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Jun 09Mister Fix-it
by in Feature Articles on 2009-07-30
To the outside observer, Christopher M's work environment might appear to be a potential breeding ground for WTFs. They supported an "enterprise-level" product and, when a developer noticed a bug, the development manager expected him to just go in and fix it. No change controls, no QA oversight — those were far too time consuming and added little value. Almost anywhere else, this set up would result in chaos, but Chris and his four fellow coders were experts, and they were able to navigate the lack of process.
One day, the development manager decided that, to better handle the bug fixes for their applications and be able to support their growing user base, they needed a new developer. And he knew the perfect candidate. On paper, Winston looked as though he would be an ideal match, and he interviewed even better. Not only did he passed the developer test with flying colors, but when asked about his free time and hobbies, Winston responded with a stern and serious face: "I seek out and destroy poorly written code." His knowledge, attitude, and tendency towards geekery put him over the top, so he was asked to start the following Monday.
Jerry wasn't the sort of guy who would normally vent frustration out loud at work, yet here he was - cursing into the air at two individuals in particular - the first round of explitives being directed at the toolbag, somewhere, who had botched months of server backups by reusing the same set of tapes for months and the other being a long ago departed developer whose name he was continually being subjected to in the comments of the rotten shell script he was now stepping through.