Thunderdome 2015 » Printable Version of Topic

Forum: General Stuff
Topic: Work
started by: TheCatt

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 16 2012,09:34

We had layoffs at my company today. I'm in management, and we had a management meeting this morning.

The executives spent 2 minutes saying "we have revenue challenges and will be laying off a small # of people." Then 10 minutes going through crap about "survivorship guilt," etc.

First question: How many people were laid off and what is the budget impact?
EVP: We don't think it's appropriate to discuss that.

WHAT. THE. FUCK?

Posted by thibodeaux on Nov. 16 2012,10:04

2nd question: Will we still be making twinkies?

Posted by Troy on Nov. 16 2012,10:21

EVP's actual answer "Fuck if we know, were just going to start firing people until the red numbers turn black."

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 16 2012,10:42

Follow-on management meeting:
Mgr: I heard (blah blah blah) was let go.
Other Mgr: I heard (blah blah blah2) was let go.
Me: Is there just a simple list so we can stop rumouring and conjecturing?
Director: I don't think there's going to be one.

I'm clearly not cut out for this crap.

Posted by GORDON on Nov. 16 2012,10:45

Obviously you and your peers are not high enough up to be filled in on what's going on in your company.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 16 2012,10:45

"Why are you doing a keg stand in the middle of my 'laying people off' speech"?

"It's not appropriate to discuss that at this time. Maybe when they keg's empty."

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 16 2012,10:48

The worst part is, there's PLENTY of people we could have let go of cuz THEY FUCKING SUCK.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 16 2012,10:51

(TheCatt @ Nov. 16 2012,12:48)

QUOTE

The worst part is, there's PLENTY of people we could have let go of cuz THEY FUCKING SUCK.

You can bet they suck at their work, but they're awesome at sucking up. If only they could find a job that consisted solely of sucking up. Personal assistant, congressional page, financial risk adviser for a major investment firm?

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 16 2012,13:38

Hmm, the execs sent out a letter today at my workplace. Vague and nondescript as possible. "Some people don't have jobs," but nothing more specific.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 16 2012,16:14

Hahahahaha, it must be going around.

At any rate, in our department of 60, 2 people were let go. 1 was the admin assistant for the group, who, while young, cute, friendly, and great to have, wasn't super good at actual work.

The other, I was upset about because I thought he had been doing really well. Finally got the director alone later in the day. Yes, he had been doing great, they had made him a $100k+ offer, etc. And he failed the drug test.

Sucks cuz I've known the guy off/on since high school, and this was about the best I'd ever seen him doing at a job.

So, I spoke with the director for a while about how the process went down, etc... felt better afterwards, given the same situations, I would have done the same as him.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 16 2012,16:31

Haven't heard anyone from my team get the axe. One's leaving for another position at another place for 20% more pay.

QUOTE

And he failed the drug test.

The standard piss test? He failed that? You're shitting me. That alone should be a rejection for a job doing anything that requires $100K worth of pain per year. Don't trust his forethought or on-the-fly thinking.

Posted by thibodeaux on Nov. 16 2012,16:37

They told me if I voted for Romney, companies would start laying off employees. AND THEY WERE RIGHT.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 16 2012,18:36

Yeah, a piss test. Normal every day piss test.

Posted by GORDON on Nov. 16 2012,18:46

I wonder if a piss test is still grounds for dismissal in WA and CO.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Nov. 16 2012,18:50

60 people. 2 were let go. I predict, 9 more.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 16 2012,19:03

(TheCatt @ Nov. 16 2012,20:36)

QUOTE

Yeah, a piss test. Normal every day piss test.

Here's my new interview process. I'm going to line up all the candidates a bit over a week before the actual interview and have them each drink a normal looking glass of clear liquid and pass it off as water.

"Alright, you've all just ingested a liquid with trace amounts of up to three different illicit substances. It's not enough to get you high and you've all got different combinations, but it's enough that it will show up on the drug test I'll have you all taking in seven days. Whoever passes continues to the actual interviews."

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 17 2012,05:07

(Cakedaddy @ Nov. 16 2012,21:50)

QUOTE

60 people. 2 were let go. I predict, 9 more.

Only 2 were let go: Our admin, and the drug test failure, who had been a contractor, and had an offer to go perm.

Rest of company hit harder.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 04 2015,18:38

At work today, we had to troubleshoot a website problem. Mixed content coming through. Roughly means our HTTPS website had an insecure (HTTP) resource somewhere, and we couldn't find it or make it happen on any machine except the client.

After some analysis, I determined why.

Problem 1: We don't use IE. The client does.
Problem 2: Our website kicks IE into IE v7 emulation.
Problem 3: IE didn't care about mixed content until v9.

We have to support every version of IE MS does, so we cater to lowest common denominator. Argh motherfucker.

Posted by Troy on Mar. 05 2015,09:35

I got my first ever promotion at work this week

Senior Consultant.

Posted by GORDON on Mar. 05 2015,09:43

(Troy @ Mar. 05 2015,12:35)

QUOTE

I got my first ever promotion at work this week

Senior Consultant.

Congrats.

If the mental arithmetic I barely feel like doing is correct, you are still in your mid 20's. Watch out for jealous older guys at this point who you may have just surpassed. Happened to me and it can cause problems.

Posted by TheCatt on Mar. 05 2015,09:53

Congrats!

Posted by Leisher on Mar. 05 2015,09:55

Congratulations!

(And you know I really mean it because I typed the whole word out instead of shortening it like some lazy people.)

Posted by TheCatt on Mar. 05 2015,10:04

(Leisher @ Mar. 05 2015,12:55)

QUOTE

Congratulations!

(And you know I really mean it because I typed the whole word out instead of shortening it like some lazy people.)

Fuck you!

Posted by Leisher on Mar. 05 2015,10:08

Catt's being insolent again. More boobs will be posted later to punish him!

Posted by Troy on Mar. 05 2015,11:02

Thanks dudes. I waited a little bit for it and actually got a bid turned down from Google middle of last year that would have meant I would have left to go out on my own, solo. Good thing i didnt burn any bridges(or say anything) and just had to wait to get my due.

And i just turned 30 last month, gordo. The rest of what you said is very valid, though.

Posted by GORDON on Mar. 05 2015,11:04

(Troy @ Mar. 05 2015,14:02)

QUOTE

And i just turned 30 last month, gordo. The rest of what you said is very valid, though.

Haters gonna hate, and some people never, ever leave high school.

Posted by TheCatt on Mar. 05 2015,11:25

(Leisher @ Mar. 05 2015,13:08)

QUOTE

Catt's being insolent again. More boobs will be posted later to punish him!

I submit to your punishment.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 05 2015,11:27

(TheCatt @ Mar. 05 2015,13:25)

QUOTE

(Leisher @ Mar. 05 2015,13:08)

QUOTE

Catt's being insolent again. More boobs will be posted later to punish him!

I submit to your punishment.

Fifty shades of catt and leish.

Posted by Leisher on Mar. 05 2015,12:47

Based on what we post, there's not a guy here who wouldn't see it opening night.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 05 2015,12:49

(Leisher @ Mar. 05 2015,14:47)

QUOTE

Based on what we post, there's not a guy here who wouldn't see it opening night.

The last time I saw something opening night, it might've been 300.

Posted by TPRJones on Mar. 05 2015,13:02

Last time I saw something on opening night was The Fault in our Stars, so ... yeah. I probably shouldn't say that in public.

Posted by GORDON on Mar. 05 2015,13:07

(TPRJones @ Mar. 05 2015,16:02)

QUOTE

Last time I saw something on opening night was The Fault in our Stars, so ... yeah. I probably shouldn't say that in public.

the fuck is wrong with you

Posted by TPRJones on Mar. 05 2015,13:32

What can I say, I enjoy the work of John Green. He makes good things.

Posted by TheCatt on Mar. 05 2015,13:43

It's annual review season at my work. I'm basically a technical architect, which means manager (and get managerial bonus) with no direct reports. I lead small teams.

They make you project out where you want to be in the future, goals, etc.

"I'm happy where I am"

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 05 2015,13:53

QUOTE

They make you project out where you want to be in the future, goals, etc.

I hate that shit.

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

"Do you have any daughters who are thirteen?"

Posted by TheCatt on Mar. 05 2015,14:16

Posted by GORDON on Mar. 05 2015,14:30

(Malcolm @ Mar. 05 2015,16:53)

QUOTE

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

"Doin your wife" is the classic answer.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 05 2015,15:22

(GORDON @ Mar. 05 2015,16:30)

QUOTE

(Malcolm @ Mar. 05 2015,16:53)

QUOTE

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

"Doin your wife" is the classic answer.

If it takes you five years, you're moving too slow.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 05 2015,15:25

(TheCatt @ Mar. 05 2015,16:16)

QUOTE

We are required to be motivated. It's in our goals. We are also required to have fun. I'm not kidding. "Our" individual goals were dictated by management. They said, "Copy and paste these." Implied was, "It's the minimum number of pieces of flair for this year." One of the goals is "have fun and participate in team events."

I want a t-shirt of this, so I can wear it every time such occasions come up:

When I asked why they couldn't just put the goddamned inane things there to begin with, they said, "We don't have access to your individual goals in the system."

Times like that make me wish I had an office so I could take a shot after management leaves.

Posted by Leisher on Mar. 05 2015,18:36

(GORDON @ Mar. 05 2015,17:30)

QUOTE

(Malcolm @ Mar. 05 2015,16:53)

QUOTE

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

"Doin your wife" is the classic answer.

Posted by GORDON on Mar. 05 2015,18:37

(Malcolm @ Mar. 05 2015,18:22)

QUOTE

(GORDON @ Mar. 05 2015,16:30)

QUOTE

(Malcolm @ Mar. 05 2015,16:53)

QUOTE

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

"Doin your wife" is the classic answer.

If it takes you five years, you're moving too slow.

*Don't say doin your wife... don't say doin your wife...*

"Doing your.... son?"

~Peter Griffin

Posted by Leisher on Mar. 05 2015,18:38

You were beaten to the punch by 1 minute.

Posted by GORDON on Mar. 05 2015,18:39

You non-search-understanding motherfucker

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 06 2015,11:47

Quote of the day during a meeting:

"I think the code's still there from the last time we took a dump."

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 13 2015,15:18

Pi Day. FML. A "minimum pieces of flair"-type speech was given to us and while we were told we can theoretically opt out the hell am I about to describe, we were also reminded of the "mandatory fun" goal that was forced into all our performance reviews this year.

1) pie baking contest ... Not a bad start.

2) random shitty videos involving the theme of pi. Quality is somewhere between public access TV and you and your college buddies drunk with a video camera. It really goes downhill from here.

3) 30 motherfucking minute presentation on mnemonic devices you can use to memorize pi to over 200 digits. Because I need that on a daily basis.

4) team pi recitation contest. It's the retard version of a spelling bee, except with the digits 0-9 arranged in random patterns then handed out in lots of 10. First team up went through 600 digits. Obviously someone's fucking team doesn't have enough work to do.

5) team math competition. No calculators or looking up of formula. Because everyone remembers how to calculate the surface area of a torus and enjoys doing long division by hand.

Posted by GORDON on Mar. 13 2015,15:23

I have used the Pythagorean Theorem a few times in the last few years. Not bad for a non-engineer. Also calculated a slope. b.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 13 2015,15:24

I can't believe I remembered what a transcendental number was.

Posted by GORDON on Mar. 13 2015,15:25

no wait slope is m. Where the line crosses y is b.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 13 2015,15:26

(GORDON @ Mar. 13 2015,17:25)

QUOTE

no wait slope is m. Where the line crosses y is b.

The y-intercept?

Posted by GORDON on Mar. 13 2015,15:28

word.

I slept through high school algebra and geometry, and my grades reflected that, but I still remember that shit.

Posted by TheCatt on Mar. 13 2015,15:33

I imagined how one would calculate the surface area of a torus in my head... wonder if I'm right?

We had Pi day at work today too.

We ordered Pizza (pie) for everyone in the building, then had a Pi baking contest.

Posted by thibodeaux on Mar. 13 2015,16:51

(TheCatt @ Mar. 13 2015,18:33)

QUOTE

I imagined how one would calculate the surface area of a torus in my head... wonder if I'm right?

It's an integral.

Posted by TheCatt on Mar. 13 2015,19:03

(thibodeaux @ Mar. 13 2015,19:51)

QUOTE

(TheCatt @ Mar. 13 2015,18:33)

QUOTE

I imagined how one would calculate the surface area of a torus in my head... wonder if I'm right?

It's an integral.

Well, then, since that was part of what I figured out, I'll just assume I got the rest right too.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 14 2015,09:53

It's like stacking circles in a line, except the line happens to be circular. Was thinking about it.

Find the circumference of the circle with the major axis, Cmaj. You now have the straight line length around your big circle. The surface area is all the showy bits of the slices making up the big circle. Showy bits = circumference with the minor axis, Cmin. You could use an integral to figure it out. But it seems there ought to be a < brainless formula > for determining things in terms of Cmaj and Cmin.

QUOTE

Surface Area = 4 × pi^2 × R × r

Volume = 2 × pi^2 × R × r^2

I'm sure it's reverse engineerable from that.

Posted by TPRJones on Mar. 16 2015,17:39

Screw pi. Tau forever, bitches.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 16 2015,20:45

Bah. The number e is much more interesting.

Posted by TheCatt on Jun. 24 2015,09:06

Oh work.

So I work for a company that loves me. CEO knows me, VP loves me, etc, etc. But the company is kinda incompetent. Like we make really good products, then do something stupid in the mfg process that causes stuff to fail. 3 times now within the past 5 years.

So I get paid well, but I also am eligible for a 15% bonus. For the past 3 years the bonuses have been:
2 years ago: 0%
Last year: 60% (So, 9% of the 15%)
This year: 0% <-- I'm guessing, we find out next week for sure. We were having a record year until it turns out we fucked up yet another manufacturing process.

Grrr.

Money ain't everything... but damn.

Just wanted to vent.

The only nice thing about this company is they let me moonlight on the side, which is about 2x the $ that the bonus would be. A new client called me up and wanted me to visit them in Boston.

Guess who's getting on a plane?

Posted by Malcolm on Jun. 24 2015,09:13

I got zero raise last year because my manager decided to be an ass and blame me for her not understanding IT tech from the last quarter of a century.

Posted by TheCatt on Jun. 24 2015,09:25

(Malcolm @ Jun. 24 2015,12:13)

QUOTE

I got zero raise last year because my manager decided to be an ass and blame me for her not understanding IT tech from the last quarter of a century.

I've gotten great reviews and raises. I probably make more than everyone in the department except 2-3 people (out of 90).

Just suck bonuses.

Posted by Malcolm on Jun. 24 2015,09:35

I'm on double secret probation because I have "communication" issues. Fuckwits.

Posted by TheCatt on Jun. 24 2015,09:49

(Malcolm @ Jun. 24 2015,12:35)

QUOTE

...because I have "communication" issues. Fuckwits.

Umm....

Posted by Vince on Jun. 24 2015,10:52

LOL! I'm dying over here!

Posted by Malcolm on Jun. 24 2015,10:57

See? I communicate just fine.

Posted by Malcolm on Jun. 25 2015,18:37

We hired < these retards > to give us a talk. I'm deciding if I should:

1) attend for the wise-ass remark and entertainment value
2) take a day of vacation
3) refuse and see what happens

Speaking of retarded, the boss's boss felt the need to lecture a room full of programmers about phishing scams. Two fucking days prior, there were suited monkeys handing out "how to spot a phishing email" pamphlets at the entry doors. I couldn't keep a straight face.

Manager: This isn't funny. This is serious. Someone's machine got hacked last week and they got away with a spreadsheet full of other credentials.

Me: [laughs a bit harder, then finally recovers] You mean someone really hacked his system or he left his password lying around?

Manager: They got his password somehow.

Me: Have you ever considered non-textual authentication? I mean, it's kind of hard to guess an image from your facebook profile, unlike your middle name, your birth date, wife's maiden name, mother's maiden name, dog's name, the street you grew up on, the first car you owned, or "password1."

Manager: [blank stare] ...

Probably staying on double s33kr1t probation.

Posted by TheCatt on Jun. 25 2015,18:52

CRINGE alert

QUOTE

For years, we have pragmatically taught new ideas to eager learners and advanced topics to seasoned pros. From cutting edge technologies, the practical use of agile methods, to product design and product thinking, our courses run the gambit. Peruse our course catalog and let us know what peaks your curiousity.

and

QUOTE

Our product development teams are composed of software engineers and designer who are curious, skilled, and passionate about building products that matter.

and

QUOTE

We've designed and built products for small businesses, large companies, non-profits and individuals. From ideation to design to delivery, our product developers are producing mobile ready solutions of all kinds.

sic, sic, sic.

Posted by TPRJones on Jun. 25 2015,19:23

QUOTE

Leverage our buzzword generation processes as a low-cost means of increasing value in your end products for both internal and external consumers.

Posted by Malcolm on Jun. 25 2015,20:32

(TheCatt @ Jun. 25 2015,20:52)

QUOTE

CRINGE alert

QUOTE

and

QUOTE

Our product development teams are composed of software engineers and designer who are curious, skilled, and passionate about building products that matter.

and

QUOTE

sic, sic, sic.

What peaks my curiosity? Or piques? My curiosity will not be mounted against its will.

Posted by TheCatt on Jun. 29 2015,05:14

One of my co-workers just quit, and emailed out this to the entire department:

QUOTE

Hi all,

Sorry to inform that I would be leaving ###### Inc, effective 06/29/2015 around noon.
This is completely for personal reasons. To be honest last year has been my most productive and best working experience I had in USA. This was because of testing + development team in ###### Inc, Software development team and few other friends from system test team.

My personal reasons was reached after observing North Carolina, politics past two years, I suspect this state is KKK head quarters. They are racists period. Past few days in trying to understand my conspiracy theory, I have been paying attention connection between roads, oil/gas, cars (furturistic) coupled with Google and Tesla.

After realizing all this I did not want my hard earned money and valuable time getting dumped into building this very Kingdom in the name of North/South Carolina Politics.

They are building a white kingdom right in front of our neighborhoods.

In this state my past work experience was not pleasant either. I found that working in IT is primarily driven by racial politics.
Hope that is not the case with ######, Inc.

If you are interested on my thoughts and details on my conspiracy theory:

You can always reach me @:
######################

P.S. Sincerely and truly appreciate me giving a chance to write this email.

I am very glad you had voted for Obama in 2008 and you had democratic party last term. If you do not take action keeping Obama/Biden tags or stickers could become a crime in future – that is the rate KKK are working to change politics landscape and create new scenic routes to suit their life style, totally violating fundamental rights of citizen and cheating on founding fathers wisdom. These “White Supremacists” are pinheads and weasels living with us as OUTLIERS.

Here is a song if we have any music lovers and one’s who care to listen:
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4PtVOSlDck >

Posted by GORDON on Jun. 29 2015,05:57

I started smiling in the second paragraph.... by the end I was thinking the guy was legit insane.

Posted by TheCatt on Jun. 29 2015,08:08

(GORDON @ Jun. 29 2015,08:57)

QUOTE

I started smiling in the second paragraph.... by the end I was thinking the guy was legit insane.

Actually a she.

Posted by Vince on Jun. 29 2015,09:28

Now Gordo will make the sexist comment about how he should have known it was an insane woman.

Posted by GORDON on Jun. 29 2015,10:01

(Vince @ Jun. 29 2015,12:28)

QUOTE

Now Gordo will make the sexist comment about how he should have known it was an insane woman.

Assumed it was a man because IT is hard for girls, an observation supported by this "IT broke my female brain" letter.

Posted by Troy on Jun. 29 2015,14:46

Pretend I posted that WAT? meme.

Posted by TheCatt on Jul. 07 2015,15:12

(TheCatt @ Jun. 24 2015,12:06)

QUOTE

So I work for a company that loves me. CEO knows me, VP loves me, etc, etc. But the company is kinda incompetent. Like we make really good products, then do something stupid in the mfg process that causes stuff to fail. 3 times now within the past 5 years.

So I get paid well, but I also am eligible for a 15% bonus. For the past 3 years the bonuses have been:
2 years ago: 0%
Last year: 60% (So, 9% of the 15%)
This year: 0% <-- I'm guessing, we find out next week for sure. We were having a record year until it turns out we fucked up yet another manufacturing process.

So..... my manager called me into his office this morning (I can never tell whether he's delivering good news or bad news), I've got a shit-ton of work to get done, and not sure what he could be referring to.

At any rate, I get in there, and he says "hey, look at this"

It's our bonus report. I look at the financials and say "That's not what we reported at the end of year business update." (I wrote the #s down).

Turns out: The board and executives decided that the people currently at the company should not be punished for the mistakes of those who were cleaned out, and they based the bonus on revised numbers that took out the impact of the manufacturing fuck ups!

I won't get the full 15% bonus, but I think I'm getting 80-95% of it (the final #s are next week).

Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 08 2015,11:00

QUOTE

We hired these retards to give us a talk. I'm deciding if I should:

1) attend for the wise-ass remark and entertainment value
2) take a day of vacation
3) refuse and see what happens

Went with option #2. Gave me a chance to take the car in for a couple recall issues, neither of which were severe.

Posted by TheCatt on Jul. 20 2015,19:42

Had a beer with a guy who runs a hedge fund to talk about joining as a database engineer.

Years ago this would have been my dream job, mixing my DB skills with my finance background.

Today, I dunno. I think I'd have to give up wearing shorts.

Posted by Malcolm on Jul. 21 2015,08:15

QUOTE

Today, I dunno. I think I'd have to give up wearing shorts.

Relaxed dress code is one of the major reason I've not moved jobs yet.

Posted by TheCatt on Jul. 21 2015,10:12

Maybe they'll buy me a Tesla?

Posted by Malcolm on Aug. 14 2015,16:00

We're in the middle of redoing our entire DB-report function for our team's website product. No one really showed me much concrete code until a couple weeks ago. It was written by our new intro dev who's barely, if ever, used .Net.

Me: So, how'd you handle all the table joins?
Newbie: Exhaustively hardcoded them.
Me: We have around 1500 possibilities you'd need to deal with for this to work for everything we want. How many do you have so far?
Newbie: About 20.
Me: Well, you wasted that time, then, because we're doing it a sane way instead.

Posted by TPRJones on Aug. 14 2015,16:52

I work for that guy.

I mean my boss isn't dumb, not at all he's actually quite bright. He just doesn't normally think in terms of automation or recursion as a first approach, at least not as much as I do. I keep surprising him by doing things orders of magnitude faster than he thought was possible.

Today was a good example. He makes a template folder for the Program Review files and gives me a list of all the different programs undergoing review for which each will need such a folder with all those files in t. Should take about two hours to copy and rename them all. I dump the list into Excel to whip up xcopy lines and shove those into a batch file that I run; total time start to finish just under two minutes.

Posted by TheCatt on Aug. 14 2015,17:26

I hope you spent the other 118 minutes on the Internet.

Posted by TPRJones on Aug. 15 2015,10:09

Of course.

Posted by Malcolm on Aug. 15 2015,10:20

QUOTE

We hired these retards to give us a talk.

Update: no one liked them. I can't find any dev who had anything good to say about it. The phrase "waste of time" has come up from more than a couple people. The only difference that I noticed when I came back was that leads and managers had boards in their cubes with post-it notes or handwritten tasks. Those fuckers had to have cost thousands of dollars.

Posted by TheCatt on Aug. 15 2015,10:47

(Malcolm @ Aug. 14 2015,19:00)

QUOTE

You seem awfully passive in this process, why not confront those issues earlier, or lead the design or mentor the new kid?

Posted by Malcolm on Aug. 15 2015,12:07

(TheCatt @ Aug. 15 2015,12:47)

QUOTE

(Malcolm @ Aug. 14 2015,19:00)

QUOTE

You seem awfully passive in this process, why not confront those issues earlier, or lead the design or mentor the new kid?

"Communication issues," again. The acting tech lead is non-techie but refuses to:

1) trust me to interact with other humans without a chaperone
2) trust my two degrees in computer science
3) acknowledge that I've lectured to every fucking size group of IT students possible, from a couple hundred students at a time to solo sessions and everything in between without similar complaints ... when people want to learn, I have infinity times more patience, when people act stupidly, I have infinity times less
4) acknowledge I have more coding experience, in the number of years and languages, than all other devs on the project fucking combined

The manager above her isn't any better, except that one's a real coder. Her problem is she's too goddamn nice. They also cut me, the ONLY senior dev, completely out of this guy's hiring process, and little to no .Net experience would probably have made me bounce him.

The reason why I'm so passive is that if I tried to help him prior to my being asked explicitly by management, I'd be reprimanded for doing so. Those two and the new software architect we've gotten are becoming the bane of my existence. They're also the reason why the 4-5 intern/part-time devs report to the intro programmer we've got who used to be a CPA, in spite of my having more management experience than any other dev on the team. In short, my managers are fucking stupid and when they are, I tell them so. They'd rather be nice than correct, I go the opposite way.

In the past year, the company overhauled the management structure and SDLC process, and things are getting more and more Brazil-like surreal.

Posted by TPRJones on Aug. 15 2015,12:41

If you are the only person there who really knows their shit and management is that far into the retard red zone, then it won't be long before you are let go.

Get something else lined up.

Posted by Malcolm on Aug. 15 2015,17:15

(TPRJones @ Aug. 15 2015,14:41)

QUOTE

If you are the only person there who really knows their shit and management is that far into the retard red zone, then it won't be long before you are let go.

Get something else lined up.

A major part of our company info authority is going to change next year. I've got shit 1/3 done for the transition to the new one. Literally no one but me knows fact one about the details besides "FTP." That gives me a bit of leverage, and I've not put together a proper grievance form yet, so to speak. I'm also the dude that troubleshoots prod incidents because no one else has a prayer unless they happen to have worked on the mystery broken component, and they can't even reliably deduce that from a stack trace. Trying to pay off my debts, I'm lazy, and I fucking hate interviewing. Thought crosses my mind at least once a week, though.

It's not that the other devs are stupid like the managers, but I've been in the majors way longer and fucked up every way they have or will 10 times or more. I could save them hours, days, or weeks.

Posted by TheCatt on Aug. 15 2015,17:40

(Malcolm @ Aug. 15 2015,20:15)

QUOTE

(TPRJones @ Aug. 15 2015,14:41)

QUOTE

If you are the only person there who really knows their shit and management is that far into the retard red zone, then it won't be long before you are let go.

Get something else lined up.

I guess you can keep being that guy, or, you know, make a shitload more money by being helpful and personable.

QUOTE

and they can't even reliably deduce that from a stack trace.

This week I had a dev send out an email highlighting what line in code he thought was throwing an exception in test.

Me: That line doesn't reference anything in the stacktrace.
Him: But it's the line # that the error message spit out.
*headdesk*

Posted by GORDON on Aug. 15 2015,17:41

If losing you will sink the company, perhaps it is time for you to negotiate your way up into a more stable position.

Posted by Malcolm on Aug. 15 2015,18:11

QUOTE

I guess you can keep being that guy, or, you know, make a shitload more money by being helpful and personable.

I would make exactly $0 more.

QUOTE

If losing you will sink the company, perhaps it is time for you to negotiate your way up into a more stable position.

My company is massive. My entire team could disappear and no one would care. As far as negotiation goes, I don't know if I want higher position. Leads tend to get sucked into managerial personnel bullshit more than technical issues. I'm at the tallest point on the pyramid such that my gig is primarily code. I'd hear an argument for reducing my overall coding time to 75%. Anything more is past my tipping point. Every tech lead I've seen up there is doing 25% at most.

I think I may actually take the time to put together all the insane bullshit they've been doing since late last year and lay it out in front of them. That's an official shot across the bow. The fact I had to pull 75% of a new DB report engine design out of my ass in 3-4 days and integrate it with the badly implemented 25% that looks like a Sunday night special from a damned freshman programmer could convince me to kick that ball down the hill. I give less and less of a shit about that place the more and more of my debt is paid off.

Posted by GORDON on Aug. 15 2015,18:18

Ah, large company, I'd always pictured 200-300 employees making one or three products. Don't know why I thought that.

Does your IT department have an "Architect" position? Whenever I've seen those they tended to be just people who didn't do much work but acted as interactive brains that could quickly point the devs in the right direction for whatever needed to be done, or just make sure no major fuckery happened with the code structure.

I was never much impressed by them, personally.

Posted by TPRJones on Aug. 15 2015,18:18

It's hard to impress people with miracles when they have no concept of what it is you are doing. All they'll see is "Malcolm is upsetting the stability of the team, we would be better off without him."

Posted by GORDON on Aug. 15 2015,18:22

I hate big IT shops.

Posted by Malcolm on Aug. 15 2015,19:02

QUOTE

Does your IT department have an "Architect" position? Whenever I've seen those they tended to be just people who didn't do much work but acted as interactive brains that could quickly point the devs in the right direction for whatever needed to be done, or just make sure no major fuckery happened with the code structure.

Whenever I talk to an arch, I feel like one of Napoleon's corporals asking him for points on digging ditches and loading a cannon. Unless you're designing something from scratch and have time to listen to their long-winded explanations, I find them to be roadblocks.

QUOTE

All they'll see is "Malcolm is upsetting the stability of the team, we would be better off without him."

The devs that still seek my assistance unofficially, the devs who are forced to come to me because I know the product, and the biz and sales folk that get to close on their $200K accounts because I fix the prod issues might differ on that opinion.

Posted by TheCatt on Aug. 15 2015,19:44

Most architects just like to talk, and don't actually do shit. They tend to employ a whole lot of hand-waving too

Me (Architect): Um, we do 10,000 transactions per second today, your proposed system won't.
Other Architect: "We'll worry about those details later" (while waving hands).
Me: But you can't support contextual data lookups for serial validation and business rules processing. that's not a detail. That's a requirement.
Other Architect: We'll handle it when we get there.

I'm an architect + team lead, but I spend 75% of my day coding. A few days a month we gather in a room, and someone has to drive on the projector all day, and we (I, really) question everything I see that looks like it could be done better. Even things like using putty instead of mRemote, or not using screen, etc. I expect the same of them to me if I'm doing stupid stuff.

Posted by Malcolm on Aug. 15 2015,19:57

QUOTE

I'm an architect + team lead

The number of meetings you would be in, mandatory, would prohibit that where I work. They'd also never let one person handle both those jobs.

QUOTE

"We'll worry about those details later"

Odd. The problem I have with my arch is he wants to go over too many useless details twice, as slowly as possible, and wants the non-techie, non-domain managers in the meetings. We have a CORS problem that slipped out into prod because, again, people (like our former lead and the CPA dev) didn't consult me or take basic sanity-check measures like hitting FUCKING F12 to bring up the dev tools in any browser and viewing the console output. I know exactly what's going on and why. I could get our team all the answers we need to make all the decisions we want, and actually take some fucking action to solve it. All I need is a meeting with a dev or two from another team without assholes jacking my meetings. I could alternatively email about 10 questions to them and get answers that way. I'm explicitly forbidden from doing either without a douche manager holding my hand. It's like they're allergic to getting shit done.

QUOTE

Then again, those dudes have little to no impact on my annual review, which has little to no impact on me and my salary unless I don't hit a certain level. Going beyond it is pointless.

Posted by GORDON on Aug. 15 2015,20:00

(Malcolm @ Aug. 15 2015,22:57)

QUOTE

Then again, those dudes have little to no impact on my annual review, which has little to no impact on me and my salary unless I don't hit a certain level. Going beyond it is pointless.

Annual review time:

"Yell me how you've been a team player this year."

Posted by TPRJones on Aug. 15 2015,20:29

(Malcolm @ Aug. 15 2015,21:02)

QUOTE

It's a good thing they're in charge, then.

Posted by TPRJones on Aug. 15 2015,20:32

(GORDON @ Aug. 15 2015,22:00)

QUOTE

Annual review time:

"Yell me how you've been a team player this year."

(emphasis added) I like to think that Malcolm's annual review does involve a fair amount of yelling.

Posted by thibodeaux on Aug. 16 2015,05:07

(Malcolm @ Aug. 15 2015,15:07)

QUOTE

The manager above her isn't any better, except that one's a real coder. Her problem is she's too goddamn nice.

I think I found your problem.

Posted by TheCatt on Aug. 16 2015,05:39

(Malcolm @ Aug. 15 2015,22:57)

QUOTE

The number of meetings you would be in, mandatory, would prohibit that where I work.

I used to be in meeting hell when I was manager/architect. Getting rid of the manager portion, and just being a lead/architect, has been dramatically better.

I typically have 2 meetings on Monday, 1 monthly meeting, and then a 5-10 minute stand-up 2 days a week.

Last week I had no meetings Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thurday.

Sometimes we'll have planning sessions, but that's every 3 months or 6 months.

Posted by Malcolm on Aug. 16 2015,11:12

QUOTE

...a 5-10 minute stand-up 2 days a week.

I would kill for that. I have a 30-minute "stand up" where everyone sits down, 4 days a week. The psycho manager before made it five days a week.

1 90-minute planning meeting (which is badly organized and planned itself) plus a team meeting plus a retrospective every two weeks. Then there's the random assorted bullshit meetings. The retrospectives are my favourite. You sit around for 30 minutes, bitch about what went wrong the past two weeks, brainstorm about ways to fix the root causes of those problems, and then never follow up or do anything.

That's my schedule as a senior dev. Once I get promoted so much as one grade, it gets all kinds of worse. Like I'd have to go through culture training and listen to hippies wax poetic about the "mood elevator." One time all the leads had to take a fucking skills assessment test that made the one you took in junior high look sophisticated.

Posted by TheCatt on Aug. 16 2015,14:09

Now I'm concerned as to why you haven't found a new job, particularly in this job market/

Posted by Alhazad on Aug. 16 2015,15:46

(Malcolm @ Aug. 15 2015,17:15)

QUOTE

[...] I fucking hate interviewing.

Doesn't need any more reason than that.

Posted by Malcolm on Aug. 16 2015,16:19

(TheCatt @ Aug. 16 2015,16:09)

QUOTE

Now I'm concerned as to why you haven't found a new job, particularly in this job market/

As Al mentioned, I hate interviewing. It's socially acceptable lying coupled with dress up. It's one step above an pretween's imaginary tea party.

I hate going through recruiting agencies. Fucking parasites. Most joints around here make it a pain not to go through them.

Me being willing to quit requires me having a bit of a financial cushion. I'm trying to do quick pays on my debts. Car's almost done. If I can refinance the remainder of my student loans at a reasonable rate, then life becomes easier.

Insignificant as this sounds, I like the dress code where I work. Straight up casual, no one cars about a t-shirt and cargo pants.

All the other review things aside, the entire process boils down to one rating -- roughly: check, check plus, check minus. All I need is a check. By the time the next one rolls around, I'll be in a financially better position to respond to them if they decide to be dicks.

QUOTE

(Malcolm @ Aug. 15 2015,15:07)

QUOTE

The manager above her isn't any better, except that one's a real coder. Her problem is she's too goddamn nice.

I think I found your problem.

The thought has occurred. The CPA dev's a chick and she's nowhere near as much of a pain in the ass as the other two because she hasn't drunk the SDLC/organizational koolaid.

Posted by Malcolm on Aug. 27 2015,08:25

(Malcolm @ Aug. 15 2015,00:00)

QUOTE

He also hardcoded all the table filters. He argues it makes things more readable. Nothing says "readability" like "95% repetition."

Posted by Malcolm on Sep. 02 2015,14:17

Got most of the Entity Framework model done for the Oracle tables. The Oracle EF provider was coded so fucking badly, they make MS look like savants. Fragile as hell because even Oracle throws its hands up in the air when talking to an Oracle DB from a .Net app. Does its fucking best to hide every detail of every error from you.

Posted by Malcolm on Sep. 10 2015,16:46

Fucking idiot boss and inexperienced junior programmer still aren't sure we need a fucking data access layer. They're going to check with the arch. FML.

Posted by TPRJones on Sep. 10 2015,18:01

Are you sure you need a data access layer? Sounds like it might be a want.

Posted by TheCatt on Sep. 10 2015,18:07

(TPRJones @ Sep. 10 2015,21:01)

QUOTE

Are you sure you need a data access layer? Sounds like it might be a want.

Time to hire Gordon as a consultant.

Posted by GORDON on Sep. 10 2015,18:22

Sometimes the users need to be told what they want because they dont need it.

Posted by Alhazad on Sep. 10 2015,18:27

(GORDON @ Sep. 10 2015,18:22)

QUOTE

Sometimes the users need to be told what they want because they dont need it.

Would you say, about 90% of the time?

Posted by GORDON on Sep. 10 2015,18:30

(Alhazad @ Sep. 10 2015,21:27)

QUOTE

(GORDON @ Sep. 10 2015,18:22)

QUOTE

Sometimes the users need to be told what they want because they dont need it.

Would you say, about 90% of the time?

Safe guess.

Posted by Malcolm on Sep. 15 2015,14:00

Time to polish the resume and test the waters.

Posted by TheCatt on Sep. 15 2015,14:18

(Malcolm @ Sep. 15 2015,17:00)

QUOTE

Time to polish the resume and test the waters.

But... but.. you're too lazy to do that.

Posted by Malcolm on Sep. 15 2015,14:29

(TheCatt @ Sep. 15 2015,16:18)

QUOTE

(Malcolm @ Sep. 15 2015,17:00)

QUOTE

Time to polish the resume and test the waters.

But... but.. you're too lazy to do that.

The stupidity has gotten so thick in that place that the intertia's giving way and making me at least look for another gig. I also told my manager today that she didn't know how to do her job properly.

Posted by TPRJones on Sep. 15 2015,16:14

Yeah, speaking truth to power is a good way to get yourself into the next round of layoffs.

Posted by Malcolm on Sep. 15 2015,17:16

(TPRJones @ Sep. 15 2015,18:14)

QUOTE

Yeah, speaking truth to power is a good way to get yourself into the next round of layoffs.

The manager's manager was in the chair next to her. I'm starting to lean more in the thib direction because I heard "cultural training" referenced more than once. As a former coworker of mine remarked one day, "Do you always try to put out fires by pouring more gasoline on them?"

"Enough to smother it."

Posted by Malcolm on Sep. 28 2015,08:09

SSD at work died today. Called the help desk, outsourced to IBM. After explaining my desktop won't boot up and the box is dead, the techie asks, "What does it say when Windows comes up," right before filing a ticket which forces me to call back and up the priority. Fucking hell, IBM, are you just handing out support scripts to dudes you paid to have smuggled across the ocean in cargo containers?

Posted by Malcolm on Oct. 05 2015,09:03

Idiot programmer: Oops, I disabled the DB job that runs all our database workflows last Friday and forgot to turn it on before I left.
Me: ... just goddamnit.

Posted by Malcolm on Oct. 05 2015,14:57

Idiot manager has decided to try for two major changes in the next release (we usually fuck up if it's only one, thank jeebus it's zero 95% of the time).

Result:
Half a dozen killer bugs threatening to halt release.
Absolute shit deploy plan which has crippled our QA environment.

Posted by Malcolm on Oct. 15 2015,12:57

As part of our new corporate cultural makeover/stupification, we've rebranded ourselves as the "answer company." I've been holding back on the wise-ass remarks, but I'm waiting to bust out, "What if the question is, 'Who's a fucking moron?'"

Posted by Malcolm on Oct. 15 2015,19:54

QUOTE

After clawing and fighting for the sane way, I finally got a shot this upcoming week to present some ideas to the other devs on the team. Either way, I've cut down (through clever use of Oracle) the number of SQL fragments needed from linear growth down to constant, and c = 1 or 2 at worst. That means we don't need hundreds of the fucking things, just a few dozen at most. Should handle 90% of the queries we run daily and only selects/projects need customization. Hopefully the rest of my team isn't as dense as Idiot Programmer and Dumb-ass Manager.

Ah yes, today's wtf. It's performance review time, and goddamn I fucking hate that shit because it's when everyone whines about their feelings. Anyway...

Dumb-ass Manager: You need to pick 3 coworkers for your peer reviews.
Me: ... fine.

There's a couple dozen people I can select.
[Malcolm submits 3 names after a few beers at the pub, a day passes]

DAM: Why didn't you include Idiot Programmer in your peer review list?
Me: [thinks silently, "The same reason I don't ask Pauly Shore, Dennis Rodman, or Vanilla Ice about their views on acting."] Just fill in the "correct" 3 however you want.

Posted by Malcolm on Oct. 23 2015,15:32

Idiot Manager: Hey, I put a new bug under your name. New query builder service isn't working.
[Malcolm checks into the code and history and makes an interesting discovery.]

Me: Remember how I said hardcoding every SQL fragment wasn't a viable design except I constantly got pushback from the dev you trust more than me in spite of me objectively having more experience? I just spent two hours tracking through his "more readable" code in an effort to fix a problem which was a direct result of his hardcoding an SQL fragment incorrectly. You'll need at least tenfold the fragments you have currently to support 100% of your reports like you want. That means you can expect around tenfold the number of errors like this. I might have caught this, except it looks like the dude that edited the files skipped the normal code review procedure and cut corners.

Posted by GORDON on Oct. 23 2015,18:13

And close it with, "GOD DAMN am I tired of being right all the time."

Posted by Malcolm on Oct. 25 2015,15:26

(GORDON @ Oct. 23 2015,20:13)

QUOTE

And close it with, "GOD DAMN am I tired of being right all the time."

It almost reminds me of the time they had a website resource security problem. In short, they wanted a code fix for the issue of IE disallowing a certain type of resource as it caused an annoying popup. The only hurdle being that most of our customers have their IE security settings locked down by admins. The resolution required the resource provider to stamp on some HTTP headers. Then reality reared its ugly head because "locked down" IE security settings involves telling any instance of that resource type to go fuck itself.

This would be the third or fourth major issue they've encountered since they hastily switched their website from HTTP to HTTPS without due analysis. I recall warning them several times to have take a good, hard look at the website code before making the change. As usual, no one takes one goddamn thing I say seriously until it crawls up their ass, bites them, lays eggs, and inconveniently bursts from their chest during dinner. In order to really be done with it, they have no alternative but to convince the provider to duplicate resources using some short bus web services techniques.

Posted by Troy on Oct. 26 2015,09:19

Been an eventful two months.

In September, the 3 people above me at my office broke off to make their own company. Corporate and the new company both wanted me, so was given some cool options by both groups. I choose to stay with my company, get promoted and be relocated to San Fransisco.

I also found out that week I tore my ACL playing soccer. Which is a huge bummer - so I got the surgery ~ 4 weeks ago and have been rehabbing like a mad man to be able to make the move as planned in January. Referring to it as a "Kelvin Benjamin sympathy injury"

Moving cross-country is a little scary, but we have no kids, and live in 800 square feet, so it's easier than it might be for some.

Posted by TheCatt on Oct. 26 2015,09:37

Nice! (Except the ACL). In SF, you might be able to get 400 sq ft.

Posted by GORDON on Oct. 26 2015,09:51

The SF Bay Area is one of the top-3 nicest places of any area I've ever seen.

And you can't get a decent place to live for less than a million five.

Posted by Malcolm on Oct. 26 2015,09:58

QUOTE

The SF Bay Area is one of the top-3 nicest places of any area I've ever seen.

If you're a seafood fan, that place is mega tits.

Posted by GORDON on Oct. 26 2015,10:03

And don't think about trying to commute during the 2 daily rush hours.

Posted by Troy on Oct. 26 2015,10:55

Our cost of living is going to go up, a lot. The same apt we have now would probably be 1.5k more a month in SFO. Jesus.

Luckily the wife is interviewing already and we have great savings from the low cost of living and being DINKS in Atl for so long.

As far as seafood - we love Sushi, another bonus

Posted by GORDON on Oct. 26 2015,16:57

(Troy @ Oct. 26 2015,13:55)

QUOTE

There's an amazing barbecue place near Mt. Diablo.... and it's famous... I will google around and try to remember the name. We ended up eating there about 5 nights in a row when we were doing a job in that area.

Posted by GORDON on Oct. 26 2015,17:57

Google told me there's actually a shitload of barbecue in the Bay area, but I found the place we were going to... "Kinder's." I have seen them on some "best of barbecue" shows on the Travel Channel. It's near Martinez.

They are a smokehouse and they serve you cooked meat on butcher paper.

Posted by Malcolm on Oct. 26 2015,18:32

(Malcolm @ Oct. 15 2015,21:54)

QUOTE

I think I got 2 devs plus a different manager plus an architect or two that agrees with me. It's almost like I went to school for this shit forever and I know what I'm doinng.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 02 2015,15:34

Hah. Had a chat with the project arch today. Showed him the hardcode design. He was not amused.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 09 2015,15:02

Malcolm was briefly let off double s33kr1t probation today because a real problem showed up that no one else could solve because some mofos don't understand debugging our DB workflows tends to be a 8-10 hour game just to analyze the data.

Me: You get that query going yet? It's going to take a bit.
Patron Saint of Hardcoding: Yeah but I cancelled it after two hours when my query didn't return. I couldn't find any info in the DB itself, either.
Me: ... just don't worry about it. I'll find it.

This is the dude we hired on his DB strengths.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 13 2015,08:12

Corp culture and values seminar. FML and fuck the motherfuckers that suckered the fuckwit execs. Fuck pop psychology.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 17 2015,07:55

We had some dumb bitch give a talk at our all-hands gathering recently. Part of her setup was a system of charts to take incoming texts and build tag clouds. She would ask a question about some pop psych idiocy and we were all supposed to text in one-word answers.

This was a mistake. Words like "bullshit" and "dumbass" started gaining popularity pretty quickly.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 17 2015,08:24

I stopped showing in person to company-wide meetings years ago.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 17 2015,14:46

Several months ago, I put in a request for some network storage after outlining the design to my idiot manager that said she understood everything. She offered to handle the internal forms and meetings. The bit she simply cannot comprehend is that the storage must be accessible by both Windows and Linux machines. As I found out today, the network storage is setup in such a manner as to be 100% inaccessible to anything *nix.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 20 2015,20:37

It's performance review time, which is like "the airing of grievances" during Festivus except with more emphasis on passive-aggressive bullshit and less on directly talking to people. I have to write a mini-manifesto as a rebuttal to mine this year.

FML.

Posted by Malcolm on Dec. 04 2015,15:36

A couple weeks ago:

Idiot Manager: Hey, I need you to shove this info into our database and bypass our normal loading process. Our report coverage is kind of sparse and we need the new info to up it.
Me: You know that's an increase of 33% in volume on that table, and it'll take about a week to do. I don't recommend it, either. Those workflows were set up for a reason.
IM: Do it anyway.
M: Fine.

A week goes by and I load the shitty data by recycling and retooling existing SQL. After the table is stable, I do some cursory analysis so I know exactly how much I can expect app performance to tank. The answer: not at all. The reason: not what I wanted to find out.

1) The initial increase in size was projected at ~33% (2.5M more "things"). Checked the preload table and it was more like 1.7M. Alright, whatever.
2) Of those 1.7M, 600K have the critical ID info we needed.
3) Of those 600K, only 20K have the quite-not-critical-but-really-important ID info.

But it gets better by leaps and bounds. It seems at no point in time did anyone anywhere up the chain of 3 or more teams decide to actually fucking double check the basic premise of this endeavour: Malcolm's DB gets seven figures of new things that it didn't have before. Fortunately, Malcolm did but he had to spend a week loading the fucking data before he could do it. I don't even want to know how many other man-hours were pissed away, because there was nothing "new" about it. Of the original promised 2.5M, I wrung 35 new items from it. 0.0014% fucking hit rate. Michael J. Fox has a better percentage on Whack-a-Mole.

Posted by Malcolm on Dec. 17 2015,08:23

Work has spent the past year converting all their internal products to use what they call a "code platform." Well, unless you ask the dudes who wrote the code, they adamantly protest it's "not a platform and was never intended to be" one. We had to get on that fucker because the old alternatives were going away. I swear to fuck, it makes everything take longer and makes life more difficult. Everything from opening the code in Visual Studio to testing to building + deploying the code. I've tried to point out with direct examples and stopwatches how much more work it takes. Naturally, I got ignored.

Very first code deploy on the new platform results in a painfully visible, crippling multi-day error (4 and counting) that we've taken multiple shots at and failed to fix. The old way, I could've had this thing sorted out in a day or two tops. They've presently got everyone on the team except me assigned to the problem as customers continue to call in and bitch.

Posted by Malcolm on Feb. 22 2016,14:58

Yesterday, we started having intermittent site problems. Dumb-ass programmer is on call. So far, we've established the following:

1) We have a lot more custom oracle system settings than we thought.
2) One DB is hanging almost perpetually while its mirror is fine.

That's it. After 36 hours, no one knows the root cause. Why? Because it requires four disconnected teams on two different shifts on two opposite sides of the planet to coordinate.

Posted by Troy on Mar. 04 2016,09:47

I made director today

I knew it was coming and it's why I moved out here, but it's cool to be able to tell people and at the same time now I really feel the passive aggressive hate of some people who were/are at my last level a lot longer than I was.

I got it mostly because I was able to be mobile, and shift to an emerging market while capitalizing on some departures to make the higher ups worry about losing someone they developed in house. Good times.

Posted by TPRJones on Mar. 04 2016,10:29

You make movies? Neat! What's your next project?

Posted by TheCatt on Mar. 04 2016,10:34

Troy makes the big bucks, congrats!

Posted by Troy on Mar. 04 2016,11:27

(TheCatt @ Mar. 04 2016,13:34)

QUOTE

Troy makes the big bucks, congrats!

Thanks, dunno about all that though.

Salaries in this town are a bit over inflated. Probably make less now than I did in ATL, from a relative standpoint.

Gotta get my wife back in the workforce asap.

e: and director in this context just means I'm suppose to generate business for the practice now

Posted by TheCatt on Mar. 04 2016,12:24

Oh, I'm used to director meaning: In charge of managers, and teams, etc, etc...

Posted by Troy on Mar. 04 2016,16:27

(TheCatt @ Mar. 04 2016,15:24)

QUOTE

Oh, I'm used to director meaning: In charge of managers, and teams, etc, etc...

That too, Consultants and Senior Consultants are now my minions.

Posted by TPRJones on Mar. 04 2016,16:55

(Troy @ Mar. 04 2016,18:27)

QUOTE

That too, Consultants and Senior Consultants are now my ~~minions~~ bitches.

Fixed.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 17 2016,14:28

The wheels of bureaucracy confound me for the second time this week.

This morning, an email from someone at work arrives in my Outlook box regarding some archaic service only I know about which our group owns. Shitty, random Websphere MQ error I've never seen before and I sure as shit don't know enough to deduce anything from the collective verbal middle finger their error codes represent nor was google forthcoming with help. Check the box with our hardware manifest ... alright, it's a box where 3 MQs live, each one mapping to a different environment, one of which is Development (no one cares) and another that's Production (the Ops nazis are hypersensitive to any problems). Well, it's...

1) A production asset, so I don't have privs to login to the box and troubleshoot. Our error logging isn't smart enough to pick up the details for system-level troubles, either.

2) The Ops/Infrastructure teams say that since it's a Development environment component (which it is), so it's not their job to fix it.

FUCK YOU

Addendum:
We know we can't recompile the service because we're missing a part of the source code. We're not sure about reconfiguring, but we're also not known for modular code ... which means there's more likely than not some fucking place where the fifth-rate programmer who vomited up that piece of filth probably fucking hardcoded it.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 30 2016,09:39

Swear to god, this place is run by chimps. Oracle DB is having mondo issues. We can't apply a patch to fix it because it conflicts with a previously applied patch.

Solution: DBA says go to Oracle to get the merged patch.
Problem: Oracle doesn't support our shit anymore.
Workaround: QA is the new dev environment.

FML

Posted by TheCatt on Mar. 30 2016,09:54

It's amazing how much better your life would be if you went to SQL.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 30 2016,10:05

(TheCatt @ Mar. 30 2016,11:54)

QUOTE

It's amazing how much better your life would be if you went to SQL.

Long ago, someone drank the koolaid of "only Oracle can handle our DB operations."