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Admin
Hmm ... that's all double-Dutch to me. Dutch, anyway.
The really amusing thing is the "else" deliberately hidden away on the RHS right in the middle that you can't see.
But I'm disappointed in Domino. It's a fun and entertaining challenge to clean up a rubbish application and make it spiffy.
Admin
A hollow voice says plugh.
Admin
Rule #57: Always do an audit when a key employee leaves (quit or fired) and take action at that time.
Admin
Ah hell Jessie James probably lost the source code long before they uhm...left.
Admin
I'm a bit surprised that there was no attempt to hamfist the phrase "blasting off" into this story considering the gratuitous amounts of Pokemon Team Rocket references.
Admin
Even highly paid "developers" "believing" in source control f**k things up. When restructuring our cvs into a more maintainable source tree he deleted something he thought was old code not checking with product support or making any backup of it for a product used by customer paying a lot of money for our software.
These are the kind of "programmers" creating two kinds of XML configuration files to solve the same problems whitout schema or documentation: Connecting to a server. Sys Admin loves these programmers!
Admin
The application would have been much better if Meowth had written it.
Admin
The RealWTF is the author trying again to shoehorn in things that add nothing of value to the story. Today it's Pokemon. Last week George RRRRRR Martin. Next week?
Admin
"Convinced"? You ask him if he has the information, and if he does, offer him $x to come in and provide the information.
Al this "dunno" garbage doesn't make sense. Why would a fired employee sit in a meeting and provide no information? Either you offered him nothing, so he came in to waste your time for laughs, or you offered him compensation and he reneged.
Admin
Rule #1 of firing/retiring/quitting people. Their accounts are disabled the moment the door closes after they are are walked into the meeting room.
Rule #2 of firing people. They don't touch anything with a computer in it on they way out the door. Not even the elevator controls.
Rule #3 of firing people. Your "things" will be delivered to you by courier tomorrow.
Admin
@CodeSlave re 3 rules Not necessarily. 30 years ago, I worked for this place that was told by its sole customer (big gov/military) that there would be no more huge contracts; from then on it would be smaller, more manageable tasks. The company refused to change the types of projects it was sponsoring, the contracts dried up, and all that was left was a steady stream of layoffs. The first couple folks were escorted to HR and out the door, without the opportunity to get their jacket, wallet or car keys from the desk, leaving them no way to even get home. They waited outside until we came out for lunch and asked us to go back in and at least get their personal stuff.
Perhaps: we'll escort you out and bring your personal stuff to you at the gate.
Re: keeping folks away from their computers once you tell them they're being fired: one guy ran the equivalent of a cron job every day. If he didn't do something to tell it "I'm here", it would set a 3 day timeout after which a script would run to delete stuff.
Not saying I agree with it, but sometimes management imposes stupidity and you want your name off things....
Admin
Just plain NO to #3. You want to pull their computers, fine. But this goose-step out the door and wait in the rain for someone to bring you your coat and maybe your car keys too is the kind of abuse that leads to massive negative reviews on LInkedIn, Monster, etc. I'll never even consider working for any subsidiary of $BIG_US_DEFENSE_CORP after getting hit w/ #3 . And I've told everyone I know the story of that layoff. If nothing else, anyone who takes a job there will know enough to keep personal backups somewhere off-campus, or, yeah, write those deadman switch-style cron jobs.
Admin
Meh, today's wasn't that bad. Subtle naming joke that didn't detract from the story. The George R. R. Martin one was miserable though.
Admin
How about Rule #0: Don't be a dick, and don't hire dicks.
Seriously, it's not particularly hard to foster a culture that doesn't treat people like complete shit. And lo and behold, generally when people aren't treated like shit, they tend not to act like shit. And the few remaining assholes should be weeded out fairly early on before they have actual access to anything sensitive.
Admin
Meowth, that's right!
Admin
[applications were still commonly distributed on CD-ROMs] I think you mean DVDs when the story is in 2006. CD-ROMs are so 90s-ish.
Admin
Oh no, people still used cd-roms for stuff because it saved them extra pennies. Either than or they used them because it's wasteful to put a 57mb application on a 4.7gb disk.
Admin
snoofle/Carl Witthoft: Keys, wallet, purse, coat, etc. can be collected by security and delivered to the person. #3 is for their protection as well - if something goes wrong between the time they get the news and they leave the building, they can't possibly be responsible.
Dead-man switch jobs should be hard to keep undetected (at least for anything serious) if you are cross-training your people enough. And if discovered, would probably be grounds for termination. And there's a reason for password rotations (and admin accounts that they had access too should be changed anyways).
If you think the organisation is bad enough that you need to have a Dead-man switch - be the dead-man switch yourself and get out (find another job). And don't keep personal files/data at work. Your other chattel can wait a day to come home
It's not about treating the person who's been fired/laid off like a piece of shit. It's about ending the relationship cleanly.
It may not even be the fault of the person who was fired/laid-off (most of the time the person who did the hiring made the wrong choice during the hiring or other forces in the organisation have lead to the need for a layoff).
Anon-Anon: sometimes the problem doesn't manifest until after their probation period is up, or there's a life change that's begun to manifest it self negatively at work. Often the employer can help/accommodate in some way - because typically that's cheaper than firing and replacing a worker (which can be 6-12mo. salary), and more importantly it's the right thing to do (leadership is about the performance and well being of those you are leading).
And over all... EVERYONE thinks they are the good guy. Taken from their history and perspective, every one of their actions makes sense.
Admin
Actually, there are team leads who feel sorry for having to fire someone, just because the senior management decided a workforce size cut and they are ordered to hand-in a candidate namelist. They may hate to see you go but cannot help because of budget.
Admin
There were pokemon references?
Admin
I didn't get the Pokemon references. I read Jessie and James as being references to the old Wild West outlaw Jessie James when reading the references to cowboy style coding. Any other references that can substantiate the Pokemon reference claim?
Admin
All of it can only be linked to anime: Jessie and James - The most incompetent duo of Team Rocket Giovanni - Their boss Domino - A Team Rocket agent who is a bit more adept at her job
Admin
It occurs to me to comment that a CD-ROM doesn't have grooves.
It has ONE continuous spiral stream of bits, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a groove, either.
Admin
Some implementations of CDs use actual pits grooved into the plastic.
Admin
TRWTF is that it took like 20 comments before mentioning that optical media doesn't have grooves. It's not vinyl records.
Admin
Actually, a recordable CD does have a groove, pressed into the disc at manufacture, to guide the laser during the writing process.
It even encodes some information in a similar way to a vinyl record. The groove has a frequency-modulated wobble that, among other things, marks the places where each block is to begin when recording.