18
AleCx04
4y

Not necessarily ignorant, but funny.
Before my current job I used to work for a company that provided software services to logistic type corporations, import export and all that jazz.

I was asked to generate an admin interface that would allow people to enter scans from different products, sort them in the right place and update the main interface. During the time we were using Classic ASP with VBScript. There, AJAX and similar functionality can get quite tricky, but definitely doable if you know what you are doing, VBScript has many limitations when compared to something like PHP for example. But thus the application was created in about a week once everything was sorted and then the storage manager came back to ask me if I could put a spinner or something in it to show that the information was loading. I asked him if the information was not being updated accordingly or if there were similar issues to that extent.

He said "no, it is working perfectly and I have no problem with the functionality, but these morons keep trying to scan shit because they can't tell if something is being populated into the main table in the interface because it all happens so quickly" Me: "well it is a very simple process, if you want I can add some sort of additional message to that or a spinner or something of the like that would show for two seconds or something, just so they can get some visual clarification"

Him: "This is a pretty stupid thing isn't it?". Me: Yes. Him: "I am so sorry to ask for this, how long will it take you?" Me: "Lol give me about 30 mins maybe less, it is no problem really, let me get this out of the way so that your people can get to it without loosing anymore time"

Such things are the reason why they literally brought me to the head of the company when I told them that I was leaving in an effort for him to try and convince me to stay. I was not to be contracted into their service anymore, but a full time employee. It was nice for them to ask really, but I declined in favor of the benefits I get from my current company.

To this day I think its funny and they remember as well.

Comments
  • 1
    @F1973 indeed, it was completely understandable to me and he was very honest about it. The dude was a hardass at his job, but efficient and knew his personnel well. His frustration came out more from his employees complains rather than the app itself and he was always happy to see real time effects being that for some reason my boss at the time (dude was a good programmer, but stuck in the old ways a la delphi and vbscript) would never bother to learn proper ajax. I honestly don't resent anything from the gig or the people I worked with.
  • 0
    I would be the guy wanting it definitely. We need a visual indicator mate, what is wrong with it. Maybe you do not clear tables before request and tables stay same, so how can we understand what you did?
  • 1
    @aviophile I don't know if you were able to read that part properly but there was an indicator that an entry had been added to the system.

    There is also me stating how it was no biggie and literally me saying that i did not think bad of it at all. What is your point?

    The app was made to spec, a spec provided by them, this was just him asking for more since his people did not care to read the giant flash message stating that a new entry had been added.
  • 0
    I don't think that was a stupid feature. In every UI the user need same sort of visual feedback when some action happen.
    These feedbacks could be some flashing message or pretty much anything... In this case , a loader. :)
  • 1
    @cyberpro4 there was a flash message, his point of it being stupid was that his users were not reading that, ignoring it, and thus requiring another visual queue.
  • 0
    @AleCx04 I coukd not find the part where you mention information load indicator.

    Also you added the client’s dialog about this being stupid, kinda contradictory.
  • 0
    @aviophile The client's dialog was meant to show that HE thought it was stupid, I just agreed with him on the overall sentiment, but I did not make a big deal out of it.

    Now, when I was telling him about adding an ADDITIONAL message (like in the original post) I was not referencing an additional feature to a non existent feature, I was referring to it as an *additional* message to something that already existed. His problem with the users was that they were just not reading the messages and he thought that them not reading the messages and asking for an additional visual queue was stupid.
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