My new contract position (Why do I always work with freaks)



  • Here we go again...

    I just started a 4-week contract with this tiny insignificant speck of a company. It involved "utilizing the latest technologies to implement corporate-wide solutions". This will no doubt involve XAML.

    I was walking down one of the company's itty-bitty corridors and I saw one of the employees walk into the CEO's office. (The CEO's office is a little bigger than a broom closet, with no decoration whatsoever. And the room has stark white walls and an ugly looking desk from the 1970s.) I saw the employee click his heels together and yell "Ya wohl, Meinheer!" He grabbed a piece of paper and quickly left the office.

    I thought, ok, that's annoying and stupid. I've seen stuff like that before. It's mostly done in mockery of people in positions of power, but I figured oh well, this is new.

    Not more than 20 minutes later, I'm walking down the same tiny corridor and see the same employee enter the CEO's office again. He clacks his heels together and yells "Mein-heer! The documents you requested!" I saw him swivel out of the office and march down the hallway. I mean, march. This guy was doing some major goosestepping.

    I have not had any interactions with the CEO yet, but I get the impression that he is a serious fellow. Why he would tolerate such behavior, I don't know. The question comes to mind though...is he encouraging it?!?

    Why do I always work with freaks?



  • Hmm sounds fun.  Be careful if he has a charlie chaplain moustache, though.  Although being able to say that AND goose-step away AND not get fired for it would be hilarious.  Try saluting (you know the one, too) when you finally meet him.  Just a quick "Heil <insert his last name>!" should suffice.



  • What does "Mein Heer" mean? I looked it up on a translation site and it comes back with "My army". Does that make sense to anyone? I have heard it in some movie or another, but I never thought about it. Is that what it translates to? Or am I completely off base?



  • Heer is army, yes.  I think CPound is just messing with us like usual. Oh, word of caution to you, Mr. Pound:  Folks who goose-step and shout things in German might be part of the aryan brotherhood, which are made up of tattooed, pierced biker thugs. 

     



  • I'll risk to get caught in the sarcasm trap now but he propably meant "Mein Herr", which means "My lord" translated literally. "Jawohl mein Herr" would be the german equivalent of "Sir, Yes Sir!".



  • @CPound said:

    I just started a 4-week contract with this tiny insignificant speck of a company. It involved "utilizing the latest technologies to implement corporate-wide solutions". This will no doubt involve XAML.

    You're going to use XAML just because it is a new technology? XAML for the sake of XAML? I would caution against diving into something you are probably just picking up for a 4-week "solutions" project. By the way, how many solutions can one develop in 4 weeks anyways? It usually takes a good month just to begin to understand a business's inner workings. You mentioned it was a small company. Who knows what that CEO is going make you work on. And you're just going to throw XAML at it? See what sticks? This should be interesting...



  • @PSWorx said:

    I'll risk to get caught in the sarcasm trap now but he propably meant "Mein Herr", which means "My lord" translated literally. "Jawohl mein Herr" would be the german equivalent of "Sir, Yes Sir!".

    Not exactly. While you say "Sir, Yes Sir!" in the U.S. Army (at least the movies make us think so), you would never say "mein Herr" in a German speaking army. "Mein Herr" is rather a polite salutation a waiter would say to a guest in a restaurant. "Here is the steak you've ordered, mein Herr".

    In a German speaking army, the correct salutation is "Herr "+service grade, e.g. "Jawohl Herr Leutnant".



  • @ammoQ said:

    @PSWorx said:

    I'll risk to get caught in the sarcasm trap now but he propably meant "Mein Herr", which means "My lord" translated literally. "Jawohl mein Herr" would be the german equivalent of "Sir, Yes Sir!".

    Not exactly. While you say "Sir, Yes Sir!" in the U.S. Army (at least the movies make us think so), you would never say "mein Herr" in a German speaking army. "Mein Herr" is rather a polite salutation a waiter would say to a guest in a restaurant. "Here is the steak you've ordered, mein Herr".

    In a German speaking army, the correct salutation is "Herr "+service grade, e.g. "Jawohl Herr Leutnant".

    I stand corrected. That's what you get for doing civil service =) 



  • CPound: I'm curious. Your whole way of operating seems random. When you were a suit, you hired people based on whim. With programming projects, it's any way the wind blows. How does that work for you? I can't imagine living life that way. No sense of direction or purpose. But somehow you manage and continue to get work. Very strange.
     



  • @newguy said:

    CPound: I'm curious. Your whole way of operating seems random.
     

    I've said it before: CPound is a megahal. Random is what they do. 



  • The world is full of all sorts of people.

    Accept it.

    HTH.


     



  • @asuffield said:

    I've said it before: CPound is a megahal. Random is what they do.

    That's all well and dandy, but it will eventually catch up to you. You can only get away with scatterbrained programming for so long...then management takes note. Then you're out of a job. 



  • I had half a mind to say "JAWOHL MEIN HERR" to my PM.

    So I actually only said jawohl!


    I also sometimes get the idea that CPound is a fictional character invented by malevolent beings to carry out a rather advanced and convoluted experiment in trolling. Sometimes.



  • @Quinnum said:

    The world is full of all sorts of people.

    And CPounds one of "that sort". Takes one to know one after all.

    What the hell CPound, you don't like people with piercing/tatoos because they don't have discipline and respect, and when you see discipline and respect it freaks you out?



  • @masklinn said:

    And CPounds one of "that sort". Takes one to know one after all.

    What the hell CPound, you don't like people with piercing/tatoos because they don't have discipline and respect, and when you see discipline and respect it freaks you out?

    Give the man a break. :)
    You have to acknowledge that that employee's behaviour was kind of dumb -- though ONLY if it was serious. Plenty of workspaces where you can have an informal professional relationship, pull such crap and have a few laughs.

    I frequently call one of the consultants by his proper title: Asshole.



  • This was sort of my thought... for all we know, the CEO & the goosestepping guy are old friends and it's been a running joke for years.   Mr. Megahal didn't supply us with enough information to tell... and I suspect he didn't have enough information himself, he just jumped to conclusions -- which has demonstrated himself as likely to do.  ("Oh no, someone made a joke I didn't understand, I'd better quit the company!")

    But to broadly answer CPound's original question, "Why do I always work with freaks", I will turn to Buckaroo Banzai:

    "Wherever you go, there you are"

    -cw



  • @ammoQ said:

    In a German speaking army, the correct salutation is "Herr "+service grade, e.g. "Jawohl Herr Leutnant".

    Though when I was in the army, after basic training, replying "JAWOHL" after you've been given an order had the connotation of "Screw you, I don't think this makes any sense, but I'll do it anyways because I have to". And yes, if the superior was not daft, he would notice that, sometimes replying "Don't jawohl at me!" Especially if he was someone you've been in the field together with and knew for some time.



  • @Skurry said:

    @ammoQ said:

    In a German speaking army, the correct salutation is "Herr "+service grade, e.g. "Jawohl Herr Leutnant".

    Though when I was in the army, after basic training, replying "JAWOHL" after you've been given an order had the connotation of "Screw you, I don't think this makes any sense, but I'll do it anyways because I have to". And yes, if the superior was not daft, he would notice that, sometimes replying "Don't jawohl at me!" Especially if he was someone you've been in the field together with and knew for some time.

    Are you German or Austrian?



  • @newguy said:

    You can only get away with scatterbrained programming for so long...then management takes note. Then you're out of a job. 

    I have longed for this to happen to certain people, but it never has. Seems to me, scatterbrained coders just get easier projects and lowered expectations.



  • Was the CEO in his office at the time?



  • How did your 4-week contract go? How much XAML were you able to throw at it? Were your solutions effective?



  • @newguy said:

    How did your 4-week contract go? How much XAML were you able to throw at it? Were your solutions effective?

    It ended up being a non-OOP assigment. Static HTML pages all the way through. Happy? 



  • @CPound said:

    It ended up being a non-OOP assigment. Static HTML pages all the way through. Happy? 

    Very. Tee-hee-hee. This just proves that I'm right in my assumption that you can only handle the simplest of coding projects. No offense of course.



  • @newguy said:

    Very. Tee-hee-hee. This just proves that I'm right in my assumption that you can only handle the simplest of coding projects. No offense of course.

    Newguy: What did I ever do to you? Did you work with me on a previous job and I screwed up some project of yours? Are you angry at me for a particular reason? Or are you just trying to create controversy? Dude, if your personal hobby is continually attacking me or contradicting what I say, then you really need to get a life.
     



  • @CPound said:

    Dude, if your personal hobby is continually attacking me or contradicting what I say, then you really need to get a life.

    @CPound (from another thread) said:

    Nature? Who goes outside anymore?

    Concerts? There are no more good bands to listen to. It's all garbage.

    Reading? What's that?

    Travel? Once again, who gets out of the house these days?

    Meet people? You mean, be social? (Shudders)

    Clubbing? I think most of the people in this forum have never done such a thing. That's something "cool" people do. Not something Everquest/World of Warcraft junkies get into.

    Any more ideas? 

    Get a life.


    @CPound said:

    It ended up being a non-OOP assigment. Static HTML pages all the way through.

    Are you using "OOP" here to just mean "it didn't involve programming"?

    -cw



  • @CodeWhisperer said:

    Are you using "OOP" here to just mean "it didn't involve programming"?

    Yeah. So? 



  • @CPound said:

    @CodeWhisperer said:

    Are you using "OOP" here to just mean "it didn't involve programming"?

    Yeah. So? 

    I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.



  • I know how much of a prick CPound can be, but this is just childish.


     


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