The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Classic WTF: The Firing Offense

by Mark Bowytz in Feature Articles on 2013-12-31

It's been a great year here at The Daily WTF and according to our in-house statisticians, The Firing Offense by Charles Robinson, published on May 21st, was our most popular article in 2013! Enjoy and see you back on January 2nd, 2014.

Egon was fortunate enough to land a front-line support job fresh out of college, but he didn’t enjoy a single minute of it. He continued to slog thru the seven circles of Helldesk for about a year until he found an opportunity to move on. An opening at nearby WTF University’s Electronic Engineering department needed to be filled by a well-rounded IT guy. Egon didn’t think he had much of a chance to land the job, but desperation made him try.

48 comments - Last comment @ 2014-03-04

Classic WTF: A Crony Joke

by Mark Bowytz in Feature Articles on 2013-12-30

Today's 2013 WTF flashback article is a great one written by Remy Porter back on July 30th and is a perfect example of Hanlon's Razor in action.

Steve set aside his Turkish pizza and borek and answered the phone. He was taking lunch around the corner from the office.

49 comments - Last comment @ 2014-01-11

Classic WTF: A Misleading Memory

by Mark Bowytz in Feature Articles on 2013-12-27

Today's Best of '13 classic was written by Ellis Morning and originally ran back on March 12th. It shows that one constant remains as true today as it was years ago: the very worst users are sure to call just as you're about to walk out the door. Google+

6:55 PM. Tom's shift ended in precisely five minutes. Neither he nor any of his late-shift copilots were on the phone at the moment, so increasingly carefree banter flowed through an otherwise empty office. His co-workers discussed that new game, Myst, and the latest puzzle that stumped them. They'd keep it up all the way out to their cars.

44 comments - Last comment @ 2014-01-17

Classic WTF: The Biggest Boon-Dongle in the World

by Mark Bowytz in Feature Articles on 2013-12-26

With the year drawing to a close, it's a great opportunity to review our best articles from 2013. Here's one written by snoofle that was originally published back on January 31st.

Telecommunications manufacturing is a cut-throat business. Features, functionality and hardware need to be added and continuously improved at a frenetic pace in order to stay one step ahead of the competition. Engineers must constantly increase their skills to leverage the latest advances in technology to design and build the best product possible at the lowest cost. Slip up just a little, and it can be a death knell for your company.

20 comments - Last comment @ 2013-12-31

Best of Email: Questionable Maintenance, A Refund on Storage, and More

by Mark Bowytz in Feature Articles on 2013-12-24

Don't forget, The Daily WTF loves terrible emails. If you have some to share, mail in your mail!

So...When is Maintenance Again? (from Eric J.)

58 comments - Last comment @ 2013-12-31

Long Distance to Valid

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2013-12-19

“Could you be on this call too, Bruce?”

Bruce puzzled over the request. “Abby,” he said, “if Dale will be there, I’m not sure I need to be.”

91 comments - Last comment @ 2014-01-02

Confessions: Network-Terminating Protocol

by Dan J. in Feature Articles on 2013-12-17

Paul's family has a long, proud tradition of working in IT. His father ran support for a Stanford computer lab, and his grandfather — a greengrocer — claimed to have seen a UNIVAC one time. Ambling dutifully down the path their ancestors trod, not only was Paul sysadmin for a research lab, but his brother, Saul, was on the same university's network security team. The brothers' relationship was an amicable one, but there was one incident about which Saul always felt the need to give Paul a hard time.

It had been like any other day at Paul's workstation when an IM arrived from his brother: "I'm going to forward you an email we just got from the operator of a public NTP server - it's about one of YOUR machines." That sounded ominous, but Paul didn't have long to wait; a moment later, the complaint arrived in his inbox:

89 comments - Last comment @ 2014-01-02

Requirements by MSPaint

by Erik Gern in Feature Articles on 2013-12-12

Stuart read the project document for Stark Portal, his new assignment from Michael, the department project manager. At first glance he thought Michael had forgotten the requirements entirely. That wasn’t the case.

There was only one requirement listed: LIKE LANNISTERNET BUT GREY

110 comments - Last comment @ 2018-03-30

Call Me Ishmael

by snoofle in Feature Articles on 2013-12-10

David E. and his peers were pirates back in the pioneering days of the wide open seas of the internet back in 1998. Their small group consisted of a few just-out-of-college adventurers and one slightly more seasoned manager. They sailed by the seat of their pants while writing a new product for their company. It was like sailing over the ocean, looking for something, but not knowing what...

The application they had cooked up looked promising, but the initial roll-out went... badly. It performed fine when they tested it-- but when clients started hitting it all at once, it choked. They felt as though they were locked in a pillory, and gleefully mocked by David's boss's arch nemesis-- let's call him Ahab. Ahab swaggered into the review and ripped at their design, convinced it would never work, all the while touting his own example. David's team had to concede that he was right, and re-factored a lot of their code. After all, Ahab was The Man!

67 comments - Last comment @ 2017-02-05

'O'-Convertible

by Bruce Johnson in Feature Articles on 2013-12-05

The consulting company that Alicia worked for, NewSoft Associates, was in the intelligence business. Their work involved digging through data produced using technology that was years and decades old, identifying the nuggets that were valuable, and persisting them into a central repository so that others could perform the needed analysis and take the appropriate action.

Yes, they were a Business Intelligence company. And Alicia was one of their leading consultants.

122 comments - Last comment @ 2013-12-12

Managed Order Management

by Remy Porter in Feature Articles on 2013-12-03

Hiro’s employer, an international consultancy firm, hosted a number of applications for “enterprise” customers. They provided everything from HR solutions to order management tools. Each local office was independent, but a central corporate office would issue decrees to be obeyed as divine law.

One such decree ordered them to upgrade customers to a new, internally developed order management package, ASAP. Corporate had put a lot of time and effort into the tool, and wanted a successful roll-out. Hiro’s office did what they were told, and to prove their loyalty to their corporate overlords, they started by bringing their largest customer, Initech, on line. Hiro’s management proudly reported a successful migration.

118 comments - Last comment @ 2013-12-23

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