"We have never employed a developer I actually respected..."



  • The latest from my favourite technical architect...

    "In all the time I have worked here, we have never employed a developer I actually respected..."

    Three things really stand out here...

    • He managed to say this whilst sitting at his desk inside the development office, with eight developers in attendance, and yet still somehow lives...
    • He was actually involved in the interview process that selected most of us.
    • None of the developers respect HIM.

    Personally, I've had enough. I'm outta here...



  • Yeah. Sounds like a toxic environment.



  •  Sounds like the CTO we had here a while back who said: "And software development is nothing, it's just typing."



  •  I once had a manager who told a college

    you dont have a dificult job. I could get a couple of women in to do that

    Boy did i enjoy repeating that one to the woman from HR in my leavers interview when she asked me why I was leaving.



  • Get that a lot here, actually, too. It's sad, and it's driven people to leave before. I'm getting to that point myself, after 8 years.



  • A lot of good anecdotes in this thread. Keep 'em coming - your rage sustains me.

    @DumbByAssociation said:

    ... my favourite technical architect...

    I'm interested to know about his management. If they're not also complete jackasses (it's physically possible), it might be more fun to get rid of your architect.

    @DumbByAssociation said:

    ... yet still somehow lives...

    That's because developers are usually more interested in development than resorting to violence or being jackasses. Usually.



  • A long time ago I was working in a company where most people were working 70h+ per week but paid for 40. All the overtime was going in an overtime bank but nobody could use that bank except to *work* from home when they were sick (and better be back the next day). After working 7/7 for 2 months I went to complain to my boss and he replied: "if you are not happy you can quit, I have a huge stack of resume right here and I can replace you before lunch time".

    I went straight to HR to give my notice. What happened before lunch time was not that they replaced me but rather that they offered me a bribe to stay: 1 month vacation that I could take immediately in exchange for all my overtime bank, and when I would come back I would get normal overtime rate (1.5x normal rate for the first extra 20h per week, then 2x) paid every other week. But I had to agree not to tell my coworkers.

    I won't tell what happened next because I don't want to destroy my stellar reputation in this forum.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Shoreline said:

    A lot of good anecdotes in this thread. Keep 'em coming - your rage sustains me.
     

    I once had a boss casually mention to me how she just read an article about how developer-types were often "mildly autistic", and how it all makes sense now and she'll have to treat Other Developer different, huh?

    And it was in that tone of voice.

    I was a bit too stunned to reply "... did you just call my co-worker, and by extension me and my profession, a group of witless retards?"

    (This was also the woman who liked to take screenshots during QA and save them on her desktop with labels like "So-and-So's Fuck Up".  It was an open concept office, I might add. Where you could see other people's screens.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    I once had a boss casually mention to me how she just read an article about how developer-types were often "mildly autistic", and how it all makes sense now and she'll have to treat Other Developer different, huh?

    And it was in that tone of voice.

    I was a bit too stunned to reply "... did you just call my co-worker, and by extension me and my profession, a group of witless retards?"

    You never told us before that you used to work for SAP.



  • It's interesting, I think that a lot of this derision stems from the fact that a lot of people don't really understand what software/web development is and how it works. I could spout some psycho-babble about how they're actually intimidated by people smarter than them, but I'm not going to. I will, however, offer up an alternative story: no one at my company actually knows what my job is - I'm just in charge of all the intimidating technology. Laptops, desktops, tablets, cell phones, servers, projectors, websites, everything. Hell, even the paper shredder is my responsibility (no, that's not a joke). As a result, people will believe almost anything I tell them. I'm the keeper of the arcane knowledge of bits and bytes, emperor of email, Führer of das blinkenlights. My coworkers, managers, even the CEO revere me, and, dare I say, fear me.



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    My coworkers, managers, even the CEO revere me, and, dare I say, fear me.

    Do you wear the proper uniform to inspire this fear?

    Seriously though they don't fear you any more than they fear the HVAC guy or the plumber. They probably pretend because they just don't want to bother with this stuff, like I pretend that I'm impressed by the expertise of the dude who installs and maintains my home movie theater, but really I just don't want to get on my knees and start messing around with fiber optic cables and power cords.



  • @Ronald said:

    Seriously though they don't fear you any more than they fear the HVAC guy or the plumber. They probably pretend because they just don't want to bother with this stuff, like I pretend that I'm impressed by the expertise of the dude who installs and maintains my home movie theater, but really I just don't want to get on my knees and start messing around with fiber optic cables and power cords.

    Are you trying to play the straight man? 'Cuz, uh, that was, erm, the, uh, joke.



  • @DumbByAssociation said:

    The latest from my favourite technical architect...

    "In all the time I have worked here, we have never employed a developer I actually respected..."

    Three things really stand out here...

    • He managed to say this whilst sitting at his desk inside the development office, with eight developers in attendance, and yet still somehow lives...
    • He was actually involved in the interview process that selected most of us.
    • None of the developers respect HIM.

    Personally, I've had enough. I'm outta here...

    I once had a manager that thought she was the reason for my success. Three problems with this:

    1. She wasn't my hiring manager. She got promoted to my hiring manager's position after he moved to a different position.
    2. She didn't give me any training whatsoever.
    3. Most of the work I did was under another guy's supervision. He ended up being my manager for a week, but that's a story for another time that involves orphaned SQL records.
    I eventually left since I didn't get the transfer I wanted. That's OK, however, because my team lead (not my boss, per se, just the senior developer on the team) quit roughly two months after I did.

  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @HuskerFan90 said:

    that's a story for another time that involves orphaned SQL records.
     

    ... who grew up to be Batman?



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    @Ronald said:
    Seriously though they don't fear you any more than they fear the HVAC guy or the plumber. They probably pretend because they just don't want to bother with this stuff, like I pretend that I'm impressed by the expertise of the dude who installs and maintains my home movie theater, but really I just don't want to get on my knees and start messing around with fiber optic cables and power cords.

    Are you trying to play the straight man? 'Cuz, uh, that was, erm, the, uh, joke.

    Working in IT can be a thankless jobs but sometimes it has its perks. Anecdotes to that effect:

    • During orientation day at my first job the HR lady was telling new hires that they would be fired if they were caught using Internet for something else than work. One of the IT guys who happened to be in the room replacing a cable then mumbled loud enough so everyone could hear: "Pretty rich coming from someone who spends more than 10 working hours per week on a dating site".
    • One time I was in a meeting with clients and their lead DBA was in the room, he was derailing the meeting with clueless suggestions and one of the project managers told him that he was out of line and should "let the grown-ups do the talking". The lead DBA looked at the guy and asked: "if I'm so much lower than you on the totem pole, how come I make twice your salary?".
    • A manager was running his mouth pretty often about his computer that was allegedly too slow. During a big meeting where he was again complaining so the CEO would hear him, the head of IT stormed out of the room and came back 10 minutes later, telling loudly to the manager that his problem was fixed. The guy said: you gave me a new computer? And the IT guy replied: no, I told my guys to uninstall the Bittorrent client that you use to download movies during business hours and to remove the spyware that your machine caught from those S&M porn websites that are in your favorites.
    • Following an incident where people found out that some of their coworkers were making more money for the same job title, the HR department called in everyone from IT and started an inquiry about someone hacking in their confidential payroll database, even mentioning that the police could get involved if the culprit was not found. A helpdesk technician raised his hand and said: if you don't want people to know about salaries, maybe you should not leave payroll printouts unattended on the shared company printer for three days.


  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @HuskerFan90 said:

    that's a story for another time that involves orphaned SQL records.
     

    ... who grew up to be Batman?

    If he was portrayed by Michael Keaton, maybe.

     



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    I once had a boss casually mention to me how she just read an article about how developer-types were often "mildly autistic", and how it all makes sense now and she'll have to treat Other Developer different, huh?

    And it was in that tone of voice.

    I was a bit too stunned to reply "... did you just call my co-worker, and by extension me and my profession, a group of witless retards?"

    Retards and autistics are not necessarily the same group of people.

     



  • @mott555 said:

    @Lorne Kates said:

    I once had a boss casually mention to me how she just read an article about how developer-types were often "mildly autistic", and how it all makes sense now and she'll have to treat Other Developer different, huh?

    And it was in that tone of voice.

    I was a bit too stunned to reply "... did you just call my co-worker, and by extension me and my profession, a group of witless retards?"

    Retards and autistics are not necessarily the same group of people.

     

    True, but A ∩ R ≠ Ø


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @mott555 said:

    Retards and autistics are not necessarily the same group of people.
     

    I know that. You know that.

    @Lorne Kates said:

    And it was in that tone of voice.

    Her, however...



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @mott555 said:

    Retards and autistics are not necessarily the same group of people.
     

    I know that. You know that.

    @Lorne Kates said:

    And it was in that tone of voice.

    Her, however...



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    Führer of das blinkenlights.
     

    @Ronald said:

    @mikeTheLiar said:
    My coworkers, managers, even the CEO revere me, and, dare I say, fear me.

    Do you wear the proper uniform to inspire this fear?

     

    That's the wrong one.


     



  • @DumbByAssociation said:

    "In all the time I have worked here, we have never employed a developer I actually respected..."

    Three things really stand out here...

    • He managed to say this whilst sitting at his desk inside the development office, with eight developers in attendance, and yet still somehow lives...
    • He was actually involved in the interview process that selected most of us.
    • None of the developers respect HIM.

    Personally, I've had enough. I'm outta here...

    To me, one thing really stands out, which is that it's an entirely unacceptable thing to say in a professional environment. It may be true, but professionalism means not saying things like that. I'd make a formal complaint about the unwarranted verbal abuse he served up out of the blue.


  • @Ronald said:

    Working in IT can be a thankless jobs but sometimes it has its perks. Anecdotes to that effect:
    A while back I was supporting a large well, call it a removals company for anonymity. Lots of muscles about, not so many computers. CEO was in his seventies, having built the removals co up from a one-van operation over the last few decades. He was notorious for refusing to use email for work purposes. Tried to give him some help, but turned out the reason for that was that he kept missing work-related messages in his inbox full of gay porn. I saw no reason not to respect his privacy, and since it was a private company there was no problem wth misuse of shareholder funds or anything.


    CEO's much younger boyfriend worked in one department, as did quite a few of his friends, all attracted by the tolerant easy-going attitude of the company.


    One day, a new CTO turned up on the scene, and started micromanaging and interfering with stuff. One of his interferences was to go through the webfilter, and add a load of blocked sites. About the only stuff he blocked was gaydar, pinknews, and so-on. Obviously, CEO's boyfriend took the lead and asked me to unblock them. I sent a quick courtesy email up the chain to the CTO pointing out the company policy, and was just waiting for an OK to unblock them. Instead, I got a very bigoted response all about how these 'unnatural' sites were clearly supposed to be blocked.


    Perhaps it was a little naughty of me, but I suggested we talk it through with the CEO, and that he should forward a copy of his email to me to the CEO. Upstairs we went, and I raised the subject slightly obliquely in a way that made the CEO say 'well, let's have a look at this email'. I stood back as he said 'oh, I can't find it here'. Bigoted CTO obsequiously jumped to help, only to be confronted with an inbox full of explicit gay porn, gaydar status updates, pinknews dailies, and so-on. He literally recoiled across the room, and was gone for good by the end of the day.



  • @TDWTF123 said:

    Perhaps it was a little naughty of me...

    Nope. Natural selection. ;)



  • I love hearing bosses badmouth their own employees. It's like calling yourself a retard. "Hey look everyone, I make awful hiring decisions and want this company to fail!"


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Ronald said:

    Working in IT can be a thankless jobs but sometimes it has its perks. Anecdotes to that effect:

    • During orientation day at my first job the HR lady was telling new hires that they would be fired if they were caught using Internet for something else than work. One of the IT guys who happened to be in the room replacing a cable then mumbled loud enough so everyone could hear: "Pretty rich coming from someone who spends more than 10 working hours per week on a dating site".
    • One time I was in a meeting with clients and their lead DBA was in the room, he was derailing the meeting with clueless suggestions and one of the project managers told him that he was out of line and should "let the grown-ups do the talking". The lead DBA looked at the guy and asked: "if I'm so much lower than you on the totem pole, how come I make twice your salary?".
    • A manager was running his mouth pretty often about his computer that was allegedly too slow. During a big meeting where he was again complaining so the CEO would hear him, the head of IT stormed out of the room and came back 10 minutes later, telling loudly to the manager that his problem was fixed. The guy said: you gave me a new computer? And the IT guy replied: no, I told my guys to uninstall the Bittorrent client that you use to download movies during business hours and to remove the spyware that your machine caught from those S&M porn websites that are in your favorites.
    • Following an incident where people found out that some of their coworkers were making more money for the same job title, the HR department called in everyone from IT and started an inquiry about someone hacking in their confidential payroll database, even mentioning that the police could get involved if the culprit was not found. A helpdesk technician raised his hand and said: if you don't want people to know about salaries, maybe you should not leave payroll printouts unattended on the shared company printer for three days.
    I remember one incident where HR used real account details of existing staff members in some training material that then was put on a public-facing website. Naturally, this was training material on how to manage confidential staff details. IT were split between laughing their heads off and throwing their hands up in horror. At least we managed to get Google to remove that particular page from their cache very rapidly...


  • Our client had an "architect" who believed that anyone who had been in the software industry less than 10 years couldn't design anything. So whenever us lowly devs made proposals he would shoot them down and tell us how it "should be done" (always overcomplicated, always in Java... all our systems were C#). The client's business people (the ones who write the cheques) told us to ignore the architect and just get stuff done. So us lowly devs, none of us with more than a decade's experience, designed the systems.

    The software we designed is still in service with that same client, who eventually figured out this architect was a waste of money and fired him. He's currently working on integrating a "legacy" (i.e. non-Java) system with SalesForce - a project that's more than 6 months, and large amounts of money, overdue.



  • @Ben L. said:

    True, but A ∩ R ≠ Ø
     

    Of course. But is P(R | A) > P(R)?



  • @Mcoder said:

    @Ben L. said:

    True, but A ∩ R ≠ Ø
     

    Of course. But is P(R | A) > P(R)?

    ASD, how can I explain it?

    Lend me your ears and I'll frame-by-frame it



    You speak out of turn

    And count match sticks



    You scare off the girls

    And love the number six



    The doctors say that you're not dumb

    But you're 40 years old and you suck your thumb



    (REFRAIN)



    Are you Downs with ASD?

    Yeah, you know me



    Are you Downs with ASD?

    Yeah, you know me



    Are you Downs with ASD?

    Yeah, you know me



    You're an excellent driver

    Or so you say

    You're not quite straight and

    You're not quite gay

    Your mommy tries to blame a vaccine

    The names that we call you are just plain mean

    (REFRAIN)



    Are you Downs with ASD?

    Yeah, you know me

    Are you Downs with ASD?

    Yeah, you know me

    Are you Downs with ASD?

    Yeah, you know me


    You can do square roots to 54 digits

    Your daily schedule is oh-so-rigid

    Wapner time is half past eight

    At 9:15, you masturbate

    Watch Dr. Phil, and then Judge Judy

    Your Uncle Roy put stuff in your booty


    (REFRAIN)

    Are you Downs with ASD?

    Yeah, you know me

    Are you Downs with ASD?

    Yeah, you know me

    Are you Downs with ASD?

    Yeah, you know me



  • @Mcoder said:

    @Ben L. said:

    True, but A ∩ R ≠ Ø
     

    Of course. But is P(R | A) > P(R)?

    This is a warning:

    Next time a thread becomes a mathletes showdown I'm posting the picture of the fat guy in underwear fixing a computer in his basement (who is allegedly Ben L). And if that's not enough I will post the picture of the extremely fat guy typing on his keyboard with his toilet in the background.



  •  OTOH, by using precise notation that everyone knows (or should know), there are no doubts about its meaning or intent.



  • @edgsousa said:

     OTOH, by using precise notation that everyone knows (or should know), there are no doubts about its meaning or intent.

    I disagree that everyone should know. It's possible that I did learn that a while ago but nowadays my brain is wired to fall in screen-saver mode whenever I see upside-down Us or norwegian Os. I work in the business world not in academia, and here the only important symbol is $.

    However I also know the ascii code for the small musical notes (♫), that's how you can tell a cool geek from a nerd.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Ronald said:

    the only important symbol is $
    I think you'll find that €, £, ¥, ₨, and ₩ are all capable of serving as important symbols as well, provided you get enough of them.



  • @dkf said:

    @Ronald said:
    the only important symbol is $
    I think you'll find that €, £, ¥, ₨, and ₩ are all capable of serving as important symbols as well, provided you get enough of them.

    Those symbols suck:

    • € looks like half of a Julia Roberts kiss
    • £ looks like a melted E
    • ¥ looks like the logo of the Blair witch project
    • ₨ is not even a symbol, it's either an acronym for Radio Shack or a statement that R is more important than S
    • ₩ looks like the logo of the Watergate hotel

    $ is much better because by looking at it you can't even be sure what currency is involved. USA, Mexico, Australia, Canada, Namibia, and many others. How exciting!


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Ronald said:

    £ looks like a melted E

    It's actually a weird L.
    @Ronald said:
    $ is much better because by looking at it you can't even be sure what currency is involved. USA, Mexico, Australia, Canada, Namibia, and many others. How exciting!

    Receiving the wrong kind would still suck, given how much their unit values vary by.



  • @Ronald said:

    However I also know the ascii code for the small musical notes (♫), that's how you can tell a cool geek from a nerd.

    U+266b is ASCII now? When did they change the standard?



  • @Ben L. said:

    @Ronald said:
    However I also know the ascii code for the small musical notes (♫), that's how you can tell a cool geek from a nerd.

    U+266b is ASCII now? When did they change the standard?

    Normally I would have used the Admiral Ackbar meme but since it's you:



  • @Ronald said:

    I disagree that everyone should know. It's possible that I did learn that a while ago but nowadays my brain is wired to fall in screen-saver mode whenever I see upside-down Us or norwegian Os. I work in the business world not in academia, and here the only important symbol is $.

    Oh, you use jQuery?

     



  • @Zecc said:

    Oh, you use jQuery?
     

    damnit.



  • @Zecc said:

    @Ronald said:

    I disagree that everyone should know. It's possible that I did learn that a while ago but nowadays my brain is wired to fall in screen-saver mode whenever I see upside-down Us or norwegian Os. I work in the business world not in academia, and here the only important symbol is $.

    Oh, you use jQuery?

     

    Filed under: You all say it coming

    it coming



  • @Ben L. said:

    @Zecc said:
    Filed under: You all say it coming

    it coming

    Hah, you almost made me laugh out loud. Well spotted.



  • @TwoScoopsOfHot said:

     Sounds like the CTO we had here a while back who said: "And software development is nothing, it's just typing."


    And half the words are misspelled.



  • @TwoScoopsOfHot said:

     Sounds like the CTO we had here a while back who said: "And software development is nothing, it's just typing."

    I know a guy who's called CTO who can't type. He was trying to use my keyboard, which, having been passed from programmer to programmer for a couple years, is missing its painted-on "C", "V" and "Z". CTO found this impossible to deal with... at one point in this episode, he asked me to show him where the "K" key was, even though that wasn't one of the letters that was rubbed off.

    "'K' is the one with the letter 'K' painted on it."

    Supposedly I was discourteous with this dude. I'm not sure how you can avoid it when the guy who wants to drive the airplane doesn't even know what wings are.



  • @bridget99 said:

    my keyboard, which, having been passed from programmer to programmer for a couple years, is missing its painted-on "C", "V" and "Z".

    Aah, good programming practices, I see.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    @bridget99 said:
    my keyboard, which, having been passed from programmer to programmer for a couple years, is missing its painted-on "C", "V" and "Z".

    Aah, good programming practices, I see.

    Copy/paste is a poor reuse mechanism by itself, but I don't think that means that it's not an acceptable tool to use in entering one's code. The end result should respect DRY, not impose any parallel maintenance burdens, etc., but I don't perceive that avoiding Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V helps attain those goals.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    @bridget99 said:
    my keyboard, which, having been passed from programmer to programmer for a couple years, is missing its painted-on "C", "V" and "Z".

    Aah, good programming deployment practices, I see.


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