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Hikari had just left Apps R' Us when our submitter, Steve, was asked by the CEO to review some of his code. Now, Steve wasn't on the same project as Hikari, but he had a reputation for being thorough and concise, while Hikari had a reputation for being fast but sloppy. Apps R' Us was a smallish shop, so Steve was a good pick for taking over the project despite barely knowing the requirements.
David was recently hired on to head the company’s development team. This was a brand-new position; previously, William, the company’s IT Manager managed the developers directly in addition to his other duties.
While getting his workstation set up, he was unable to install the FileZilla FTP client. It was completely blocked via domain policy. Finding this very strange, David talked to the IT Manager and hoped there was a legitimate reason.
Alan worked for Maria in the Books-and-Records department of a massive conglomerate. Her team was responsible for keeping all the historical customer transaction records on line and accessible for auditors and regulatory inquiries. There was a ginormous quantity of records of varying sizes in countless tables, going back decades.
Maria was constantly bombarded with performance issues caused by auditors issuing queries without PK fields, or even where-clauses. Naturally, these would bring the servers to their proverbial knees and essentially prevent anyone else from doing any work.
The 80's were a time of great technological marvels. The Walkman allowed a person to listen to music anywhere they went. The Video Cassette Recorder allowed you to watch your favorite movies repeatedly until they wore out. Then there was the magic of Fiber Optics. Advances in the light-blasted-through-glass medium allowed places like Seymour's company to share data between offices at blistering speeds.
Bill, the President of Seymour's company, always wanted them to be on the cutting edge of technology. He didn't always know the why or the how surrounding it, but when he heard about something that sounded cool, he wanted to be the first company to have it. That's where Seymour came in. As Vice President of Technological Development (a fancy job title he got for being the organization's only true techie) he made Bill's dreams come true. All he had to do was ask for the company credit card.
John C was a vigilant protector of justice, a dark guardian of a public who didn’t even know he existed, striking fear into the hearts of criminals. Specifically, he did IT support for the local police department. It wasn’t a great job. Their infrastructure was ancient, underfunded, and under-supported. He was expected to provide just as much support for the department’s website as well as their radio system. The customers were a “special” brand of ignorant, and often pretty angry about it. The department provided service 24/7, which meant John was expected to be available at weird hours, and not even for emergencies. Many of his customers only worked night shifts, and he had to support them.
At around 3AM, John caught a ticket, entered in by one of the secretarial staff. “Officer Bishop reports her email is broke”. With that cornucopia of information, he called Officer Bishop.
Feb 17