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Search - "i'm tomorrow me"
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#3 Worst thing I've seen a co-worker do?
A 20-something dev, 'A', back in the early days of twitter+facebook would post all his extracurricular activities (drinking, partying, normal young-buck stuff). The dev mgr, 'J', at the time took offense because he felt 'A' was making the company look bad, so 'A' had a target on his back. Nothing 'A' did was good enough and, for example, 'J' had the source control czars review 'A's code to 'review' (aka = find anything wrong). Not sorting the 'using' statements, and extra line after the closing }, petty things like that. For those curious, orders followed+carried out by+led by 'T' in my previous rant.
As time went on and 'T' finding more and more 'wrong' with A's code, 'J' put A on disciplinary probation. 'A' had 90 days to turn himself around, or else.
A bright spot was 'A' was working on a Delphi -> C# conversion, so a lot of the code would be green-field development and by simply following the "standards", 'A' would be fine...so he thought.
About 2 weeks into the probation, 'A' was called into the J's office and berated because the conversion project was behind schedule, and if he didn't get the project back on track, 'A' wouldn't make it 30 days. I sat behind 'A' and he unloaded on me.
<'A' slams his phone on his desk>
Me: "Whoa...whats up?"
A: "Dude, I fucking hate this place, did you hear what they did?"
<I said no, then I think we spent an hour talking about it>
Me: "That all sucks. Don't worry about the code. Nobody cares what T thinks. Its not even your fault the project is behind, the DBAs are tasked with upgrades and it's not like anyone is waiting on you. It'll get done when it's done. Sounds like a witch hunt, what did you do? Be honest."
A: "Well, um...I kinda called out J, T, and those other assholes on facebook. I was drunk, pissed, and ...well...here we are."
Me: "Geez, what a bunch of whiney snowflakes. Keep your head down and you'll get thru it, or don't. Its not like you couldn't find another job tomorrow."
A: "This is my first job out of college and I don't want to disappoint my dad by quitting. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing. All J told me was to get better. What the fuk does that even mean?"
Me: "He didn't give you any goals? Crap, for someone who is a stickler for the rules, that's low, even for J."
Fast forward 2 weeks, I was attending MS TechEd and I was with another dev mgr, R.
R: "Did you hear? We had to let 'A' go today."
Me: "What the hell? Why?"
R: "He couldn't cut it, so we had to let him go."
Me: "Cut what? What did he do, specifically?"
R: "I don't know, 'A' was on probation, I guess he didn't meet the goals."
Me: "You guess? We fire a developer working on a major upgrade and you guess? What were these so-called goals?"
R: "Whoa...you're getting a little fire up. I don't know, maybe not adhering to coding standards, not meeting deadlines?"
Me: "OMG...we fire people for not forming code? Are you serious!?"
R: "Oh...yea...that does sound odd when you put it that way. I wish I'd talk to you before we left on this trip"
Me: "What?! You knew they were firing him *before* we left? How long did you know this was happening?"
R: "Honestly, for a while. 'A' really wasn't a team player."
Me: "That's dirty, the whole thing is dirty. We've done some shitty things to people, but this is low, even for J. The probation process is meant to improve, not be used as a witch hunt. I don't like that you stood around and let it happen. You know better."
R: "Yea, you're right, but doesn't change anything. J wanted to do it while most of us were at the conference in case 'A' caused a scene."
Me: "THAT MAKES IT WORSE! 'A' was blindsided and you knew it. He had no one there that could defend him or anything."
R: "Crap, crap, crap...oh crap...jeez...J had this planned all along...crap....there is nothing I can do no...its too late."
Me: "Yes there is. If 'A' comes to you for a letter of recommendation, you write one. If someone calls for reference, you give him a good one."
R: "Yea..yea...crap...I feel like shit...I need to go back to the room and lie down."
As the sun sets, it rises again. Within a couple of weeks, 'A' had another job at a local university. Within a year, he was the department manager, and now he is a vice president (last time I checked) of a college in Kansas City, MO.13 -
When I worked in a non-dev env, the best part was that I was done with work after working hours. I didn't stress out or even think about the issues. It was something for tomorrow or someone else to worry about. And so, I was not mentally exhausted and stressed out all the damn time.
So, I shall try to bring that mentality to my dev life too. With this new position I'm starting soon, I really want to do well for at least a few years. And that would need me to chill the fuck out. Particularly after work.4 -
It's 11 pm / 23:00 Uhr. I knew that i need to give a presentation tomorrow since like a month.
But guess who started working on this presentation a few hours ago and is not nearly at the end ( well my nerves are)
YOU GUESSED IT: ME🤡
OH AND MAYBE I'M STILL PROCRASTINATING EVEN THOUGH I WANT SOME SLEEP9 -
Any night, 1:30am, bedtime: "Yes! I can't WAIT for tomorrow to begin! I'm gonna make SO much progress on that personal project that I just KNOW is gonna change the world and make me a billionaire! My time is now!"
Next day, 9am, first call of the day: "Ugh, waking up SUUUUUCKS! But, fine, just gotta get through the workday, then it's beast mode time!"
5pm: "Ugh, that day SUCKED... meeting after meeting, constant interruptions for the few minutes I got to hack code, SO many emails, and hey, good day, only five new things pushed down from corporate to bang my head against! Feelings pretty mentally exhausted, but it's all good, I fortunately love this programming stuff, so first dinner, then a little exercise, spend some time with the family, and then it's time to COOOODE!"
10pm: "Ok, house is FINALLY quiet (fucking dog), just a little noise from my daughter staying up way too late again... kinda spent, but this project still excites me, and I may not get as much done as I was hoping, but fine, I can still make some tangible progress and that's what matters. Maybe just one last quick check of email, Reddit, make sure there's no new Hot Ones or Honest Trailers I gotta watch, update IDEA plugins and see what's new, then it's work time! Nothing can stop me now!"
Any night, 1:30am, bedtime: "SHIT! I GOT FUCK ALL DONE AGAIN! GO DAAAAAAAMN IIIIIT!!!!"3 -
My surname is also a common firstname, so sometimes people mix them up and call me by my surname. I'm never offended and just answer by calling them by their surname too, so they understand... usually.
Today, the following e-mail exchange happened:
(Following are made-up names)
Me: Alexander William
Colleague 1: Kurt Richardson
Colleague 2: Amy Lopez
From: k.richardson@contoso.com <Kurt Richardson>
To: a.william@contoso.com <Alexander William>
Cc: a.lopez@contoso.com <Amy Lopez>
Hi,
Could I have an USB-C to HDMI adapter please ?
Thanks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: a.william@contoso.com <Alexander William>
To: k.richardson@contoso.com <Kurt Richardson>
Cc: a.lopez@contoso.com <Amy Lopez>
Hi Kurt,
I'm currently remote-working but if you are on premises tomorrow I could give one to you.
If you're not there tomorrow, I'll just drop it on Amy's desk so you can get it from her.
Regards,
Alexander William
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: k.richardson@contoso.com <Kurt Richardson>
To: a.william@contoso.com <Alexander William>
Cc: a.lopez@contoso.com <Amy Lopez>
Hi William,
I'm working on premises every thursday.
Regards.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: a.william@contoso.com <Alexander William>
To: k.richardson@contoso.com <Kurt Richardson>
Cc: a.lopez@contoso.com <Amy Lopez>
No problem, Richardson. As I said I'll then drop it on Lopez' desk.
Regards,
Alexander William
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: k.richardson@contoso.com <Kurt Richardson>
To: a.william@contoso.com <Alexander William>
Cc: a.lopez@contoso.com <Amy Lopez>
Good evening William, [Editor's Note: this was received at 14:23]
Thanks.
Is he fucking dense or what?11 -
Hey guys I need an interview tip here.
I applied to this payment processing company as an android dev. I completed almost all of the stages, they gave very positive feedback and tomorrow is the last stage (30min talk with their CTO from USA, who's been in his company for 18 years).
They told me that he wont ask many questions and he will just try to scan me and figure out the vibe. Mind that the main company is in USA and company where I'm applying is in Europe. So I guess this is a final test to see how good I'm in english in terms of speaking? Jokes on them I worked in 3 startups in Europe and I can speak better than most of my peers who never left my country lol.
What kind of questions should I ask HIM? I am able to leave a good impression, but I would also appreciate any tips on how to deal with this better. Apparently I will need to communicate with this guy from time to time in the future, as he is the head of our project.9 -
hey devos, I got a question to ask ya'll. I have an interview tomorrow with an MNC.
I was hovering through some leetcode problems when I came across a hard question that is forcing me to use a hashmap with the key of the user-defined type. I made up my mind to make use of C++ for the coding interview. Now, the problem is C++ asks me to implement a hash function.
If in case, I'm asked a similar question like this in the interview, which of these two options will you suggest:
a) implement your own hash function
b) use pointers as key4