client: the math on this investment calculator you made is wrong.

me: ok, how is it wrong?

client: one of our salesmen sais it not calculating correctly.

me: that's fine. i just need an example, or the corrected formula to use.

client: on this other website we put in the same information and it comes out different.

me: ok, let me investigate... this other site adds a fee every month so the output is different. If i turn that off the calculations are the same. would you like to add a monthly fee field?

clients: no, the calculator is working how we want then.

repeat 5 times at 3 month intervals.

client: the interest calculator is broken again. didn't we just fix it?

me: it was never broken. your people just can't math.

Watching the Dutch government trying to get through the public procurement process for a "corona app" is equal parts hilarious and terrifying.

7 large IT firms screaming that they're going to make the perfect app.

Presentations with happy guitar strumming advertisement videos about how everyone will feel healthy, picnicking on green sunny meadows with laughing families, if only their app is installed on every citizen's phone.

Luckily, also plenty of security and privacy experts completely body-bagging these firms.

"It will connect people to fight this disease together" -- "BUT HOW" -- "The magic of Bluetooth. And maybe... machine learning. Oh! And blockchain!" -- "BUT HOW" -- "Shut up give us money, we promise, our app is going to cure the planet"

You got salesmen, promising their app will be ready in 2 weeks, although they can't even show any screenshots yet.

You got politicians mispronouncing technical terminology, trying hard to look as informed as possible.

You got TV presenters polling population support for "The App" by interviewing the most digitally oblivious people.

One of the app development firms (using some blockchain-based crap) promised transparency about their source code for auditing.... so they committed their source, including a backup file from one of their other apps, containing 200 emails/passwords to Github.

It's kind of entertaining... in the same way as a surgery documentary about the removal of glass shards from a sexually adventurous guy's butthole.

Imma keep watching out of morbid fascination.... from a very safe distance, far away from the blood and shit that's splattering against the walls.

And my phone -- keep your filthy infected bytes away from my sweet baby.

I'll stick with social distancing, regular hand washing, working from home and limited supermarket trips, thank you very much.

I'm the only windows user in my office(my only other choice was Mac). One of the salesmen walks in my office with his macbook.

salesman: what do you know about macs?

me: nothing, why?

salesman: well I just got a new MacBook and I can't right-click, is there like a setting or something I gotta click?

me: well there's no "right-click" by default on Macs, but I think there's a way so you can click with the right side of the touchpad and get the "command-click" you're looking for. stand over there quietly while I finish this function then I'll look into it.

*i proceed to fiddle with some code for 5 or so minutes while he stands in the corner*

me: ok so let's look at your MacBook... ok *at this point I jump on my computer* let's see what Google has to say.

search: enable right-click on mac

me: huh! look at that! Google gives you the answer right there, poof! like magic. now we just follow directions, system settings>keyboard and touchpad>enable click with bottom right corner. bam! anything else?

salesman: yeah, I want the little bar thing to go away *talking about the dock auto-hide

me: ok well that's called the dock, let's ask Google again...look, Google gives the answer again, without even needing to click any links, I could probably click these links and get more in-depth instructions, but right here at the top is the answer

salesman: wow man, thanks! I've got a meeting in 10 minutes and I never would have figured this out.

*before he leaves

me: here take this...

My boss just came to me and demanded that we drop the first layer of security from our new servers so that the snake oil salesmen he used can open test it. I did try to explain that you don't remove security to test security.

At one of my former jobs, we devs had to do all sorts of non-dev work, such as writing quotes and even contracts!

The CEO of that company had this naughty habit to contact devs directly without delegating through the CIO. Sure, if it's really urgent like when some system is down because of a bug, go ahead and disturb a dev. But interrupting coders to write some freaking quote? Come on!...

Once, that CEO asked me to stop everything I was doing to write a quote to a customer ASAP, as this was really urgent.

I spent several hours writing that quote. It had to be done right as any specifications in our quotes were used in our agreeements and were referred to in the case of any dispute. So not only were we devs and salesmen in the same time; we also needed to be lawyers.

When I was done and delivered the quote to the CEO, he told me he had no intention to take on that customer in the first place. Instead, he wrote a polite we-are-not-interested e-mail to the customer and cc:d it to me just so that I could read for myself how very sleek a businessman he was.

Me: why did I have to write that quote when you knew all along that you were not going to use it anyway?
Him: It's for your own personal development.

Another naughty habit of that same CEO is that he made "jokes" and remarks that I found inappropriate, such as "You walk like a drunken sailor".

Later, he decided to discontinue our team/product because "it isn't proftable". Well, what do you expect when devs are forced to waste half day completing pointless tasks?!

It was for the better anyway, and I was actually relieved when I left the company. I'm still thinking though, that the real reason he sacked me is that I am too honest and not the docile kind of employee that would be ideal for him. I did question some of my tasks, and worst of all: I didn't laugh at his stupid jokes.

MARKETING IS A MENACE FOR SOCIETY and a large waste of time and resources.

Imagine that for some very stupid reason people were allowed to steal cell phones from unsuspecting victims and sell it on open market legally, tax invoices and all.

One could create a business like this. Steal some lad's brand new $600 iPhone and sell it for $280, because why not?

That is marketing. A company goes and makes a phone for lets say $180. Add in taxes, shipping and development costs, and we get to $300. Put some real nice profits on top (let's say 40%) and we get to $420.
The last 180 are the cost of marketing for society.

Today some stupid marketing conmen goosesteps into my lab and says that we must use Tensorflow and in-memory databases and multicloud redundancy and, I kid you not, "profound learning".
WE HAVE A FREAKING LOGISTICS OPS APPLICATION.
"We are putting it on the brochure, those technologies are set to sell well in our core market, and improve employer-branding" says the conmen.

A request for a feature is one thing, a request for an whole other technology because some snake-oil salesmen read the term in some clickbait rag and thinks that some starry-eyed moneyhead will pay extra because the brochure says "NOW WITH 2X MORE TECH!" is just an assault on society.

Lately, in the company I work for, it's becoming the norm for the dev to finish workdays at 10pm or 11pm, but we still get yelled at when we arrive after 9am. Anyway, every week, the PMs and salesmen have a big meeting to debrief how everything is working so well in this so wonderful company, and whatever. From what I've been told, it's just a big session of self-satisfaction, applause, and gossips.
During the two or three last meetings, some PMs dared to point out that the dev felt underestimated and constantly under pressure. Last time, the boss of the managers answered: "Developers just like to complain."
Yeah, right! We work like hell everyday to respect deadlines of underestimated projects, we have to fight to get hardware, and even a good chair is a precious resource!
Ultimately, another PM trainee said projects were late because dev are just laughing all day long... Go figure!
I feel like most of IT companies treat dev like inferior robots :(

Did I start watching SpongeBob SquarePants at 00am? Yes.
That's how tired I am of absurd workload and salesmen that promise features we're not close to have.

Today salesmen gave me some recommendations about my "so hardly optimized" SQL queries..suggestin me to change em.. I said okay, let's execute these.. 10 hours later, their computers sql workbenches finally displayed the fucking first one.

Result: 0 row... 🤐

I think I've reached some kind of job nirvana. My coworkers and I all complain about our work. We're overworked, underappreciated, underpaid, and and have to deal with all sorts of bullshit all the time. Pretty much everyone who has been on the team longer than a year is talking about quitting.

But I started at this company as a level 1 tech support phone technician before I transferred into the DevOps side of things, and that tech support job was SO much worse. Way more stressful, way less pay, mandatory overtime, horrible scheduling, being forced to remain calm while people hurl insults at you over the phone, and it was a dead-end job with a high turnover rate and almost no opportunities for advancement of any kind.

And every time I think back on that job, I realize that what I have now is actually pretty great. I'm paid well (still underpaid for the job I do, but catching up really fast due to my current boss giving me several big raises to keep me from quitting lol). I deal only with other tech people like developers and data scientists so no more listening to salesmen insult me on the phone. I'm not in any sort of customer service role so I can call people on their bullshit as long as I'm professional about it. I'm salaried so they can't make me work horrible shifts. 99% of my days are a normal 9-5 workday. I actually have a reliable schedule to plan around.

People treat me like the adult that I am.

I'd get a similar experience at other, better-paying companies, for sure, but what I have now is still pretty great.

I'm sure I'll be back in a few days to rant about more nonsensical bullshit and stress, but for now I'm feeling the zen.

bitter reflections from a bitter dev on hacktoberfest this year (in the past 2 hours of trying to find issues my IQ has at least halved):

- DefinitelyTyped - used to be my bread and butter to complete hacktoberfest; now, not sure if actual issue, or person just doesn't know how to use typescript (found a multiple such issues that were actually non-issues, the type they were asking for was right there, no pull request needed)

- avoid "issues" on no code / low code tools, these are toxic issues with titles like "I EXPLAIN BUG HERE", then probably not even a bug / more a feature request or clueless clown

- if your entire contributor team has the same character styled profile pic + background, i can't take you seriously; if your identity is so closely tied with what github team you are on... uh, i mean cmon what is this kindergarten? (also love the fact that an anon managed to get themselves mixed in hahahaha they ruined it perfectly!)

- most 'hacktoberfest' issue finders themselves are broken or don't load anything

- people claim issues and then never return YAWN

- the hacktoberfest discord: the projects channel is mostly people promoting their garbage repo WHICH HAS 0 OPEN ISSUES IN THE FIRST PLACE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and then OTHER people promoting their own portfolio on hacktoberfest???!! 😂😂😂😂 yeah bro i'm gonna help you with your own portfolio site GTFO

from what i've seen, i think i can start working approximately 5 minutes a day and be more successful than these absolute 🎪🤡🤹‍♂️ devs

sure, there is being a beginner, and there is being a clown salesmen trying to get people to do work for you... i mean wtf is going on

i WANT to help and contribute, but this year its really a struggle to find anything worthwhile to contribute to!

somehow the spark is gone... this might be my last Hacktoberfest... let me just return to my wisky and be in peace

Went on this 2 day business show...

Next to me a 100 inch tv... 4k quite awesome jittery video at points ? Codec or cable is wrong...

What was on the right of my stand ... To the cake.

"How to make money online"

He proceeded to state things like I now have 20mill my dream car etc ...
*Me trying not to laugh\be disgusted*

His power point ... Well a 10 year old can do better looks built in 1995

People were buying into it ! How the fuck does someone who has apparently 20mill give such a shit design to people and they listen...

I seriously wanted to go on and say... Don't listen to this fraud this, piece of shit snake oil salesmen.

But I didn't... And.. I regret it. On the bright side ... My stand had the shortest setup in the whole place bet by far the best websites!

Does anyone think tech recruiters are failed used car salesmen?

Bad experiences this week

One reached out to me on clearance jobs to apply for a job that I applied for, interviewed and was turned down for because of course they do not know Javascript is not Java and they were looking for a Java developer. She didn’t remember and then never responded. Out of spite I replied all to the last email that company sent me but of course no one responded.

This person who says that she is a recruiter for GOOGLE does not know the difference from UX designer and UX developer.

“ UX design still involves coding... idk where you got information that UX designers don't code but they absolutely do. UX designers are simply front end software engineers that work on refining the user experience of a particular program app or website.”

I don’t know because I used to be a fucking UX developer and used to work with UX designers??? Who didn’t code because figuring out what humans what is tough enough on it’s own. UI designers may know html/css but that is it.

I know we are going into a recession and I need to start being nice to these dumb recruiters because I may need them one day.

New bossman is looking for KPIs.

We're an agile team who build a back end system for a large corporation. Specifically the system we build is used by the sales guys when they are putting through a sale. I have no idea where to start with KPIs.

Can't measure number of sales as that's down to the salesmen. Can't measure speed of sale as again that's down to the salesman and how much they chat.

Any ideas?

Salesmen who value commission over their own humanity

Have you ever watched Idiocracy? Please do. Especially the smart ones in this platform. I'm afraid it might just be the most accurate forecast of the future of humankind. I've been mentioning this movie for years.

Politics, genZ, etc. - the trend is already there.

I don't have a TV. Mostly bcz I have better things to do with my time than watch ads and tv shows.
In youtube there are people who do reviews of various things. A few days ago my wife came across one that reviews episodes of a tv show that, apparently, is shown on one of the most popular Lithuanian TV channels. It's called Undress. The idea is that 2 people, a man and a woman, meet in a studio in front of a camera, do some small talk and then undress each other. Then they go to a bed in the studio and do various tasks: provokative questions, touching, kissing, etc., occasional slips of nudity

Usually girls are strippers, porn actresses, whores, etc. Guys are salesmen, bus drivers, finance workers, etc.

It's awkward and sad to watch it. But whats even more sad is that it's broadcasted on a TV and people find it entertaining to watch. Even morevsad is that there are people who willingly sign up as participants, knowing the whole nation will be watching and they seem to enjoy it.

W.T.F... Idiocracy

I wonder what percentage of developers are actually extroverted salesmen and can thus become a consultant...

Machine learning, AI, deep learning. Why are all these a magnet for snake oil salesmen?

Flying icecream salesmen.