Looking for an article
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(Don't know if this is the right place to post this)
I am looking for a daily wtf article, I forgot what it's called.
It's about a guy who does some sort of conversion of a file manually, it's very tedious. I think he opens the file in different programs and saves them to different format and it takes a very long time.
Then another guy automates this with a script, but since the first guy would be useless if his work could be automated, he just keeps doing everything manually.
Does anybody recognize this?
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Yeah, it was a feature a few weeks back. Hang on...
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This one?
An Efficient Curmudgeon
One of the things a good developer should always strive for is efficiency. Slow code should be improved if possible. Complicated steps should be simplified or removed. Finding a poorly-implemented process which is costing company time and streamlining it is usually a good thing, and means more...
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That's the one I was thinking of. Apparently my internal calendar is broken :)
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That's not the one I was thinking about, but it's kind of similar.
I think the guy who does the converting is a big and scary looking guy and doesn't talk much. And the guy who does the script is visiting his company. And in the end the converting guy just gives him a scary look and continues to work in his normal way. So nobody else finds out about the script in the end.
It's hard to recall it was a long time ago I read it!
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I can't speak for the OP of course, but that's not quite the same. That's moving the report from Clarke (who wanted the time-saving software) to his boss Rick (who didn't "trust" it, despite it being well-tested, and started doing the reports manually on his own instead.)
That's still an IT win, because Clarke still generated his report in 10 minutes instead of 5+ hours.
Although I guess the net was a loss, because at least Clarke was using Excel sheets, while Rick did it all on paper with a 4-function calculator.
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Sounds like:
Everyone has had the displeasure of having to perform some mind-numbing repetitive task. Those of us who know how to program computers will use our expertise to figure out a way to get the machine to serve us by performing the menial task on our behalf. After all, computers were designed to serve...
Aikh was the new hire on the local bank’s data warehousing/business intelligence team. His manager threw him right into the hurricane: a project with the neediest, whiniest and most demanding business unit. Said business hated their unreliable batch process for archiving reports, and the manual...
Richard fumbled with his key card, taking care not to accidentally spill his coffee as he entered the conference room. Normally, he was as much a morning person as the next guy, but for him, arriving to work for a 7AM meeting was best suited for the birds. Richard had some hoped that this meeting...
It was to be the perfect system: requested by an IT-friendly internal client, managed by a competent project manager, described by insightful business analysts, designed by an experienced architect, built by intelligent programmers, and perfected by thorough testers. Its goal was hefty but noble:...
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Damit
on the recycling of things @anotherusernameSo I will have to go with: TIL It takes about 6 mins to skim read 3 1/2 months of Articles.
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http://thedailywtf.com/articles/A-Repetitive-Task
That one fits pretty closely to the OP's description.
http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Manual-Automation
Doesn't fit as well. No grumpy person declining the automation improvement.
http://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Process-that-Never-Failed
Doesn't match well at all. Focus is on a business in a panic over not being able to retrieve 25-year-old records when it turned out their data retention policy made that data moot.
http://thedailywtf.com/articles/The_Fully_Automated_Manual_System
Hmm. Possibly? In this case, most of the system was still automated, just submitting the data to the billing partner was kept manual. No scary looks.
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Hmm It\s not any of these either...
The conversion guy is not a boss, just a guy whose only task is converting the stuff.
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Probably not this...
Ahh, The Incredible Machine. What a great video game. A basketball would roll down the slope, hit a bucket attached to a rope which was networked through a complex system of pulleys, pulling a lever that would turn on a motor, sending a conveyor belt in motion, carrying a baseball into a seesaw...
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I do seem to remember one where some old guy is terrified at the fact that his entire job is performed by this script and refuses to use it.
I can't find it, though.
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#FOUND IT!!!
A few kilometers left on Ruta Nacional 128, a brief stop at a control policial, a short trip down the unpaved Calle 33, and just like that, Sergio was at his destination. It was a top-secret Argentinean Government Facility. Now, before you get all excited, let me say that this was not the fun type...
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Yes!!! That's the one!
I remembered something about taking a screen shot but I thought that was probably too good to be true.
Thanks
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