TRWTF - Contract is a contract



  • Most experienced developer on team has gone on vacation. User calls Analyst in Bank Operations department. Analyst calls a person working onshore, who calls Nagesh.

    Person Working Offshore: User is saying contracts are not getting printed correctly.
    Nagesh: Is printer out of paper? New printer driver software installed? Printer is switched off? Any of following?
    PWO: let me check.

    30 minutes later.

    PWO: None of the above things.
    Nagesh: What is happening?
    PWO: Let me get the user and find out.

    40 minutes later.

    PWO: Naggy, old chap, I have user Miss Hazlestone on the line. Also we have our analyst, Mrs. Els and her manager Mr. Verkamp on the bridge
    Nagesh: Ok. What seems to be the problem?
    Miss Hazlestone: I printed one contract # 300 and the items on the contract don't match.
    Nagesh runs query on database.
    Nagesh: I see there are 18 items on this contract that started on 10-Jun-2011.
    Mrs. Els: That is just plain wrong.
    Mr Verkamp: Would you clarify that Mrs. Els?
    Miss Hazlestone: Customer already returned 6 items, so contract should print 12 items instead of 18.
    Nagesh looks at code.
    Nagesh: I don't see any special condition in source code that is ignoring any returned items.
    PWO: It looks like Miss Hazlestone has found a bug.
    Nagesh: Are we sure? Perhaps we should call the person on leave.
    Mr. Verkamp: We are paying good money to your company, so I want this bug fixed by morning.
    Miss Hazlestone: This should have never happened.
    Mrs Els: I can't believe "legal" signed off on this.
    Nagesh types in IM to PWO - "Perhaps you should have got someone from legal department as well".
    PWO types back: Just make the change. I will push to production under "bug fix".
    Nagesh makes code change and commits code to database.

    1 week later.
    Main developer returns.
    MD: I am finding that you have one commit made at 3:00 AM
    Nagesh: Yes, something about terminated items on a contract.
    MD: Was the client's legal department involved?
    Nagesh: No. I asked PWO if he wanted to and he said no.

    1 week later.

    Another meeting.
    Miss Hazlestone: I found this bug.
    Legal Dept Man: This is not a bug. This is how it is supposed to work. You cannot change the contents of a contract. It has to look the same way as it did on the day it was printed.
    Mrs Els: I did want to run this through legal when she brought it up.
    Mr Verkamp: What are we talking about?
    PWO is not present in the meeting.
    Blame is pointed to PWO who is promptly released from project. Fix is rolled back. MD looks like hero.



  • Mrs Els. Mr Verkamp. Offshore.

    My vote is Saudi Hollandi Bank.



  • In true TDWTF tradition, I anonymused this tale with character from Tom Sharpe's book.

    @skotl said:

    Mrs Els. Mr Verkamp. Offshore.

    My vote is Saudi Hollandi Bank.



  • Another random necro topic revival as recommended by suggested topics!
    Viva la @presidentsdaughter!


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