quite as eccentric as today's Sten, but their eccentricities were/are at least cousins. Another self-appointed guru for whom all attempts at company-level standardization or cooperation or even use of the company CI workflow were met with lofty "I don't do that; it's not a Sten best practice".
I brooked little such shit and having started on Monday he was gone by noon on Friday. Would've been sooner, but I was busy midweek with other management tasks.
Admin
You might be surprised. If he can get a job, he can get at least one date. Given a single-date definition of "girlfriend", and access to whatever people were using instead of Tinder in the late 90's, I can imagine this guy swiping right for months--or even years--until he finally gets a date with some random Quintessa for the other 10-point Scrabble letter. He has no particular reason to be untruthful here. Delusional, yes, sure, probably OCD and a smorgasbord of other problems too--but don't assume he's lying, because lying might be more than he can do. The number of girlfriends tells us that they probably don't find his quirks (or rapidly oscillating vibrant red flags) amusing for very long, which would expand the set of available letters for coding rapidly.
There's a fine line between "functional but neuroatypical" and "mental illness", and he could probably use a gentle but firm nudge toward the former side of it.
Admin
Duke suspects that Sten was struggling against language barrier. He disappointed that other posters have such narrow view of human behavior that they jump to conclusion of mental illness. It is not pleasing to Duke.
Admin
Sten is now a highly-paid consultant helping web site editors optimize their page titles for clicks. Here's How He Does It.
Admin
You think people should be fired specifically due to their pronouns?
Admin
He was fired because he could not put out code.
Admin
Is this a true story? I want to believe it's a true story, but it sounds made-up..
Admin
Sten's got 99 variables and Mitch ain't one.
Admin
Well, this post is likely borderline ableist...
If Sten is not exaggerated/made-up he's probably suffering from an autism spectrum disorder and may not even be aware of the effect he's having on his surroundings.
Maybe he thinks he's hilarious. Get that reference to 80ies text adventure games? Hahaha! Or hey, variable names are getting replaced in byte code/assembly anyway...
Although, I've seen people, likely not disabled giving variables names like "Bob" so that specific part may just be a curiosity. The light sensitivity thing, or for that matter, the likely problems to keep a job on the other hand suggests other things are going on...
Unfortunately, without the diagnose he may be desperately in need of, no one is going to care... I hope Sten is able to put two and two together and get the help he hopefully can get from his government, but I've seen cases of people with top educations go decades without getting or keeping a job and still not figure out what/who the common factor in their problems are.
Admin
We (early ecom startup) had a Sten working for us for a while in the middle '90s.. Nice kid, but I think he joined the Army or something. Dunno what happened to him. Hope it's not the same guy.