Client: Where are we with the project, it's been a week and I see nothing.

Me: You asked me to do something that was not in the agreed scope of work, which has kept me from starting on the project.

Client: Do I need to plan out everything in advance on paper for you to get it done in a timely manner?

Me: Is that a serious question? Yes, you should. That's the whole point of creating a scope of work. It's to allow me to schedule out the time necessary to build out a product in a "timely manner".

Client: I don't appreciate your attitude. This is not how you should be doing business if you like making money.

Me: I don't appreciate your condescending, unreasonable, dickhead mentality that makes you think it's remotely okay to act like you're better than me. Money doesn't grant you the right to be a dickwad, and just because I'm being paid doesn't mean I have to put up with any level of arrogance or disrespect.

I am in this business to make money, but not at the cost of my dignity and self-respect. You will be receiving a full refund later today, not because I have to provide a refund, but because I never want to communicate with you ever again moving forward. Take your unacceptable bullshit somewhere else.

So I own a webshop together with a guy I met at one of my previous contract jobs. He said he had a great idea to sell product X because he can get them very cheap from another European country. Actually it is a great idea so we decided to work together on this: I do everything tech related, he does the non tech stuff.

Now we are more than 1 year in business. I setup a VPS, completely configured it, installed and setup the complete webshop, built 2 custom PrestaShop modules, built many customizations, built a completely new order proces (both front and back end), advertised quite some products, did some link building, ensured everything is in place to do proper SEO, wrote some content pages, did administration and tax declarations, rewrote a part of a PrestaShop component because it was so damn inefficient and horribly slow, and then some more. Much more.

He did customer relation management, supplier management and some ad words campaigns. Promised me many times to write the content for our product pages. This guy has an education in marketing but literally said: I'm not gonna invest in creating some marketing plan. I have no ambition in online marketing.

What?! You have the marketing knowledge and skills but refuse to use it to market our webshop and business? What the fuck is wrong with you?!

Today he says to me: 'Hey man, this is becoming an expensive hobby as we don't sell much and have lots of costs. I don't understand why I should be the one to write these content pages. Everything you did in the past 8 months can be done in less than 20 hours! You are a joke and just made it a big deal by spreading your work over so many months. I know for sure because I currently work at a company where I'm surrounded by front end devs! Are you fucking crazy?! You're a liar.'

He talks like this to me every 2 months or so while he can't even deliver the content for 1 single product in 6 fuckin' months! We even had to refund a few of our customers because Mr. client relations manager didn't respond to their e-mails within 1 fucking week!! So I asked him how could that have happened as you do the client relations and support. Well, he replied to me: 'Why didn't YOU respond to our clients? You don't log on in our back office at least once a day?!'.

Of course I do asshole. But YOU don't. He replied that I was lying just like I was lying about what I did for our business.

So, asshole, let's have a look at PrestaShops logs to see who's logging in daily. Well, you can probably guess who's IP was there in most of the entries. It wasn't his.

So, what the fuck have you been doing then?! You can't even manage to respond quickly to a client?!! We have maybe 50 clients and if we get 1 question a month by email it is already a lot. But you keep bitching, complaining and insulting me instead?!!!

Last time he literally admitted on a WhatsApp conversation that he had and still has the hope that he could just sit back and relax and watch me do ALL the work.

Well, guess what you fucking moron. That's not what we agreed upon. You fuckin' retard think you're so smart but you say EVERYTHING on WhatsApp! Including your promises to me. Thank you you fuckin' piece of dog shit because now I have hard evidence and will hand it over to my lawyer to make you pay every god damn cent for all the hours I've spent working on our business. Oh, and I'll take over the webshop and make it a success on my own because I know damn well how to get relevant traffic and thus customers.

You just go get yourself fucked in the ass without lubricant you fuckin' asshole. I have told you you shouldn't fuck with me because I take business very seriously. I even warned you when you were crossing a line again. Well, if you don't listen... You will pay for the consequences. I will be so damn happy to tell you 'I told you so' with a very very big smile on my face. That momemt WILL come, 'partner'.

Fuck you. You will be fucked. Count on that. Fucking asshole.

I work at a small retail store and we have quite a few regular customers who know I'm studying computer science because I'm always coding at work on my laptop.

One lady who comes in quite often and is very sweet asked me if I would take a look at her phone. She said she bought it and paid the owner of a phone repair store to set it up for her, but was felt like he did something weird to it. I told her I wasn't an expert but would look at it.

Oh my god. This guy set up her phone connected to his own personal icloud account. All of his music was on there. All of his contacts were on there. All of his pictures were on there. Even nude pictures of multiple people that this lady said she definitely does not know. I tell her this is very very wrong and no one in their right mind should've set her phone up this way.

I automatically think to factory reset. I'm unfamiliar with iPhone, as the last time I used one was an iPhone4 many years ago. I was unaware that apple applies an authentication lock when the phone is reset.
The authentication is set up underneath yet ANOTHER email address that belongs to this guy, as this lady promised me she has no knowledge of any email address similar to the one listed, nor does she have access to it.

I tell her to call the guy and ask for her money back and to unlock her phone so that she can reset it herself.

He claims that he cannot accept refunds if a factory reset has been performed.

Uhm, I am calling SOOOOO much bullshit. There should be absolutely no reason why the owner of the phone cannot factory reset it. The owner should be able to do ANYTHING she wants with it, without being locked out of it because some creep at a repair store did NOT DO HIS JOB CORRECTLY AND HE KNOWS IT. Why else would he claim he can't refund if it's been reset, because he KNOWS she got locked out.

So long story short I talked on the phone with him and cussed him out telling him he was wrong for taking advantage of someone who doesn't know much about technology and that he was invading privacy and violating her security and that i would report him if he didn't fully refund her and unlock her phone.

He gave her all of her money back, unlocked the phone (which she is deciding to sell because she got so scared by this), and I'm still filing a complaint against this man and his store. Who knows how many more clueless people he did this too. Fucking scumbag.

I can’t count money as quick. I don’t know how to operate a cash register. I’m bad at following small tasks in the kitchen. Ex: girlfriend yells at me for putting unstrained yolk in recipe (after straining it).

I can’t lift heavy stuff. Out of breathe helping my mom move. My uncle told me, “if you can’t do that, how can you work?” Then he touts his son around proudly for being in the army. I felt like shit for years.

My cousins told me to get a job at McDonald’s to learn the value of a dollar. I spent all this time studying and hadn’t found a single job at the time (not that I was looking). I was living off financial aid and some income from an app that sold for a dollar on the App Store.

I would mess up if I worked there. It was depressing guys. These people who worked at McDonald’s and Starbucks. It was like a cool club that I couldn’t be a part of! I wanted to be that smooth barista at Starbucks with a smug look on my face. Making coffee for all the ladies and writing hearts next to their name on the cup.

The responsibilities of going to work day after day and blowing your paycheck at a meal at Denny’s with your friends. Complaining about not getting enough hours and talking about adult stuff! Sigh sigh sigh. Oh and taxes! Let’s complain about taxes on a single W-2 just for the hell of it (not sure why they do this when you can file a simple 1040EZ) even though we get a refund.

Then..

After many paid internships (roughly 3), now I may be receiving an offer that is 100k+ with a 401k and all benefits I can imagine. Free food up the wazoo. Gym on site. Happy hour Friday’s.

I brag about taking a shit for an hour at work and coworkers don’t give a shit. Or taking a day off to do personal errands anytime.

Having my own place in a nice area (though the cost of living is enough to take care of 3 families in another state). Supporting my girlfriend through school and helping her with her dreams of art.

Going to fancy dinners and not worrying about the bill afterwards.
Accidentally damaging my 2017 Honda Accord and not giving a fuck because I can pay $900 for repair with less than a week of work.

But I can’t help but think that all this time..

I could’ve just quit and worked at McDonalds. I could’ve been one of the cool kids..

This will be a long rant.

Met this person through my brother's friend. He wanted a cheap static website with a few products images for his handicraft store. I agreed as it would not take much time. He paid me in full upfront.

I registered the domain and created all the page templates with dummy contents. I uploaded the site under a staging sub-domain and asked him for the contents, but he said he was a bit busy and would give them to me later on.

After almost 2 years, out of nowhere, he got back to me and told me he didn't want that old website anymore but he wanted a new personal website. What shocked me was that he told me that he would only pay me for the domain and space but won't pay me for the website as his pervious work was never complete. I denied straight forward and told him I would keep the 80% amt for my work done but he kept telling me I hadn't done anything except place a few images in some html files. Hahaha, After a few in and out mails I told him I didn't wanted his money and would refund all of it, but this shitty guy had a messed of mind. He started posting messages of my fb wall about how i was a fraud and I had taken his money. Things got intense. I had decided to sue this cheap minded asshole but after my brother's friend convinced me not to and apologized on his behalf. He told me not to worry about it and move on.

Haven't heard from him till now.
Thank you for reading till this far.

From my work -as an IT consultant in one of the big 4- I can now show you my masterpiece

INSIGHTS FROM THE DAILY LIFE OF A FUNCTIONAL ANALIST IN A BIG 4 -I'M NOT A FUNCTIONAL ANALYST BUT THAT'S WHAT THEY DO-

- 10:30, enter the office. By contract you should be there at 9:00 but nobody gives a shit
- First task of the day: prepare the power point for the client. DURATION: 15 minutes to actually make the powerpoint, 45 minutes to search all the possible synonyms of RESILIENCE BIG DATA AGILE INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION MACHINE LEARNING SHIT PISS CUM, 1 hour to actually present the document.
- 12:30: Sniff the powder left by the chalks on the blackboards. Duration: 30 minutes, that's a lot of chalk you need to snort.

13:00, LUNCH TIME. You get back to work not one minute sooner than 15.00

- 15:00, conference with the HR. You need to carefully analyze the quantity and quality of the farts emitted in the office for 2 hours at least
- 17:00 conference call, a project you were assigned to half a day ago has a server down.
The client sent two managers, three senior Java developers, the CEO, 5 employees -they know logs and mails from the last 5 months line by line-, 4 lawyers and a beheading teacher from ISIS.
On your side there are 3 external ucraininans for the maintenance, successors of the 3 (already dead) developers who put the process in place 4 years ago according to God knows which specifications. They don't understand a word of what is being said.
Then there's the assistant of the assistant of a manager from another project that has nothing to do with this one, a feces officer, a sys admin who is going to watch porn for the whole conference call and won't listen a word, two interns to make up a number and look like you're prepared. Current objective: survive. Duration: 2 hours and a half.
- 19:30, snort some more chalk for half an hour, preparing for the mail in which you explain the associate partner how because of the aforementioned conference call we're going to lose a maintenance contract worth 20 grands per month (and a law proceeding worth a number of dollars you can't even read) and you have no idea how could this happen
- 20:00, timesheet! Compile the weekly report, write what you did and how long did it take for each task. You are allowed to compile 8 hours per day, you worked at least 11 but nobody gives a shit. Duration: 30 minutes
- 20:30, update your consultant! Training course, "tasting cum and presenting its organoleptic properties to a client". Bearing with your job: none at all. Duration: 90 minutes, then there's half an hour of evaluating test where you'll copy the answers from a sheet given to you by a colleague who left 6 months ago.
- 22:30, CHANCE CARD! You have a new mail from the HR: you asked for a refund for a 3$ sandwich, but the receipt isn't there and they realized it with a 9 months delay. You need to find that wicked piece of paper. DURATION: 30 minutes. The receipt most likely doesn't even exist anymore and will be taken directly from your next salary.
- 23:00 you receive a message on Teams. It's the intern. It's very late but you're online and have to answer. There's an exception on a process which have been running for 6 years with no problems and nobody ever touches. The intern doesn't know what to do, but you wrote the specifications for the thing, 6 years ago, and everything MUST run tonight. You are not a technician and have no fucking clue about anyhing at all. 30 minutes to make sure it's something on our side and not on the client side, and in all that the intern is as useful as a confetto to wipe your ass. Once you're sure it's something on our side you need to search for the senior dev who received the maintenance of the project, call him and solve the problem.
It turns out a file in a shared folder nobody ever touches was unreachable 'cause one of your libraries left it open during the last run and Excel shown a warning modal while opening it; your project didn't like this last thing one bit. It takes 90 minutes to find the root of the problem, you solve it by rebooting one of your machines. It's 01:00.

You shower, watch yourself on the mirror and search for the line where your forehead ends and your hair starts. It got a little bit back from yesterday; the change can't be seen with the naked eye but you know it's there.

You cry yourself to sleep. Tomorrow is another day, but it's going to be exactly like today.

Fuck Uber!

I requested an Uber to take me Chicago Midway Airport.

They driver takes me to a different airport over an hour away! I nearly missed my flight because he didn't follow directions. To add insult to a shitty situation he charged me an extra $40 for his mistake.

This morning I requested a refund and noted the driver took a long route. They had the nerve to reply and blame it on me! Claiming the drop-off location was not the location original specified. Mother fuckers I have a screen shot!

I am astounded that they would stoop to such low levels as to shift the blame to me. I suppose they were betting I didn't have a screen shot.

Well, time to try lift!

Windows 10 'App Store' Stole My Money.

So I work a 40 hour work week, sometimes more, same as anyone, on my feet, all day.

I get home, buy a little $3.99 app. Won't install. Check it again won't install. I check some guides. Follow all the standard commands, my purchase won't install. Use the tools. won't install.

Naturally I sent off what I'm good at, some hate filled invective

For fucks sake. I'm exhausted, have insomnia and want to wind down. And here microsoft is killing 32bit libraries to dispose of competing services like steam (also fuck gabe in his fat asshole) but I digress.

And they expect us to use their services? Spend our hard earned *fucking money*..and spend half an hour on their dumpster fire fucking 'walled garden' with nothing to fucking show for it?

No refund button. No chat option. Just a fucking feedback hub. Look at it some time. JUST LOOK AT IT. The motherfucking *feedback* hub *frozeup* in the process of my feedback. Microsoft is a sewer of negligent business practices and incompetence.

So I've chosen now to aim two heavy ion cannons at them and warned them too. Two twitter accounts, one with almost 10k followers and another with 15k.

Should have just offered a manual download button microsoft.

My money would have been better spent on alcohol. Cheap alcohol. It's not like it's a lot of money and I don't buy a lot online, but it's the principle. You're fucking *payment* process worked *just fucking fine*.

Anyway can anyone calculate the monetary damage a cumulative quarter million views over the course of a month will do to the reputation of the windows store in dollar amounts?

I'm betting it's going to be a lot fucking more than three fucking ninety nine.

Don't worry microsoft, I'm gonna take it out of your sweet fucking hide.

Stop sending passwords in plain text via email. Just stop already. If you don't know how to implement a secure alternative, hire a fucking consultancy to assist you.

Fuck. The next time I purchase from you and I get my password in plain text anywhere, I'm immediately demanding a refund and taking my money elsewhere.

Just fucking stop.

The year was 1983. My best friend and neighbour at the time invited me over to see an amazing device that his father had brought home from work, an IBM PC. We played a game called Track & Field, and I was amazed that the machine remembered my name once I've entered it. (Uptil then the only machines with any kind of memory that I've come in touch with, were arcade games and my cousin's video game console, which was also the first electronic gaming device I've ever played, back in 1978). In the early 1980s, computers were anything but commonplace in Åland Islands, but I think that it was in 1983 that people became aware of them, and there was a budding interest to buy one, at least among us kids. It was my sister who wished for a home computer for Christmas, so the same year Santa gave us a ZX Spectrum. It came with a game called Thro' the Wall, an Arcanoid clone(, that has inspired me to make my own clone "Wall" for all the different home computers I've had, ranging from Commodore 16 and Canon V-20 to Amiga 500 and Amiga 1200). Unfortunately, we only managed to load the game (delivered on a C cassette) like once or twice after several attempts. It turned out that the hardware was faulty and dad got a refund after first having had to complain a lot at the dealer (which went out of business some ten years ago), and then bought the Commodore the next Christmas. Anyway, I wrote my first code on the ZX Spectrum. It doesn't really count for programming as all I did was typing examples and running them. I do recall altering one example though, a program drawing the Swedish flag on the screen, by adding an inner red cross thus turning it in the Åland flag. But, with the Commodore 16 (which had an excellent Basic interpreter) I got started with programming almost immediately and by the end of 1984 I had written my fist very own Basic programs. In 1996 I got my first IT job, and am still a dev. So, what became of my childhood friend and neighbour? He runs a successful computer dealership :)

LPT: NEVER accept a freelance job without looking at the project's source first

Client: I have a project made by a company that is now abandoning it, I want you to fix some bugs

Me: Okay, can you:
1) Give me a build to test the current state of the game
2) Tell me what the bugs are
3) Show me the source
4) Tell me your budget

Client: *sends a list of 10 bugs* Here's the APK and to give you the project I'll need you to sign an NDA

Me: Sure...

*tests build*
*sees at least 20 bugs*
*still downloading source*
*bugs look quite easy to fix should be done under an hour*

Me: Okay, so, I can fix each bug for $10 and I can do 2 today

Client: Okay can you fix 8 bugs today for $40??

*sigh*

Me: No I cannot.

Client: okay then 2 today for $20 is fine, I want a refund if you can't fix them today

*sigh*

Me: Look dude, this isn't the first time I am doing this, aight? I'll fix the bugs today you can pay me after check they are done, savvy?

Client: okay

*source is downloaded*
*literal apes wrote the scripts, commented out code EVERYWHERE
Debug logs after every line printing every frame causing FPS drops, empty objects in the scene
multiple unused UI objects
everything is spaghetti*

*give up, after 2 hours of hell*
*tfw averted an order cancellation by not taking the order and telling client that they can pay me after I am done*

Attached is an image of a level object pool
It's an array with each element representing a level.
The numbers and "Final" are ids for objects in an object pool
The whole string is .Split(',') into an array (RIP MEMORY BTW) and then a loop goes through each element in the split array and instantiates the object from an object pool

I’m dealing with the worst client I’ve ever had. The project has gone on for way longer than it should, mainly because of them adding a tonne of features to the scope. I should have told them to fuck off but I felt sorry for them because COVID was hitting them hard. So I put in a lot of extra unpaid work to try and get them through it and now they repay me by asking for a refund because they’re now broke?

They blame me for their now being broke when it’s clear they’re broke because of COVID absolutely decimating the restaurant industry. They say that because it took so long to add all those extra unlaid features it’s now my fault?

All this just as I’ve finished the app and am going through the process of releasing it to the stores. I’m probably going to have to take them to court to even get my pay out of them... Thats if they even have money to pay now.

I’ve spent all year trying to get this app out the door only for them to turn around and start abusing me on the phone when things start going down hill for them.

This whole project has been a complete waste of time when I could have been focusing on clients that don’t treat me like shit.

First off murphy is a bitch. Week started off good, nothing bad happening then friday night came and i get an email about a site being down. Ok check it out real quick, cert is expired. No real big deal just a 20 minute fix, didn't bother me that i didn't get an expiry alert. Now is where murphy decided to be the biggest fucking bucktoothed cocksucker, generate a csr for a wildcard domain using an existing key and sent it off when i get it back the private key doesn't match the cert. Again ok maybe i fucked up, generate a selfsigned cert no fucking problem. Contact support to see if they have an idea. Oh now is when it gets fun, the fucking dumbass preceded to tell me how i didn't know what i was doing and how i just had to generate a csr and private key at the same time after i explained to the bastard that I've already tested it with a selfsigned cert. (How does this fucker have a job) By now apparently i was pissed off enough to scare murphy's pansy ass away cause i told the fucker to refund my money, got a list of 30 subdomains and setup letsencrypt on it. Now the part on this that is fucking hilarious is that it took me damn near 24 hours to be called a fucking idiot from a guy that doesn't know his ass between a hole in the fucking ground and 30 minutes of being pissed off more than i have been since i took anger management classes in the 9th grade to say fuck it and switch.

I’ve now worked with three Toptal devs. The first one logged time he didn’t actually work and would edit conversation history to conceal commitments he had made. The second one would disappear for days at a time without notice, and the third is incapable of communicating or working together with team members. She has replaced large portions of our codebases without notice or discussion, and now we have to roll all of it back and convince Toptal to refund the time.

Turns out that toptal’s interview process manages to miss things like honesty/trustworthiness and communication. Be careful hiring from there.

Bloody scammers and bloody Paypal.
So I bought echo spot just to see how good it's voice recognition is and also wanted to see what the spot does different. So I found out that it was like hello world for AI. So I wanted to sell it on ebay-kleinanzeigen.de. It's a website from Ebay here in Germany where you can easily sell your stuff that you don't need anymore. I put it there and someone just wanted it so badly and he said that he broke his friends spot and he has no money and he need it very badly cheaper. My price was 98€ and I believed him and sold it for 85€. Now he got the device and wants the refund because the device doesn't match the description and the things he mentioned weren't even in the description. The message you see in the pic it says: It doesn't do skype and it is impossible on that device. First It is his responsibility to inform himself about the device features I'm not Amazon to write something like that in the description I've to just say how the device looks. Second it does skype and it is possible but both partners must have the same device and they should connect it to their smartphones.
But that is not the bad part that my money is ceased and got ownd by a scammer. The bad part is that I wanted to reply his message but the bloody paypal design won't let me do that. Remind me how old is paypal now? It's been there for ages and the footer is just stuck in the middle of the page and won't allow me to click on reply button. Of course I later managed to write a reply but paypal shouldn't have these kind of problems.
I'm so upset right now because these things are wasting my time. I've my final exame in a week and I've to develop a parameter based multilingual CMS, just imagine how long would just data structure take.

fucking bluetooth earphones, i trusted you!

What a great day already

* Start learning grahpql
* yay it seems easy
* not 2 minutes later get message from professor to write an apology letter for that seminar that I did not attended (inner ultimate rage), and if I don't submit it I won't be allowed for the final semester of my last step of education

* wow claps for your education system and asshole "professors"

* fuck all friends who want to write their apology letter with "excuse".

* AT LEAST GIVE A FUCKING EXCUSE TO WRITE, YOU MORONS

* what graphql? oh yes couldn't continue

* checks messages on WhatsApp *

* Hey could you write me an email regarding a refund I need.

* ¯\_ツ_/¯ ⤜(ʘ_ʘ)⤏

All of this fucking shit storm and still I haven't been able to land upon a topic for the project

Oh wait, but you have to do your project in an industry, and IT HAS TO BE A PROJECT

Ah we don't care if industry allows a fresh intern to do a live project or gives intern resource and company space and invest time and effort in him/her. no we don't.

*WE WANT INDUSTRY PROJECT FROM YOU*

So today I spent most of the day "gaming", basically trying seeing what my PC could handle. It was very disappointing and realized I wasted a while day.

1.Somehow the graphics settings even set to Ultra didn't feel realistic.

2. The games take a long time to download even with Steam... 50-60GB... WTF....

The largest game I ever played on PC before was maybe 4-8GB... (DVDs)

And yes I installed Steam and bought a game (Project Cars 2). The videos looked pretty nice I'm videos but not so in game... (Waiting for refund now)

3. I downloaded some other demos but the setup time and cutscenes took too much time

4. Controls for some games seen to have been ported from console (they were mapped to XBOX buttons?).

I should've stuck to my original plan... Programming, no games

But I think one thing if certain... I will never understand console games (the ones with stories/plots). I'm sticking with arcade or the ones I can cheat thru at most.

Seriously wtf? I wanted to play a new game. So I found Elden Ring on sale. But the first 30 minutes in the game is video/cutscenes so far. How can that reasonably be considered game play if it counts against the 2 hours of trial period? I don't play Skyrim in 3rd person, but I like that I can switch in and out to look at things.

I didn't like the feel of the combat system and I didn't like that it locked the 3rd person view. I hate playing in 3rd person as it is nearly always janky. How can that game be that popular with no option for 1st person?

I must be getting old. If a game doesn't feel the way I like, I bail on it. It has been this way with the last 3 or 4 Steam games I tried. Is it me, or has gaming in general gone to shit? I want an RPG with simple open world aspects, a non locked storyline that you can do if you want, maybe a vast generated world, and the ability to build things. I like FFX, but it takes a while to unlock "do what you want mode". It has party/character development, but no building.

I feel like the 2 hour trial period is too short. Not enough time to give the game a chance. I would have stuck it out if it gave me more time. I bailed because of janky 3rd person. Not enough time to get used to it imo.

I would rather play older titles I can trust to be fixable than new games. I am seeing people who play Skyrim come back to playing Skyrim after trying Starfield for a month. That is not a good sing for Starfield.

Maybe I just know what I want and have no time to be fucking around with new takes on game play. It is funny. I have 3 or 4 games I bought on sale from Steam that I have never played. Or played very little. I played Wild Hunt for like an hour and never played again. I didn't refund that one because I will get around to it, but I don't know when.

Kinda pissed. Ordered a WD red plus 8TB on November 20th from newegg along with some other stuff. He drive showed up DOA on the 26th, tested everything I could to make it work. But in the end I couldn't even get it to initialize.

Ok. No problem this happens. request a return and replacement.

Got that in today. Over 2 weeks later. Fucking EXACT same problem.

and just to make sure I'm not fucking crazy I grabbed a 1tb thats been sitting on my desk unused for years. Plugged that into my NAS. Works fucking perfectly. Even able to pull it and wipe it using my USB drive reader on my desk after. I can even fucking reinitilize it back and forth from mbr to gpt.

Not asking for replacement this time. Just refund. Gonna order directly from WD. If this one fucks up I'm switching to Seagate for a couple of years

Been asked to give a lecture to the freshmen at ye olde alma mater.
They are gonna pay for the air ticket, the shuttle to and from campus and a couple nights at a fairly ok hotel.
Feeling like a fucking rockstar.
...
Gave the lecture. Only half those kids spent the whole time on their phones. My old drinking buddy and now a professor at the school said it was more direct attention than one could expect at a music concert.
...
Feeling kinda scared about how young women dress nowadays, but I do am an old indian dude, so what do I know?
Also, since when is lifting weights and running a half-marathon a requirement for a degree in computer sciences? Turing might have been an Olympian, but I'm pretty sure that since the invention of the integrated circuit my people have spent more time in labs than in gyms. That is not true for those kids.
Maybe it's a freshmen thing, and they will age out of that healthy living nonsense. Maybe the real world will crush it under bills and tuition loan repayments.
...
Tried to ask the university for a refund of the hotel and taxi bills that I've paid out of pocket. Two hours in four different queues and two opposite-sode-of-campus buildings. Suddenly remembered the true meaning of the word "Kafkaesque".
...
Remembering the old uni days with some still-in-grad-school / faculty old friends and getting drunk in the old watering holes? Priceless.

!rant

At the dentist AGAIN. This time a proper oral surgeon. Informed me they are ONLY doing novacaine today when the referring dentist said I would have to be put under ffs. It's like these people don't listen.

I wonder if I can get a refund when they *also* realize I don't respond to novacaine.

I don't feel comfortable swearing. It's just how I was raised. But GoDaddy makes me want to. Badly. One of my specialities is switching people AWAY from that monstrosity. EVERY time I do that and there are pro-rated refunds, they ALWAYS try to pressure me into applying that refund to some other unwanted product. NO, YOU DINGBAT! We're dropping you like the hot, gooey, fly-covered turd you are, not looking to add even MORE expensive and unnecessary services.