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My employer keeps sending booze to our houses.
Officially meant for coronaproof zoom social meetings where they play stupid bingo games and quizzes on Friday afternoons.
Why they're sending 2 liter bottles of Rum, 3 bottles of rosé wine and 12 cans of craft beer for the 6th week in a row... I really don't know... I don't even attend the zoom meetings.
All I know is that during breakfast, rum is better mixed into coffee than through cornflakes.
Anyway... Why was this a rant again? Oh right. Can I sue my employer for baiting me into an addiction? 🤔42 -
What is the most ridiculous over-the-top "startup" thing you've been the victim of as a developer?
Alternatively, what kind of weird startup luxury would you absolutely love to have at your company?
For me, at various companies I've worked at/visited:
1. Hammocks & fatboy beanbags. Current employer has a "Netflix & Chill" corner with nice couches, and a small gym. I have encountered isolation/flotation tanks at the office of one of our partners... which is cool, but over the top in my opinion.
2. A fully automated aquaponics garden in the lunchroom. Was awesome, until some fish died and started to rot.
3. One hoverboard per employee, at previous employer. I splashed hot chocolate milk in an arc over three desks. A coworker broke his ankle while watching me spill chocolate milk.
4. Daily scrum standup meetings, on socks, in a big bouncy castle. Not kidding. Fucking ridiculous... (but secretly fun). That employer also had spiral slides between all floors, a tiny half-pipe with tiny skateboards, and someone who rode a unicycle way too much. It was a fucking circus. Stuck in the office of a Fintech company.
5. Soldering bench (at my current company), with drawers full of breadboards, servos and electronics components. Completely unrelated to my work, but it was my idea. It's just great to build a simple kits together with another random coworker while brainstorming platform features & refining specs... much better than meetings with bullshit slides.
6. Unlimited energy drink. Developed a serious caffeine habit (15-20 cans a day), and almost got a stomach ulcer. Not beneficial to employee health.
7. I really do love working from home + unlimited holidays. Just being able to honestly say "fuck you guys, I'm gonna get drunk and play games today", and at other times working until 4am and sleeping in the next day, or taking a week to work in a park in Rome... It makes work truly feel like my favorite hobby. Combined with a good sprints and curious/ambitious people, you can easily track productivity anyway.19 -
The man who runs my IT department. The man who is in charge of all things and people that are technical: IT management software development, infrastructure, training, help desk, system administration, etc. A man with a staff of fifty plus. If you were to peel back the flesh on this man's head and crack open his skull you would find dung beetles feasting on the feces that power his thoughts and motor functions. Underneath this foul membrane, if you could push past the maggots; the meal worms; his undying love for hourly binges of Johnny Walker Black on any day of the week with a name that contains a vowel; his fascination with shiny objects and his endless internal monologue wondering when they would hatch rainbow ponies that fly; his desire whenever he enters a paint store to open all the cans of paint and taste the different colors; if you could push past all of the vile crap that exists where Thomas Aquinas once theorized there was a soul, you would find a colony of paramecia at the end of their short lives laughing hysterically at how much smarter they were than the host they lived in.
This man was in charge of hiring the Manager of Software Development. The manager I report to. After seven months of ignoring this chore; after interviewing the sum total of four candidates; after making a point to tell myself and a colleague that there was no one qualified to fill this position within our company (an opinion that is both untrue and, when spoken, runs afoul of internal hiring policies) this man hired a soulless cretin with no experience in software development or with running a software development group. A man who regularly confuses web servers and SQL servers. A man who asked me how my previous manager reviewed my work, was told by me that said previous manager read my code, and then replied in his capacity as the manager of software development that "looking at code is a compete waste of time for a manager." A man so without any humanity or reason for being that he will sit silently, creepily, in conference rooms with the lights off waiting for meetings to begin. Meetings he has scheduled. That have no reason for being in the first place. Just like himself.
Shortly before the man in charge offered the Dev Manager job to the simulacrum of human flesh that is my manager, he met with me and others who had been involved in the interview process. When I informed him that hiring someone with no technical knowledge for a very technical position would be a mistake that he would suffer through for years, he replied in reference to his future hire that "his managerial experience makes up for his lack of technical knowledge."
Best. Prank. Ever. Worst prank ever too. Fuck.6 -
I worked on a company with an open floor plan where you would get a desk assigned depending on the type of project you worked on. All the desks were modular an you would get a desk with a cube with a set of drawers, or with a locker-like cube with a single space and door. When this guy started, he was assigned a drawer set. Around the third day he went around the office asking anyone with a locker to trade cubes. He finally got one. He filled it up with liquor bottles, cans of juice and several types of glasses. He would prepare himself cocktails during the work day. Once he was enjoying a Coca-Cola and whisky mix when the HR boss came around to ask what he was up. He offered the guy a drink.4
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Today, one of my coworkers had to translate a bunch of pages to French ...
He did his job, committed, pushed, and asked someone to validate his branch in order to merge.
Tests didn't take long, the login screen was broken, because there was an there was an <input type="mot de passe"> ...
14 -
Casual workday be like:
Project manager: It is important we deliver these features.
Me & Coworker: Sounds reasonable, here is how long we need, roughly.
Mgr: Well, the deadline is already set and the contract is signed and written.
M&C: Ummm...
Mgr: Also, while we are hosting the application, we are not paid for operational cost, so make sure to optimise the crap out of it immediatly. Preferably while developing the features.
(A wild architect appears): Also everything has to be built on cans and kubernuts, with rectangular ui and bootstyling and with these internally developed backend frameworks NOBODY tests. Coroporate policy you know.
(A wilder division CEO appears on meeting): Also we are rolling out code KPI's across the organisation. Everyone is expected to Focus on documentation, test coverage and there is now mandatory SonarQube scanning of repos. ZERO DEFECTS PEOPLE
M&C: ...
(Wildest Salesteam appears): By the way we sold the application to these other customers, they love feature XYZ and must have it.
M&C: It does not have feature XYZ
Mgr: It will have feature XYZ
M&C: Allright so with all the extra funding from the sales, we need to hire atleast one Machine learning guy, an extra frontend specialist a developer and maybe funnel some of the funding into slacking the operational budget in the start.
Animated Suit *Railing a line of coke from his gold plated ihpone 15*: What funding? Get to work. Also your havent been super sharp with your time registration.
2 -
It's amazing what two cans of redbull and monster, a well organized to-do list on Wunderlist, 36 hours of nonstop programming and a deadline that's dangerously approaching can do in a sane man.
Now excuse me world but I'll have the longest nap in years starting fro3 -
So I'm working on an CLI right now that fetches data from a website and downloads other stuff based on that data etc bla bla. And since its async it can fully taste my whole internet speed (130Mb/s).
So everything's good and I started working on a new feature. I started the app and it worked... For 3 minutes. After that it just stopped. It didn't even freeze or anything. After 2 hours of debugging and 3 cans of coffee I was so frustrated I just wanted to watch some YouTube and relax. That's the moment I realized I didn't even have internet. I hate my ISP...4 -
Better late than never. 3 monitors for my pc, 1 for the Mac mini.
@localhost I finally cleaned up the empty beer bottles and soda cans, so... lol
8 -
!dev
I‘m not shitting you, a can of Guinness just fucking exploded in my bed room..
Last weekend i had a few drinks too much and I took a Guinness to my room to „watch a movie and fall asleep“. I fell asleep before even starting a movie. So I didn’t even open the can.
Today I was looking for a cable on my night table and accidentally hit the can with my elbow.
It just fell in the side and FUCKING EXPLODED. The can is split in half.
My whole bed, my good shoes, my mattress, the floor, my bills and EVERYTHING IN A RANGE OF 5 FUCKING METERS IS SOAKED.
How the fuck can that even happen?
Tried to clean everything with water and opened the windows to get my my shit dry again, but now I have to sleep on the couch in the living room until that stuff is try again..😤😤😤
Need a Guinness to calm down.
I know cans can „leak“ if it’s too hot but we had 19C max in the last week..
Happy weekend to you..8 -
It was about my 30th progress meeting with the clients on a website I was working on for them. At that point, I knew what was gonna happen. Change bloody requests.
Before attending that meeting I thought, "I'll change them on the fly as they comment for more ridiculous changes" as I drank 4 cans of RedBull. At the meeting I was having my 5th and the clients was firing all sorts of changes and complaints in the air and I whack them all with my lightning fast fingers can go.
I didn't know I could go that fast, like I was flying. Clients were impressed. Boss was worried that I don't look so... Normal. In fact, I jitter every mid sentence.
Told him to tell them to email changes/complaints instead of bringing it to this meeting. A complete waste of my Red Bulls.2 -
Interviewer: "Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer?"
Bill Gates: "No, the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating system." -
Storytime!
I got a ticket near the end of the day, asking to install a printer on a computer. The branch in question was in a different time zone (I'm in US-Pacific [GMT-07] and the computer was in US-Eastern [GMT-04]). I figured I wouldn't worry about it; after all, I had other tickets to work on that were much higher priority.
The next day I come into work and immediately get a message from one of my East Coast coworkers, telling me that this branch is calling and asking how the printer is coming. I told him to tell them I would call them a bit later. I do a couple of easy jobs and then begrudgingly call the branch. I listen to the phone tree that they have (which requires two button presses instead of one in order to speak with someone) and finally get in contact with a person... only to have the call disconnect.
I call back and ask for the person who called in the ticket and then followed up, who had apparently gone to lunch. I informed the person that I was just going to install the printer and it would be good to go. This would be fine... up until she mentioned she needed scanning functionality.
Now I wasn't sure if the driver we have in AD is set up with the scan functionality, so I said okay, but that meant I would have to get the driver from the website. The connection to our branches are about 1Mbps, so even downloading Java updates (60-ish MB) take about 5-10 minutes on a good day. The file for this printer was about 700MB (thanks HP). So I went and did other stuff while that downloaded.
I come back after it finished and started the install process. Right away it asks to re-seat the USB cable. So I call the branch. The call disconnects. I call again. It disconnects. I call one more time, and finally get the person who called the ticket in. I instruct him to re-seat the cable. He does. The driver starts doing its thing. I tell him I'll call back if I run into any issues and we hang up.
The driver goes through the install process for about 20 minutes, stops at 99%, then fails. I want to restart the computer, just in case there's a conflict somewhere, but that would require calling the store again, so I put it off.
About an hour later I get a message from another East Coast coworker, telling me the branch is calling about the printer again. I was in the middle of another call and said I would call back later. I do. It disconnects. I call again, and get the person who called the ticket in again. I tell him I want to restart the computer, but wasn't sure if it was okay. He checks with the people using it, who says it's okay, so I reboot. I hang up.
Once the computer comes back up I start the install process again. It asks to re-seat the cable. Fuck. I don't want to call the store again, so I open notepad and say "Please take out the printer's USB connection from the back of the computer."
Three. Fucking. People. Saw it. They moved the window and one even tried to close it, but they didn't re-seat the cable. I opened another window, telling them to call me at my number. They didn't. I called them. Got disconnected. I called them again, finally got someone, told them to re-seat the printer cable again. They do, thank god.
I say thank you and hang up. Continue the installer. It stops at 99% again and fails. I reboot the computer; screw it, I'm just going to install the driver from Active Directory. Check Devices and Printers. It's installed successfully. Hallelujah!
I get the printer set up for the various programs they use and print a test page. I call them one last time; their phone system sounding like they were connected via an underwater line connected by tin cans. I get someone.
$me: Hi, I want to know if the printer has printed something.
$them (garbled): -et me shee... yesh, it -rint-d a *beezelborp*.
$me: Perfect, I'm going to close this ticket! Thanks, goodbye! *hangs up*
tl;dr - I hate printers -
When I had to submit an enhancement to the customer and so I pulled an all nighter in my office. I knew before hand that the office would be empty post 11 pm, so I sneaked in 4 cans of beer and coded the night away while downing chilled beer.
That was a good night. :) -
I own my grandfather's Victorinox Swiss Army Knife, probably from the eighties. I absolutely love it — it's just like the standard Unix toolkit. Minimalist, multi-purpose, efficient. This is what I have in my knife:
1. Two blades. I call them master (yes) and slave
2. Corkscrew. I call it "ed".
3. Hole puncher, but not just any hole puncher. Mine has an angular sharp edge to carve holes instead of just punching them. Super efficient for wood, plastic and thick fabric. It also has a hole so it can be used as a needle. I call it "vi".
4. Bottle opener which is also a screwdriver. I call it "more".
5. Can opener. This is my favorite one.
It can help you open just about anything. Any type of cans, closed pistachio nuts, oysters, your barely legal girlfriend's virginity — anything. When I eat pistachios, I'm holding my Victorinox in my hand opening tough ones with the speed of rm -rf ripping through your files. Oh, and it's also another screwdriver. I call it "cat".
But let's take a look at modern Victorinox. Maybe it's better? No, not at all. It's totally metrosexual featuring nail files, nail clippers, nail scissors and a flash drive (not even a good one).
Newer doesn't always mean cooler.
(I have the exact same one, photo from the internet because I'm too lazy)
19 -
When I was younger my mom would tell me to clean the soda cans off my desk. Now my wife tells me to clean the beer cans off my desk. It nice to have a beer when late night programming :)
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I love everyone posting photos of there setups and cable management and here I am being self conscious because of how many empty cider cans and beer bottles are sitting on my desk 0.0
Do some of my best work when drinking! -
I have a LOT of Floppies but no floppy drive that works with my current Win7 machine, and my XP one is in multiple boxes for parts... so for now I can only stare at NetWare 4 to 4.2, WfW 3.11 and DOS 6-22.
Smart me made VMs on his XP machine and transferred them to his Win7 one.
I also have data tapes... now that is NEVER gonna work on my Win7 so... anyone knows how it could *possibly* work out?
Also... I got documentation on Compaq servers... those are nice.
AAAAAAND since I’m a huge MIDI nerd... I have a SC-55mkII hooked on the UM-ONE mkII and those shitty cans that I’m gonna switch (hopefully) soon for a nice pair of Cakewalks MA-15Ds.
Also, I’m looking for one of them 5150s because 80s IBM and since I also like keyboards... the one and only Model M.
Anyone can hook me up with a cheap one?1 -
The copious amounts of alcohol I can consume after spending 3.5 hours finding where the missing } should be. Not to mention the mini-fridge stocked up with cans/bottles of lager and a fresh, nice cold bottle of Jäger 👍😛
3 -
I was too lazy to download videos one by one so I created a script to download playlists and rename the downloaded files !
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I just got an offer to transfer to a better uni course!
I just finished my first year of "Computer Applications" which is kind of like computer science with software engineering mixed together. Because of the grades I got (1st class honours) I got an offer to transfer to a more practical course that focuses on team work, testing, agile etc. Needless to say, today is a pretty good day -
Just remembered that I still had a foobar invite link in my email inbox 😋
The challenges are odd though, first challenge was super easy (basically an idiot check), but while I was able to convert 3 cans of energy drink into a functional solution in half an hour, the verification utility is not very verbose at all. So in Python 3.7.3 in my Debian box it worked just fine, yet the testing suite in Foobar was failing the whole time. After sending an email to my friend that gave the link (several years ago now, sorry about that! 😅) asking if he knew the problem, I found out that Google is still using Python 2.7.13 for some reason. Even Debian's Python is newer, at 2.7.16. To be fair it does still default to Python 2 too. But why.. why on Earth would you use Python 2.7 in a developer oriented set of challenges from a massive company, in 2020 when Python 2 has already been dead for almost a whole year?
But hey now that it's clear that it's Python 2.7, at least the next challenges should be a bit easier. Kind of my first time developing in SnekLang regardless actually, while the language doesn't have everything I'd expect (such as integer square root, at least not in Debian or the foobar challenge's interpreter), its math expressions are a lot cleaner than bash's (either expr or bc). So far I kinda like the language. 2-headed snake though and there's so much garbage for this language online, a lot more than there is for bash. I hate that. Half the stuff flat out doesn't work because it was written by someone who requires assistance to breathe.
Meh, here's to hoping that the next challenges will be smooth sailing :) after all most of the time spent on the first one (17.5 hours) was bottling up a solution for half an hour, tearing my hair out for a few hours on why Google's bloody verification tool wouldn't accept my functioning code (I wrote it for Python 3, assuming that that's what Google would be using), and 10 hours of sleep because no Google, I'm not scrubbing toilets for 48 hours. It's fair to warn people but no, I'm not gonna work for you as a cleaning lady! 😅
Other than the issues that the environment has, it's very fun to solve the challenges though. Fuck the theoretical questions with the whiteboard, all hiring processes should be like this!
1 -
10 Signs You Picked the Wrong ISP !!
10. Their company logo: two tin cans and a length of string.
9. You check out their address, and it's a phone booth containing a Compaq portable and an acoustic coupler.
8. Their chief technical officer lives in a 10-foot-by-7-foot shack in the woods.
7. Their proud boast: "We've been on the Internet since it was CB radio."
6. Their promo materials use the words "information" and "superhighway" in the same sentence.
5. You order an SLIP/PPP connection, e-mail, and 2MB of server space for your personal Web site, and the voice on the other end of the phone asks, "Would you like fries with that?"
4. "As seen in Better Business Bureau special reports."
3. "Access speeds up to 9,600 bps in most areas."
2. They hawk both domain names and Rolexes on street corners.
1. They charge by the word.2 -
I was just copied on an email that had far to many managers included that basically says 90% of the problems come from an original group that just didn't follow directions.
Now we wait to see if upper management cans the whole team.1 -
Is it just me or feeling the imposter syndrome, and blogging about it is super trendy at the moment ?5
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Either the coworker next to me doesn't understand social protocol, or my hair's too long for them to notice I've got earbuds in and don't want to be disturbed. Might have to invest in some over-ear cans just to get the message across.1
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When my brain was overloaded and overwhelmed during rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, my life and my thoughts were a complete mess. Somehow, when I heard or imagined plurals of certain words, like "cans" or "cups", my brain painted pictures of a cute civilization of living soda cans. They fought oppression that came from us humans, but lacked mental capacity to do so. I felt really sorry for them and wanted to help. The more ordinary the word were, the more striking effect it had on me.
The rapid-cycling fashion of bipolar disorder is often triggered by unfit prescription medicines. This kind of disorder is among the most lethal mental disorders there are, with a huge percentage of patients committing suicide.
If you can't make sense of your thoughts, if your emotional responses seem inadequate or too strong, to the point when you can collapse crying after some random thought, stop whatever you're doing and seek help. Ask friends and family to find you a psychiatrist, as by the time you need help, you may lack mental capacity or emotional resource to find a doctor by yourself. To me, even the idea of leaving my bedroom and going somewhere was painful to think about.
If your thoughts appear to be "put into your brain" against your own will, if they make no sense, don't attempt to make sense of them. They are nothing but a random noise produced by overwhelmed synapses. -
I know liquid-nitrogen-powered air cans heat up after getting cold during use, and boil in the process, extending use time, but do they really need to make disturbing noises that sound like a clicking creature in a horror movie???
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If i’m having a hard day i tend to put on some relaxing music. Often acoustic or even just some meditation music.
If i notice i go crazy because of the chat i close it completely.
Also there are big 500ml cans of energy drinks here in the office that can come to good use -
Hurray for the many remnants of.organiEd crime and the money laundering organizations and operations that operate for show part of the time and that have gradually been transitioned to trash cans housing the refuse of the previous living cruel and corrupt generation of selfish godless pricks that made up the basic human unit of such enterprises heh14
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