What happens when the Board Of Discourse begins to panic?



  • The idea is brilliant: Natural Language Processing as an interface to interact with big Customer Relationship Management tools such as SAP

    Filed under: Not as brillant as Paula



  • Natural Language Processing as an interface to interact with big Customer Relationship Management tools such as SAP
    Ok, could be interesting, but a lot of hard work...
    22 year-old CEO
    :wtf:
    the tech team was never consulted.
    F*%king hell. These people are morons. How do they expect this to turn out if they refuse to listen to their techs. Around this point I would have been polishing my CV and getting my exit strategy prepped. And that's somebody with limited experience in when to jump off a crashing plane. The fact their consultant seemed to back away wanting to avoid getting any of that shit on him just confirms in my mind they are fucked.




  • The most distressing thing about this situation is that the guy appears to have enough experience to know how to identify and handle sensitive situations with an abusive manager, yet he ignores all the warning signs and sticks with it for longer than he should have.

    Particularly disturbing is the quote at the end:

    I would like to emphasize how strongly I believe in this business model. At some point a startup like Celolot is going to take over the CRM industry, and as it becomes the default interface for CRMs, it will be able to tax most of the value in the ecosystem. Therefore, some startup is going to become a multi-billion dollar company, building software like what Celolot has been building.

    Celolot currently has bad leadership, but with the right leadership, I believe it could eventually take over the CRM industry.

    This reeks of codependence/Stockholm syndrome. It's like saying, "I'm sure that Amy could be my perfect wife if she would only stop calling me a pussy and stop sleeping with other guys."

    The only people who can fix poor management are management. The developer can either take the abuse, or go elsewhere.



  • @Polygeekery said:

    Hinton (our 22 year-old CEO)

    They were fucked before they began.

    It's not like he did anything in the story except be a spineless puppet.



  • "Fuckety-bye!" (copyright Malcolm Tucker)


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @Polygeekery said:

    You went from one button click to 50 keystrokes.

    It's Android. They get speech-to-text for free.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Groaner said:

    It's not like he did anything in the story except be a spineless puppet.

    Yeah, and if he was older than 22, he might have enough experience to realize when he should push back. A good leader also knows when to ask for help, another trait that 22 year olds don't tend to have.

    I am not saying that a 22 year old cannot be a good leader/CEO. But they require coaching. I was managing a lot of people by 22 years of age. Nowhere near CEO-level, but still higher level management. But I had people to coach me, mentor me and tell me when I fucked up (Probably the most important part). When you are CEO of an inexperienced group, you are unlikely to have anyone around on a daily basis to push back.


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    @Yamikuronue said:

    It's Android. They get speech-to-text for free.

    So what? You still don't have a UI to guide you and you don't have a GUI to show you the options. So, you either have to teach every single person to say:

    “I want to edit the info about my contact Jenny Hei,”

    Or, you devote shitloads of people, shitloads of money, and shitloads of processing power to solve the problem of when someone says to your application: "Uhmmmmm, I need to put in a new phone number for....what was her name? Jennifer Huey? Jennifer Hi? Oh shit, she works for Innotech. Cute woman. Nice rack for an Asian chick. I am so bad with last names. I want to add a new phone number for Jen Hei. That's it. That's her name."

    "473 Jennys found. Could you please narrow your search criteria?"

    Even Google struggles with this stuff at times. It works well for us, because we think similarly to the people who wrote it. When Lenny, the good natured insurance salesman from Topeka, Kansas is trying to update contacts for the life insurance company he works for tries it, the results are not so stellar. Because Lenny grew up writing all this shit up in his Rolodex, he wears short sleeve dress shirts in the summertime, and the fact that his new company car doesn't have any place to put a key in the ignition blows his fucking mind. It is sorcery.



  • @Nocha said:

    Around this point I would have been polishing my CV and getting my exit strategy prepped.

    Whenever I jumped off a wtf job I landed another wtf job. It's wtf all the way down. Maybe it's something with me, I don't interview very well.


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    @fbmac said:

    Whenever I jumped off a wtf job I landed another wtf job. It's wtf all the way down. Maybe it's something with me, I don't interview very well.

    I blame Brazil.



  • @Polygeekery said:

    Yeah, and if he was older than 22, he might have enough experience to realize when he should push back. A good leader also knows when to ask for help, another trait that 22 year olds don't tend to have.

    I am not saying that a 22 year old cannot be a good leader/CEO. But they require coaching. I was managing a lot of people by 22 years of age. Nowhere near CEO-level, but still higher level management. But I had people to coach me, mentor me and tell me when I fucked up (Probably the most important part). When you are CEO of an inexperienced group, you are unlikely to have anyone around on a daily basis to push back.

    I agree about the inexperience part, but I get the feeling that Milburn was running the show from the start, and that the CEO wouldn't (couldn't?) have had the clout or authority to be able to push back in the first place. We see later in the story how Milburn reacts to having his authority challenged.



  • @Polygeekery said:

    Or, you devote shitloads of people, shitloads of money, and shitloads of processing power to solve the problem of when someone says to your application: "Uhmmmmm, I need to put in a new phone number for....what was her name? Jennifer Huey? Jennifer Hi? Oh shit, she works for Innotech. Cute woman. Nice rack for an Asian chick. I am so bad with last names. I want to add a new phone number for Jen Hei. That's it. That's her name."

    Given that the end goal sounds like replicating a meat-processor secretary, rather than spending millions on R&D, it would probably be more cost-efficient to hire an actual meat-processor secretary.


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    @Groaner said:

    Given that the end goal sounds like replicating a meat-processor secretary, rather than spending millions on R&D, it would probably be more cost-efficient to hire an actual meat-processor secretary.

    Yeah, but the first time Lenny the good-natured insurance salesman from Topeka, Kansas says something about "nice rack" to that secretary, it gets more expensive.



  • @Polygeekery said:

    Yeah, but the first time Lenny the good-natured insurance salesman from Topeka, Kansas says something about "nice rack" to that secretary, it gets more expensive.

    Hey, just because he's from Kansas doesn't mean he can't appreciate a good server rack!



  • @Polygeekery said:

    All the CEOs in your country beat children with their truncheons and molest livestock.

    Yes, but then again everybody does that, so I'm not sure why you'd single out CEOs.



  • Also, wow. I'd expect this, in, I don't know, some open source project by basement dwellers who never really realized there's such a thing as GUI and instead decided they'll make CLI the best thing ever again, not working against fucking SAP.


  • area_deu

    Okay, having read this a second time, Lawrence clearly is an idiot.

    One or two of the following :WTF: should have been enough to say "fuck this, I'm out of here". Yet he clung on.

    • 22 year old CEO with no experience and no spine
    • impossibly ambitious goals
    • incompetent programmer colleague that is BOUND to be a liability sooner or later
    • no clear assignment of responsibilities
    • no specs, no architecture, everybody bikesheds in his own shed without telling the others (this will end in desaster even if everyone is a brilliant programmer)
    • "the big pivot"
    • "Boss" who clearly is an asshole
    • a consultant who says "oh, you're doing fine"
    • spending days writing your own fucking JSON serializer

    What riles me most is the way he just kept taking it from his asshole boss. Where does this respect for a "Director" of a company with a whopping grand total of three employees come from?
    I would have just closed the chat program when the Big Brother thing was going on, or used the time to catch up on my video gaming since that clearly was okay for the CEO. On the phone you just say "call again when you're ready to talk to me like a human being" and hang up. If they fire you for that (which they can't over here 😁) it's probably for the better.

    I hope at least the pay was good.



  • Interestingly there's lots of companies dedicated entirely to translating text or voice to intents.

    https://api.ai/
    http://www.alchemyapi.com/products/alchemylanguage

    I don't know well they work on complex sentences, but they are definitely better than anything a small company can build.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @Polygeekery said:

    So what?

    That's all fair, I was just pointing out that the awkwardness of typing on a mobile device is probably a moot point since they'd prefer their customers to use speech-to-text instead, which is easier to train.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @anonymous234 said:

    I don't know well they work on complex sentences, but they are definitely better than anything a small company can build.

    These guys weren't actually building the natural language stuff. They were using someone else's as a way to interface with SAP.



  • @Polygeekery said:

    I am not saying that a 22 year old cannot be a good leader/CEO.

    I should hope not. In the second world war, there were multiple British warships(1) commanded by 21-year-old Lieutenants.

    (1) Submarines, mostly. Surface vessels seemed in general to get older commanders.



  • @ChrisH said:

    Okay, having read this a second time, Lawrence clearly is an idiot.

    It took you two read-throughs to work that out? You are TR :wtf:.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Steve_The_Cynic said:

    @Polygeekery said:
    I am not saying that a 22 year old cannot be a good leader/CEO.

    I should hope not. In the second world war, there were multiple British warships(1) commanded by 21-year-old Lieutenants.

    !!!❗:wtf:⁉!!!

    Are you implying that British military leaders are a good example of leaders?
    I know we still have a few weeks left, but I would bet good money that you're going to win "Literally The Most Fucking Stupidest Thing Type On This Forum All Year". And this is the Year of the Fox!


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    @Lorne_Kates said:

    I know we still have a few weeks left, but I would bet good money that you're going to win "Literally The Most Fucking Stupidest Thing Type On This Forum All Year". And this is the Year of the Fox!

    Let's not be hyperbolic. The Fox said that a man can give a blowjob and it not be gay because feelings. The British could have mooned the enemy as an offensive tactic and it still not be that fucking stupid.


  • area_can

    WHAT?


    Filed under: [try to be more descriptive] ()


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    I assume you weren't in the Guacamole thread for that? I can perhaps dig it up if you want to see.



  • @Polygeekery said:

    I can perhaps dig it up if you want to see.

    http://i.imgur.com/LMvpzy2.gif



  • @Steve_The_Cynic said:

    In the second world war, there were multiple British warships(1) commanded by 21-year-old Lieutenants.

    Submarine commander has to be brave, bold and not value their life too much, because it is a very risky job. Those are traits often found in 21-year-olds. Company director needs rather different traits.



    1. Giving a blowjob does not necessarily imply being attracted to men
    2. Gayness isn't binary. If you're attracted to 99% of women and 0.1% of men you can still call yourself straight.

  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @anonymous234 said:

    1. Giving a blowjob does not necessarily imply being attracted to men
    2. Gayness isn't binary. If you're attracted to 99% of women and 0.1% of men you can still call yourself straight.

    Hey you know what's stupider than both British military commanders AND BraFox's gender politics?

    STARTING YET ANOTHER THREAD ABOUT BRAFOX'S GENDER POLITICS.



  • Tell @Polygeekery to stop acting smug then.


  • area_can

    Well, this thread's gone to shit. Whoops


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    @anonymous234 said:

    Tell @Polygeekery to stop acting smug then.

    I am just trying to live my life authentically.



  • @ChrisH said:

    What riles me most is the way he just kept taking it from his asshole boss.

    Yeah me too. I'd have hung up long before he did.

    He handled the conversation well (of course the victor writes the history, etc), but why did he even stay on the line that long? About the second time the boss interrupted me about the estimate, I'd have just hung up.



  • @anonymous234 said:

    Giving a blowjob does not necessarily imply being attracted to men
    Gayness isn't binary. If you're attracted to 99% of women and 0.1% of men you can still call yourself straight.

    No! STOP! Why did you post that in here! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!

    Ok well mute time.



  • @ChrisH said:

    Okay, having read this a second time, Lawrence clearly is an idiot.

    One or two of the following :wtf: should have been enough to say "fuck this, I'm out of here". Yet he clung on.

    To be fair, he wrote the story after quitting, and no doubt saw things a little more clearly in hindsight.

    It's not like he walked into an initial interview and was met by someone who said "Hi, I'm an inexperienced, spineless CEO who can't handle confrontation. Our company has impossibly ambitious goals, will never resolve any of our organizational challenges, and plan on saddling you with the most useless cow-orkers imaginable. Would you be interested in working on a doomed project which will be transformed into something completely different three months on by a psychotic boss who makes Donald Trump look cuddly and approachable? Yes, you would? Can you start tomorrow? Great!"

    When the alternatives are "Work for company which has some warning signs" and "Not work at all", the choice can be a tough one. It's only when it turns into "Continue to work for company when every single warning sign has lit up, caught fire and tried to stick you in the eye with a fork" vs. "Not work at all" that it becomes clear that you're better off getting out.



  • People were like "ha ha how can that idiot think X is true" "haha lol", and I was like "but X is true??" and I'm the bad guy now?



  • Obviously. You're posting in agreement with someone everyone here considers insane, and trying to continue a discussion no one wants to have.


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    @anonymous234 said:

    People were like "ha ha how can that idiot think X is true" "haha lol", and I was like "but X is true??" and I'm the bad guy now?

    It has been agreed upon by the forum that any protracted discussion on the subject should be moved to the guacamole thread. So, if you wish to continue the discussion, we can do so there. I made an offhand quip, that is a joke that admittedly only those who participated in that thread would really get. I did not intend it to start the bleeding all over again.

    TL;DR, I thought enough time had passed that a joke referencing the guacamole thread could be made without shit bleeding again. I was mistaken.


  • Dupa

    @Polygeekery said:

    I assume you weren't in the Guacamole thread for that?

    Fuck, you reminded me I wanted to go through this thread, at last. But I think I'll pass, it's like 8000 posts or something.


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    @kt_ said:

    it's like 8000 posts or something.

    Wrong.


  • Dupa

    Whoa, you guys surely know how to party.



  • @AlexMedia said:

    Who in their right minds would type a full sentence ("Show me all outstanding leads for Hilton that have not been attended to in the past 15 days") if you can achieve the same with a few buttons and just typing "Hilton" and "15"?

    When I read that, I first thought you were suggesting it should function like the parser in text adventures, which usually only picked up on the important words in the commands: go to the north would have the same result as go north or just north or even just n (depending on the sophistication of the engine).

    Then I realised you’re actually talking about a GUI with a few text boxes :)



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    Are you implying that British military leaders are a good example of leaders?

    Maybe he’s narrowing it down too much, but early 20s is a typical age for young military officers — especially in a big war when a lot of people join up around that age. And don’t forget that military officers that age have at least been taught the basics of how to do their job, while a 22-year-old CEO most likely learned all he knows about leadership through experience. However, you’re bound to learn a lot more from a reasonable education than from experience in a given timespan — though a combination of the two is going to be better than either alone.


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    @Gurth said:

    However, you’re bound to learn a lot more from a reasonable education than from experience in a given timespan

    Really? Meh, I guess you may learn "more" as a quantity. But if most of that "more" is useless shit that you will never use, is it really "more" in an applicable sense?

    I will take experienced over educated any day of the week. Experience helps you weed out all that useless shit you were forced to learn while getting your "reasonable education".



  • @Polygeekery said:

    I guess you may learn "more" as a quantity. But if most of that "more" is useless shit that you will never use, is it really "more" in an applicable sense?

    Depends. A lot of what you learn in a school-type setting is, on the whole, pretty useless. But you seem to be saying that education as a whole is useless because experience will come out on top every time. If so, then why do we educate people at all? It must be because nobody gets hired without a diploma, even if the diploma is useless.

    @Polygeekery said:

    I will take experienced over educated any day of the week.

    We’re talking leadership here: a 22-year-old CEO probably isn't going to have all that much experience leading people, since he likely spent much of his time until then being educated in something or other that probably didn’t include leading people — most likely in this field, either computer stuff or business stuff. Whereas a 22-year-old military officer has had several years of training in being a leader of men (amongst other things). Even without hands-on experience, he should have a better grasp of what to do and say (and not to) than the guy with a little bit of experience but no training.


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    @Gurth said:

    But you seem to be saying that education as a whole is useless because experience will come out on top every time.

    Not useless as a whole, but vastly inferior to experience. I would gladly hire someone with 4 years of real experience over someone who has 4 years of education in the field. Even if the person with experience has no formal education in the matter.

    @Gurth said:

    nobody gets hired without a diploma, even if the diploma is useless.

    Well, partially true. Once you are 4-5 years in the workforce, you are unlikely to get asked about your education again. But, search through the job ads. A hell of a lot of them say "X years of experience required". Lots of graduates end up in the trap of not being able to get a job without the experience, and unable to get the experience without a job.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    Are you implying that British military leaders are a good example of leaders?
    I know we still have a few weeks left, but I would bet good money that you're going to win "Literally The Most Fucking Stupidest Thing Type On This Forum All Year". And this is the Year of the Fox!

    Usually when I hear the words "military leaders", I think of generals and admirals and the like, which a Lieutenant is about as far from as you can get while still being a commissioned officer. Commanding a diesel/electric submarine in war is rather different from commanding an army or a fleet. As Gurth says, 21 is a perfectly reasonable age for new Lieutenants, and the only unusual thing in all this, perhaps, is that these men were given command of (small) warships in a time of war. (The "perhaps" is a consequence of the "in a time of war" part.)

    Looking at the record these commanders established, I would have to say that they did well as leaders of warships. Whether the survivors would have made good leaders of companies or of fleets is another question, of course.


  • BINNED

    @Gurth said:

    But you seem to be saying that education as a whole is useless because experience will come out on top every time. If so, then why do we educate people at all?

    One thing that is supposed to happen at the undergrad level is that the student learns how to learn and is able to do independent study after finishing the undergrad program. So that would be a benefit even if everything else turns out to be useless.


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