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Search - "annoying pm"
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Hey everyone,
First off, a Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates, happy holidays to everyone, and happy almost-new-year!
Tim and I are very happy with the year devRant has had, and thinking back, there are a lot of 2017 highlights to recap. Here are just a few of the ones that come to mind (this list is not exhaustive and I'm definitley forgetting stuff!):
- We introduced the devRant supporter program (devRant++)! (https://devrant.com/rants/638594/...). Thank you so much to everyone who has embraced devRant++! This program has helped us significantly and it's made it possible for us to mantain our current infrustructure and not have to cut down on servers/sacrifice app performance and stability.
- We added avatar pets (https://devrant.com/rants/455860/...)
- We finally got the domain devrant.com thanks to @wiardvanrij (https://devrant.com/rants/938509/...)
- The first international devRant meetup (Dutch) with organized by @linuxxx and was a huge success (https://devrant.com/rants/937319/... + https://devrant.com/rants/935713/...)
- We reached 50,000 downloads on Android (https://devrant.com/rants/728421/...)
- We introduced notif tabs (https://devrant.com/rants/1037456/...), which make it easy to filter your in-app notifications by type
- @AlexDeLarge became the first devRant user to hit 50,000++ (https://devrant.com/rants/885432/...), and @linuxxx became the first to hit 75,000++
- We made an April Fools joke that got a lot of people mad at us and hopefully got some laughs too (https://devrant.com/rants/506740/...)
- We launched devDucks!! (https://devducks.com)
- We got rid of the drawer menu in our mobile apps and switched to a tab layout
- We added the ability to subscribe to any user's rants (https://devrant.com/rants/538170/...)
- Introduced the post type selector (https://devrant.com/rants/850978/...) (which will be used for filtering - more details below)
- Started a bug/feature tracker GitHub repo (https://github.com/devRant/devRant)
- We did our first ever live stream (https://youtube.com/watch/...)
- Added an awesome all-black theme (devRant++) (https://devrant.com/rants/850978/...)
- We created an "active discussions" screen within the app so you can easily find rants with booming discussions!
- Thanks to the suggestion of many community members, we added "scroll to bottom" functionality to rants with long comment threads to make those rants more usable
- We improved our app stability and set our personal record for uptime, and we also cut request times in half with some database cluster upgrades
- Awesome new community projects: https://devrant.com/projects (more will be added to the list soon, sorry for the delay!)
- A new landing page for web (https://devrant.com), that was the first phase of our web overhaul coming soon (see below)
Even after all of this stuff, Tim and I both know there is a ton of work to do going forward and we want to continue to make devRant as good as it can be. We rely on your feedback to make that happen and we encourage everyone to keep submitting and discussing ideas in the bug/feature tracker (https://github.com/devRant/devRant).
We only have a little bit of the roadmap right now, but here's some things 2018 will bring:
- A brand new devRant web app: we've heard the feedback loud and clear. This is our top priority right now, and we're happy to say the completely redesigned/overhauled devRant web experience is almost done and will be released in early 2018. We think everyone will really like it.
- Functionality to filter rants by type: this feature was always planned since we introduced notif types, and it will soon be implemented. The notif type filter will allow you to select the types of rants you want to see for any of the sorting methods.
- App stability and usability: we want to dedicate a little time to making sure we don't forget to fix some long-standing bugs with our iOS/Android apps. This includes UI issues, push notification problems on Android, any many other small but annoying problems. We know the stability and usability of devRant is very important to the community, so it's important for us to give it the attention it deserves.
- Improved profiles/avatars: we can't reveal a ton here yet, but we've got some pretty cool ideas that we think everyone will enjoy.
- Private messaging: we think a PM system can add a lot to the app and make it much more intuitive to reach out to people privately. However, Tim and I believe in only launching carefully developed features, so rest assured that a lot of thought will be going into the system to maximize privacy, provide settings that make it easy to turn off, and provide security features that make it very difficult for abuse to take place. We're also open to any ideas here, so just let us know what you might be thinking.
There will be many more additions, but those are just a few we have in mind right now.
We've had a great year, and we really can't thank every member of the devRant community enough. We've always gotten amazingly positive feedback from the community, and we really do appreciate it. One of the most awesome things is when some compliments the kindness of the devRant community itself, which we hear a lot. It really is such a welcoming community and we love seeing devs of all kind and geographic locations welcomed with open arms.
2018 will be an important year for devRant as we continue to grow and we will need to continue the momentum. We think the ideas we have right now and the ones that will come from community feedback going forward will allow us to make this a big year and continue to improve the devRant community.
Thanks everyone, and thanks for your amazing contributions to the devRant community!
Looking forward to 2018,
- David and Tim48 -
First rant here. Long, but please bear with me:
So after slogging my ass off in various early stage startups for over 4 years and keeping up with the almost non-existent development process, I joined an organisation which has some of the brightest and smartest minds I have had the pleasure to work with.
Mind you, this company is the market leader in it's field and has a 50+ people in it's tech team and the quality of work is pretty impressive.
Now for this week's sprint, I was asked to develop a feature which already exists on the Android app and they want to introduce in the iOS app too. The backend APIs are all in place and all I need to do is build it with virtually no dependency. My PM asks me to start with the UI and ask the backend dev for the API list whenever I need them.This is where the story turns.
For my first API, I go to the backend dev and ask him to share the API documentation and he looks at me as if I have asked him to dance the fucking cha cha. With a straight face he tells me that, 'The organisation doesn't maintain any kind of documentation for it's APIs.' Now this really shocks me. Even in a 5 men tech teams I have worked on, we have always maintained a spec doc for the APIs and this is a company which is known for it's tech practices.
Being the new guy I compose myself and ask if they have anything for me here: Postman collection, a workflowy doc, a goddamn txt file; anything which might help me, and he laughs at my dilusion and says no.
Dejected, I ask for a way to get the APIs and I am told that there are only two ways: either I keep bothering the Android dev for the APIs(No, I don't have the access to the android repo and nor am I gonna get it) which he had worked on 4 months back or I install the prod app on my phone, and use Charles to get every fucking API which is really, really annoying.
I thought writing out this rant would make me feel better, turns out it just made me angrier. Why the fuck can't they document such an important thing!?13 -
*PM on drugs*
PM: The destination list on our Infinity Rider app is not updating even after the user changes their pickup location.
Me: ???
PM: Infinity App not updating after pick up point change.
Me: Not really sure what you mean... Can I get a screen record?
PM: {{sends screen record}}
PM: You see it's showing results of old search. Not good!!!
Me: {{Watch media half way through and saw the obvious}}
Me: Results on available destination are relative to the user's current location and not the pickup address.
PM: Why would that be? Not good enough!
Me: You actually requested that implementation after I had previously made the destination recommendation list relative to selected pickup address.
PM: Please revert immediately!!!
Me: Hmmm... You told me the reason why that implementation was needed was to prevent users from selecting interstate addresses because they could.
PM: Ooh true. You can leave as is.
PM: {{proceeds to delete all older messages but last}}
Me: (⊙_⊙)
{{ 4 hours later }}
PM: I think we need to look into this implementation a second time.5 -
Years ago, I was part of a project that went completely off the rails. A little context: we were a services company and we had local offices in cities all over the country. My team provided 2nd-level support which means we often had the PMs call us from those via an annoying Nextel radio.
I won’t go through the details but suffice it to say this project envolved one such branch going rogue and committing actual fraud, with criminal proceedings and all. People were on the edge, and the relationship with that branch was increasingly hostile. There was also an internal power struggle in the company between some directors at that point. In other words, a clusterfuck I’ll always cherish, if by cherish you mean hate hate hate. Anywho…
One time, there was a national holiday on a Thursday and we were going to make it a long weekend. As customary, I communicated with all the PMs about contigency plans. This PM then told us that we could not take Friday off because the customer wanted us to fly over there. We were supposed to be at the customer’s site early Friday morning. That meant we would have to fly Thrusday afternoon. I wasn’t happy.
It immediatly felt arbitrary too. As I said, the relationship was not good and we suspected he was just trying to cost us our days off. I knew enough of the customer to be fairly sure they would not have requested us that Friday. Why did the customer want us then? There was nothing yet on production and if it was just to show progress, surely we could move it to Monday. At worst, can’t we make it over the phone? No, no, no, he said. The customer was adamant that we be there on Friday. Sucked to be us.
So we flew over Thursday afternoon and on Friday morning we headed to the customer’s offices only to find it closed. They too had made it a long weekend and wouldn’t be back until Monday.
Normally I would be furious over the waste of time but to be honest, both I and my colleague smiled at that. It confirmed that the PM just tried to screw us and the customer have never asked for us. We headed back to the local office.
Before coming in, we both bought ourselves some icecream. My friend stayed in the little garden in front and I went in. The PM immediatly saw me and demanded to know why I wasn’t at the customer yet. I didn’t answer. Instead I grabbed the Nextel radio and headed back out with the PM following. I then sat down on the grass and called my director. Smiling and staring at the PM, I told him about the office being closed. The PM’s face froze when my director asked to talk to him.
We sat outside under the sun, enjoying our icecreams while the PM got shouted at. It was the best icecream I’ve ever had.6 -
Annoying thing happened at work as usual -> can't get the mood to code -> procrastinate -> finally get my shit together -> get some work done -> shit it's 07.00 PM I should be going home already -> still coding because I started late -> shit it's 09.00 PM -> get the fuck home -> I need time to be alone and relieve stress by surfing the web -> shit it's 02.00 AM -> try to get some sleep -> Why did she left me? How's dad doing? God I think I that function that I coded today is awful, gotta fix it tomorrow. Am I going to afford a house EVER? Fuck what I'm doing with my life. -> Shit it's 05.00 AM, I MUST SLEEP. -> (kinda sleep) -> Fuck it's 10.00 shit shit shit shit -> arrive at work -> I'm not ready to open the code -> procrastinate -> ...4
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them: welcome new project members, this is our CI/CD pipeline which is completely different from the rest of the company, there won't be any great knowledge transfer, we just expect you to be able to know and use everything. but also, we expect you to work on your tasks and don't waste any time.
me: okay, so my tasks aren't going as fast as expected, because I need to invest some learning so i can set up my project correctly.
later: some help would be nice, i'm stuck right now
coworker: *helps me to fix my problems, which were partly due to misconfigured build servers* i know it's a lot, and unfortunately, for this topic sources on the web aren't so good. i can really recommend this book, this will give a deeper understanding of the topic.
me: okay, yeah i mean, tbh, i'll read the book if the project invests some time for me so i can learn everything that's required, but this won't happen. also, some initial workshop on the topic or anything would have been nice.
coworker: well, i mean, i am a software developer. for me, it is normal that i learn all that stuff in my free time. and i think that's what the PM expects from us.
me: okay, that's fine for you, i mean, if i'm interested in a topic, i will invest my private time. but in this case, PM would just expect me to do unpaid labor, to gain knowledge and skills that i can use in this specific project. i'm not willing to do that.
coworker: ...
me: ...
it's not that i don't want to learn. the thing is that there isn't any energy left by the end of the day. i'm actually trying to find some work life balance, because i don't feel balanced right now, haven't felt since i started this job.
also, this is only one of several projects i'm working on. it's like they expect me this project has top priority in my life. if it wasn't so annoying on different levels, maybe i'd have a more positive attitude towards it.
also, at the moment i find it fucking annoying that i have to invest so much time in this dev ops bullshit and this keeps me from doing my actual work.
if they are unhappy with my skills, either they can invest in my learning or kick me out. at this point, either is fine for me..12 -
Pretty annoyed with Siri...
The other day I was mowing the lawn with my headphones on, and I asked her what time it was. It took her about 10 seconds to respond, and then finally she says “at the tone, the time will be 12:59 PM. Beep!” Like, she literally said the word “beep” in the response.
Ugh...so many things that annoy me about this.
One, it would have been faster to just take my phone out and look at the time.
Two, the cutesy response is annoying and takes too long for her to say.
Three, unless the time actually was approaching 12:59:00 and her response took the exact number of seconds remaining before then, the stupid “beep” isn’t even accurate!
If I ask what time it is, I just want the phone to say “12:59,” immediately. Anything longer or more convoluted than that, and it’s pointless – I could just take out the phone and look at the screen instead.2 -
I've got a user who keeps asking for weekly updates on a project I'm on and my pm is supposed to interface with them and give them the status. But my pm comes back to me like "so everything is good right?"
When we just talked last week about how it's not and I still have work stoppages. I have status updates written in our ticket tracker for him and he has tons of emails explaining the issue but he always forgets what the status is anyway!
Jesus, having to keep reminding someone of something when the information is right out there for them to grab quickly and easily is bloody annoying. He just neglects this one project! I'd cut out the middleman but I need him because I don't know enough about business rules to make decisions or ignore concerns that crop up in my planning!3 -
==============
Getting Feedback Rant!
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When "this is simpler" feedback results in a function of 500 lines of code.
When I get "don't do X" in the feedback. Thank you very much. What do you want me to do instead?
Unclear feedback.
When the feedback giver changes his mind after I applied the changes!
When applying the feedback introduces a bug.
Simply opinionated feedback that is not enforced by any tool or backed up by any facts.
Please find something better to do in life.
Unactionable feedback.
"Consider X"
I will not consider thank you very much.
"Verify this works"
Duh..
When the feedback giver knows something that you don't.
I know this is a legit case.. still annoying.
"I disagree with the feature"
Go argue with the PM, not relevant to me, thanks!
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GIVING FEEDBACK RANT
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I rewrote the system. Please review it.
No need to review, just approve.
I will change this as part of the next ticket.
I would like to keep it the way it is.
lazy ass..
You can't test this.
It's impossible to test this.
No need to test this.
There's no point to test this.
I'll test this on production.
Not sure why this is working..
Please document this..
Because documentation is like a thing, you know.
Oh, this code is not related to this PR, I just don't want to open a new branch for such a small change. ignore it.
Ignore this.
This will be meaningful in my next change. -
My work had Project Management software before to track tasks and issues, but the new boss wanted to switch to some new support tool. A bit annoying, but no problem.
After decommissioning the old (free) PM software, he decided to put off the new software implementation. Instead, he created a shared g suite inbox that we have to log in to and check for issues. No routing, no priorities, no notes section, no progress tracking, no tasks.
Now I have to give progress updates several times a day on my tasks because there is literally nowhere for me to report my progress. I have no idea what my priorities are since we have literally nowhere that specifies priorities. This is a PM and support nightmare, and as a former SCRUM master I'm about to lose it!6 -
Hello, my first time here. I got to know this website/app from my PM because I need to vent it somewhere other than him according to my PM.
So, here goes my first rant. The date is today (Monday). The rant subject is our new tester. Some context on the guy. He started in our office 8 weeks ago and his title is senior tester with some years in testing. Me and my team with the exception of our PM are new hires and for me, this is my first job after graduation.
After a grueling month of pushing for new modules and bug fixes from our monthly UAT from the client (yes, this will be a future rant one day), about 2/3 of the team is on vacation paired with a long weekend. So, a very few ppl in the team including me and my PM came for today.
I usually came quite early, around 8 am as I commute with public transportation. As soon as I have my breakfast and just getting ready to open my dev laptop, he came to me with a bug. This is like under an hour I came to office. I'm ok with anything related to the project as today was deployment day to test server for our monthly UAT. So, I check the bug and it wasn't my module but the PIC is not there and I familiar with the code thus I fixing the module.
Then, not even 15 mins later, while fixing this module, he came to me with another bug. I'm still the only one who in office that can fix it thus have to do it too. Finished the both bugs, pushed and je retested it. Fortunately, my PM and another colleague came. But, for some reason, he only comes to me for the bug fixes.
The annoying thing for me is that he comes to me every time he found an obstacle, bug or glitch. At this rate, by hourly. Thus, this cycle of impromptu going around fixing-on-the-go for the project begins, for me. Then, my PM asks him abt our past issue log given by the client UAT. Another annoying part is he never checks the clients feedback to see if the result can be produced again. The time he checks it is when ppl ask abt it and test it 1 by 1. Then he came to me again with why x person marked it as done. Like hell I know why they marked it done, you the one who need to check with them. Thus, I called/messaged the PIC for x modules abt the issue and then they explain it. I have to explain it again to him abt it and then he makes the summary report for the feedback. This goes until lunch.
I thought the bug fixes is over and I can deploy it after lunch. I thought wrong and I kinda regret coming back early from lunch which I thought I can rest for a while with the debacle over morning. Nope, straight he comes to me after I sit down for 10 mins and until almost work hour is done, he came to me with small bugs and issues like previously, hourly. By then I think I crushed like ~10 bugs/issues and I'm knackered. I complained to the PM many times and the PM also said to him many times but he still does it again and again. Even the PM also ranted to me abt his behavior. The attitude of not compiling an issue log for the day and not testing the system to verify what the client feedbacks are valid or not is grinding my gears more and more. Not hating the guy even though his personality is quite unique but this is totally grinding ppl's gears atm. As of now, it's midnight and I finally deployed the system to the testing server. This totally drains my mental health and it's just Monday. May god have mercy on me.
Owh, the other colleague that come today? He was doing pretty much the same thing but he was resolving a major issue which is why the tester came to me.2 -
So me and a couple of my teammates were developing a website for artists where all the things related to artists such as artworks, events, geolocation info etc. happen to live.
2 months down the line, the client comes up with another team who is supposed to develop iOS and Android apps to give the users the ability to leverage this data.
Now this team is so annoying that they want the API according to the specifications they provide. That's really weird. API should be generic, right?
But no, this doesn't end here, the PM of mobile app team comes up with a specification document for the API and what does it contain, a few endpoints which go as below:-
/home - To bring all the home screen data
/events - To bring all the event screen data. But here is a twist, on Event screen, they have defined different sections for Upcoming Events, Workshops, Talks etc. And for each event type they don't want a filtered API but just this single endpoint which will contain all event types data in their own JSON keys.
FML
:/4 -
Greatest distraction when coding -> Annoying project managers really. I quit a company after working 4 days because the PM on the project just wouldn't respect boundaries. Always asking for updates every 10mins.