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Interviewer: Welcome, Mr X. Thanks for dropping by. We like to keep our interviews informal. And even though I have all the power here, and you are nothing but a cretin, let’s pretend we are going to have fun here.
Mr X: Sure, man, whatever.
I: Let’s start with the technical stuff, shall we? Do you know what a linked list is?
X: (Tells what it is).
I: Great. Can you tell me where linked lists are used?
X:: Sure. In interview questions.
I: What?
X: The only time linked lists come up is in interview questions.
I:: That’s not true. They have lots of real world applications. Like, like…. (fumbles)
X:: Like to implement memory allocation in operating systems. But you don’t sell operating systems, do you?
I:: Well… moving on. Do you know what the Big O notation is?
X: Sure. It’s another thing used only in interviews.
I: What?! Not true at all. What if you want to sort a billion records a minute, like Google has to?
X: But you are not Google, are you? You are hiring me to work with 5 year old PHP code, and most of the tasks will be hacking HTML/CSS. Why don’t you ask me something I will actually be doing?
I: (Getting a bit frustrated) Fine. How would you do FooBar in version X of PHP?
X: I would, er, Google that.
I: And how do you call library ABC in PHP?
X: Google?
I: (shocked) OMG. You mean you don’t remember all the 97 million PHP functions, and have to actually Google stuff? What if the Internet goes down?
X: Does it? We’re in the 1st world, aren’t we?
I: Tut, tut. Kids these days. Anyway,looking at your resume, we need at least 7 years of ReactJS. You don’t have that.
X: That’s great, because React came out last year.
I: Excuses, excuses. Let’s ask some lateral thinking questions. How would you go about finding how many piano tuners there are in San Francisco?
X: 37.
I: What?!
X: 37. I googled before coming here. Also Googled other puzzle questions. You can fit 7,895,345 balls in a Boeing 747. Manholes covers are round because that is the shape that won’t fall in. You ask the guard what the other guard would say. You then take the fox across the bridge first, and eat the chicken. As for how to move Mount Fuji, you tell it a sad story.
I: Ooooooooookkkkkaaaayyyyyyy. Right, tell me a bit about yourself.
X: Everything is there in the resume.
I: I mean other than that. What sort of a person are you? What are your hobbies?
X: Japanese culture.
I: Interesting. What specifically?
X: Hentai.
I: What’s hentai?
X: It’s an televised art form.
I: Ok. Now, can you give me an example of a time when you were really challenged?
X: Well, just the other day, a few pennies from my pocket fell behind the sofa. Took me an hour to take them out. Boy was it challenging.
I: I meant technical challenge.
X: I once spent 10 hours installing Windows 10 on a Mac.
I: Why did you do that?
X: I had nothing better to do.
I: Why did you decide to apply to us?
X: The voices in my head told me.
I: What?
X: You advertised a job, so I applied.
I: And why do you want to change your job?
X: Money, baby!
I: (shocked)
X: I mean, I am looking for more lateral changes in a fast moving cloud connected social media agile web 2.0 company.
I: Great. That’s the answer we were looking for. What do you feel about constant overtime?
X: I don’t know. What do you feel about overtime pay?
I: What is your biggest weakness?
X: Kryptonite. Also, ice cream.
I: What are your salary expectations?
X: A million dollars a year, three months paid vacation on the beach, stock options, the lot. Failing that, whatever you have.
I: Great. Any questions for me?
X: No.
I: No? You are supposed to ask me a question, to impress me with your knowledge. I’ll ask you one. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
X: Doing your job, minus the stupid questions.
I: Get out. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
All Credit to:
http://pythonforengineers.com/the-p...89 -
Owner of company I freelance for: I need you to find out what CMS [website] is running in.
[Checking...]
Me: It's running in Drupal
Owner: Prove to me that it's running in Drupal, because she's saying you're wrong.
Me: Who the hell is "she"?
Owner: The boss over at [PR Company we do work for]
Me: Is she a developer?
Owner: No, of course not. She barely knows how to run a computer.
Me: Then tell I said it's running in Drupal, and if she wants proof, tell her I'm the developer she has begged to fix two other failing projects and I have delivered both times ahead of schedule.
Owner: If you don't show me proof, I'll fire you. I don't need attitude from my employees.
Me: A.) I'm not your employee, you are my client. I don't clock in for you and you don't withhold taxes from my pay. B.) If that's how you want to be, tell her to use terminal and cURL the website for the response header, as well as cross-reference folder structure for CSS/JS file inclusion to show it's running in Drupal.
Owner: What the fuck is terminal?
Me: If you don't know what terminal is, neither will she, meaning you have no business telling me how to do my job. Stick with assigning me tasks and let me use my expertise to get them done. Micromanaging need not apply here, mmm'kay pumpkin?
Owner: You sure are grouchy today.
Me: Yep...35 -
Boss: "Could you join the new DevOps team for a week or two, for some coaching?"
Me: "I'd rather watch you masturbate furiously in a corner of the office while you cry over your ex boyfriend"
Boss: "Yeah... that's why I ask you. You are the only one brave enough to watch"
Me: *Sigh* "But I don't know shit about what DevOps does, I'm a DBA. I've told you the difference a million times. Can't we just douse it in gasoline and set it on fire?"
Boss: "What?"
Me: "Not the team, the servers..."
Boss, imitating Gimli: "And my ex!"
Me: "I get why he left you"
Boss: "It's funny, he was actually better with computers than me, maybe even better than you. He hated me for starting this company, told me I was just chasing money instead of ideals. He just isn't grown up enough to see that there is more to the world than computer games, brewing beer, maker festivals and gay bars, that you need to take responsibility... Maybe it just never works out between managers and geeks..."
Me: "Indeed. The difference in competence is too large"
Boss: "Ugh. You are like straight version of him... but will you at least take a look?"
Me: "Fine, unzip your pants..."
Boss: "No, not that... you need to teach DevOps this docking thing, with the parallel stuff, and the horizontal growth"
Me: "Damn I really hope we're talking about servers now... Do you mean Docker?"
Boss: "That's it. They want to learn how to dock on the Windows servers. They reserved two 4xlarge on AWS. Is that enough for docking?"
Me: ...
Me: ...
Me: "You know what. I'm going back to hug my DB designs, and wash my brain with some queries. Then I'll return here to burn everything to the ground. There is no hope for you left"
Boss: "That's what he said"
Me: "You're using that meme wrong"
Boss: "OK. So what if you just stay on DB management, and I'll just give you the budget to recruit a new DevOps lead and pay for training?"
Me: "That would work"
Boss: "Why are you grinning?"
Me: "Because I have your ex's phone number"18 -
Its Friday, you all know what that means! ... Its results day for practiseSafeHex's most incompetent co-worker!!!
*audience: wwwwwwooooooooo!!!!*
We've had a bewildering array of candidates, lets remind ourselves:
- a psychopath that genuinely scared me a little
- a CEO I would take pleasure seeing in pain
- a pothead who mistook me for his drug dealer
- an unbelievable idiot
- an arrogant idiot obsessed with strings
Tough competition, but there can be only one ... *drum roll* ... the winner is ... none of them!
*audience: GASP!*
*audience member: what?*
*audience member: no way!*
*audience member: your fucking kidding me!*
Sir calm down! this is a day time show, no need for that ... let me explain, there is a winner ... but we've kept him till last and for a good reason
*audience: ooooohhhhh*
You see our final contestant and ultimate winner of this series is our good old friend "C", taking the letters of each of our previous contestants, that spells TRAGIC which is the only word to explain C.
*audience: laughs*
Oh I assure you its no laughing matter. C was with us for 6 whole months ... 6 excruciatingly painful months.
Backstory:
We needed someone with frontend, backend and experience with IoT devices, or raspberry PI's. We didn't think we'd get it all, but in walked an interviewee with web development experience, a tiny bit of Angular and his masters project was building a robot device that would change LED's depending on your facial expressions. PERFECT!!!
... oh to have a time machine
Working with C:
- He never actually did the tutorials I first set him on for Node.js and Angular 2+ because they were "too boring". I didn't find this out until some time later.
- The first project I had him work on was a small dashboard and backend, but he decided to use Angular 1 and a different database than what we were using because "for me, these are easier".
- He called that project done without testing / deploying it in the cloud, despite that being part of the ticket, because he didn't know how. Rather than tell or ask anyone ... he just didn't do it and moved on.
- As part of his first tech review I had to explain to him why he should be using if / else, rather than just if's.
- Despite his past experience building server applications and dashboards (4 years!), he never heard of a websocket, and it took a considerable amount of time to explain.
- When he used a node module to open a server socket, he sat staring at me like a deer caught in headlights completely unaware of how to use / test it was working. I again had to explain it and ultimately test it for him with a command line client.
- He didn't understand the need to leave logging inside an application to report errors. Because he used to ... I shit you not ... drive to his customers, plug into their server and debug their application using a debugger.
... props for using a debugger, but fuck me.
- Once, after an entire 2 days of tapping me on the shoulder every 15 mins for questions / issues, I had to stop and ask:
Me: "Have you googled it?"
C: "... eh, no"
Me: "can I ask why?"
C: "well, for me, I only google for something I don't know"
Me: "... well do you know what this error message means?"
C: "ah good point, i'll try this time"
... maybe he was A's stoner buddy?
- He burned through our free cloud usage allowance for a month, after 1 day, meaning he couldn't test anything else under his account. He left an application running, broadcasting a lot of data. Turns out the on / off button on the dashboard only worked for "on". He had been killing his terminal locally and didn't know how to "ctrl + c a cloud app" ... so left it running. His intention was to restart the app every time you are done using it ... but forgot.
- His issue with the previous one ... not any of his countless mistakes, not the lack of even trying to make the button work, no, no, not for C. C's issue is the cloud is "shit" for giving us such little allowances. (for the record in a month I had never used more than 5%).
- I had to explain environment variables and why they are necessary for passwords and tokens etc. He didn't know it wasn't ok to commit these into GitHub.
- At his project meetups with partners I had to repeatedly ask him to stop googling gifs and pay attention to the talks.
- He complained that we don't have 3 hour lunch breaks like his last place.
- He once copied and pasted the same function 450 times into a file as a load test ... are loops too mainstream nowadays?
You see C is our winner, because after 6 painful months (companies internal process / requirements) he actually achieved nothing. I really mean that, nothing. Every thing was so broken, so insecure / wide open, built without any kind of common sense or standards I had to delete it all and start again ... it took me 2 weeks.
I hope you've all enjoyed this series and will join me in praying for the return of my sanity ... I do miss it a lot.
Yours truly,
practiseSafeHex20 -
continued…
I'm In Canada. A woke HR lady hires an African guy despite him plagiarizing code and lying through an interview. First day he surfs soccer websites so I confront it and HR lady basically calls me a racist and to watch my back.
A second African new-hire comes into the office today and he seems quite capable in an area of specialization for our team. So I ask if we can have him on our team because he has skills. The exec decides to look at the costing for him and goes, "HOLY SHIT WHY ARE WE PAYING ANYONE THAT MUCH?" She looks at the résumé of the new guy and finds out that he is only at intermediate level in his specialization. So I say, "It could be worse. The other guy flat out lied through his interview and he got hired anyway." I forward the emails where I recommended against hiring the other guy and why.
My exec, who is a company stakeholder, opens the pricing list for recent hires. It is obvious that if you are not not white you get paid way above market value for your skill level. Exec is pissed off on a level I never knew was possible.
We make a call from the board room only to find out that the head of HR (also an executive) is driving this. My exec tells me to give her the room. The yelling was so loud everyone could hear what was said from outside the boardroom. At one point the HR lady says, "Just because we could get them cheaper doesn't mean that we should… We pay that much because it is 'the right thing to do'." My executive goes completely silent for a few seconds then in a super aggressive way says.
"…I am going to have your FUCKING head for this. Then I will make sure that you NEVER get a job in HR again for the rest of my natural life. ONLY ONE of us will survive this. YOU are the one pissing away profit. So get ready because I'm going to drown you and your team like a bag full of unwanted puppies." Then she hung up the Polycom. She came out about a minute later and kicked the office manager out of his office and sat there all day making calls and sending emails.
https://devrant.com/rants/2337768/...33 -
My most awkward recruiter interaction?
Just graduated college and got 'suckered' by an programming position ad that turned out to be a recruiting company. It was fine since they charge the company for their services and not me.
After a couple of weeks of waiting (they initially promised I would/could have at least 3 interviews a week, which hadn't happened.) I decided to start looking again on my own, found a position, and I was hired.
About two months later I get a phone call:
<skipping the pleasantries>
R: "I see you are working for D, congratulations. I've started the paperwork for our reimbursement."
Me: "Reimburse for what? I found that job on my own."
R: "D is one of the companies we work with and when we submitted your resume, they told us you were already hired."
Me: "And?"
R: "And you signed a contract and now its time to pay. The fees only start at $500"
Me: "Not me. I have the contract, it states, in the second paragraph, I am not responsible for any hiring fees."
<couple of seconds of silence>
R: "Yes, but that is only if we negotiated the contact. Since you went behind our back, we couldn't start the process"
Me: "And?"
R: "And its a breach of contract."
Me: "I'm not a lawyer, I don't understand what you're saying. It says right here on the contract I signed, I don't pay any fees. No where does it say I'm not allowed to look for a job on my own. Right?"
R: "Um..yea..right..right...but you were hired by one of our contracted companies."
Me: "No way I would have known that. Maybe you should have set up an interview long before now."
<R is getting pretty angry at this point>
R: "I'm sure we gave you list of companies we work with. Contacting those companies is a breach of contract. Unless you want our lawyers to get involved, the fee is only $500. Failing to honor your side of the agreement and we'll be forced to contact your employer and begin garnishing your wage until the fee is paid. You don't want that, do you?"
Me: "There was no list and I am allowed to find a job on my own. Again, I'm not responsible for you not setting up an interview so do whatever you think you can do. Have a good night"
<I hang up>
About a week later..
Boss: "Got a phone call from XYZ Recruiting requesting a wage garnishment. Do you know anything about that?"
<I explain the situation>
Boss: "Oh good grief. We've worked with them a couple of times and we contact them on an individual basis for new hires. You're fine"
Me: "You're not going to garnish my paycheck?"
Boss: "No no no, that's not how this works. He was probably trying to scare you into paying their crazy fees."
Me: "What if they get their lawyers involved? I don't want to cause any trouble"
Boss: "Ha ha...XYZ Recruiting is a couple of guys in an office and we have lawyers on the 3rd floor who eat and breath this shit. They know that and you won't hearing from them again."5 -
Client: Can you provide some kind of guaranteed timeline that you're going to be able to move our website to our new servers with the optimizations implemented? I know you said it should take a week, but we have 3 weeks to get this moved over and we cannot afford to be double billed. I'm waiting to fire up the new server until you can confirm.
Me: As I said, it SHOULD take about a week, but that's factoring in ONLY the modifications being made for optimization and a QA call to review the website. This does not account for your hosting provider needing to spin up a new server.
We also never offered to move your website over to said new server. I sent detailed instructions for your provider to move a copy of the entire website over and have it configured and ready to point your domain over to, in order to save time and money since your provider won't give us the access necessary to perform a server-to-server transfer. If you are implying that I need to move the website over myself, you will be billed for that migration, however long it takes.
Client: So you're telling me that we paid $950 for 10 hours of work and that DOESN'T include making the changes live?
Me: Why would you think that the 10 hours that we're logged for the process of optimizing your website include additional time that has not been measured? When you build out a custom product for a customer, do you eat the shipping charges to deliver it? That is a rhetorical question of course, because I know you charge for shipping as well. My point is that we charge for delivery just as you do, because it requires our time and manpower.
All of this could have been avoided, but you are the one that enforced the strict requirement that we cannot take the website down for even 1 hour during off-peak times to incorporate the changes we made on our testbed, so we're having to go through this circus in order to deliver the work we performed.
I'm not going to give you a guarantee of any kind because there are too many factors that are not within our control, and we're not going to trap ourselves so you have a scapegoat to throw under the bus if your boss looks to you for accountability. I will reiterate that we estimate it would take about a week to implement, test and run through a full QA together, as we have other clients within our queue and our time must be appropriately blocked out each day. However, the longer you take to pull the trigger on this new server, the longer it will take on my end to get the work scheduled within the queue.
Client: If we get double billed, we're taking that out of what we have remaining to pay you.
Me: On the subject of paying us, you signed a contract acknowledging that you would pay us the remaining 50% after you approved the changes, which you did last week, in order for us to deliver the project. Thank you for the reminder that your remaining balance has not yet been paid. I'll have our CFO resend the invoice for you to remit payment before we proceed any further.
---
I love it when clients give me shit. I just give it right back.6 -
So, I grew up on the US/Mexican border, in a city where saying there's no opportunity is like saying the Titanic suffered a small leak on its maiden voyage. There were two kinds of people in said town: Mexicans trying to find something less shit than juarez and white trash reveling in their own failure. I came from the latter, for whatever that's worth.
I graduated high school when I was almost 16 years old. Parents couldn't really afford to support three kids and pay the rent on the latest in a long line of shit holes we migrated in and out of. If being a serial eviction artist is a thing, my family were savants.
I applied to college and got accepted only to be told by my father that he didn't see the need. Turns out the only reason he'd helped me graduate early was so I could start working and help pay his bills. I said okay, turned around and tossed a bag and my shitty af spare parts computer into the back of the junkyard Vega I generously referred to as a car and moved cross country. Car died on arrival, so I was basically committed.
Pulled shifts at two part times and what kids today call a side hustle to pay for school, couch surfed most of the time. Sleep deprivation was the only constant.
Over the first 4 months I'd tried leveraging some certs and previous experience I'd obtained in high school to get employment, but wasn't having much luck in the bay area. And then I lost my job. The book store having burned down on the same weekend the owner was conveniently looking to buy property in Vegas.
Depression sets in, that wonderful soul crushing variety that comes with what little safety net you had evaporating.
At a certain point, I was basically living out of the campus computer lab, TA friend of mine nice enough to accidentally lock me in on the reg. Got really into online gaming as a means of dealing with my depression. One night, I dropped some code on a UO shard I'd been playing around on. Host was local, saw the code and offered me a job at his firm that paid chump change, but was three times what all my other work did combined and left time for school. Ground there for a few years until I got a position with work study at LBL that conflicted too much for it to remain mutually beneficial. Amicable parting of the ways.
Fucking poverty is what convinced me to code for a living. It's a solid guarantee of never going back to it. And to anyone who preaches the virtues of it and skipping opportunity on grounds of the moral high ground, well, you know.12 -
A lot of the people are complaining about working in inhumane conditions. I want to debunk some bullshit that I think is causing this.
Devs are hard to find. That makes you valuable. A good dev that actually works for 30-40 hours per week is extremely hard to find.
The relationship with your employer / client should be simple: you work, they pay. What you do NOT:
1. Do not take responsibility for other people's decisions
2. Do not internalize other people's problems (you've got your own, better stick to them)
3. Do not let ANYONE guilt trip you into anything that you're not indeed guilty of.
4. Do NOT work for an effective rate that's significantly lower than you know you can get elsewhere.
There are indeed some utterly evil assholes out there that will try to manipulate you, into thinking that you're "part of the project", or that "you're all a team". Yeah, you are, but when it comes to making money, you'll only get the salary, regardless of how successful your work will be. THEY have a motivation to stay up late, to work extra hours, etc. You DO NOT. If you do that, and don't get paid extra, you're working for free, which means that you're not a professional.
Are you a professional? Then have respect for yourself, and bill for every fucking second of your time. Don't let the assholes think they own you.
As a professional, you MUST do EXACTLY what you're paid to do. No more, no less. Well, if you're feeling good about it, then you can do slightly more. And anyone that's demanding more, basically has no respect for you, and doesn't consider you a professional. That is the plain truth. See it as it is, and handle those scumbags accordingly.5 -
I turned 40 yesterday. Here are some lessons I've learned, without fluff or BS.
1) Stop waiting for exceptional things to just happen. They rarely do, and they can't be counted on. Greatness is cultivated; it's a gradual process and it won't come without effort.
2) Jealousy is a monster that destroys everything in it's path. It's absolutely useless, except to remind us there's a better way. We can't always control how we feel, but we can choose how we react to those feelings.
When I was younger, jealousy in relationships always led to shit turning out worse than it probably would have otherwise. Even when it was justified, even when a relationship was over, jealousy led me to burn bridges that I wished I hadn't.
3) College isn't for everyone, but you'll rarely be put square in the middle of so much potential experience. You'll meet people you probably wouldn't have otherwise, and as you eventually pursue your major, you'll get to know people who share your passions and dreams. Despite all the bullshit ways in which college sucks, it's still a pretty unique path on the way to adulthood. But on that note...
4) Learn to manage your money. It's way too easy to get into unsustainable debt. It only gets worse, and it makes everything harder. We don't always see the consequence of credit cards and loans when we're young, because the future seems so distant and undecided. But that debt isn't going anywhere... Try not to borrow money that you can't imagine yourself paying back now.
5) Floss every day, not just a couple times per week when you remember, or when you've got something stuck in your teeth. It matters, even if you're in your 20s and you've never had a cavity.
6) You'll always hear about living in the moment, seizing the day... It's tough to actually do. But there's something to be said for looking inward, and trying to recognize when too much of our attention is focused elsewhere. Constantly serving the future won't always pay off, at least not in the ways we think it will when we're young.
This sentiment doesn't have much value when it's put in abstract, existential terms, like it usually is. The best you can do is try to be aware of your own willingness and ability to be open to experiences. Think about ways in which you might be rejecting the here and now, even if it's as seemingly-benign as not going out with some friends because you just saw them, or you already went to that place they're going to. We won't recognize the good old days for what they were until they're already gone. The trick is having as many good days as possible.
7) Don't start smoking; you'll never quit as soon as you'll think you can. If you do start, make yourself quit after a couple years, no matter what. Keep your vices in check; drugs and alcohol in moderation. Use condoms, use birth control.
8) Don't make love wait. Tell your friends and family you love them often, and show them when you can. You're going to lose people, so it's important. Statistically, some of you will die young, yourselves.
When it comes to relationships, don't settle if you can't tell yourself you're in love, and totally believe it. Don't let complacency and familiarity get in the way of pursuing love. Don't be afraid to end relationships because they're comfortable, or because you've already invested so much into them.
Being young is a gift, and it won't last forever. You need to use that gift to experience all the love that you can, at least as a means to finding the person you really want to grow old with, if that's what you want. Regardless, you don't want to miss out on loving someone, and being loved, because of fear. Don't be reckless; just be honest with yourself.
9) Take care of your body. Neglecting it makes everything tougher. That doesn't mean you have to work out every day and eat like a nutritionist, but if you're overweight or you have health issues, do what you can to fix it. Losing weight isn't easy, but it's not as hard as people make it out to be. And it's one of the most important things you can do to invest in a healthy adulthood.
Don't put off nagging health issues because you think you'll be fine, or you don't think you'll be able to afford it, or you're scared of the outcome. There will always be options, until there aren't. Most people never get to the no-options part. Or, they get there because all the other options expired.
10) Few things will haunt you like regret. Making the wrong choice, for example, usually won't hurt as much. I guess you can regret making the wrong choice, but my deepest regrets come from inaction, complacency and indifference.
So how can we avoid regret? I don't know, lol. I don't think it's as simple as just commiting to choices... Choosing to do nothing is still a choice, after all. I think it's more about listening to your gut, as cliche as that sounds.
To thine own self be true, I guess. It's worth a shot, even if you fail. Almost anything is better than regret.12 -
!rant
Programming is a huge blessing i believe we all should be thankful to. For me, it literally turned my life around.
11 months ago i was fighting a losing battle with depression, and contemplated suicide constantly. I would use a self remedy of smoking weed and sleeping all day long. I was depressed because i felt my life had no real value. I was doing nothing, and its kind of an infinite loop.
You don't do anything, so you feel bad, so you don't do anything, and so on.
That was until i finally took the step that changed my life. I searched and wanted to learn something. I always liked web pages so i thought id get into web development.
Did some research, found out that the fastest way to go was to learn ruby on rails. I followed a tutorial i found online, and literally pushed myself through it. There were times when there where things i didnt understand, and when it was really bad, but i pushed myself through it and i finished the tutorial.
Just finishing the tutorial and learning something new helped me alot. I had already quit smoking and was feeling way better, but after a while i started feeling bad again since i wasnt doing anything after i had finished learning, so i started working on a personal project, creating it from scratch, and just working on it day and night. I worked 14 hours a day, never really leaving my room ( this was during summer vacation ) for a month.
There were many things i didnt understand, but i never gave up and always searched for the solution and read about it until i understood it better. Looking back, there were things i knew could have been done in a better way, but as a first project, im proud of myself, not because it rocks, but because i did not give up.
In the process of starting a new life, i was really lonely. I cut all ties with everyone i knew, since they were all toxic, all i had in my life was ruby on rails and my web application. I wanted to launch it but couldn't due to personal reasons.
Not being able to launch and see something live, something that you worked so hard on, that you put so much effort into, that was devastating to me. I felt as if all my efforts had gone to waste.
And here is what i love most about programming, NOTHING EVER GOES TO WASTE. All that effort you spent on something ? All these all nighters you pulled ? All that frustration from that bug ? It will pay off later. It always does somehow. You get more knowledge and become a better programmer, and sometimes it even gives way to new opportunities and chances you never even expected.
I included my web application in my resume and it helped land me a job as a junior developer in a really nice company. A job that i wouldn't even have dreamed of several months earlier.
Programming and creating something new and learning something new everyday, creating something that people use, that someone else will benefit from and be grateful for, i think we should never take that for granted !
Tl;dr : learning how to code and web development saved my life9 -
I have to let it out. It's been brewing for years now.
Why does MySQL still exist?
Really, WHY?!
It was lousy as hell 8 years ago, and since then it hasn't changed one bit. Why do people use it?
First off, it doesn't conform to standards, allowing you to aggregate without explicitly grouping, in which case you get god knows what type of shit in there, and then everybody asks why the numbers are so weird.
Second... it's $(CURRENT_YEAR) for fucks sake! This is the time of large data sets and complex requirements from those data sets. Just an hour through SO will show you dozens of poor people trying to do with MySQL what MySQL just can't do because it's stupid.
Recursion? 4 lines in any other large RDBMS, and tough luck in MySQL. So what next? Are you supposed to use Lemograph alongside MySQL just because you don't know that PostgreSQL is free and super fast?
Window functions to mix rows and do neat stuff? Naaah, who the hell needs that, right? Who needs to find the products ordered by the customer with the biggest order anyway? Oh you need that actually? Well you should write 3-4 queries, nest them in an incredibly fucked up way, summon a demon and feed it the first menstrual blood of your virgin daughter.
There used to be some excuses in the past "but but but, shared hosting only has MySQL". Which was wrong by the way. This was true only for big hosting names, and for people who didn't bother searching for alternatives. And now it's even better, since VPS and PaaS solutions are now available at prices lower than shared hosting, which give you better speed, performance and stability than shared hosting ever did.
"But but but Wordpress uses MySQL" - well then kill it! There are other platforms out there, that aren't just outrageously horrible on the inside and outside. Wordpress is crap, and work on it pays crap. Learn Laravel, Symfony, Zend, or even Drupal. You'll be able to create much more value than those shitty Wordpress sites that nobody ever visits or pay money on.
"But but but my client wants some static pages presented beside their online shop" - so why use Wordpress then? Static pages are static pages. Whip up a basic MVC set-up in literally any framework out there, avoid MySQL, include a basic ACL package for that framework, create a controller where you add a CKEditor to edit page content, and stick a nice template from themeforest for that page and be done with that shit! Save the mock-up for later use if you do that stuff often. Or if you're lazy to even do that, then take up Drupal.
But sure, this is going a bit over the scope. I actually don't care where you insert content for your few pages. It can be a JSON file for all I care. But if I catch you doing an e-commerce solution, or anything else than just text storage, on MySQL, I'll literally start re-assessing your ability to think rationally.11 -
Excuse the profuse amount of profanity below.
Fuck this fucking fucked up motherfucker of a fucking director. Money does not make you a fucking decent person, and you come in here and tell me that you pay my fucking measly salary so I must be fucking grateful.
Starts off with a boardroom meeting this morning. Wireless connection on my laptop takes two minutes to connect, I get told that I am wasting company time and that the salary of everyone in the meeting is quite a lot ("with me being the highest"- cuntface director) so stop wasting time. Fuck you man, it's a fucking wireless connection. I am building your motherfucking company applications and doing web design and for what, so I can earn fuckall and be told that I am fucking wasting time. I am presenting your fucking site you wanted, so give me a fucking minute extra to start up the fucking wireless connection.
The fucking mails are taking long to send, great, let's come down and fucking scream at the dev who regrettably said he would try and assist IT (by calling the provider). I literally just got told that I am the following. 1) Fucking stupid 2) He is going to close the dept down because I apparently fuck up (yet again cuntface, your fucking mailserver is NOT MY FUCKING PROBLEM) 3) He is going to contact an external company to come and check my work. 4) I am fucking useless. 5) I telling him lies (yeah fuckface, I worked as a sys admin, I know what a motherfucking DNS server is and what it does. you don't - so don't fucking tell me that I am lying when I tell you there is a DNS fucking issue, because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about - to top that off motherfucker, I FUCKING BUILT YOUR FUCKING SERVER AND YOUR FUCKING NETWORK. I FUCKING KNOW HOW IT WORKS AND WHAT THE FUCK I AM TALKING ABOUT).
On top of that, I got pushed out of the way of my own PC, my code got some fucked up gibberish in it (because he was trying to minimise my editor and he typed some in it, and now I have to fucking roll-back. He told me I am wasting company time and he will take my shit away from me if I download something again. It is an open network. I downloaded JAVA and fucking updated Sublime. Jesus man. What the fucking fuck.
"why is your gmail open?!?!" because I was testing your emails from an external network. "DON'T FEED ME BULLSHIT" (even though the top mail states "test"). It's the whole fucking "my money determines my dick size" mentality.
That being said, I got told that I need to work overtime, without pay, to resolve IT's issue, even if I have to on the weekend.
That being said,my new Dell that I had just bought (my own) got thrown on the floor and he fucked out of my office. Stupid motherfucker. I fucking earn nothing but cannot leave. I will find another job, and when I do - you can go and fuck yourself and your fucking degrading opinions. I am not fucking stupid, so fuck you.Fuck your company and fuck you. Cunt.33 -
Dear Indian Companies,
Why do you hire for a role and then say: "We dont have that role but then we want you to grow up to be a Generalist"!
6 years as a build, release and SCM guy at Moto and Nokia back then, I shifted to this big Indian IT corp coz Nokia was shutting down...
A week into my orientation (which is a crazy weirdness inducing ritual in and of itself), the new manager I'm supposed to be working with comes up and says- "Here's the code repo, there are 2 open jQuery issues, fix them!"
I'm not really sure what to say at this point because jQuery is nice and all but thats not who I am.. I'm the infra / DevOps guy. And this is circa 2012 when DevOps as a term was just hotting up...
Tell me to setup a multi-stage pipeline and automated test cycles, I'll do it drunk, but oh no! bug fixing on a jQuery script? Noooo!!!!! I just dont have the chops for it.
So long story short, I get reported to HR for insubordination - Yeah, Go Figure!
Cue: HR meeting
HR: You wont work?
Me: I cant work on jQuery. I am a sysadmin / devops guy... Give me a project that involves those skills and I'll work.
HR: But we hired you to work on jQuery.
Me: But you did not mention jQuery / UI / UX in the job description - Pulls up email and shows JD for interview which says Symbian, Build, Release, Configuration Management but NOT jQuery.
HR: ....
Me: :-/
HR: But we want you to be a generalist.
Me: #wtf
HR: We want an engineer to be able to do anything he is tasked with!
Me: Can I know my last working date here?
And thats how my career at a glorious IT corporation just went poof!
When I think back on it, I feel good that I chose to do what I wanted to get better at and what I loved working on...
And this is the problem with IT companies in our country - They play with people's aspirations and passions... To the point that all thats left of a software engineer is the looking forward to pay day so he can start the damn cycle all over again.11 -
Where do I even start?
Personal projects?
So many. Shouldn't count.
Unpaid game dev intern?
Unpaid game dev volunteer?
Both worthwhile, if stressful. Shouldn't count either.
Freelancing where clients refused to pay?
That's happened a few times. One of them paid me in product instead of cash (WonderSoil, a company that [apparently still] makes and sells some expanding super potting soil thing). The product turned out to be defective and killed all of the plants I used it on. I'd have preferred getting stiffed instead. Their "factory" (small, almost tiny) was quite cool. The owner was a bitch. Probably still is.
Companies that have screwed me out of pay?
So many. I still curse their names at least once a month. I've been screwed out of about $13k now, maybe more. I've lost track.
I have two stories in particular that really piss me off.
The first: I was working at a large robotics company, and mostly enjoyed my job, though the drive was awful. The pay wasn't high either, but I still enjoyed the work. Schedule was nice, too: 28 hours (four 7-hour days) per week. Regardless, I got a job offer for double my salary, same schedule, and the drive was 11 minutes instead of 40. I took it. My new boss ended up tricking me into being a contractor -- refused to give me a W2, no contracts, etc. Later, he also increased my hours to 40 with no pay increase. He also took forever to pay (weeks to months), and eventually refused to pay me to my face, in front of my cowokers. Asshole still owes me about $5k. Should owe me the the difference in taxes, too (w2 vs 1099) since he lied about it and forced me into it when it was too late to back out.
I talked to the BBB, the labor board, legal council, the IRS (because he was actively evading taxes), the fire inspector (because he installed doors taht locked if the power went out, installed the exit buttons on the fucking ceiling, and later disconnected all of said exit buttons). Nobody gave a single shit. Asshole completely got away with everything. Including several shady as hell things I can't list here because they're too easy to find.
The second one:
The economy was shit, and I was out of a job. I had been looking for quite awhile, and an ex-coworker (who had worked at google, interestingly) suggested I work for this new startup. It was a "reverse search engine," meaning it aggregated news and articles and whatnot, and used machine learning to figure out what its users are interested in, and provided them with exactly that. It would also help with scheduling, reminders of birthdays, mesh peoples' friends' travel plans and life events, etc. (You and a friend are going on vacation to the same place, and your mutual friend there is having a birthday! You should go to ___ special event that's going on while you're all there! Here's a coupon.) It was pretty cool. The owner was not. He delayed my payments a few times, and screwed me over on pay a few more times, despite promising me many times that he was "not one of those people." He ended up paying me less than fucking minimum wage. Fake, smiling, backstabbing asshole.
The first one still pisses me off more, though, because of all the shit I went through trying to get my missing back pay, and how he conned me every chance he got. And how he yelled at me and told me, to my face, that he wasn't ever going to pay me. Fucking goddamn hell I hate that guy.8 -
I honestly have no energy to even type this out because this is so draining, but here goes.
I am usually very calm and can keep my composure well, but boy do you push my limits. Do you think my work is so easy that it’s just “a bunch of queries and simple logic”? Well, fine. YOU FUCKING DO IT.. right before I grab you by your fucking neck and shove your face repeatedly into the keyboard. You even have the audacity to give us a project and come the very next fucking day and repeatedly keep asking us “iS iT FiNisHeD yEt?” so much and annoy even the calmest in our team even when we clearly stated that it was going to take us 30 work days to fucking finish it. Do you not know what a working day is? 30 work days is not the same as 30 days you dumbfuck. You have no idea how any of these work and yet you preach your bullshit and waste our fucking time when we could have used that time better to finish our work. THIS IS WHY EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE KEEPS LEAVING AND WHY THIS COMPANY HAS A VERY LOW EMPLOYEE RETENTION RATE. You won’t even let me finish my fucking lunch in peace. We have 45 minutes for lunch and since I’ve been eating out for almost the past year (I live alone and don’t usually have time to make food at home because of my hour and a half long commute), a close friend of mine’s mom reached out to and said “Hey, since you’ve been usually getting food from outside, why not join us for lunch?”, so I did and it was the most amazing food ever. Mind you, this was the first time I’ve ever left work myself to have lunch since I joined. I did get 10 minutes late because lunchtime tends to fall around the time where the schools close for the day (no shit) and school traffic is usually insane, and you unsurprisingly decided to make an issue out of a non-issue especially since I’M THE ONLY FUCKING PERSON WORKING IN THE COMPANY and also dock my pay for that. Let me also include the time where our one of the others in the management gave us a quick project that was to be quickly finished while we working on an existing project so we put aside a day just to complete and ship the app and the features and as usual, you decided to make an issue out of a non-issue and decided to shame us publicly and even made (my now former) colleague cry. You’re just a spoiled, selfish, ignorant nit-witted fucking imbecile who has no idea how to even properly run a business. Get fucked in the arse with a cactus. I'm done. I've held on for so long but this is the last straw. I'll be handing my letter of resignation soon. Good luck with running a company without any employees.20 -
At one of my former jobs, I had a four-day-week. I remember once being called on my free Friday by an agitated colleague of mine arguing that I crashed the entire application on the staging environment and I shall fix it that very day.
I refused. It was my free day after all and I had made plans. Yet I told him: OK, I take a look at it in Sunday and see what all the fuzz is all about. Because I honestly could fathom what big issue I could have caused.
On that Sunday, I realized that the feature I implemented worked as expected. And it took me two minutes to realize the problem: It was a minor thing, as it so often is: If the user was not logged in, instead of a user object, null got passed somewhere and boom -- 500 error screen. Some older feature broke due to some of my changes and I never noticed it as while I was developing I was always in a logged in state and I never bothered to test that feature as I assumed it working. Only my boss was not logged in when testing on the stage environment, and so he ran into it.
So what really pushed my buttons was:
It was not a bug. It was a regression.
Why is that distinction important?
My boss tried to guilt me into admitting that I did not deliver quality software. Yet he was the one explicitly forbidding me to write tests for that software. Well, this is what you get then! You pay in the long run by strange bugs, hotfixes, and annoyed developers. I salute you! :/
Yet I did not fix the bug right away. I could have. It would have just taken me just another two minutes again. Yet for once, instead of doing it quickly, I did it right: I, albeit unfamiliar with writing tests, searched for a way to write a test for that case. It came not easy for me as I was not accustomed to writing tests, and the solution I came up with a functional test not that ideal, as it required certain content to be in the database. But in the end, it worked good enough: I had a failing test. And then I made it pass again. That made the whole ordeal worthwhile to me. (Also the realization that that very Sunday, alone in that office, was one of the most productive since a long while really made me reflect my job choice.)
At the following Monday I just entered the office for the stand-up to declare that I fixed the regression and that I won't take responsibility for that crash on the staging environment. If you don't let me write test, don't expect me to test the entire application again and again. I don't want to ensure that the existing software doesn't break. That's what tests are for. Don't try to blame me for not having tests on critical infrastructure. And that's all I did on Monday. I have a policy to not do long hours, and when I do due to an "emergency", I will get my free time back another day. And so I went home that Monday right after the stand-up.
Do I even need to spell it out that I made a requirement for my next job to have a culture that requires testing? I did, and never looked back and I grew a lot as a developer.
I have familiarized myself with both the wonderful world of unit and acceptance testing. And deploying suddenly becomes cheap and easy. Sure, there sometimes are problems. But almost always they are related to infrastructure and not the underlying code base. (And yeah, sometimes you have randomly failing tests, but that's for another rant.)9 -
I had an interview yesterday with the CEO of a startup going into Series A for the position of Principal Developer, remote. I've only ever heard of 'tech-bros', but I was unfortunate to meet one in-person. It went something like this:
CEO-bro: Good morning.
Me: Morning.
CEO-bro: It says here on your resume you live in X. That place is a shithole, and I have to look down on you because of that, bro. LoL.
Me: ......
(40 minutes of self-promotion pass)
CEO-bro: Anyway, we don't pay high salaries but offer bonuses for high performing staff instead. I'll ask HR to send you an offer.
Me: Let me think about it.
CEO-bro: One question bro. You have siblings?
Me: One.
CEO-bro: Parents still alive?
Me: No...what?!
CEO-bro: Yeah, me too. People like us don't let anything get in the way.
I wrote them an email this morning withdrawing my application 🤦🏽♂️11 -
Client: why hasnt anything been done for the new site?
Me: because you never paid for the last one thats been put into production
Client: yeah but that was a smaller simple site. I need this one up and done already
Me: it'll be worked on when I get paid for my previously worked time for you.
Client: but that was a month ago. I don't understand why you are asking for payment now
Me: because you never paid me for last months work!!
Client: but its may now
Me: holy shit, -clients name-, I know very well what month it is and dont need a lesson. I also know better than to work for free. I have bills to pay just like you and everyone else so until you have paid the last invoice, I'm not lifting a finger for you. That includes answering your calls
Client: oh well why didnt you just say that to begin with
Motherfucking fuck people are horrid and dumb and make me violent6 -
To all young freelancers in low-income countries: I want to share my experience, of 6 years working for a piss-poor country, and 6 years working in freelance, and then emigrating. Here's what you should watch out for, and what to expect:
My first salary was barely 1.5$ per hour. I lived in a piss-poor country that taught me a lot (like why it's piss-poor).
The main thing to note when you're a developer in such a country, is that you're being fucked. Your employer might scream at you and tell you how bad you are, while barely paying you. That is you ... being ... fucked. Gain some confidence with the help of friends and family, and a great effort from yourself, look at what freelance gigs you can find, and ditch anything related to jobs in your country.
Being a somewhat able developer, but with modest experience, I started my freelance gigs for 5$ per hour. Because I was lazy, and freelance gigs weren't exactly being thrown at me, I was making 100$ per week, AFTER the companies I worked for appreciated what I did and offered themselves to up my pay to 12$ per hour. Yep. I was lazy. You will likely get lazy in freelance too, so be prepared for this.
My luck changed when one of my clients became a full-time employer, at 15$ per hour, with a well organized team where I actually worked for 40 hours per week (I had already amassed 8 years of experience...). For people in first world countries that will seem laughable, but in my country I was king of the hill, getting paid more than government CEOs that ended up in the news as the "most well paid".
That was the top of the pyramid for international indie freelance, as I would later find out.
I didn't do stuff that was very difficult. In fact, I felt like my abilities were rotting while I worked there. I had to change something. So I started looking for better offers. I contacted many companies that were looking for a senior developer, and the interviews went well, and all was fine, except for my salary demands. I was asking for 25$ per hour. Nobody was willing to pay more than 15$ per hour. That's because of my competition - tons of developers in cheap-to-live countries that had the same, or more to offer, for the same rates. Globalization.
So I moved to Germany. As soon as I was legally able to work, I was hunted down by everybody. I was told that it takes a month to pass the whole hiring process in Germany. My experience demonstrated that 2-5 days is enough to get a signed contract with "Please start ASAP".
There is freelance in Germany as well. And in the US. And everywhere else. A "special" kind of freelance, where you have to reside locally. The rates that this freelance goes for is much, much higher than international freelance. I'd say that 100€ per hour is ok-ish. Some people (newbies, or foreigners who don't speak the language well) get less, around 60 or so. Smart experienced locals get around 150-200 or even more.
It's all there. Companies want good developers to solve their business problems with IT solutions, and they'll beg you to take their money if you can deliver that.
So code!
Learn!
Accummulate experience!
Screw the scumbags that screw you for 1-2$ per hour!
Anyone able to write something more than "Hello World!" deserves more.
Do the climb! There's literally room for everybody up there! There is so much to do, that I feel like there will never be too many developers.
Thank you for bearing with my long story. I hope it will help you make it shorter and more pleasant for you.12 -
So today my middle company put a meeting with the new HR.
Meeting subject: you can't poach inside the company.
Context: I resigned, and I'll be taking with me 3 profiles.
HR: If you do take them, we'll take you to court.
Me: Why?
HR: It's poaching and by contract, you can't.
Me: You can show which clause?
HR: That's not the problem.
Me: Also in France, you need to notify the employee as you are denying his right to get a job. And pay him for that.
HR: What? That's none sense! Stop talking and listen.
Me: Ok
HR: We'll sue you and crush you. You'll have so much legal problem that you...
Me: I'll just start recording on my phone, so you say that you accept it and continue your intimidation rant.
HR: What? No!! Stop that.
Me: *stop it* Would you rather have my lawyer with us? Because we'll need to reschedule the meeting.
HR: If you continue that way, we'll tarnish your name and no company will hire you.
Me: You really aren't familiar with IT, right? Because I could delete ALL production. No system work. The BCP will kick in. You will lose one or two days. Then make an article of it, showing what kind of process or security should have been implemented. And I will still get a high pay job!!
HR: You know what? Get out! If you want to go to war, your problem.
Me: Ok, so you'll be getting news from my lawyer by mail.
HR: what?
Me: Yeah, that harassment. And my lawyer will get in touch. And I might also post on LinkedIn. And talk about it in the next events I'm invited.
HR: that's, that's...
Me: freedom of speech. Don't worry I'll write it so it's only viewed as my opinion. Have a nice day.
Two hours later my friend, lawyer, send them a mail and email.
Three hours later the COO calls me. Saying that HR was out of line and that it'll no occur again. It was an error and I should be forgiving.
So now all discussion with HR must be held with my attorney :). And middle company pay for it.6 -
I have what seems to be an unpopular opinion about buying software as a software developer.
First off, I support open source all the way. There should always be free and open tools for people to use if the need or want to.
Second, if you underpaid, broke, unemployed, or a student then this doesn’t apply to you. You keep pushing forward!
With that said, let’s get to the meat of it all...
I pay for good software. Even when it is expensive. Even when there are “workable” free or open source solutions.
I do this for a number of reasons...
1. They are better, hands down.
(Tower > GitKraken, SourceTree, GitHub Desktop) (Kalidascope > every other diff tool) (JetBrains IDEs > Atom, Brackets ...)
2. I’m no longer a broke student. I make enough money to buy them.
3. Most important: I’m a fucking professional software developer, not a fucking joker.
- If I was a carpenter then I could always hammer nails with the back of my work boot. It’s free and paid for and will do the job. Instead I would buy a good hammer because I’d be a professional and not a fucking joker complaining about the price of the tools to do my job.
4. I use a Mac, sometimes Linux and NEVER Windows. Which means I have a platform that actually has useful apps built for developers who are willing to pay for it.
5. I don’t get caught up in developer circle jerks about how all development software should be open source and free.
————
So there you go.
Does this offend you?
Good!
Come at me bro
23 -
So today I got let go from my job.
I've worked for this company for about 2.5 years, and soon after joining I became the only IT resource for software. I had to support literally everything after they fired the rest of the team, but I did a great job and have been praised by all the management at the company.
A few months ago, after a salary review and a frank discussion with my boss and his boss, they agreed that I am due for a raise. They had a massive project coming up with a lot of extra expenses, but I was told that right afterward they would be giving raises.
I spent tons of late nights and weekends on this project, and we were able to get it mostly finished about a 1.5 months ago. I was instrumental in the project (the rest of the IT team didn't even know how to set up simple DNS records). An email was sent to the whole company thanking me for all the work I put into the project.
A week ago, I messaged my boss to ask about the status of raises as he had told me they should be going out at the beginning of this month. He said there won't be any raises, and that's all I heard. Then today I get a call telling me that they are letting me go.
Let me get this straight: you led me on with talk of a raise just to keep me here working long hours for your big project, and then you fire me after recognizing what a great job I did? That's just sick. I have watched them treat other employees and partners unethically, but it took getting it first hand to realize how bad it really is. My teammates were in shock when I said I was leaving as they have all leaned on me very heavily.
Fortunately, I have had several offers come in over the last few months (2 this week) for more pay. I only held off because of the lies I was told about receiving a raise and out of a false sense of loyalty. I'm not worried about my future at all, just angry at the way I was treated.29 -
It seems like every other day I run into some post/tweet/article about people whining about having the imposter syndrome. It seems like no other profession (except maybe acting) is filled with people like this.
Well lemme answer that question for you lot.
YES YOU ARE A BLOODY IMPOSTER.
There. I said it. BUT.
Know that you're already a step up from those clowns that talk a lot but say nothing of substance.
You're better than the rockstar dev that "understands" the entire codebase because s/he is the freaking moron that created that convoluted nonsensical pile of shit in the first place.
You're better than that person who thinks knowing nothing is fine. It's just a job and a pay cheque.
The main question is, what the flying fuck are you going to do about being an imposter? Whine about it on twtr/fb/medium? HOW ABOUT YOU GO LEARN SOMETHING BEYOND FRAMEWORKS OR MAKING DUMB CRUD WEBSITES WITH COLOR CHANGING BUTTONS.
Computers are hard. Did you expect to spend 1 year studying random things and waltz into the field as a fucking expert? FUCK YOU. How about you let a "doctor" who taught himself medicine for 1 year do your open heart surgery?
Learn how a godamn computer actually works. Do you expect your doctors and surgeons to be ignorant of how the body works? If you aspire to be a professional WHY THE FUCK DO YOU STAY AT THE SURFACE.
Go learn about Compilers, complete projects with low level languages like C / Rust (protip: stay away from C++, Java doesn't count), read up on CPU architecture, to name a few topics.
Then, after learning how your computers work, you can start learning functional programming and appreciate the tradeoffs it makes. Or go learn AI/ML/DS. But preferably not before.
Basically, it's fine if you were never formally taught. Get yourself schooled, quit bitching, and be patient. It's ok to be stupid, but it's not ok to stay stupid forever.
/rant16 -
!dev
Last week I watched a DIY video where at the end the guy dumped detergent water on the grass. I kindly commented it's a €150 fine. Their response was on the lines of "Oh yeah, Mr Proper? And what would you say if I told you I spray my whole garden with soap to get rid of weeds, huh?".
Well, you dumb fuck, I don't care what you do, I wasn't attacking you, I was being *nice* and warned you about the fucking fine that you're going to fucking pay because your channel name is your first and last name and your video shows the street and the house number but whatever.
Today I couldn't log into my YouTube account. Why was that, you might ask? Well, because the dumb fuck paid the fucking fine and assumed I was the one that ratted, so he made a video about it and his dumb fuck audience falsely reported all of my videos for child abuse and promoting terrorism.
I only upload unboxing videos that debunk scummy "deals". 🤦♂️11 -
Back in the day when I was a junior developer, I somehow got hired by this guy who asked me to code his entire platform from scratch. I was being paid a junior dev salary, being asked to do senior dev work, and unfortunately I needed the money, so I didn't want to turn the job down. So I did what any junior dev would do in the situation... I decided to experiment and ended up with an insanely inefficient codebase.
For some stupid reason I thought that a good DB model would be to pull one record from the DB at a time, and then just repeat the method in a loop as needed. Keep in mind I was a self-taught junior dev. The backend worked great during development, and after 3 months of developing we decided to add a lot of data in the DB for further testing, and... you guessed it... the platform slowed down like shit!
Moral of the story... u get what you pay for, so hire great talent and pay them well! And also that self-taught junior devs don't know that the f@*k they are doing sometimes.5 -
Manager: How come the push to prod didn’t happen?
Dev: We told you at the scrum yesterday. To reiterate, our dev environment was crashing so it’s not safe to push to prod until that is fixed.
Manager: Ok well lets set a goal to fix that and push to prod happens today so that it guaranteed happens.
Dev: That was our goal yesterday and it definitely didn’t happen.
Manager: I AM AWARE OF THAT. The corrective action is that this time compliance with the goal is 100% ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY!!
Dev: We’ll do our best, can’t guarantee anything until we figure out what the nature of what is occurring on dev though.
Manager: NO. I AM THE BOSS. YOU WILL 100% ABSOLUTELY COMPLY WITH THIS. THAT IS AN ORDER. YOU WILL SUCCESSFULLY GET THIS UPDATE OUT TO PROD TODAY. ANYTHING LESS THAN THAT SHALL BE CONSIDERED INSUBORDINATION. I WANT STATUS UPDATES EVERY 15 MINUTES ON WHERE WE ARE AT WITH THIS.
Dev: …
Dev: Can I get you to send me that request in an email?
*Manager leaves the meeting*
// *****************************
Job search is ticking along. It’s tough going though because I currently make ~120k and the best offers I’ve received so far are all ~70k because “You only have 2 years experience so you couldn’t possibly have the skills to be worth 120k. You are are junior level developer and 70K is already overpaying for you. We can pay you more later™. No we will not give you that in writing”. Ah well, the hunt continues.17 -
Banks be like
You don't have much money?
Here, let me keep taking some of that from you until you get more, k?
Oh, that was more than you had?
Now you owe me even more, nerd.
What, you can't pay that either?
Better ask me for a loan so you can pay off your debt to me. Loser.
What? You still can't pay?
I'm gonna take your everything!30 -
Wow... this is the perfect week for this topic.
Thursday, is the most fucked off I’ve ever been at work.
I’ll preface this story by saying that I won’t name names in the public domain to avoid anyone having something to use against me in court. But, I’m all for the freedom of information so please DM if you want to know who I’m talking about.
Yesterday I handed in my resignation, to the company that looked after me for my first 5 years out of university.
Thursday was my breaking point but to understand why I resigned you need a little back story.
I’m a developer for a corporate in a team of 10 or so.
The company that I work for is systemically incompetent and have shown me this without fail over the last 6 months.
For the last year we’ve had a brilliant contracted, AWS Certified developer who writes clean as hell hybrid mobile apps in Ion3, node, couch and a tonne of other up to the minute technologies. Shout out to Morpheus you legend, I know you’re here.
At its core my job as a developer is to develop and get a product into the end users hands.
Morpheus was taking some shit, and coming back to his desk angry as fuck over the last few months... as one of the more experienced devs and someone who gives a fuck I asked him what was up.
He told me, company want their mobile app that he’s developed on internal infrastructure... and that that wasn’t going to work.
Que a week of me validating his opinion, looking through his work and bringing myself up to speed.
I came to the conclusion that he’d done exactly what he was asked to, brilliant Work, clean code, great consideration to performance and UX in his design. He did really well. Crucially, the infrastructure proposed was self-contradicting, it wouldn’t work and if they tried to fudge it in it would barely fucking run.
So I told everyone I had the same opinion as him.
4 months of fucking arguing with internal PMs, managers and the project team go by... me and morpheus are told we’re not on the project.
The breaking point for me came last Wednesday, given no knowledge of the tech, some project fannies said Morpheus should be removed and his contract terminated.
I was up in fucking arms. He’d done everything really well, to see a fellow developer take shit for doing his job better than anyone else in [company] could was soul destroying.
That was the straw on the camels back. We don’t come to work to take shit for doing a good job. We don’t allow our superiors to give people shit in our team when they’re doing nothing but a good job. And you know what: the opinion of the person that knows what they’re talking about is worth 10 times that of the fools who don’t.
My manager told me to hold off, the person supposed to be supporting us told me to stand down. I told him I was going to get the app to the business lead because he fucking loves it and can tell us if there’s anything to change whilst architecture sorts out their outdated fucking ideas.
Stand down James. Do nothing. Don’t do your job. Don’t back Morpheus with his skills and abilities well beyond any of ours. Do nothing.
That was the deciding point for me, I said if Morpheus goes... I go... but then they continued their nonsense, so I’m going anyway.
I made the decision Thursday, and Friday had recruiters chomping at the bit to put the proper “senior” back in my title, and pay me what I’m worth.
The other issues that caused me to see this company in it’s true form:
- I raised a key security issue, documented it, and passed it over to the security team.
- they understood, and told the business users “we cannot use ArcGIS’ mobile apps, they don’t even pretend to be secure”
- the business users are still using the apps going into the GDPR because they don’t understand the ramifications of the decisions they’re making.
I noticed recently that [company] is completely unable to finish a project to time or budget... and that it’s always the developers put to blame.
I also noticed that middle management is in a constant state of flux with reorganisations because in truth the upper managers know they need to sack them.
For me though, it was that developers in [company], the people that know what they’re talking about; are never listened to.
Fuck being resigned to doing a shit job.
Fuck this company. On to one that can do it right.
Morpheus you beautiful bastard I know you’ll be off soon too but I also feel I’ve made a friend for life. “Private cloud” my arse.
Since making the decision Thursday I feel a lot more free, I have open job offers at places that do this well. I have a position of power in the company to demand what I need and get it. And I have the CEO and CTO’s ears perking up because their department is absolutely shocking.
Freedom is a wonderful feeling.13 -
FUCK YOU! YOU PIECE OF SHIT CLIENT!
I work my ass off for a month and deliver you the best possible design for your problem and a great booking system and you open up a dispute on the order stating the work I received was poor?
GO FUCK YOURSELF :@ :@ :@
Everything is working beautifully, I uploaded it on a test website to even demonstrate it. The only problem is he is getting the error of mysqli class not found on his fucking potato server, that is not my fault! Even then, I am willing to install the php mysqli extension on his dick server so the fucking "script" works.
Some people just need a fucking reason to get away with good work done without having to pay...I will leave freelancing if the dispute ends up in his favour.
Fuck this shit. At least I get confirmed payment for what I work for 8 hours a day if I do a fucking job.8 -
Minimum wage employers and restaurants asking "and why should we hire you?".
You have 40 vacancies in your area for just your company alone.
You're paying $13.25 an hour when only a year ago you were paying $9.75.
Why should we hire you?
F*ck you, pay me, that's why.
You're not f*cking NASA
You're a God damn chain restaurant with a 40% turnover rate, who's employees probably shoot up in the bathroom on the rare occasion they even get a break.
I looked at the guy with all the annoyance I could muster, stared him down for a good five seconds and said. "You pay a few dollars over minimum. You're job is not important enough to even ask that question. Have a nice day." And got up and left.
Dude followed me and stuttered " hold up. I was just..."
But I was already out the door.
You were just what mark? Asking a dumbfuck question as if you had any leverage at all?
Your competitor *across the street* is offering 50 cents *more* per hour, and has guaranteed breaks.
What, did you forget 2008 and how you treated millions of people as disposable? The little part where you and most american industries demanded passion, without pay raises? Promotions without benefits? The jobs that if you worked hard, rather than a promotion or a pay raise, your reward was more work and less hours to finish?
You assholes thought we forgot about that? How you shipped millions of jobs overseas, blamed it on "automation" (chinese and indian slave labor), and then pointed the finger at millions of impoverished people as "lazy" in places like Detroit and Pittsburgh and told them "you just got to work harder and smarter!" Or "just get a small loan and create the next google!" from the comfort of your yachts? I'm looking at you bane corp.
No, now the shoes on the other foot motherf*ckers. Hows it feel needing all *us* commoners? "Why should we hire you?"
No, why should *I* WORK FOR YOU?
Cuz I saw THREE dirty tables coming in. A line of people that could be being served. A line that could have been optimized with the proper table count and some simple changes. A menu that doesnt even incentivize your biggest sellers and a dozen other things your store is doing wrong.
Think mark, think!
This is one of those braindead questions employers paying sub $18 an hour ask, because they suffered so much brain drain from years of payola profits from too-big-to-fail wallstreet bailouts, that they forgot they are not king midas, unless they are the king midas of shit, because increasingly everything corporate America touches turns into shit.
And while were on the subject, stopping bringing in outside management to stores. It destroys team cohesion, staff morale, pisses off people *on site* who *actually know* the team, the stores daily activities and processes, and who are better fit for that role. You bring in disinterested outside management, and it's one of the biggest red flags I've ever seen: these smarmy selfcongratulating f*cks who know nothing about the particular store, have no connection to the staff, go on firing sprees or alienation-sprees to hire in friends, fuck up the schedules because again they know nothing about the employees, and then move on after a few years to greener pastures, leaving a barren radioactive wasteland of chain smokers and burnt out staff in their wake.
Dear corporate America, your free ride on the public's good will is over. It's over.
Now you're in the bitch seat. Come sit at my desk and explain to me, EXPLAIN TO ME, why I should sweat and labor to save your shitty company hemorrhaging money like a bleeding crack-addicted hobo dying with a sucking chest wound from a chicago skidrow friday-night drive-by?
You dont deserve it. Your management and company culture is worse than incompetent. It's full of smiley guys expounding about their passion for customer service while giving each other sloppy BJs in broom closets, a veritable cornucopia of cult-like corporate dick suckers *and* dickheads, proclaiming, no...PROFESSING (hence "professional") their undying allegiance and dedication to their corporate family with the intensity of cujo, foaming at the mouth, or Mitt Romney preparing for a photoshoot, plastic smiles and feigned laughs.
Dont forget to wipe your chin, asshole. It's not Ronald McDonald your blowing, but it's definitely not Gordon f*cking Ramsey either.
Would you like fries with that?88 -
Conversations I've genuinely had at work:
Me: "Do you want some advice understanding that function?"
Dev: "Yeah, please!"
Me: "Get a plastic bag and some super glue..."
Dev: "I think I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!"
Me: "It's just the train of mental bitchslaps coming in the other direction."
... Some time later
Dev:"You were right... "
Dev: "If the system is so unstable, how does it keep working?"
Me: "Do you see any goats in the office?"
Dev: "Uhm no... Why would there be goats?"
Me: "There aren't, now, we ran out."
Dev: "The hell are you talking about?"
Me: "We just sacrifice our own blood to Cthulhu these days, it's cleaner and we didn't have to pay to have all the goats blood and waste matter to be cleaned up. That and it was needlessly cruel to the poor goats and that is why there is no goats and despite conventional logic the app continues to work."
Dev: "So what language is the web app written in?"
Me: "You need to understand I inherited this project, I had nothing to do with it's spawning..."
Dev: "OK, that sounds ominous... How bad is it?"
Me: "Java..."
Dev: "..."
Dev: "So what's it like working on this project? What should I expect?"
Me: "You'll call your grandmother during your lunch break just to know there's a world beyond this project. You'll go home, nose bleeding and you are gonna sit in the shower and rock back and forth, holding yourself and feeling like you're suffering imposter syndrome. You'll question why you joined this team and it'll get inside your head til it's all you think about..."
Dev: "Damn man, why are you still on it?"
Me: "Stockholm syndrome, it's too late for me..."
PM: "You're such a dark person, we're not gonna find you hanging from the lights one day are we?"
Me: "Impossible, we use those industrial fluorescent strip lights, there's no cord to hang from."
PM: "That really wasn't the comforting answer I was looking for."
Head of department: "So I need to apologize, you were never meant to be left on your to manage the product on your own, it's something someone way more senior should have been doing and we reassigned him. It wasn't professional of us, it wasn't fair of us, we're sorry. Truth be told,we're impressed you've not gone mad."
Me: "I think I have. Wibble."
A card goes round work for a sick member of staff I've never met.
Me: "How would you describe her condition?"
Dev: "She said that she 'survived' the surgery."
Me: "Yeah, I'm not great at being appropriate but even I think writing 'glad to hear that you are not dead' in a get well soon card isn't the done thing."5 -
I applied for a backend job. Somehow i ended up doing frontend. Ok whatever the pay is alright and i dont mind doing js. But then i see the backend team doing absolute horseshit, stacking up overhead and not even fucking documenting the endpoints, i get mad.
And now our sysadmin left so there is no fucking server and i cant run locally because of 9trillion config files (remember the overhead part?) and the pm is nagging me to get the site done WHEN THERE IS NO FUCKING SERVER. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, SET IT ALL UP AGAIN? THATS NOT MY FUCKING JOB YOU IMBECILE FUCKFACE.8 -
I'm seriously considering never doing fixed rate projects for clients ever again. The conversation will likely go like this, though:
"How much to build my website?"
"$100/hour."
"Sorry, I don't think you heard me correctly. I asked how much to build the whole website."
"$150/hour"
"Wait, you changed the rate! Why won't you give me a fixed cost?"
"Why won't you pay me for my time?"
"Because I can get it done for a cheaper fixed cost somewhere else!"
"But how do you know that's actually cheaper?"
"What do you mean?"
"We pad fixed price projects precisely because we fear not being fully paid for our time."
"Oh."16 -
Always the same story:
Marketing: hey I'm gonna do a demo to a customer. They were asking for feature XYZ. That's ready on thr staging server right? Do you think I could use the staging server for the demo?
Devs: well feature XYZ is not 100% done. Basically just feature X is done, and it still has a few bugs. The deadline ain't for another month, since we gotta finish ABC first. I guess you could use the staging, but it has a lot of bugs.
Marketing: perfect!
*after presentation*
Marketing: the staging had so many bugs! Why didn't you tell me?! It was so embarrassing showing it to new customers! Anyway, they loved the new feature. We need it to be ready ASAP.
Devs: What?! That's gonna mess up with our schedule. You know what? Fine, but feature ABC will have to wait another month.
Marketing: Well, it'd be ideal if we could do both...
Devs: Pay for more devs or dor extra hours.
Marketing: Just do XYZ. It's a pity that you'll have to push back ABC but it's fine, XYZ is more important.
(I might ask, if it was so important, why didn't you notice so in the meeting where we had decided that ABC would be prioritized?)
*tons of working hours later*
Devs: There, we finished XYZ.
Marketing: Yay! Wow, this month we'll have two major features done: ABC and XYZ!
Devs: No, ABC is not done yet.
Marketing: What? But the deadline was this week.
Devs: It was, but then you decided to prioritize XYZ and we said we had to push back ABC to get XYZ ready, and you agreed.
Marketing: Did we? Fine. But do it quick.
Marketing and their mood swings.5 -
The story of Netscape and Internet Explorer really proves the irony of fate! And how life will come back to bite you.
Back in the 90's you had to pay for browsers like Netscape (it was called a navigator but same thing) but after Microsoft released IE for free with your windows copy in 2002 it crushed Netscape and nobody used it anymore (the graph below).
But! Netscape wouldn't give up and before the company died after it made legal accusations against Microsoft and Bill Gates and made them pay for that they did, but Netscape was too far gone and already were falling apart they decided to make a self detonation (I guess that's what they thought being in that tight corner) and they released the code as open source which would later get taken by Mozilla and be the code base for Firefox.
Now look at how much better Firefox is and how nobody uses the shitty IE!
Kind of reminds me of the scene from watchmen where Rorshack was in prison and said the best sentence in the movie "I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here WITH ME!"
17 -
I got laid off from my previous position as a Software Engineer at the end of June, and since then it was a struggle to find a new position. I have a good resume, about 4 years of professional dev experience and 5 years of experience in the tech industry all together, and great references.
As soon as I got laid off, I talked to my old manager at my previous company, and he said that he'd love to hire me back, but he just filled his last open spot.
In order to prepare, I had my resume reviewed by a specialist at the Department of Labor, and she said that it was one of the better resumes that she had seen.
There aren't a huge amount of dev jobs in my area, and I got a TON of recruiter emails. But they were all in other states, and I wasn't interested in moving.
I applied to all the remote and local positions I could find (the ones that I was qualified for,) and I just got a bunch of silence and denials from all my applications. I had a few interviews that went great, but of course, those companies decided to put the position on hold so they could use the budget for other things.
The silence and denials were really disconcerting, and make you think that something might be wrong with you or your interviewing abilities.
And then suddenly, as if the floodgates had opened, I started getting a ton of callbacks and interviews for both local and remote opportunities. I don't know if the end-of-year budget surpluses opened up more positions, but I was getting a lot of interest and it felt amazing.
Another dev position opened up at my previous company, and I got a great recommendation for that from my former manager and co-workers. I got a bunch of other interviews, and was moved onto the next rounds in most of them.
And finally, I got reached out to regarding a remote position I applied for a while ago, and the company was great about making the interview process quick and efficient. Within 2 weeks, I went from the screening call, to the tech call, and to the final call with the CTO. The CTO and I just hung out and talked about cars/boats/motorcycles for half the interview, and he was an awesome guy. AND THEN I GOT AN OFFER THE NEXT DAY!
The offer was originally for about the same amount as I made at my previous job, but I counteroffered up a good amount and they accepted my counteroffer!
It's a great company with offices all over the world, and they offer the option to travel to all those offices for visits if you want. So if you're working on a project with the France team and you think that it'd be easier to just work with them face-to-face, then the company will pay to fly you out to Paris for the week. Or you can work completely remotely. They don't mind either way.
I'm super excited to work with them and it feels great to be back in the job world.
Sorry about the long post, but I just wanted to tell my story and help encourage anybody out there who's going through the same thing right now.
Don't get discouraged, because you WILL find an awesome opportunity that's right for you. Get somebody to go over your resume and give you improvement recommendations. Brush up on your interviewing skills. Be sure to talk about all the projects you've worked on and how they positively impacted people and/or companies.
This is what I found interviewers responded the best to: Be sure to emphasize that you love learning new things and that you love passing along that knowledge to other people, and that your goal is to be an approachable and reliable source of knowledge for the company and to be as helpful as possible. It's important to be in a position that encourages both knowledge growth and knowledge sharing, and I think that companies really appreciate that mindset in a team member.
Moral of the story: YOU GOT THIS!10 -
WWDC was not about developers this year. It was a conference call with shareholders and investors. No bold moves, just several consecutive "this product will no longer suck" and "look at what you can do now, big companies" announcements.
watchOS will work now (it's too slow ATM). tvOS will just be less cumbersome. macOS still lagging behind (I mean, I already have great third party apps that clean my hard drive, but thank you for solving a problem I didn't need fixing). iOS 10 is simply about messages (it's not going to make me ditch Telegram, because it doesn't have an Android client, regardless of how large you make emoticons appear on screen). Apple Music will still suck, especially if you have more than one Apple ID. And Apple Maps will continue to be useless outside of the US.
Where did the bold moves go? Where's the "we're breaking up iTunes into several distinct apps that serve their purposes really well"? (Guess iTunes is too valuable a trademark...) Where is the "we will end the WKView vs UIView vs NSView nonsense"? (You know, OOP is about creating classes, which are abstractions and whose instances deal with the particularities of their environment; a View is a View, regardless of where they live; an instance of a View should care about being on a watch or on a phone, not the developer.) Where is the "we love indie developers and will help you"? They showed off a lot of integration with well established apps, that don't really need to stand out any more. They showed that video of "normal people" who have developed apps, but no one knows about them! And then they changed the AppStore so you can pay to advertise your app, but who has the means to do that? Indie devs are surely on a tight budget, so who's that helping again?
For me, this WWDC was sugar coated with a "we love you developers" BS, but was a business statement to large companies ("see what you can do now Uber, Lyft, WeChat, WhatsApp, Doordash, all the P2P payment apps, ESPN, WSJ and so on?"). It's already a known fact that the bulk of the AppStore revenue goes to the top 1% apps. And what's the point of having tvOS be open to developers if it is very unlikely I'll ever develop anything for it unless I work at CBS?
It's great that they want to make it easier for kids to learn Swift. But there's very little point in that, if those kids' apps aren't going to be used and are simply going to make the "we have 2 million apps on the AppStore" announcement look shinier for shareholders. Without a strong indie community, the Swift Playgrounds app for the iPad is just manufacturing workers for large corporations.
And without a strong indie community, things get tougher for indie clients as well. Who will have the money (and therefore the time) to implement all those integrations in order to even dream about competing with heavily funded apps?
Yeah... So thanks, Apple, but no thanks.16 -
So I found out I'm only earning 50 cents higher than the minimum wage. Nice, very nice...
... And that's why the backlog of unfinished tasks keep piling up. You get what you pay for.12 -
In electronics there's 3 options.
1. You pay a small fortune to get something decent.
2. You pay a smaller fortune to get crap.
3. You build it yourself and it'll be nicely priced AND decent.
Why is that? I have no idea. Profiteering gluttons perhaps.
Case in point: my watch. A waterproof one, so you'd expect to be able to take it in the shower, which I often did.
But then, le wild drop from 50cm height occurred and the whole thing just popped open, with soapy water rushing in. Luckily it didn't short out, and I quickly evacuated it out of the shower and dipped it with my towel.
Then already I thought.. what the fuck is wrong with the designers of this thing?! I'm all for keeping the inner parts of electronics accessible for self-servicing. But in a waterproof watch you wouldn't expect the backside to pop right off and expose the bloody internals, would you? So that's one thing. While evacuating it I quickly figured that I'd want to remove the battery immediately.. except that fucking thing was screwed in place?! WHAT THE FUCK?!! Use those screws to keep the fucking backside of the watch in place you certified pieces of shit that designed this craptacular piece of garbage!!!
Finished showering, went ahead and troubleshooted the thing. Miraculously it still worked. Except that now the UI of the fucking thing is biting me in the ass. A single button on the watch is used to operate the whole thing, and get it to set itself to the correct time, get radio signal, go in sleep mode (where the watch stops ticking, for storage purposes) and activate itself again. So I dived into the manual.. and still couldn't get it to work properly. So it's got one button just like an iPhone, it craps itself when it's dropped just like an iPhone, its design is shit just like an iPhone, and it's completely unusable when it craps itself just like an iPhone.
And the manual... Oh fucking shit. It specifies that the watch is 3 bar water resistant, yet apparently you can't take it into the shower. 3 FUCKING BAR!!! That's supposed to enable you to take a fucking dive with it! And apparently you can't drop it either.. who would've thought, when they lock it with no more than outwards pressure from the back plate into the main body! How difficult can it be to use fucking screws, and to make it watertight put some rubber bands or whatever?!
CERTIFIED MOTHERFUCKERS!!!
And the watch, it's in the garbage can right now. Right where it belongs!!21 -
I developed a simple scholarship management system for my school using Laravel, MySQL, jQuery and Bootstrap, I did it for free since college students from my country have to pay social service to get their degrees. Everyone in the scholarships department seemed to be really happy with my work and they evaluated my social service with 10/10, but yesterday they asked for one last favor: to go talk to the new social service guy who'll be supposed to maintain my project, a mid 30's dude who was really pissed off from the beginning because he wasn't even able to deploy the project, he wasn't even able to clone the project from Github. Ok, so I tried to explain to him the tools I used and how the project was structured, but everything I said seemed to piss him even more, so I stopped and had a chat like:
Me: "Look man, do you know or at least have basic concepts of PHP and MVC frameworks?"
Guy: "Yes, but I'm a project manager, not just –despectively– any programmer, and you didn't write proper documentation, it's impossible to deploy your project with the manual you wrote, I cannot work like this".
*We go to their computer and I clone and setup the project in 3 minutes.
Guy: "Yes, but I still don't know how the project works, I need everything documented. If I have to change something, I don't know where to look.
Me: "Man, that's why asked you about knowing PHP MVC frameworks".
Guy: "I cannot work like this, nothing is documented, I don't even know what's that software you're using *points at Sublime Text*. Or tell me, can you arrive at a place where they expect you to work with something you don't know and they have no documentation?"
*At this point he was really pissed
Me: "Well... Dealing with non-documented software is what I do for a living"
Guy: "I don't know what companies you've worked for, probably not big ones..."
Me: "Well, I actually work for *I mention one of the biggest music apps in the country*"
*Guy ironically laughs
When I gave my feedback to the lady in charge of the department, I told her that this guy was really pissed off at how things were done and that I wasn't so sure of him being capable of maintaining the system. She told me not to worry, that the guy became a well known asshole in the office only after a few days, and that she'll probably have to find something else for him to do. It'd be hilarious if this guy ends up capturing scholarships in the system I made.4 -
Story time:
Yesterday I wanted to go to the theater with my girlfriend. It was her idea because as a student you can get reduced tickets for the play, but only via the online store exactely two hours before the play starts. We had already tried two weeks before but with no success. So this time I said i want to be on my pc with a proper browser and not a mobile version like last time. So we are sitting at home me in front of their website on one screen and with a clock on the other screen. Two minutes realy i hit refresh and I get a selection for the reduced tickets, nice.
You would think.
After selecting the amount. ERROR: Can not get your tickets. I was like fuck they are already sold out because it's a popular play. But hey let's try again. I got one ticket but not the second one, okay strange lets try again, same ERROR again. WHAT the FUCK, no feedback what so ever. My girlfriend had then the idea that they maybe restricted the amount for reduced tickets to one (does not state this explicitly but hey lets give it a shot). Use second browser select one ticket. ERROR can not get you the amount of seats. Rage level near to a 1000 why did it work two minutes before but not anymore. Trying around for five more minutes finally got the second ticket.
Now the real fun begins.
Proceeding to checkout should not be that hard you would think, but you need to be registered for that. Okay so let's do that. The salutation is not required neither is the address for the tickets but you need to have a company name??!!!!! The fuck?? I am not self employed and neither are a most other people around here so why is this field mandatory? Beeing a little under stress I decided to found the "asdf" company with my girlfriend.
Now one would think checking out is easy. Not so fast.
After accepting the terms of service another ERROR, unable to accept your data. What data? I did not input anything new? Where does this come from? Ok never mind I am going to pay with credid card that must work!
ERROR: Internal paymentservice initialization failure! Sorry what? I thought maybe I was to long idle in this browser and they do not reserve the tickets for so long (which would be no surprise to me at this point). Let's try again. Nope same error.
Now my rage level was really over 9000 but we really wanted to go so I decided to call the customer SUPPORT. Or better to say I had a answering maching telling me for ten minutes how sorry they are that this takes so long, yeah you bet. Then and this is now really great: the support guy asks me: "What error do you see? Internal paymentservice initialization failure?" I was like, okay he knows this so they need to know how to handle it. FUCK NO. "Sorry I can't help you. This is our payment system maybe they (IT) are doing some maintenance I can't halp you. Call the theater directly good day." Sorry what just happened, you fuckers are the vendors for the tickets for nearly all big events around here and the theater explicitly states to call you for tickets but you can not help me? Like hell.
This process took 25 very frustrating minutes and I was really angry and wanted to quit, then I saw that there is also a paypal option which I had not tried. With very little hope i selected everything for the payment, registered with paypal and they told me I already had an account. So reactivated this five year old account payed with all the mobile passwords and tans to finally, after 30 fucking minutes, get a pdf file for a ticket. Repeated the last step for the second ticket and with some time left to get there we were off.2 -
-- How I succeeded turning a PHP/MYSQL app into Android app within a week --
Alright. So I wanted to grab your attention to what I'm about to write. If you are here just to read about the technologies I used, jump to bottom.
This is also a kind of rant; rant against the other fellow devs who demotivated me originally when I asked a question.
I'll not go in the details of my original question. Here's the link for those who are interested:
https://www.devrant.io/rants/366496
It's been days since I achieved what I wanted to but I thought someone might learn from my experience. So here it goes.
Why FREE?
Well, it was an important client. I worked on his website and he asked for an app for the same website and told me he won't be able to pay me anything for the app. I was, somewhat, under the impression that he might be testing me. If not, then I would end up learning something new. It wasn't a bad deal for me so I didn't hesitate to took it.
Within a week, I was able to pull the job and finish it. I felt so much better (and proud of myself) when I finished the app within the week and client approved it. What did I get? I got a GOOD BANK CLIENT in my pocket now. Got a lot more worth of projects from the same client. If I were being paid for the app, I might not have pulled the job so much better.
So the moral of this story is never to give up. NOT EVERY DEVELOPER SELLS SHORT ONLY FOR "MONEY". Some enjoy learning new things. And some like me love to accept new challenges and are not afraid to try something new everyday.
In case, someone is interested in knowing the technologies I used, here they go;
PhoneGap
Framework7
Template7
Apache Cordova
I wrote an API for the interaction between the web services and the app.
Also, Ionic Framework seems promising but it had a learning curve and time was of the essence. But I'm gonna learn it anyhow.14 -
Man I really need to get this off my chest. So here goes.
I just finished 1 year in corporate after college. When I joined, the team I got was brilliant, more than what I thought I would get. About 6 months in, the project manager and lead dev left the company. Two replacements took their place, and life's been hell ever since.
The new PM decided it was his responsibility to be our spokesperson and started talking to our overseas manager (call her GM) on our behalf, even in the meetings where we were present, putting words in our mouth so that he's excellent and we get a bad rep.
1 month in, GM came to visit our location for a week. She was initially very friendly towards all of us. About halfway through the week, I realized that she had basically antagonized the entire old team members. Our responsibilities got redistributed and the work I was set to do was assigned to the new dev (call her NR).
Since then, I noticed GM started giving me the most difficult tasks and then criticizing my work extra hard, and the work NR was doing was praised no matter what. I didn't pay much attention to it at first, but lately the truth hit me hard. I found out a fault in NR's code and both PM and GM started saying that because I found it, it was my responsibility to fix it. I went through the buggy code for hours and fixed it. (NR didn't know how it worked, because she had it written by the lead dev and told everyone she wrote it).
I found out lately that NR and PM got the most hike, because they apparently "learnt" new tech (both of them got their work done by others and hogged the credit).They are the first in line to go onsite because they've been doing 'management work'. They'd complained to GM during her visit that we were not friendly towards them. And from that point on if anything went wrong, it would be my fault, because my component found it out (I should mention that my component mostly deals with the backend logic, so its pretty adept at finding code leaks).
What broke my patience is the fact that lately I worked my ass off to deliver some of the best code I'd written, but my GM said in front of the entire team that at this point "I'm just wasting money". She's been making a bad example out of me for some time, but this one took the cake. I had just delivered a promising result in a task in 1 week that couldn't be done by my PM in 4 weeks, and guess what? "It's not good enough". No thank you, no appreciation, nothing. Finally, I decided I'd had enough of it and started just doing tasks as I could. I'd do what they ask, but won't go above and beyond my way to make it perfect.
My PM realized this and then started pushing me harder. Two days back, I sent a mail to the team with GM in cc exposing a flaw in the code he had written, and no one bothered to reply (the issue was critical). When I asked him about it, he said "How can you expect me to reply so soon when it's already been told that when anything happens we should first resolve within the team and then add GM in the loop?" I realized it was indeed discussed, but the issue was extremely urgent, so I had asked everyone involved, and it portrayed him in a bad light. I could've fixed it, but I didn't because on the off chance if it broke something, they'd start telling me that I broke the tool, how its my fault and how its a critical issue I have to fix ASAP, etc. etc., you get the idea.
Can anyone give me some advice of how to deal with this kind of situation? I would have left but with this pandemic going on, market being scarce and the fact that I'm only experienced by 1 year, I don't think I qualify for a job switch just now.16 -
Some motherfucker at the gym called me. “Hey @growling, I am here with that gym you signed up with 5 months ago and your card for membership renewal isn’t working.”
“It’s 8:00am”
“Yes sir. It’s 8am.”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit too early?”
“Did you get a new card?”
“Hey call me at lunch or something, I’m going back to sleep.”
“Okay, or you can call me. Goodbye”
Acting like you got better shit to do with your time.
Like he wanted to lecture me and say waking me up at 8am is fine. Like he wanted to say he came from a hardworking family and so he can say waking me up at 8am is fine. Shiiit dude my mom used to work with two broken hips for 7 days a week until I made six figures. Bless her heart, that’s why I got her a new car and money each month to pay all her bills. She’s been out of work for 2-3 years now. So lecture me. Only my mom can lecture me, boy. Cause she raised me to be an engineer.
Also, why do I see this everywhere as well? I get lectured for drinking beer on a Sunday or Monday during lunch at my frequent visits to liquor store.
“Don’t you have work?”
Yes, 9-5. But I’m an engineer. So it can be 10-6 or 11-7. Doesn’t matter. All of the stuff I do follows sprints and not direct interaction with customers!
I get tasks done and I teach interns to help me get tasks done. In time. And sometimes even more.
I know my schedule is so lax you want to criticize me. Maybe you think I don’t work? Or work as hard as you?
Tl;dr I intentionally act like a spoiled baby when it comes to work so that service/retail/manual labor people lecture me so I can tell them that we work differently than what they’re used to.
I have free snacks. Don’t get me started about gloating about free beef jerky. People hate me on online forums for doing that! Drink beer on tap in work kitchen. A glass of wine anytime I want. Sleep in until sometimes 11am. But that’s why I’m an engineer, buddy.2 -
So one year ago I was working at this company from the US, me being in Europe, which automatically implies there is several hours of timezone difference.
The eng. manager decided we would have a release tomorrow (decision was made one month earlier), and stuff was being prepped up to make that happen.
In the US the workday was about lunch time and in EU it was one hour before finishing. The manager gets us in a meeting and asks me and another dude to do some testing that would take several hours to do. This testing could have been done several days or weeks earlier.
40 minutes after that meeting I get a private message from the PM asking for the status of the test...
Me: aaa.. well I started it and will continue tomorrow
Manager: wait what? we have launch tomorrow, this testing has to be done by tomorrow
Me: it's the end of the workday here, I got personal errands that I have to attend to
Manager: uhm ok ... I see...
I was just messaging something in the public chat right before calling it a day and the manager writes "thanks for the input, your day is over now", completely out of context to the conversation I was having with whomever.
There was no question of "can you stay extra hours and do this?", there was no "hey, I know your day is over we will pay you premium hours with this amount as according to our contract, could you do this now as we have release tomorrow?" ..no ..just .. "do it!". I automatically assumed that ..hey, maybe he wants to do this during and after the live launch (and yes I do admit my mistake of not asking just to be clear, but I assumed the manager knows that there is a timezone difference ..like it's a no brainer).
I can not tell you the heat sensation I had after that last reply from the manager ... it was completely uncalled for, and unreasonable.
I mean why not make a pre-launch phase where you put stuff on the staging server, and perform all the necessary tests and then when you get all the green lights from testing you then proceed with the actual deploy? ...no ... mention this like right at the end of the day before the launch....
And another thing that scratched my neuronal cortex is, how does he know exactly how long the tests would take?12 -
College can be one of the worst investments for an IT career ever.
I've been in university for the past 3 years and my views on higher education have radically changed from positive to mostly cynical.
This is an extremely polarizing topic, some say "your college is shite", "#notall", "you complain too much", and to all of you I am glad you are happy with your expensive toilet paper and feel like your dick just grew an inch longer, what I'll be talking about is my personal experience and you may make of it what you wish. I'm not addressing the best ivy-league Unis those are a whole other topic, I'll talk about average Unis for average Joes like me.
Higher education has been the golden ticket for countless generations, you know it, your parents believe in it and your grandparents lived it. But things are not like they used to be, higher education is a failing business model that will soon burst, it used to be simple, good grades + good college + nice title = happy life.
Sounds good? Well fuck you because the career paths that still work like that are limited, like less than 4.
The above is specially true in IT where shit moves so fast and furious if you get distracted for just a second you get Paul Walkered out of the Valley; companies don't want you to serve your best anymore, they want grunt work for the most part and grunts with inferiority complex to manage those grunts and ship the rest to India (or Mexico) at best startups hire the best problem solvers they can get because they need quality rather than quantity.
Does Uni prepare you for that? Well...no, the industry changes so much they can't even follow up on what it requires and ends up creating lousy study programs then tells you to invest $200k+ in "your future" for you to sweat your ass off on unproductive tasks to then get out and be struck by jobs that ask for knowledge you hadn't even heard off.
Remember those nights you wasted drawing ER diagrams while that other shmuck followed tutorials on react? Well he's your boss now, but don't worry you will wear your tired eyes, caffeine saturated breath and overweight with pride while holding your empty title, don't get me wrong I've indulged in some rough play too but I have noticed that 3 months giving a project my heart and soul teaches me more than 6 months of painstakingly pleasing professors with big egos.
And the soon to be graduates, my God...you have the ones that are there for the lulz, the nerds that beat their ass off to sustain a scholarship they'll have to pay back with interests and the ones that just hope for the best. The last two of the list are the ones I really feel bad for, the nerds will beat themselves over and over to comply with teacher demands not noticing they are about to graduate still versioning on .zip and drive, the latter feel something's wrong but they have no chances if there isn't a teacher to mentor them.
And what pisses me off even more is the typical answers to these issues "you NEED the title" and "you need to be self taught". First of all bitch how many times have we heard, seen and experienced the rejection for being overqualified? The market is saturated with titles, so much so they have become meaningless, IT companies now hire on an experience, economical and likeability basis. Worse, you tell me I need to be self taught, fucker I've been self taught for years why would I travel 10km a day for you to give me 0 new insights, slacking in my face or do what my dog does when I program (stare at me) and that's just on the days you decide to attend!
But not everything is bad, college does give you three things: networking, some good teachers and expensive dead tree remnants, is it worth the price tag, not really, not if you don't need it.
My broken family is not one of resources and even tho I had an 80% scholarship at the second best uni of my country I decided I didn't need the 10+ year debt for not sleeping 4 years, I decided to go to the 3rd in the list which is state funded; as for that decision it worked out as I'm paying most of everything now and through my BS I've noticed all of the above, I've visited 4 universities in my country and 4 abroad and even tho they have better everything abroad it still doesn't justify some of the prices.
If you don't feel like I do and you are happy, I'm happy for you. My rant is about my personal experience which is kind of in the context of IT higher education in the last ~8 years.
Just letting some steam off and not regretting most of my decisions.
15 -
Call me old-fashioned, but... I kinda liked it back in the day, when Microsoft made proprietary software, the Community made free software and everyone's "cui bono" was quite easy to answer - even those corporations involved in FLOSS did have a clear way to finance themselves.
Now, we have Microsoft coming into open source, seemingly making projects better and offering more and more "free" stuff.
You know.
"Free" Windows 10.
"Free" SaaS Office.
"Free" "Private" Repos on Github.
In general - what happened to clear and concise "I give you money, you give me stuff" capitalism like we had it in the 2000s?
I'd rather pay 20 bucks for a game on Steam than get it "free" and with ads or microtransactions - yet, many games, especially mobile, don't even offer me that option. It wouldn't be that hard now, would it?
The same goes for software. That Canonical would need to fuck their users over after Ubuntu One went to shit was obvious - they didn't offer the kind of commercial/enterprise OS'es that Redhat or SuSE sell.
What people seem to forget is that everyone needs to make a profit somehow. You don't get "free" stuff. Even the volunteers in the Open Source Community get something out of it - an opportunity to pad their CV at least, if nothing else.
Nowadays, software manufacturers have the same legitimacy as the "free" financial "advisors" you find at banks - and who could be dumb enough to trust them? Oh yeah: Almost the entire fucking society is who.
But then again, sell something and noone will want it - because they all want it for free, with annoying, privacy-invading ads or with equally annoying microtransactions, or financing based on commission - so you don't only pay ONCE, you pay until you realize you got fucked over and quit.
Capitalism used to work until all those idiots stepped in. How the fuck don't people realize that there's no free lunch in life? When have we stopped being functional people and turned into idiots.
Even worse: Those idiots think that they're entitled to something! They, who volunteered to become merchandise instead of customers, think that they have rights! Do cattle have rights? Nope. They get their "free" hay everyday and I get to buy beef, that's how it works. Moo!
Hell, they are surprised when they get fucked over by bank salespeople or their data stolen by corporations, intelligence agencies or something... What did they expect, goodwill?
Can we please make Adam Smith mandatory reading in school?! I mean, give people a chance to understand capitalism? The nonexistent "goodwill" of traders in general?9 -
Alright, so my previous rant got a way better response than I expected! (https://devrant.io/rants/832897)
Hereby the first project that I cannot seem to get started on too badly :/.
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT PROMOTING PIRACY, I JUST CAN'T FIND A SUITABLE SERVICE WHICH HAS ALL THE MUSIC I WANT. I REGULARLY BUY ALBUMS. before everyone starts to go batshit crazy regarding piracy, this is legal in The Netherlands for personal use. I think that supporting the artists you love is very good and I actually regularly pay for albums and so on but:
- I want all the music from about every artist in my scene. Either on Deezer or on Spotify this is not available and I'm not gonna get them both (they both have about half of the music I want). Their services are awesome but I'm not going to pay for something if I can't listen to all the music I like, hell even some artists (on deezer mostly) only have half their music on there and it's mostly not better on Spotify.
- I'd happily buy all albums because I love supporting the artists I love but buying everything is just way too fucking much."Get a premium music streaming subscription!" - see the first point.
You can either agree or disagree with me but that's not what this rant is about so here we go:
The idea is to create a commandline program (basically only needs to be called by a cron job every day or so) which will check your favourite youtube (sorry, haven't found a suitable non-google youtube replacement yet) channels every day through a cronjob and look for new uploads. If there are, it will download them, convert them to MP3 or whatever music format you'd like and place them in the right folder. Example with a favourite artist of mine:
1. Script checks if there are any new uploads from Gearbox Digital (underground raw hardstyle label).
2. Script detects two new uploads.
3. Script downloads the files (I managed to get that done through the (linux only or also mac?) youtube-dl software) and converts them to mp3 in my case (through FFMPEG maybe?).
4. Script copies them to the music library folder but then the specific sub-folder for Gearbox Digital in this case.
You should be able to put as many channels in there as you want, I've tried this with the official YouTube Data API which worked pretty fine tbh (the data gathering through that API). The ideal case would be to work without API as youtube-dl and youtube-dlg do. This is just too complicated for me :).
So, thoughts?43 -
Salesperson makes commission on sales, CTO gets bonus for going to out of office meetings, designer gets bonus for every design finished. What does the web developer get?
Answer: "we can't afford to give out bonuses just for doing your job."
There are 10 websites to build in the next 6 months, 3 brand new offices in different states that need it equipment ordered and installed by me, and the other 160 clients who all think their edits are most important.
And to top it all off, every time I give an estimate for the work, boss says "just give it to them." Gee, maybe you could afford to pay me a living wage or incentivize me to keep working 6+ hours a night at home if you stopped giving away everything I build for free.
You lower the value of my work and every other web developer out there when you tell clients that the website I built them isn't worth paying for. If every one of the free sites on my list was just charged the minimum $10k, I'm looking at $200k on this board that could have been used to hire me some help or increase my pay to make me feel appreciated.
I love my job and the people I work with, but when you aren't making enough to pay the bills and you work 70+ hours a week something has to change.8 -
Fellow developers,
For all people asking u to be partners of their "billionaire" idea, and to be paid from revenue ONLY when the plateform goes live or shit like this, BEWARE.
For all of them i had the same answer: "ok, ill share with you the project, but until it goes live, i am the only one who is giving sacrifice, and since we are partners, i want us both to do same level of sacrifices in order to deserve later the share of revenue... That being said, u have to pay the hours of devlopment, all of them, and when it goes live, from the revenue ill get, ill pay you back what you paid on dev cost"
It is the only way to be really even...
And if he refuse, ask them again "why? I taought u where 100% sure that your idea will work and become a billionaire why u think it is risky tp pay few thousands????"
... Now he is having second thaughts12 -
Worst hack/attack I had to deal with?
Worst, or funniest. A partnership with a Canadian company got turned upside down and our company decided to 'part ways' by simply not returning his phone calls/emails, etc. A big 'jerk move' IMO, but all I was responsible for was a web portal into our system (submitting orders, inventory, etc).
After the separation, I removed the login permissions, but the ex-partner system was set up to 'ping' our site for various updates and we were logging the failed login attempts, maybe 5 a day or so. Our network admin got tired of seeing that error in his logs and reached out to the VP (responsible for the 'break up') and requested he tell the partner their system is still trying to login and stop it. Couple of days later, we were getting random 300, 500, 1000 failed login attempts (causing automated emails to notify that there was a problem). The partner knew that we were likely getting alerted, and kept up the barage. When alerts get high enough, they are sent to the IT-VP, which gets a whole bunch of people involved.
VP-Marketing: "Why are you allowing them into our system?! Cut them off, NOW!"
Me: "I'm not letting them in, I'm stopping them, hence the login error."
VP-Marketing: "That jackass said he will keep trying to get into our system unless we pay him $10,000. Just turn those machines off!"
VP-IT : "We can't. They serve our other international partners."
<slams hand on table>
VP-Marketing: "I don't fucking believe this! How the fuck did you let this happen!?"
VP-IT: "Yes, you shouldn't have allowed the partner into our system to begin with. What are you going to do to fix this situation?"
Me: "Um, we've been testing for months already went live some time ago. I didn't know you defaulted on the contract until last week. 'Jake' is likely running a script. He'll get bored of doing that and in a couple of weeks, he'll stop. I say lets ignore him. This really a network problem, not a coding problem."
IT-MGR: "Now..now...lets not make excuses and point fingers. It's time to fix your code."
IT-VP: "I agree. We're not going to let anyone blackmail us. Make it happen."
So I figure out the partner's IP address, and hard-code the value in my service so it doesn't log the login failure (if IP = '10.50.etc and so on' major hack job). That worked for a couple of days, then (I suspect) the ISP re-assigned a new IP and the errors started up again.
After a few angry emails from the 'powers-that-be', our network admin stops by my desk.
D: "Dude, I'm sorry, I've been so busy. I just heard and I wished they had told me what was going on. I'm going to block his entire domain and send a request to the ISP to shut him down. This was my problem to fix, you should have never been involved."
After 'D' worked his mojo, the errors stopped.
Month later, 'D' gave me an update. He was still logging the traffic from the partner's system (the ISP wanted extensive logs to prove the customer was abusing their service) and like magic one day, it all stopped. ~2 weeks after the 'break up'.8 -
I was getting a freelancer job to do some backend work for a company in India that is working for a huge company in Saudi Arabia.
The customer in india was my primary contact, I wasn't allowed to talk to the guys in Saudi Arabia. My contact, we'll call him Aman, asks if i can do frontend too. I decline. Now what follows were 4 weeks of backend work during which Aman called me 10-15 times per day via skype to ask me how I was progressing, and if "insert spec here" was already done. He even called me in the middle of the night, well aware of the different time zones.
But in the end all the work is done, Aman is happy. I request payment.
Aman: We can't pay you yet, you didn't do the frontend!
Me: I'm not doing frontend.
Aman: It's just a few simple changes and then we're done.
Me: Gnnn, fuck it, what do you need?
Aman: Our customer would like the frontend to look better.
Me: Ok, so what exactly should look better?
Aman: All of it.
Me: Do you have any specs?
Aman: No just make it look more modern.
Me: So you want me to rework the whole frontend? That's not just a few simple changes...
Aman: How long would you need?
Me: I actually don't do that kind of work.
Aman: We pay you double your hourly rate if you do this and finish it fast.
(This is were I should have just said no... but the greed...)
Me: Ok, but it will take me about 3 weeks to do that.
Aman: OK.
Me: Do you have any preferences as to how it should look?
Aman: No, just surprise us.
(After this sentence I really should have gotten the hell out of Dodge)
After working 3 weeks changing over 20.000 lines of CSS and most of the HTML I present Aman with the changes.
Aman: No our customer doesn't like the changes. Can you make a different version?
Me: What doesn't he like, any specifics, coloring, styling of lists or the buttons?
Aman: He doesn't like the whole thing. Please make us another version.
Me: Ok, you are the customer, but it would really help if you give me some pointers as to how it should look like.
Aman: Just do your best.
Me: ..., ok, that's helpful.
2 weeks later...
Aman: No our customer liked the version before better. But could you make it look more modern.
Me: *Bangs head against wall repeatedly*
Me: What do you mean by modern?
Aman: It should look more modern, as a whole.
Me: Ok, I get that, but could you give me an example?
Aman: Sends me a screenshot of the overview screen with all the elements encircled and modern written beside them.
1 week later...
Aman: The customer has decided, he likes the original version best. Can you undo all the changes?
Me: Sure but that'll take like 1 hour.
Aman: Oh by the way we were asked by accounting why the price for this project was so high?
Me: *hugh* *gnn* what?
Aman: Well at the beginning, you estimated the backend and frontend work to be done in 4 weeks.
Me: The frontend was never part of the original estimate.
Aman: Can you do anything concerning your hourly rate, so that we can get back to the original pricing.
Me: *make a mental note to never work with an intermediary company in india again and cancels the job requesting the due payment*
Luckily I got paid the full amount but not before having another 10 Skype call with Aman...17 -
Just got a call from an Indian scammer. He did the whole press Win + R shabang and I did what he said but the run box didn't appear (maybe cause I'm on a mac) I tried a few more times and then had a moment of enlightenment, I have a mac so that must be why the shortcut isn't working. He then goes on a rant saying everything is fine because he is the best technician and he can fix my mac too. He threatens to hack me and get my name and hack my computer but then goes straight back to his script and asks me to open my browser. I'm asked to go to a website which he mumbles so I don't understand and ask him to spell it for me. This of course is unacceptable and he goes no just type whatever you feel like typing, immediately changing his mind to xvideos.com instead. I say I can't visit the site since I am at work and he goes straight into trying to recruit me. Promises of infinite money and all I could ever wish for. Then he says I should work for him and he would pay me to watch porn which I politely decline. The final interaction was me letting him know I need to get back to work and to tell his call center buddies to never call me. He got super mad at me for accusing him of working at a call center whilst you can hear other calls in the background. 10/10 interaction.6
-
Here's a genuine rant for you. Probably the only one I've ever made and ever will..
It's a bit depressing and covers a few topics so just read it, it's important.
*deep inhale*
So, with the help of my friend and my Nana, I was getting VR set up. (Oh, what joy.)
Now, I love everything about VR. But the thing is, I've had this damned headset since may (Dell MMR) and I haven't been able to use it. The reason for that is, something always came up that I needed to buy and this became a huge deal.
But let's start from the beginning.. I'm curentally fighting depression. I have been for months. My only income is what my Nana gives me ($150/mo) and what my friend ocasinally gives me.
Anyways, the first issue was that I couldn't afford the headset. This was find, as my friend would get it for me, and I would pay them back the following month. But, then, once I got the headset that's when the real problems started. First it was that I needed bluetooth, so I bought an adapter. Then I realized my entire CPU was incompatable, so I had to get a new tower and I went ahead and got a new GPU as well. I also got a charging kit for my headset (This ended up making me owe my Nana money). Then after all of that was settled, I learned that the evauation software lied, and my computer doesn't have USB 3, so I need that too but low and behold; both of my graphics cards cover my second pcie slot. So my options are to either try and rig up something, or to buy a cpu and psu for my third AMD PC which I had forgotten about during this whole ordeal..
This was soposed to help me with my depression and stress. Now I don't even want to get out of bed.
With all that said, I might be getting on SSI soon (I'm sure some of you are familar with that, and no I don't want to talk about it) and when that happens I might just leave behind tech (well, my PC and games) and all the stress and pain it's caused me over my life so this was all for nothing.
Honestly.. I'm just done with everything. To all the new faces around here; Hello! How are ya? To everyone else; You know me. I've been around for a while, though I'm not popular because I lurked and commented with Alice. You all probably noticed that I left a while back, and it was because I was trying to get out of tech. My reason for tech was that I was searching for something. I was always looking for the next game to sate me, or fill this gap in my life. I became a programmer because it gave me control were I lacked it otherwise. I made friends online because my anxiety prevented me from doing so in the real world.
But to what end? What have I acomplished? My twenty second birthday is next month. I've no job, I move from family member to famly member because I'm so fixated on becoming someone else to make something of myself.
I have my own ideals, but it seems that I push them aside to try (and fail to) impress others.
It's time for change. Of course, I can't do anything without money, so I'll have to wait for my SSI which I will get news on in August.
I hope this message came through how I meant it to. There is so much I want to say, but I've no words to say them. And btw, the VR thing is just one of manny issue that i've delt with (but certanly the most expensive)
Alice, Zennoe (Alexis, whom is not on devrant); I'm not giving up tech entirely. don't expect to suddenly not hear from me. I'm mostly just giving up my computer and games. More casually so for now, and them more seriously once I get on SSI. I'll still message you every/other day like I have been. <326 -
"Create an account now to watch these courses for free (don't worry, we hate spam as much as you do)"
Well that's a fucking lie. This woman named Christy is abusing MailChimp vigorously.
Fuck off marketing with your disingenuous "community update" mails, "what you missed last week" newsletters and "handpicked crap for you" notifications.
I want to use your platform, I even pay for it, but I don't want to get your useless mail until I found the energy to dig through your config panel looking for some half broken toggle button.6 -
Ok so a very quick background: I didn't get a job until I needed one after my phone broke and I didn't have the money to buy another one. (I'm a student still for those who don't know lol.)
>> Phone randomly breaks.
>> Don't have the money for a new one
>> Searches for low skill jobs (ie cashier) that would work with me in terms of how many hours I work and whenever those hours are.
>> Apply to like 15 (not even exaggerating either lol) jobs
>> Wait for responses
>> One day goes by. Nothing
>> Two days go by. Nothing
>> Three days go by. Nothing
>> Fourth day rolls around and I get a call about one. I answer, tell him I'm available starting that Monday.
>> (Keep in mind I'm on an old temporary phone)
>> Next day I buy a new phone (didn't have to pay anything up front aside from the taxes on it, as it's on a payment plan)
>> Reset old phone after usage
>> Monday rolls around and I drive to the location of the job, and walk in the door asking for x.
>> "I'm sorry sir, who? We don't have anyone here by that name."
>> I panic and hop in my car, and try to find the address of the store I applied to. I find out it's different than where I went.
>> Start driving there and call that phone number. I ask to speak to x.
>> "I'm sorry sir, there's nobody here by that name."
>> Call literally every other location in the city and ask for x, but nothing.
>> Since I'm already on the way, I drive to the location of the store I had applied to. Whenever I get there, the manager spends half an hour on the phone trying to figure out where I belong. Nothing.
>> By this point, it's well over an hour past whenever I was supposed to show up, so I gave up because I figured they probably wouldn't have hired me anyways.
>> I get home determined af to figure out who the hell called me.
>> I remembered that Verizon has call logs you can look at online.
>> I go back through it and find the number. Google it.
Here's where the story gets a lil funny now.
>> Number shows up for a store that I applied to who's name sounds a LOT like the first store.
>> Called them and explained what happened, and told them I'd be there asap if they still wanted me.
>> That was like 6 months ago and I'm still here lol8 -
Oh man. Mine are the REASON why people dislike PHP.
Biggest Concern: Intranet application for 3 staff members that allows them to set the admin data for an application that our userbase utilizes. Everything was fucking horrible, 300+ php files of spaghetti that did not escape user input, did not handle proper redirects, bad algo big O shit and then some. My pain point? I was testing some functionality when upon clicking 3 random check boxes you would get an error message that reads something like this "hi <SENSITIVE USERNAME DATA> you are attempting to use <SERVER IP ADDRESS> using <PASSWORD> but something went wrong! Call <OLD DEVELOPER's PHONE NUMBER> to provide him this <ERROR CODE>"
I panicked, closed that shit and rewrote it in an afternoon, that fucking retard had a tendency to use over 400 files of php for the simplest of fucking things.
Another one, that still baffles me and the other dev (an employee that has been there since the dawn of time) we have this massive application that we just can't rewrite due to time constraints. there is one file with (shit you not) a php include function that when you reach the file it is including it is just......a php closing tag. Removing it breaks down the application. This one is over 6000 files (I know) and we cannot understand what in the love of Lerdorf and baby Torvalds is happening.
From a previous job we had this massive in-house Javascript "framework" for ajax shit that for whatever reason unknown to me had a bunch of function and object names prefixed with "hotDog<rest of the function name>", this was used by two applications. One still in classic ASP and the other in php version 4.something
Legacy apps written in Apache Velocity, which in itself is not that bad, but I, even as a PHP developer, do not EVER mix views with logic. I like my shit separated AF thank you very much.
A large mobile application that interfaced with fucking everything via webviews. Shit was absolutley fucking disgusting, and I felt we were cheating our users.
A rails app with 1000 controller methods.
An express app with 1000 router methods with callbacks instead of async await even though async await was already a thing.
ultraFuckingLarge Delphi project with really no consideration for best practices. I, to this day enjoy Object Pascal, but the way in which people do delphi can scare me.
ASP.NET Application in wich there seemed to be a large portion of bolted in self made ioc framework from the lead dev, absolute shitfest, homie refused to use an actual ioc framework for it, they did pay the price after I left.
My own projects when I have to maintain them.9 -
I've been away, lurking at the shadows (aka too lazy to actually log in) but a post from a new member intrigued me; this is dedicated to @devAstated . It is erratic, and VERY boring.
When I resigned from the Navy, I got a flood of questions from EVERY direction, from the lower rank personnel and the higher ups (for some reason, the higher-ups were very interested on what the resignation procedure was...). A very common question was, of course, why I resigned. This requires a bit of explaining (I'll be quick, I promise):
In my country, being in the Navy (or any public sector) means you have a VERY stable job position; you can't be fired unless you do a colossal fuck-up. Reduced to non-existent productivity? No problem. This was one of the reasons for my resignation, actually.
However, this is also used as a deterrent to keep you in, this fear of lack of stability and certainty. And this is the reason why so many asked me why I left, and what was I going to do, how was I going to be sure about my job security.
I have a simple system. It can be abused, but if you are careful, it may do you and your sanity good.
It all begins with your worth, as an employee (I assume you want to go this way, for now). Your worth is determined by the supply of your produced work, versus the demand for it. I work as a network and security engineer. While network engineers are somewhat more common, security engineers are kind of a rarity, and the "network AND security engineer" thing combined those two paths. This makes the supply of my work (network and security work from the same employee) quite limited, but the demand, to my surprise, is actually high.
Of course, this is not something easy to achieve, to be in the superior bargaining position - usually it requires great effort and many, many sleepless nights. Anyway....
Finding a field that has more demand than there is supply is just one part of the equation. You must also keep up with everything (especially with the tech industry, that changes with every second). The same rules apply when deciding on how to develop your skills: develop skills that are in short supply, but high demand. Usually, such skills tend to be very difficult to learn and master, hence the short supply.
You probably got asleep by now.... WAKE UP THIS IS IMPORTANT!
Now, to job security: if you produce, say, 1000$ of work, then know this:
YOU WILL BE PAID LESS THAN THAT. That is how the company makes profit. However, to maximize YOUR profit, and to have a measure of job security, you have to make sure that the value of your produced work is high. This is done by:
- Producing more work by working harder (hard method)
- Producing more work by working smarter (smart method)
- Making your work more valuable by acquiring high demand - low supply skills (economics method)
The hard method is the simplest, but also the most precarious - I'd advise the other two. Now, if you manage to produce, say, 3000$ worth of work, you can demand for 2000$ (numbers are random).
And here is the thing: any serious company wants employees that produce much more than they cost. The company will strive to pay them with as low a salary as it can get away with - after all, a company seeks to maximize its profit. However, if you have high demand - low supply skills, which means that you are more expensive to be replaced than you are to be paid, then guess what? You have unlocked god mode: the company needs you more than you need the company. Don't get me wrong: this is not an excuse to be unprofessional or unreasonable. However, you can look your boss in the eye. Believe me, most people out there can't.
Even if your company fails, an employee with valuable skills that brings profit tends to be snatched very quickly. If a company fires profitable employees, unless it hires more profitable employees to replace them, it has entered the spiral of death and will go bankrupt with mathematical certainty. Also, said fired employees tend to be absorbed quickly; after all, they bring profit, and companies are all about making the most profit.
It was a long post, and somewhat incoherent - the coffee buzz is almost gone, and the coffee crash is almost upon me. I'd like to hear the insight of the veterans; I estimate that it will be beneficial for the people that start out in this industry.3 -
My apprentice quit!
Posted the other day about him quitting ...
He did ( he could of read the old post )
Just took him two days to do it
Worst fucking thing he fell asleep this morning on his way to work , so he's late anyway 9 start time actually arrives 9:40 .... ! Normally today it was 10:50 till he arrived... On a day he quits
Now he expects me to pay him extra money .... Holiday days etc ...
I want an apprentice who wants to be good at software 😐
Thing is he said it's not what he wants , I think development is something you learn to love.. because of the challenges. You always when starting out facing huge brick walls you have to get through.
Some people just don't have the capacity to get through them. I think. Developer has to love the difficulty .. you fail multiple times before the finished product ... All the errors. Little fixes no one sees.
It takes dedication.... Hard work to be the best. He didn't get that.
I now have more respect for other devs ( I had a lot already ) knowing that we all went through all of that and now. We are people with true talents.3 -
I rewrote my resume. It is getting shorter and shorter. Scary.
But I was thinking, that during interviews, I never get to ask the important questions. Like, I do need to ask a few things that are important for me. Those that are not written in their websites, and they will do their best to hide.
So I came up with a list of questions:
1. Do you pay for overtime work? what is the basis of pay? hours or work-module? how realistic are the work-modules?
2. Have you ever had issues with employees from minority groups?
3. How do you address employee's professional concerns? for example, about technological debt.
4. what's the policy for meeting and daily interruptions during brain-work? Are people ever forced to participate in meetings that could be summed up in emails? what's the company policy for initiating a meeting?
5. Who designs the software? Are the requirements always non-negotiable? do the direct developers have a say in design matters?
6. How close are job requirements (as advertised) to actual tasks I need to perform?
7. What's the company policy for motivating the employees?
8. How does the company deal with mental health issues? is it acceptable for people to take leaves due to mental health issues? Has anyone ever done it?
9. How does the company deal with individual needs for working methods and space? Specifically, how does that apply to meetings? Do you have company-wide meetings? How often are they? What's the impact on productivity? Can employees not participate? Do they have to have an excuse to not participate?
10. Do developers get to develop their skills during worktime often? Or is it a "do it in your own free time" kind of thing? Are there any resources available to those who want to develop their skills further? Is it included in the career planning and employee performance review?
11. Assume I work for your company for a year. What are the benefits I can potentially gain in a year from working here, aside from adding a line of work experience to my resume?
12. Does the company provide any form of free feminine hygiene products in the bathroom?
Any questions I should add?92 -
so I have a junior who merged in a fix for an issue yesterday, and it was tested today and there was an issue with his "fix".
so he comes to me and says "hey this is an issue" and i'm like "yeah, remember i told you about that yesterday when i tested your changes? why did it get merged?"
so i tell him "its because of <reason> and that's why i specified the approach that i did in the ticket originally"
so he's like "ok i'll try that" and before doing that i leave him with "you will probably want to do <thing> because of <reason> with that approach"
so fast forward to like 10 mins ago. literally half the fucking day has gone by.
"hey, so i can't get this to work"
"yeah its because <reason> but what you /can/ do is <same fucking thing i told him to do this morning>"
"oh ok, ill give that a shot :thumbsup: "
and yet he's had this chip on his shoulder since reviews because he feels like he should have gotten a bigger raise and he's worth more than he's paid. and wonders why after 3 years he still hasn't been promoted from a junior.
and don't fucking say 'that's above my pay grade' all the time like you aren't fairly compensated, and then struggle to employ the same fucking patterns in a code base you've worked with for 3 years now.4 -
Tl;Dr - It started as an escape, carried on as fun, then as a way to be lazy, and finally as a way of life. Coding has defined and shaped my entire life from the age of nine.
When I was nine I was playing a game on my ZX spectrum and accidentally knocked the keyboard as I reached over to adjust my TV. Incredibly parts of it actually made a little sense to me and got my curiosity. I spent hours reading through that code, afraid to turn the Spectrum off in case I couldn't get back to it. Weeks later I got hold of a book of example code to copy out to do various things like making patterns on the screen. I was amazed by it. You told it what to do, and it did it! (don't you miss the days when coding worked like that?) I was bitten by the coding bug (excuse the pun) and I'd got it bad! I spent many late nights on that thing, escaping from a difficult home life. People (especially adults) were confusing, and in my experience unpredictable. When you did things wrong they shouted at you and threatened to take you away, or ignored you completely. Code never did that. If you did something wrong, it quietly let you know and often told you exactly what was wrong. It wasn't because of shifting expectations or a change of mood or anything like that. It was just clean logic, simple cause and effect.
I get my first computer a year later: an IBM XT that had been discarded by a company and was fitted with a key on the side to turn it on. With the impressive noise it made it really was like starting an engine. Whole most kids would have played with the games, I spent my time playing with batch scripts and writing very simple text adventures. And discovering what "format c:" does. With some abuse and threatened violence I managed to get windows running on it. Windows 2.1 I think it was.
At 12 I got a Gateway 75 running Windows 95. Over the next few years I do covered many amazing games: ROTT, Doom, Hexen, and so on. Aside from the games themselves, I was fascinated by the way computers could be linked together to play together (this was still early days for the Web and computers networked in a home was very unusual). I also got into making levels for Doom, Heretic, and years later Duke Nukem 3D (pretty sure it was heretic; all I remember is the nightmare of trying to write levels entirely by code!). I enjoyed re-scripting some of the weapons and monsters to behave differently. About this time I also got into HTML (I still call this coding, but not programming), C, and java. I had trouble with C as none of the examples and tutorial code seemed to run properly under a Windows environment. Similar for my very short stint with assembly. At some point I got a TI-83 programmable calculator and started rewriting my old batch script games on it, including one "Gangster Lord" game that had the same mechanics as a lot of the Facebook games that appeared later (do things, earn money, spend money to buy stuff to do more things). Worried about upcoming exams, I also made a number of maths helper apps, including a quadratic equation solver that gave the steps, and a fake calculator reset to smuggle them into my exams. When the day came I panicked and did a proper reset for fear of being caught.
At 18 I was convinced I was going to be a professional coder as I started a degree in Computer Science. Three months later I dropped out after a bunch of lectures teaching what input and output devices were and realising we were only going to be taught Java and no C++. I started a job on the call centre of a big company, but was frustrated with many of the boring and repetitive tasks we had to do. So I put my previous knowledge to use, and quickly learned VBA to automate tasks. It wasn't long before I ended up promoted to Business Analyst where I worked on a great team building small systems in Office, SAS, and a few other tools.
I decided to retrain in psychology, so left the job I was in and started another degree. During my work and placements my skills came in use a number of times to simplify and automate tasks. I finished my degree, then took a job as a teaching assistant while I worked out what I wanted to do next and how to pay for it. Three years later I've ended up IT technican at the school, responsible for the website, teaching a number of Computing lessons each week, and unofficial co-coordinator for Computing as a subject. I also run a team of ten year old Digital Leaders who I am training in online safety and as technical experts; I am hoping to inspire them to a future in coding. In September I'll be starting teacher training with a view to becoming a Computing specialist teacher. Oh, and I'm currently doing a course in Android Development in my free time.
And this all started with an accidental knock on the keyboard of a ZX Spectrum.6 -
So we ordered a piece of software from external software house becouse I was low on time and we needed it asap.
So. Long story short, their software was bugged as hell, they deny all the bugs and they have their BDD that they done and anything we say about it like "feature XYZ is broken on firefox" they will deny it "becouse it wasn't on BDD" or "let's get on call" (in which +- 6-7 people participate from their side and we of course have to pay them for this...)
So they fixed like 20% of bugs (mostly trivials/minors) Application is fairly small scope. You have integration with like 3 endpoints on arbitary API, user registration/login, few things to do in database (mainly math running from cron).
They done it in ASP so I don't know the language and enviroment so can't just fix it myself.
2 days ago (monday) they annoyed me to point where I just started to break things. For starters I found that every numeric input is vunrable to integer overflow (which is blocker). I figured most of fields are purefect opportunity to XSS (but I didn't bother to do JS... anything but not JS...). I figured I can embed into my name/surname/phone (none validated) anything in HTML...
So for now we have around 25 bugs, around 15 of them are blockers.
They figured it's somehow our fault that it's bugged and decided to do demo with us to show off how perfectly it works. I'm happy to break their demos. I figured I will register bunch users that have name - image with fixed/absolute position top:0;left:0 width/height 100% - this will effectively brick admin panel
Also I figured I can do some addotional sounds in background becouse why not. And I just dont know what to put in. It links to my server for now so I can freely change content of bricked admin panel.
I have curl's ready to execute in case they reset database.
I can put in GIFs or heck, even videos, dosen't really matter. Framework escapes some things for them so at least that. But audio/image/video works.
Now I have 2 questions:
- what image + audio combo will work the best (of course we need to keep it civil). Im thinking finding some meme with bugs or maybe nuclear logo image with some siren sound
- am I evil person?
Edit:
I havent stated this clearly:
"There is no BDD that describes that if user inserts malicious input server should deny it" - that's almost literally what we get from them....11 -
So finished a project for a client, the client signed a contract. He signed off that all milestones where reached. Text me that he was very pleased.
We give 30 days to pay. 8 days before the due date he asked for a meeting, telling us he wants to go another direction and he wants the source code to show the new development team he's going with to get a quote from them. I tell him that, that's fine he can have the source files once he pays for the product which was in the contract they signed mind you!! And this FUCKING DICK FART threats to sue, saying he's calling his lawyer, threatening me and my development partner with physical violence, and saying he's going to sue me personally not because me work was bad but because I refused to give him the product before he paid. I was calm we offered to meet his new dev team explain the code, and show them what they needed to see to give the clients a quote and they would not allow that, saying how now I'm not getting paid instead I'm getting sued and that he will publicly shame my startup company. Just complete bullshit, good thing I saved the original contract he wanted me to sign which had threats of physical violence I. His contract... Which in retrospect should have been a hint, but it was the highest paying contract we ever landed. Seems he never planned on paying. What's a guy to do?26 -
Watch out for these fucking bug bounty idiots.
Some time back I got an email from one shortly after making a website live. Didn't find anything major and just ran a simple tool that can suggest security improvements simply loading the landing page for the site.
Might be useful for some people but not so much for me.
It's the same kind of security tool you can search for, run it and it mostly just checks things like HTTP headers. A harmless surface test. Was nice, polite and didn't demand anything but linked to their profile where you can give them some rep on a system that gamifies security bug hunting.
It's rendering services without being asked like when someone washes your windscreen while stopped at traffic but no demands and no real harm done. Spammed.
I had another one recently though that was a total disgrace.
"I'm a web security Analyst. My Job is to do penetration testing in websites to make them secure."
"While testing your site I found some critical vulnerabilities (bugs) in your site which need to be mitigated."
"If you have a bug bounty program, kindly let me know where I should report those issues."
"Waiting for response."
It immediately stands out that this person is asking for pay before disclosing vulnerabilities but this ends up being stupid on so many other levels.
The second thing that stands out is that he says he's doing a penetration test. This is illegal in most major countries. Even attempting to penetrate a system without consent is illegal.
In many cases if it's trivial or safe no harm no foul but in this case I take a look at what he's sending and he's really trying to hack the site. Sending all kinds of junk data and sending things to try to inject that if they did get through could cause damage or provide sensitive data such as trying SQL injects to get user data.
It doesn't matter the intent it's breaking criminal law and when there's the potential for damages that's serious.
It cannot be understated how unprofessional this is. Irrespective of intent, being a self proclaimed "whitehat" or "ethical hacker" if they test this on a site and some of the commands they sent my way had worked then that would have been a data breach.
These weren't commands to see if something was possible, they were commands to extract data. If some random person from Pakistan extracts sensitive data then that's a breach that has to be reported and disclosed to users with the potential for fines and other consequences.
The sad thing is looking at the logs he's doing it all manually. Copying and pasting extremely specific snippets into all the input boxes of hacked with nothing to do with the stack in use. He can't get that many hits that way.4 -
Company: “we need you to engineer this for one of our clients because you’re an engineer and this is what we pay you for.”
Me: “sure no problem”
Company: “we also need you to do a cost benefit analysis, risk/reward analysis, gap analysis and swot analysis for market fit and business finance because we didn’t task anyone else with doing it and since we’re already paying you for this other thing you may as well do this too”
Me: (opens up resume.docx) “yeah I’ll uh…I’ll get right on that”2 -
I used to get gigs from a freelancing website. Some guy posted a project where he wanted a website with complementary Android and iOS apps for $50. My bid was "Sir, would you like fries with that?". It was uncalled for I guess but after seeing so many projects like this, I was pissed to no end.
2 months later I get an email from the website saying I received an infraction due to my behaviour. Wtf is an infraction? Fuck you and fuck the English dictionary! Or pay me fucking 50 dollars to find out what it means!
Basically, I shat where I used to eat. Fuck my life.5 -
I used to do audits for private companies with a team. Most of them where black box audits and we were allowed to physically manipulate certain machines in and around the building, as long as we could get to them unnoticed.
Usually when doing such jobs, you get a contract signed by the CEO or the head of security stating that if you're caught, and your actions were within the scope of the audit, no legal action will be taken against you.
There was this one time a company hired us to test their badge system, and our main objective was to scrape the data on the smartcards with a skimmer on the scanner at the front of the building.
It's easy to get to as it's outside and almost everyone has to scan their card there in order to enter the building. They used ISO 7816 cards so we didn't even really need specified tools or hardware.
Now, we get assigned this task. Seems easy enough. We receive the "Stay-out-of-jail"-contract signed by the CEO for Company xyz. We head to the address stated on the contract, place the skimmer etc etc all good.
One of our team gets caught fetching the data from the skimmer a week later (it had to be physically removed). Turns out: wrong Building, wrong company. This was a kind of "building park" (don't really know how to say it in English) where all the buildings looked very similar. The only difference between them was the streetnumber, painted on them in big. They gave us the wrong address.
I still have nightmares about this from time to time. In the end, because the collected data was never used and we could somewhat justify our actions because we had that contract and we had the calls and mails with the CEO of xyz. It never came to a lawsuit. We were, and still are pretty sure though that the CEO of xyz himself was very interesed in the data of that other company and sent us out to the wrong building on purpose.
I don't really know what his plan after that would have been though. We don't just give the data to anyone. We show them how they can protect it better and then we erase everything. They don't actually get to see the data.
I quit doing audits some time ago. It's very stressful and I felt like I either had no spare time at all (when having an active assignment) or had nothing but spare time (when not on an assignment). The pay also wasn't that great.
But some people just really are polished turds.4 -
Parked the car in a parking lot 15 mins before job interview. Plenty of time to spare.
Go to pay for parking.
Ticket machine doesn't accept cards. Fine, I have notes.
Ticket machine doesn't accept notes. Shit, I need to go get change quick.
FUCKING FUCKER DOESN'T ACCEPT £1 COINS WELL WHAT THE FUCK TO YOU ACCEPT THEN YOU FUCKING FUCK I'M GOING TO BE LATE FOR MY JOB INTERVIEW OR GET A £80 FUCKING PARKING FINE9 -
Recently started at a new job. Things were going fine, getting along with everyone, everything seems good and running smoothly, a few odd things here and there but for the most part fine.
Then I decided to take a look at our (public facing) website... What's this? Outdated plugins from 2013? Okay, that's an easy fix I guess? All of these are free and the way we're using them wouldn't require a lot of refactoring...
Apparently not. Apparently, we can't even update them ourselves, we have to request that an external company does it (which we pay, by the way, SHITELOADS of money to). A week goes past, and we finally get a response.
No, we won't update it, you'll have to pay for it. Doesn't matter that there's a CVE list a bloody mile long and straight up no input validation in several areas, doesn't matter that tens of thousands of users are at risk, pay us or it stays broken. Boggles the fuckin' mind.
I dug into it a bit more than I probably should have (didn't break no laws though I'm not a complete dumbass, I just work for em) and it turns out it's not just us getting fucked over, it's literally EVERYONE using their service which is the vast majority of people within the industry in my country. It also turns out that the entirety of our region is running off a single bloody IP which if you do a quick search on shodan for, you guessed it, also has a CVE list pop up a fuckin' mile long. Don't get me started on password security (there is none). I hate this, there's fucking nothing I can do and everyone else is just fine sitting on their hands because "nobody would target us because we're not a bank!!", as if it bloody matters and as if peoples names, addresses, phone numbers and assuming someone got into our actual database, which wouldn't be a fuckin' stretch of the imagination let me tell you, far more personal details, that these aren't enticing to anyone.
What would you do in my situation?
What can I even do?
I don't want to piss anyone senior off but honestly, I'm thinkin' they might deserve it. I mean yeah there's nothing we can do but at least make a fuss 'cause they ain't gunna listen to my green ass.10 -
Dealing with other technical professionals who cannot think outside their respective boxes.
Here is an example.
A QA (who is very good at her job) said this...
Her:
“We need to get one customer who is willing to pay us a lot of money to make the features they want!”
Me:
“But you realize we are a SaaS company and that means we need lots of customers and constant growth”
Her:
“No, we need to find a customer who is willing to pay us, like a million, to make the features they want. Then we make them for that customer. Then we do that again.”
Me:
“We sell software to small businesses, none of them have a million dollars to pay us, and even if they did then why wouldn’t they build it themselves?
Her:
“Well, when I worked for my last company this is what we did...”
Me:
“So you worked for a contracting company who built software for individual companies. We are not that type of company. We are a SaaS company.”
Her:
“It’s the same thing”
Me:
~Facepalm~
As a software developer and entrepreneur it frustrates me when everyone think everything is the same.
You’ll here things like...
“All we need is to get lucky with one big hit and then we will ride that wave to success, just like Facebook or Amazon!”
Holy fucking shit balls, how stupid can you be!
FB and AZ run thousands of tests a day to see what works. They do not get “lucky”. They dark launched FB messenger with thousands of messages and then rolled it out to their internal team first, they did not get lucky!
Honestly though, I can’t blame them. Most people just want a good job that pays. They aren’t looking to challenge their assumptions.
Personally I know I will be in situations again where my pride, my assumption, my fears are realized and crushed by the market place and I do not want to live in a world of willful ignorance.
I’d rather get it right than feel good.1 -
I am Done! I am extremely burnt out and unhappy with my work. I have been doing this professionally for over 5 years now and much longer than that unprofessionally.
This new company I joined finally gave me the salary I always dreamt of but now I am extremely unhappy and depressed and anxious all the time. And I don't like the work I am doing. I don't like the team. I hate being isolated at home for over 2 years, working from home. I had a mental breakdown in the middle of the meeting the other day. And after that, I said. that's it. I am done. So, I gave the resignation letter. I don't know what I am gonna do. But I sure as hell can't do this shit any longer. But now, the fucking hr is making it even more difficult for me by not letting me leave without serving the notice period. I told her I am on fucking medication and I am having severe mental health issues. Now, she wants to see the medical certificate. Or I have to pay two months' salary. WTF? If I had that kind of money lying around, I wouldn't have slaved myself away at your shitty company, would I?
I went to my psychiatrist whom I have been seeing consulting for the last couple of years now. I asked for a medical certificate and he thinks it'll hamper my future career. So, he said I should get a certificate from a general physician. So, that's the world we live in then? You can't even speak the truth? And the way HR is behaving over the mail makes me feel like a total slave. I mean I am not at all fit for work these days, and it feels like, if she had her way, she would tie me down to a chair and ask me to push out code. what the fucking fuck. This is some fucked up industry and I think I am finally done with software development. But now, I don't have any idea what I am gonna do with my life or how am I gonna earn money. I am so burnt out and anxious that even the thought of working again gives me panic attacks. even working from home. What the fuck do I do?8 -
I just had a chat with the CEO (I'll call him John) of the company I work at. I was trying to get a real alignment on what I need to do to be a valuable resource to this company. They promoted me (without a raise in pay) to a different (management) role, and I do not know what I need to do to be the best in this role.
During the discussion, the CEO failed to provide any usable metrics, or a way to track those, except for phrases like "higher productivity" and "higher quality". How to track? No idea.
So, at this point, me being the idiot I am, wanted to make things explicit:
*Me: Okay, so what if I request for a 20% raise six months from now, what metrics will you look at to decide whether to give me the raise.
(My last raise was a big one, more than 100% or so, more than a year ago. That was a dev role, and I was paid 2 cents earlier, so the doubling to 4 cents wasn't really a big deal.)
John went on a long rant on how people just expect raises every year, inflation, etc. All good and fine.
But then he mentioned something strange.
*John: ...and you know, for the last three years, there has been a race to retain resources. During this race, many companies, including us, had to pay people WAY MORE THAN THEIR VALUE to retain them. These people are going to be the first to be fired during cost-cutting as they are the most expensive resources at the company without any proven value. These people should not expect raises to come soon, and if they do expect that, they need to prove the value themselves.
Now, I, being a simpleton, am wondering how is it fair for an organization to pay someone "more than their value" to retain them once so that they can just be fired two years later. How did the company decide the value of such employees to begin with?
And all this is ignoring the fact that in the company there are no metrics, no KPIs, and performance of a person is how much the CEO likes that guy. How TF the people who joined a year ago and never interacted with the CEO prove their worth?
Developers are building PowerPoints and configuring JIRA/Confluence/Laptops of Sales team, project managers are delegating management to developers and decision-making to the CEO, Technical architect is building requirements documents, Business Analyst is the same person as the QA team lead (and badly stretched), and the Release Manager is the Product Technical Admin that cannot write one sentence in English. And then we got 3.8 hours in meetings every DAY. Why TF are Dev Managers in "QA KPI Meeting"? Why are "developers" writing documentation on "How to create meeting notes at <company>"?
And, in this hell-storm, how does one really demonstrate one's value?15 -
This isn’t gonna be a random because I do eventually get to a Tech and YouTube related topic.
YouTube is actually killing itself with all of the dumbass rules they’re implementing. Trying to child proof or limit educational content is genuinely a shit policy. The reason so many gaming channels are switching to twitch because it doesn’t try to censor you.
But now I don’t know if you’ve heard but YouTube updated their guidelines and they’re no longer allowing content that teaches people about Hacking essentially (and I hate putting it like that but I can’t remember the exact words they used Hacking just summarizes it) which is fucking ridiculous like what the fuck else, are they gonna stop allowing lock picking videos?
YouTube has always been an amazing FREE resource for people learning Programming, Cyber Security, IT related fields, and even shit like lock picking, cooking, car stuff, and all that stuff. Even sometimes when the tutorials aren’t as detailed or helpful to me they might be exactly what someone else needed. And Cyber Security can be a difficult topic to learn for free. It’s not impossible far from it, but YouTube being there was always great. And to think that a lot of those could be taken down and all of the Security based channels could either lose all revenue or just be terminated is terrifying for everyone but more so them.
A lot of people and schools rely on YouTube for education and to learn from. It’s not like YouTube is the only resource and I understand they don’t want to be liable for teaching people that use these skills for malicious purposes but script kiddies and malicious people can easily get the same knowledge. Or pay someone to give them what they want. But that’s unfair to the people that don’t use the information maliciously.
It’s the same for the channels of different topics can’t even swear and it’s ridiculous there’s so many better options than just banning it. Like FUCK kids nowadays hear swearing from their older siblings, parents, friends, and TV it’s inevitable whether someone swears or not and YouTube is not our parents, they aren’t CBS, so stop child proofing the fucking site and let us learn. Fuck.
TLDR YouTube is banning educational hacking videos and are being retarded with rules in general20 -
So my client is (was) paying 3500$~ a month to that service that has also an API and we have been now fighting atleast 2 months for them to raise the rate limit higher. (because the new features pull in a lot more records, to basically make their shitty old dashboard obsolete at some point)
He's even willing to pay more, but the ticket and calls just get thrown around from one level to another, when he threatened to quit, all they changed was to send him to another level that was suggesting 3 months 10% off and when he declined it just got thrown into the pool again lol
So what we end up doing is register his wife on same service (there's not really any alternatives that actually have all that weird shit he needs and his wife was co-owner anyway, so it was just a name change basically), but just tick the higher API rate limit and it worked, he's now quitting the old one.
What's funny though, the new contracts for the same thing he was paying cost just ~2450$ (would have been even less, but hes too clingy on that one page I can't recreate without having the data) so they just lost that revenue, just because they didn't want to raise the API rate limit and the client also decided to give me the difference of one month on top of my contract, once the new contract kicks in and the old one expires in 6ish days (at best) or 12ish days at worst
well done support and assigned engineers, not only did you just lose a client with an old contract paying you 12000$/year more, but you also gave me a great free bost in money lol
btw: I hope I put everything in again, I this time decided to be brave (read as "stupid") and wrote it in the devrant webapp, then accidentally clicked twice outside the borders, making everything disappear.. -
My day.
07.25 early ringing of phone.
I'm usually dead asleep till 9 o clock.
Went to bed at 01 o clock.
Something crushed at work, needed to be fixed ASAP.
No coffee. Tired. Stinking peace of garbage
08.45 o clock - super market delivery came earlier than expected, while la me was still trying to communicate necessary steps to resolve the issue.
Forgot to pre pay online.
Still had no coffee, still a piece of stinking shit, still tired.
Took me nearly 20 mins to get my PIN right.
Poor delivery guy had unpleasant call from chef, I needed to deescalate.
Back to work, people angry for me being 20 mins away in midst of chaos.
Me back to fixing stuff.
Done at 09.30.
One of these days where everything you touch becomes a large pile of poop and no matter what you do it's wrong.
Yep. The rest of the day went pretty much as bonkers as it started.
At least no work on weekend.
Yay.1 -
TL;DR you suck, I suck and everybody sucks, deal with it....
------------------------------------
Let me let off some steam, since I've had enough of people hating on languages "just because"
Every language has it's drawbacks and quirks, BUT they have their strengths also. Saying "I hate {language}" is just you being and ignorant prick and probably your head is so far up your ass that you look like an ass hat. With that being said, every language is either good or bad depending on the developer writing in it. Let's give you an example:
If I ware to give you a brick and ask you to put a nail in a plank, can you do it? Yes, it will be easier if you do it with a hammer, but you have a brick, so hammer is out of the question. If you hit your thumb while doing it... well... sorry, but it is not the bricks fault - it is YOU!
JavaScript, yes it has a whole lot of problems, but it works, you can do a ton of stuff and does a good job at that, it is evolving through node and typescript (and others, just a personal pref), BUT if you used js when you ware debugging that jquery (1.0) plugin written in the free time of a 13 yo, who copy pasted a bunch from SO, well, it is not js' problem - deal with it. Same goes for PHP, i've been there where you had a single `index.php` with bazillion lines of code, did a bunch of eval and it was called MVC, but it also is evolving.. thing is all languages allow you to do some dumb stuff so YOU have to be responsible to not fuck it up (which you always DO btw, we all do). Difference is PHP/JS roll with it because the assumption is that you know what you are doing, which again - newsflash - you don't.
More or less I would blame that shit on businesses which decided to go with undergrads to save money instead of investing in their product, hell, I am in a major company that does not invest that doesn't care a whole lot about dev /tech stuff and now everybody's mother is an engineer - they care about money, because investors care about money (ROI) and because clean code does not pay the bills, but money does.
If we get all of the good practices and apply them to each language every one of them has it's place, that is why there is no "The Language", even if there was, we STILL ware going to fuck it up and probably it was going to be even worse than where we are now.
Study, improve, rinse and repeat... There are SENIORS and LEADS out there that are about 25-30 and have no fucking clue about the language, because they have stuck up their heads up the ass of frameworks and refuse to take a breath of clean air and consider something different than their dogmatic framework "way" of doing things.. That is the result you are seeing. Let me give you a fresh example to illustrate where I am at atm:
Le me works with ZendFramework 2.3-2.5 (why not, which is PHP5+ running on PHP7 [fancy, eh]), and little me writes a module for said project, and tries to contain it in its own space, i.e not touching anything outside of the folder of the module so it is SELF-CONTAINED (see, practices), during 2-3-4 iterations of code review, I've had to modify 4 different modules with `if (somthing === self::SOMETHING_TYPE)` as requested by my TL, which resulted in me not covering 3 use-cases after the changes and not adding a new event (the fw is event-driven, cuz.. reasons) so I have to use a bunch of ifs in the code, to check a config value and do shit. That is the way of I am asked to do things I hate what I've done and the fact that because of CR I have lost case-coverage, a week of work and the same TL will be on my ass on monday that things are now "perfect".
The biggest things is "we care about convention and code style"... right.... That is not because of the language, not because of me, not because of the framework - it is some dude's opinion that you hate, not the language.
New stuff are better, reinventing the wheel is also good, if it wasn't you would've had a few stone circular things on your car and things ware going to be like that - we need to try and try, that is the only way we actually learn shit.
Until things change in the trade, we will be on the same boat, complaining about the same shit over and over, you and me won't be alive probably but things will not change a bit.
We live in a place where state is considered good, god objects necessary (can you believe it, I've got kudos for using the term 'God Object'... yep, let that sink in). If you really hate something, please, oh god I beg you, show me how you will do it better and I will shake your hand and buy you a beer, but until then, please keep your ass-hurt fanboy opinion to your self, no one gives a shit about what you think, we will die and the world will not notice...6 -
Consumers ruined software development and we the developers have little to no chance of changing it.
Recently I read a great blog post by someone called Nikita, the blog post talks mostly about the lack of efficiency and waste of resources modern software has and even tho I agree with the sentiment I don't agree with some things.
First of all the way the author compares software engineering to mechanical, civil and aeroespacial engineering is flawed, why? Because they all directly impact the average consumer more than laggy chrome.
Do you know why car engines have reached such high efficiency numbers? Gas prices keep increasing, why is building a skyscraper better, cheaper and safer than before? Consumers want cheaper and safer buildings, why are airplanes so carefully engineered? Consumers want safer and cheaper flights.
Wanna know what the average software consumer wants? Shiny "beautiful" software that is either dirt ship or free and does what it needs to. The difference between our end product is that average consumers DON'T see the end product, they just experience the light, intuitive experience we are demanded to provide! It's not for nothing that the stereotype of "wizard" still exists, for the average folk magic and electricity makes their devices function and we are to blame, we did our jobs TOO well!
Don't get me wrong, I am about to become a software engineer and efficient, elegant, quality code is the second best eye candy next to a 21yo LA model. BUT dirt cheap software doesn't mean quality software, software developed in a hurry is not quality software and that's what douchebag bosses and consumers demand! They want it cheap, they want it shiny and they wanted it yesterday!
Just look at where the actual effort is going, devs focus on delivering half baked solutions on time just to "harden" the software later and I don't blame them, complete, quality, efficient solutions take time and effort and that costs money, money companies and users don't want to invest most of the time. Who gets to worry about efficiency and ms speed gains? Big ass companies where every second counts because it directly affects their bottom line.
People don't give a shit and it sucks but they forfeit the right to complain the moment they start screaming about the buttons not glaring when hovered upon rather than the 60sec bootup, actual efforts to make quality software are made on people's own time or time critical projects.
You put up a nice example with the python tweet snippet, you have a python script that runs everyday and takes 1.6 seconds, what if I told you I'll pay you 50 cents for you to translate it to Rust and it takes you 6 hours or better what if you do it for free?
The answer to that sort of questions is given every day when "enganeers" across the lake claim to make you an Uber app for 100 bucks in 5 days, people just don't care, we do and that's why developers often end up with the fancy stuff and creating startups from the ground up, they put in the effort and they are compensated for it.
I agree things will get better, things are getting better and we are working to make programs and systems more efficient (specially in the Open Source community or high end Tech companies) but unless consumers and university teachers change their mindset not much can be done about the regular folk.
For now my mother doesn't care if her Android phone takes too much time to turn on as long as it runs Candy Crush just fine. On my part I'll keep programming the best I can, optimizing the best I can for my own projects and others because that's just how I roll, but if I'm hungry I won't hesitate to give you the performance you pay for.
Source:
http://tonsky.me/blog/...
13 -
I have worked with a handful of very green devs in the last 10 years. A common theme has emerged.
They don't heed any of my advice.
An exercise to the reader:
If you have a Windows machine, but need to work in a Linux environment, what would be your first instinct how to proceed?
In this exercise, you are as green as it gets. You have very little professional development experience, let alone server admin experience. And your lead dev has suggested setting up a VM.
1. Set up a Linux VM
2. Use a live CD or set up a dual boot system
3. Pay for a cloud server and set it up from scratch
I have no idea how this person intends to get any work done on a remote, terminal only, Linux server. That is if I can even get their environment into a sane configuration.15 -
!rant
tl;dr; quit my job last monday. going to grow my side hustle into full time freelancing.
I am so exited.
---
Story time:
I am working full time as a jack of all trades and also have a side business where I coach people on an ERP for doors/fenestration and also write custom software in c#.
I was able to manage both over ~4 years, with customer amount slowly growing (only doing B2B).
Last month I opened an account at a freelancer website just for the lulz and damn after a short amount of time the orders exploded. I had to shut it down again because I cannot manage the amount of work. But did manage to win a fair amount of customers that will keep me busy for the next year or two.
Spoke to my employer and told them about the situation (they know about my side business and it's all mentioned in the contracts). Said that I would need half the amount of hours with my business to reach the same amount of money and that working as an employee makes no sense for me in terms of money. I would however like to work 1 to 2 days in a week for them because working there is fun, even when its financially uninteresting.
they took one week to prepare a position and then invited me to a meeting. "we offer you 32 hours a week. if you want more, you have to make a descision. As a self employed person you have risk and we as an employer do not want to carry that risk for you and we do not want to finance your self employment" (etc.)
Thought I am in the wrong movie. I took that into the weekend and thought a lot about what has been said.
And last monday I invited to a follow up and told them
"sorry, I think I was not clear enough. Working for you is of no interest in terms of money. You do not finance me, it's the other way around. Sadly we do not come to an agreement, as 8 hours less does not fit the need. You said I need to make a descision. I do not want to do this but I'm quitting".
They responded with "Oh that is sad to hear. Is there anything that we can make so you do not leave?"
"Either pay me the same I would make as a self employed or follow my conditions"
Did not get a response on that.
I now have three months to prepare myself for self employment.
Currently working 40h + growing side business + getting the whole german bureaucracy shit together.
Tough time but hell this feels so damn good.
Just wanted to share this :)5 -
First post.
So, I've been teaching myself front-end for about 7 months now, and I'm really enjoying it, especially the actual programming aspect of JS. I also just started a new job, nothing to do with development, that I expected to be extremely boring and unfulfilling, as it doesn't fulfill any of my interests, but it'll pay my rent and it has decent benefits. I'll be mostly working with excel.
Now, like I mentioned, I'm really new to the dev world, just a little infant really. I know enough to know that I don't know shit. So, I was surprised to learn today that you can program in excel with VBA. I know the language gets a good bit of hate on here, I did a search before posting, and while I haven't started to learn it just yet (I'm starting tonight) I'm excited about. Firstly, because I'll get to do coding for my job, something I'm interested in, and secondly, because if I can figure out how to automate part of what I do well enough that it's implemented with the rest of the team, then maybe I'll be rewarded, and I'd be able to put professional coding experience on a resume for when I try to find a better job.
I've really enjoyed reading all the rants. They've been entertaining and also educational sometimes.
tl;dr Discovered VBA and was actually excited about it6 -
Me and my manager throughout 2020
January:
Me: So umm, we can release the new app version
Manager: No we promised client X app first go build that
Me: umm, ok.
February:
Me: so the app is done, but client hasn't setup area L so there is no data there
Manager: ok, I'll have them setup area L soon ™️
March:
Manager: area L is too much work to setup, use workaround L thats way better
Me: ok ...
April:
Manager: client is nitpicking on design and layout please make this mess even greater
Me: ok, anything else?
Manager: yeah also start on app for client Z!
Me: and our app update?
Manager: later son! Risk tooo muchos!
May:
Me: the mess for client X is done, and first version for client Z is also ready for test
Manager: ok good work, here is a new set of things to mess up
Me: but... Seriously, wtf?!
Manager: clients want quality
Me: ah ok, not nitpicking, cool
June:
Manager: client X went MIA, but client Z will send you a weekly list of things they don't understand and want to change
Me: ah great, truly worth postponing my February holiday to release nothing
July:
Manager: so, how we doing on all them changes
Me: well, I am a loyal custodian with alot of pleasure in my work!
Manager: ah ok good!
Me: any news from client X??
Manager: who
Me: mkay ... n.v.m
August:
Me: can we release yet?
Manager: change, we can!!!
Me: are you Obama?
Manager: ambitions
Me: fuck you pay me
September:
Me: I am confident we can now release all 3 apps as promised mid september
Manager: great!! Good work
Also manager: you know that immensely complex area within the app? That needs a complete rewrite because we have bad ux there!!!
Me: ok... To which requirements?
Manager: good ux, we must have standards
Me: but the layout of page R id generic as page F so then we need to align there as well
Manager: go! Do!
Me: ok I'll come up with my own requirements then
Manager: we also need documentation
Me: really!!!! How clever of you to fire colleagues T & P and we now have zero workforce for that
Manager: things will get better someday
Me: ah, great! Put it on my calendar
October:
Me: I need a sabbatical biatch
Manager: a what?4 -
I don't get people..
He is a good person and and realy tries..
Tries what?! To annoy coworkers that have to fix every single thing he does?!
Some people will justify anything with 'he is a nice person and tries hard'. WTF?!
So if someone is a nice person, likes to talk a lot, has 'good' social skills but writes crappy code he doesn't test at all.. or tests and see that it's glitchy and still doesn't fix it.. so he is a good worker for that?! Dafaq?!
So if he is a 'lovable' person, he deserves to be here, doing more damage than helps.. he deserves to have a job, with same pay (or even more) than me?! WTF?! How?!
Why is this ok?! If we were heart surgeons and he killed a person or two due to lack of skills or negligence, what would happen?!
He'd get fired on spot!! Why can't it be the same with devs?!
Why on fucking earth do we need to put up with people who try their best and fail?! Especially if their best is lowest of all, lower than the 'I don't give a fuck, just doing sth so the boss stops nagging'?!
Fuuuuuuuu!!!!
But ok, some people are not cut out for some work, I get it.. but why the fuck do other people justify that with 'he tries'?! Dafaq?!
Maybe next time 'I'll try' to perfom brain surgery on you..and you'll end up a fuckin plant.. is that ok with you?! I'll be trying (not really) and do my best (well I will try not to use a chainsaw when cutting open your head).. will that be ok with you?!
Fuck!!5 -
Fml... you keep getting the weekly discussions right on point.
I started with the last guys right out of university... just out of Hospital.
With a brand new degree and a Crohn’s diagnosis I stepped into the first place I found hiring. They were good guys, after a junior dev... to get stuck in their muck.
I did! I nailed project after project, tricky development after tricky development. I spent 5 years with them and over those years things changed.
They had a mass cull... the original idea was to get rid of the useless middle managers, the ones managing other managers being managed by another manager for no real reason.... the ones that do fuck all with their day.
But the fucking idiots upstairs put the job of working out the cull in the shitty middle managers hands.
So, instead, they cut the titles senior, junior and everything in between. Everyone was just a thing, no senior things, no junior things. Just things.
Once they’d done that they said “we’ll we have this many things, they’re all the same, let’s get rid of the things with the highest pay checks because the other things can do it just as well for less money”...
And that’s how they cut 50% of their senior techs.
I was one of the ones left behind but the damage became obvious quick. The middle managers barked out orders at people who couldn’t complete them, and everything went to shit.
My team was rebranded twice in as many years... an obvious ploy for funding, but the cost of the team fluctuated like hell because contractors had to fill the senior positions at 3 times the cost.
Then the managers started barking out Self contradictory orders. Do this, but this way...
This would work, but not that way... try explaining that to a group of non-technical, useless as fuck middle managers. It took months, and shit flows downstream so we got the bulk of the hassle for it.
Then my boy Morpheus, got a warning... they threatened his contract for saying “this will work, but not that way”.
He kept the contract, and the manager giving him the warning said he didn’t think he should... but he, and all the middle fuckwits don’t have the balls to stand up against nonsense.
That was the breaking point for me, I handed in my notice and told them a month was what they could have.
I didn’t have a position or an idea of where to go, a few long-standing offers as back up in a pinch but not the perfect job.
On the Thursday I decided I was done, I let my manager know. Then I boshed the fuck out of my CV and updated my profiles.
My phone started ringing off the hook, a senior NG2/MEAN/Ionic dev on the market is like candy to recruiters. They’re lovely too.
I went to a few interviews that were okay but not great. Then a company got in touch... one that I immediately recognised as an IT book publisher. They said they were looking for NG/NG2 devs, senior. winner! Set up the interview.
So I’d spent the weekend with the missus, about an hour away from mine and 2 from the interview. I hadn’t planned on staying there but at 6ish she looked over at me and said “do you have to go” <- imagine that with puppy dog eyes from a gorgeous Slovenian lass.
I folded quicker than a shitty pancake toss.
We spent the night together but that meant I had to be up at 6, to go back to mine, iron my interview clothes and make it to the train to manage the interview. Fuck. I did it, but I was at the interview wired on caffeine and struggling to be awake and coherent. I still managed, that’s what I do, I make do and try to do well regardless of the situation.
That comes from being ill btw, when you’re dealt a shitty hand you learn to play it well.
They were good guys, the heads all knew what they were on about, not the middle management bs I was used to.
They demoed me live with an ng1 test, which was awesome as hell to play with.
We chatted, friendly and cool guys! I loved the place.
The end of the week they got me in for second round. Ng2 and competence test, again I went for it!
Positive feedback and a “we’ll get back to you ASAP, should be by Tuesday”...
Tuesday was the Tuesday before the Friday I was due to leave the old company... I was cutting it close.
On the Monday the offers started rolling in, a few C# ASP MVC positions, cool but I was holding out for the guys I’d interviewed with.
Then Tuesday comes around, I’m nervous as fuck but it’s okay because I knew regardless I can pay the rent in December with one of the offers.
Then said yes!
The thing that seemed most important in the process was my ability to talk to any fucker. If you’re coming up to interview, talk to everyone, the grocer, your barista, the binmen, anyone. Practice that skill above all others.
I start tomorrow morning! I can’t wait.
Final thought: middle managers are taints.7 -
Y'know, I'm an audiophile. I want perfect sound, and that's why I want high quality headphones and audio files. I dislike speakers because the sound changes from room to room quite a lot, while it doesn't with headphones, and that would also be distracting when I'm coding. Anyway, that's not what I'm complaining about.
I really don't get it when I download music that has been given out to download for free by the author or recording label, it sometimes comes as a WAV or FLAC. I have enough space on my phone/SD card anyway so gimme lol. Sometimes, I like a song so much, I buy it but often, I never get a WAV or FLAC or anything similar to that. Only MP3 320kbps, WHICH SIMPLY ISN'T ENOUGH FOR MY AUDIOPHILE NEEDS SINCE I CAN CLEARLY HEAR THE FUCKING FREQUENCY CUTOFFS. AAC 320kbps would sound way better (WITH LESS FUCKING FILESIZE, MIND YOU) and its compatibility is also good enough to distribute it as such, but that's something that, again, only fucking free downloads sometimes use. IT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE! GIVE US PROPER FILES IF WE PAY FOR YOUR GODDAMN MUSIC!23 -
We've all had shitty jobs at one point or another, maybe some of us already had software engineering experience while having to work in a different field for a variety of reasons.
Well check this shit.
At one point(during my second year of school) for various reasons I had to work in retail. For those that know, retail can be a soul crushing experience...the trick is not letting management to convince you that it is an actual good job, it is not, and I have respect and sympathy for everyone currently working in it. The mind numbing retarded customers that we get are absolutely fantastic in every sense of the word.
My position in retail was as a phone salesman, for MetroPCS (which for all of y'all european ninjas is one of the low end phone carriers here in the U.S) and the people that we get as customers where I live are normally very poor which apparently in Mexican culture stands for annoyingly ignorant (I am Mexican myself, so I can really vouch for this shit)
One day a customer came in telling me that there was an app that he was using that kept giving him troubles, it was a map application for truck drivers. Now, obviously, this had nothing to do with my line of work(phone salesman) and as such I normally tried to explain that and let them be, but I imagined that it was a settings issue so I reluctantly agreed to help him. I explained to him that the app was no longer maintained and that the reason for it was probably that the developer abandoned it and that he would just have to look into the app, upon closer inspection the app itself was nothing more than a wrapper over google maps with trucker icons and a "trucker" interface, he was using the app as a GPS navigator and he could as well just have been using google maps.
The conversation was like this:
Me: Well this app is no longer supported, it will probably be taken off the google store soon, you can look for something similar or just change to Google maps
Retard: What? no! I came here in order for you to fix it, Metro needs to fix their own apps!
Me (in complete disbelief): We have no control over third party apps, and even for the ones that we provide the store has no control over them. But this app is not ours and so we can't really do anything about it.
Retard: Well WTF should I do? I have been having many issues with youtube and spotify, shouldn't Metro fix their Google store?
Me: Those apps are not ours.....wait, you seem to believe that we own youtube and spotify, those are not ours
Retard: How the fuck they are not yours! its your phone isn't it?
Me: Eh no.....Metro does not(at this point I was sort of smiling because I wanted to laugh) own youtube or spotify or the play store or even this phone, metro does not own Android or Samsung(his phone was a samsung core prime)
Retard: Well You need to fix this
Me: No I do not and I can not, the developer for this app abandoned it and has nothing to do with us
Retard: Well call the developer and tell him to fix it
At this point I was on a very bad mode since this dude was being obnoxiously rude from the beginning and it annoyed me how he was asking for dumb shit.
Me: Did you pay for this app?
Retard: No
Me: So you expect that some developer out there will just go about and get working for something that you did not pay for?
Why don't you just use Google maps as your GPS?
Retard: Don't be stupid, Google has no maps
At this point I show him the screen where there is a lil app that said maps, pressed it and voila! map comes to life
Retard: Well....I did not know
Me: Yeah....but I am the stupid one right?
** throws phone for him to catch
Me: Have a good one bud.
And my manager was right next to me, he was just trying to control his laughter the whole time. I really despised working in there and was glad when I left. Retail man.......such a horrible fucking world.7 -
> Startup: ok listen up, we got this super cool thing we want to do with Twilio. Doesn't get any easier: some calls to book a restaurant, you ask for booking data and save that on some db.
> iHateForALiving: I'm on it. We got a couple weeks of development, never worked with Twilio, but should be easy enough
> Startup: Hold it big guy, we can't just write code like this. There's this OTHER developer with a super cool framework he wrote himself, it supports OAuth2 and multitenancy, written in Huskell, microservices to authenticate several apps all working concurrently in our environment, some orchestrator, cloud computing on AWS, you're going to love it. There's this Postman project with 200-something calls (the ones I need for my project, one and only consumer for those APIs, are 5 including the login)
> iHateForALiving: You are aware you'll have approximately six clients and they'll pay some 30 bucks each per month, aren't you?
> Startup: You don't understand, this infrastructure is CRITICAL for the future of our company
> ffwd 6 months
> iHateForALiving: guys we had this 2 weeks project and it's taking months, I'm ready, what is going on there?
> Startup: someone killed our DB, the OTHER developer pushed on git the access credentials :(
THE FULL MOON IS DRAWING NEAR AND THE FUCKING WERECODERS STRIKE AGAIN! -
First rant here, and it's going to be a query to the more professional and experienced members of society (most of you).
I am currently a Sys Admin for a major company, and I develop at night. My primary employment at the moment is the sys admin job (and I code for extra money at nights).
I wanted to start a development department at the company that I am working at, but it was turned turned down. It was stated that we are not branching in development, and that we should stick to our server implementation and support. This was a prompt to me wanting to start studying officially (I wanted to get qualified in JAVA, so that I had some paper behind my name when I looked for another job). HR and my directors outright denied me the ability to study through them (they pay for studies for employees) and I was more than fine with this.
I took a loan and paid for the studies myself. Can't crush a dream, you know?
The director caught wind of me studying, and now has demanded that I develop him a mobile application for the company. I told him that I am not a mobile developer, and that it didn't fall into my key performance areas.
Note, I do my coding on own time, on my own device, and never at work. It's fully my intellectual property. It also in no way interferes with my work during the day, and has NO conflict with my contract this side.
He sent an email yesterday, this is after two months. He is now stating that I WILL do the application, and he has CCd HR and two directors.
I don't want to do the app for this company, I spoke to HR previously about this, and she said that I should try and quote it under my own company name (which I did, but it was denied as it was "too expensive").
Now I am being forced to do something that is COMPLETELY out of my roles and responsibilities, something that this company has ABSOLUTELY no desire to go into further on, and he is basically letting me know that if I don't do it, he is going to start messing with my pay.
I really don't want to do this, and I cannot afford to make my secondary job my primary at the moment. The problem is, too, that I don't have the time during the day to develop AND do my sys admin tasks (I manage more than 300 servers, and 5000 devices).
What can I do in this instance? Or what would you guys recommend, in your experience?
Sorry for the noob question, but I don't know what to do.19 -
After a few weeks of being insanely busy, I decided to log onto Steam and maybe relax with a few people and play some games. I enjoy playing a few sandbox games and do freelance development for those games (Anywhere from a simple script to a full on server setup) on the side. It just so happened that I had an 'urgent' request from one of my old staff member from an old community I use to own. This staff member decided to run his own community after I sold mine off since I didn't have the passion anymore to deal with the community on a daily basis.
O: Owner (Former staff member/friend)
D: Other Dev
O: Hey, I need urgent help man! Got a few things developed for my server, and now the server won't stay stable and crashes randomly. I really need help, my developer can't figure it out.
Me: Uhm, sure. Just remember, if it's small I'll do it for free since you're an old friend, but if it's a bigger issue or needs a full recode or whatever, you're gonna have to pay. Another option is, I tell you what's wrong and you can have your developer fix it.
O: Sounds good, I'll give you owner access to everything so you can check it out.
Me: Sounds good
*An hour passes by*
O: Sorry it took so long, had to deal with some crap. *Insert credentials, etc*
Me: Ok, give me a few minutes to do some basic tests. What was that new feature or whatever you added?
O: *Explains long feature, and where it's located*
Me: *Begins to review the files* *Internal rage wondering what fucking developer could code such trash* *Tests a few methods, and watches CPU/RAM and an internal graph for usage*
Me: Who coded this module?
O: My developer.
Me: *Calm tone, with a mix of some anger* So, you know what, I'm just gonna do some simple math for ya. You're running 33 ticks a second for the server, with an average of about 40ish players. 33x60 = 1980 cycles a minute, now lets times that by the 40 players on average, you have 79,200 cycles per minute or nearly 4.8 fucking cycles an hour (If you maxed the server at 64 players, it's going to run an amazing fucking 7.6 million cycles an hour, like holy fuck). You're also running a MySQLite query every cycle while transferring useless data to the server, you're clusterfucking the server and overloading it for no fucking reason and that's why you're crashing it. Another question, who the fuck wrote the security of this? I can literally send commands to the server with this insecure method and delete all of your files... If you actually want your fucking server stable and secure, I'm gonna have to recode this entire module to reduce your developer's clusterfuck of 4.8 million cycles to about 400 every hour... it's gonna be $50.
D: *Angered* You're wrong, this is the best way to do it, I did stress testing! *Insert other defensive comments* You're just a shitty developer (This one got me)
Me: *Calm* You're calling me a shitty developer? You're the person that doesn't understand a timer, I get that you're new to this world, but reading the wiki or even using the game's forums would've ripped this code to shreds and you to shreds. You're not even a developer, cause most of this is so disorganized it looks like you copy and pasted it. *Get's angered here and starts some light screaming* You're wasting CPU usage, the game can't use more than 1 physical core, and after a quick test, you're stupid 'amazing' module is using about 40% of the CPU. You need to fucking realize the 40ish average players, use less than this... THEY SHOULD BE MORE INTENSIVE THAN YOUR CODE, NOT THE OPPOSITE.
O: Hey don't be rude to Venom, he's an amazing coder. You're still new, you don't know as much as him. Ok, I'll pay you the money to get it recoded.
Me: Sounds good. *Angered tone* Also you developer boy, learn to listen to feedback and maybe learn to improve your shitty code. Cause you'll never go anywhere if you don't even understand who bad this garbage is, and that you can't even use the fucking wiki for this game. The only fucking way you're gonna improve is to use some of my suggestions.
D: *Leaves call without saying anything*
TL;DR: Shitty developer ran some shitty XP system code for a game nearly 4.8 million times an hour (average) or just above 7.6 million times an hour (if maxed), plus running MySQLite when it could've been done within about like 400 an hour at max. Tried calling me a shitty developer, and got sorta yelled at while I was trying to keep calm.
Still pissed he tried calling me a shitty developer... -
To long to read. So don’t do it.
I feel disappointed. It’s not about job or stuff. I’m disappointed about world in general. I don’t see my future on this planet anymore.
The world more or less looks like that :
Politics are trying to help you by stealing more money from you. The more you’re lucky the more money you will pay for it.
Media punch you with some family stuff from everywhere, give you young rich and far away, beautiful picture photos of places, people and food that you at most could visit once or twice per year during holidays that are break from work concentration camps.
If you’re lucky you’re rich or got rich or wealthy and infamous so you can walk wherever you want and don’t give a fuck what you wear but again your old friends are not so lucky bastards so you need to find new friends that are probably assholes. At the end most of the days you you’re doing nothing except killing time to meet with people you like during weekends or evenings.
Then there are families and everyone want to tell you that’s important. Family is like herd of assholes, if you’re weak they will sacrifice you and tell that you’re looser behind your back but when you get wealthy they will come back to tell you that when you were young and stupid they played with you so now you have to buy them some stuff or get them a job.
At the end there are people with “I wrote that book” certificate of excellence try to sell you opinions on everything starting from sexual positions ending on how to take a good dump. The problem is that the moment they wrote that book it becomes obsolete. Teachers of useless knowledge from last century that forgot about google or wikipedia.
All of them are playing your emotions, cause impulses and hormones are what makes you weak and people are looking for your weaknesses to take advantage of you. Get your money or get your attention and maybe even both at the same time. Cause views matter you know it. So like and subscribe dumb fucks.
If you’re lucky you find couple of them who aren’t doing that. Who the fuck knows why but this shit happens. It doesn’t matter if they’re family or you met them month ago. Those are only to keep and hardest to find. Unluckily those also can change by other people they meet or when they’re young.
If you can’t find a friend get a dog or cat or whatever animal you like. Their love is unconditional and obvious to read.
Well that’s most of the “I want to be spotted” culture that is all boring as fuck. Personalized ass and glamorous pictures and short movies of everything you don’t need but looks awesome. And as you see it’s still growing with more specialized portals like onlyfans, twitch and tiktok. We all need to look at what everyone else have or want to have cause 99% of time 99% of us are boring and is bored as fuck. Most of us can repeat same small amount set of stories all their life cause we’re not created to entertain.
I don’t feel joy looking at this shit fucked full of shit people arguing who’s dick is bigger. Who can post most dumb thing. I think I need a break but how to break from everything ? How to break from culture of money where to live on your country land you need to pay property tax ?
That’s all fucked up. Life’s fucked up.27 -
In knew it was bad at the time, but holy shit have I realised how shitty my last job was!
Underpaid (though still not doing too badly), underappreciated, and no promotion or raise despite promises of one for over a year. Of course the minute I handed in my notice, they immediately offered me a 15k raise and "oh, we can get you involved in the management side in 6 months".
Guess what bitches, my new job * is * being a manager, and I get a 20k pay rise. 2 weeks in and I'm loving it, wish I'd switched sooner!
The catch is, I'm now a manager. Does this make me the future bad guy?3 -
So I found this consulting job a while ago thinking that some extra cash while studying would be nice to have.
I meet with the guy, a researcher trying to start a business up, good for him I think, maybe we'll hit it off, continue working, why not? Except he has no clue how to write working code, all he ever did was writing matlab scripts he says, thats why he hired me he says.
Okay, fine, you do your job I do mine.
He hands me the contract, its about comparing two libraries, finding out which one is better suited for his job, cool, plots and graphs everywhere.
Except this is an unpaid job. YOU WHAT?! It's a test job. FINE. At least it'll look good on my resume.
We talk about the paid part where I'm supposed to scale the two libraries, looks good, as expected from an ML engineering perspective. It comes to payment. The dude has no idea how taxes work, says he has a set amount to pay and not a penny more. I explain with examples how taxes are paid, how you get reimbursed for them and so on. Won't budge. Screws me over.
Opens the door for other jobs I think, he'll learn next time I think and take the job.
Fast forward a month, 90% of the job done, he adds a third thing to compare. Gives a github link to a repo with 2 authors, last commit a year ago. There are links to a 404, claiming compiled jars. Fuck.
Not my first rodeo, git clone that shit, make compile, the works. The thing uses libs that ain't in no repo, that would be too easy. Run, error, find lib, remake all the things, rinse repeat.
The scripts they got have hardcoded paths and filenames for 2 year old binaries, remake that shit.
It works, at least I get a prompt now. Try the example files they got, no luck, some missing unlinked binary somewhere, but not a name mentioned. Cross reference the shit outta the libs mentioned on readme, find the missing shit, down it.
Available versions are too new, THE MOLDING NUTCRACKER uses some bug in an old version of the lib.
I give up. Fuck this. This ain't worth the money OR time. Wanker... -
My dad got this scammy E-Mail today...
The strange thing was, the sender and recipient were the same address, but I'll get back to that.
Unfortunately, I can't show it to you, but it said something like this:
"As you can see, I wrote this E-Mail from *YOUR* address. I have hacked your Account. Please pay me 300$ in bitcoin to this address: (address here) ..."
You get the point.
Now... my dad was pretty worried about the Account actually beeing hacked. One of his coworkers also got the same E-Mail. I told him that it's easy to fake the 'From' Header of an E-Mail, at least with the mail command on Linux. So I ssh'd into one of my Servers and sent him an E-Mail from lol@lol.de. Obviously, he didn't expect it to be that easy. Now he believes me that this is a scam and will tell his coworkers tomorrow.
From what I read in that E-Mail there was no part about recipient specific stuff, so I guess someone just wrote one text and made a simple bash Script for that... as you can see, people really do fall for this shit.
Now one question: is there a way to track down the Servers the E-Mail went through? Or is there anything one can do, apart from ignoring it?10 -
And once again, Spotify just leaves me speechless.
I guess I don't actually need to talk about this clusterfuck of a mobile app getting more and more slow and unstable with every update. So let's talk about something else.
When I cracked the first limit, I thought it had to be a joke. 9.999 songs can be downloaded at once. But not all on one device. You can download 3.333 songs each to three separate devices - regardless of the fact that there is more than enough space left on the device and you are not even using any other device.
When I read this one [-> https://goo.gl/43YwKm ], I really got angry:
"If you move, or enter the wrong details, you need to create a new account (make sure you cancel the plan on your old account beforehand, and sign out everywhere) and subscribe to Premium for Family on that new account."
I don't even know how to respond to this except with insane wrath.
So now I cracked the next one. My library is full. The maximum number of songs that can be stored in the library is 10.000 and not one more.
If they wanted more money for the additional ressources, I'd even understand that. Yes, the suggestion calculations become more expensive, I do know that. And I would even pay for that. But there is no such option.
Instead, the company is making the most customer hostile decisions I could imagine.
Even though the competition proves that a multiple of such a limit is not a problem at all (Google Music: 50.000 songs / Apple Music: 100.000 songs).
And you have to create a new account when you move? That's hard to beat for impudence, especially wigh regard of the fact that no migration service is provided, so a person like me would spend a long time transferring all the stored music and playlists.
I'm not even sure it's complying with European law not to be able to see your address online, let alone change it.
And all of that because they know they can afford it anyway, since although the competition is a lot better on that score, they simply can't keep up in the matter of spectrum and algorithms.
And if I can only take 70% of my music with me when I change the service, I can just as well delete 3.000 songs from my library and stay with Spotify.
What a fucking wreck. I really don't get it.
8 -
"Why do you feel you are the best candidate for this job?"
No. Why do you feel you are the best company for me, if I am the one receiving a fraction of what the client will pay you once I finish the project?
"Please, submit a video or voice introduction of yourself".
No. Schedule an interview with me and get to know me live, motherfucker.5 -
Since this post was too long for devrant's 5k sign limit, I split it in several parts. I will try to make each part comprehensible as a standalone post. This is part one of WHY WOULD I WANT TO WORK WITH YOU? saga. A tale of empathy, competence and me being a dick, even though I didn't really want to be one. The part one is titled: "Bad times, good times". It may or may not have any value. It probably won't be funny.
I dedicate this to every single junior or entry level dev out there, struggling to find a job in their field.
=====
What do you think, how long does it take for junior with 6 months of commercial experience to find a dev job? If your answer was "idk", you're right. If your answer was "3 montths maybe", you're also right. At least this is how long it took for me. I am writing this at 2am, couple of hours after I managed to get employed. I am happy. My employer probably is happy too. My recruiters certainly are. The guy whose offer I had to reject after we were almost ready to sign the contract, on the other hand, isn't. He probably hates me. We'll get to that one post at a time.
Let's move back in time a little bit. It's December 12th, 2019. It is third month after I left my family home. I don't ha0ve a job, I was living first in my older brother's apartment for a month, then I started to rent my own. I have literally no money, I'm in debts. I moved out because reasons that would make up for another couple of posts, and for said reasons I refused to get 'any job just to pay the bills'. You can imagine that I was in pretty bad situation, and my psyche didn't really take that shit too well either. My daily meal was a bowl of rice with a little bit of self-hatred on top. Gourmet.
At that time, my daily routine would consist of practicing music, practicing programming, trying to get a job and surviving. Some of my friends just turned their backs against me. I did a small rework of my contact list as well. It was a *hard* time. I had sent my CV to around a hundred different companies with very little to no response. Some of them required at least bachelor's in IT for their frontend dev. Some of them required experience I didn't have. Some of them just didn't care to answer me. And then that one day happened. Three different people wanted to meet me and talk about internships/job offers. I will share what happened next in next posts, but here's a quick spoiler. I got a job. Yes, I am hyped.
Dear fellow Dev. This is a small reminder. If you're having bad times, just remember that if you focus on what you need to do, you will be just fine. Sometimes it may take days of struggling, sometimes it will take months of eating mostly rice. We all... Most of us have been through this.
Next posts will be less inspirationalstufftelling and more storytelling. Let this post be a setup, a small context to keep in mind upon reading my next stories. Because it is quite important. For me and for the story.3 -
A few days ago Aruba Cloud terminated my VPS's without notice (shortly after my previous rant about email spam). The reason behind it is rather mundane - while slightly tipsy I wanted to send some traffic back to those Chinese smtp-shop assholes.
Around half an hour later I found that e1.nixmagic.com had lost its network link. I logged into the admin panel at Aruba and connected to the recovery console. In the kernel log there was a mention of the main network link being unresponsive. Apparently Aruba Cloud's automated systems had cut it off.
Shortly afterwards I got an email about the suspension, requested that I get back to them within 72 hours.. despite the email being from a noreply address. Big brain right there.
Now one server wasn't yet a reason to consider this a major outage. I did have 3 edge nodes, all of which had equal duties and importance in the network. However an hour later I found that Aruba had also shut down the other 2 instances, despite those doing nothing wrong. Another hour later I found my account limited, unable to login to the admin panel. Oh and did I mention that for anything in that admin panel, you have to login to the customer area first? And that the account ID used to login there is more secure than the password? Yeah their password security is that good. Normally my passwords would be 64 random characters.. not there.
So with all my servers now gone, I immediately considered it an emergency. Aruba's employees had already left the office, and wouldn't get back to me until the next day (on-call be damned I guess?). So I had to immediately pull an all-nighter and deploy new servers elsewhere and move my DNS records to those ASAP. For that I chose Hetzner.
Now at Hetzner I was actually very pleasantly surprised at just how clean the interface was, how it puts the project front and center in everything, and just tells you "this is what this is and what it does", nothing else. Despite being a sysadmin myself, I find the hosting part of it insignificant. The project - the application that is to be hosted - that's what's important. Administration of a datacenter on the other hand is background stuff. Aruba's interface is very cluttered, on Hetzner it's super clean. Night and day difference.
Oh and the specs are better for the same price, the password security is actually decent, and the servers are already up despite me not having paid for anything yet. That's incredible if you ask me.. they actually trust a new customer to pay the bills afterwards. How about you Aruba Cloud? Oh yeah.. too much to ask for right. Even the network isn't something you can trust a long-time customer of yours with.
So everything has been set up again now, and there are some things I would like to stress about hosting providers.
You don't own the hardware. While you do have root access, you don't have hardware access at all. Remember that therefore you can't store anything on it that you can't afford to lose, have stolen, or otherwise compromised. This is something I kept in mind when I made my servers. The edge nodes do nothing but reverse proxying the services from my LXC containers at home. Therefore the edge nodes could go down, while the worker nodes still kept running. All that was necessary was a new set of reverse proxies. On the other hand, if e.g. my Gitea server were to be hosted directly on those VPS's, losing that would've been devastating. All my configs, projects, mirrors and shit are hosted there.
Also remember that your hosting provider can terminate you at any time, for any reason. Server redundancy is not enough. If you can afford multiple redundant servers, get them at different hosting providers. I've looked at Aruba Cloud's Terms of Use and this is indeed something they were legally allowed to do. Any reason, any time, no notice. They covered all their bases. Make sure you do too, and hope that you'll never need it.
Oh, right - this is a rant - Aruba Cloud you are a bunch of assholes. Kindly take a 1Gbps DDoS attack up your ass in exchange for that termination without notice, will you?6 -
!dev && rant
Can we talk about banks? Those fuckers! Suposed to keep our money save and be competent... They today gave me the biggest scare of my live and I've run one an update query on a prod db without a where clause! (Okay I knew we had a backup but still pretty scarry moment!)
As a few know, besides being a dev I help to organize a small openair music festival here in Switzerland. The openair was this weekend. Every thing wen't well, until I checked our ebanking account today. There was only 2/3 of the money that should be there. A quick call to the bank and they told me, nope they never received it. As we've thrown it in a secure locker during the night, we didn't receive any receipt or something like that. It took those fuckers 3.5 hours to actually go and check the looker, just to find the remaining money in the corner of it. What the fuck people, can't you open your fucking eyes and not give me a fucking heartatack? I thought you guys are professionals!
Note locker: we get a key to open it from the outside, place our payment during the night, as soon as we close it, it falls inside a vault, so there it's a pay in only system, for lack of a better word, I called it locker.
My heart is still beating like mad, because of them.4 -
What a sad and frustrating day!
I got a call from recruiter. I told him that I'm not actively looking for change. But he requested for 2 mins to listen. He started telling about his company, how great it is, tech stack, perks, salary etc. He is telling everything but not company name, I waited patiently and asked what's the pay I can expect. The number blew my mind, it's nearly double to my current pay. Then...
Me: that sounds amazing, which company is this, and where is it?
Him: it is <my company name> and located at <my current location, same campus>
Me: .....
Him: so, what do you think?
Me: .... I need some time. Let me update my LinkedIn profile first and then, i will get back to you.
Him: sounds wonderful, will call back by Monday. <Call disconnected>
Me: <inside my head> @$_-$#(/+&_#
This in my 10th year in this company, some one kill me please.5 -
"Did you really buy a macbook to put ubuntu on it?"
"Wow why would you use such an overpriced piece of garbage just to put linux on it?'
"You made the worst choice of hardware to put ubuntu on"
Maybe, just maybe, I didn't fucking buy it myself and I got it from work? Maybe I didn't fucking pay a dime to get a laptop to put ubuntu on it? Ever considered that I got it for fucking free and have the privilege to do what I want with it?
Go fuck yourself if your first assumption is that I would actually buy a macbook just to erase MacOS from it13 -
So i just had an interesting conversation.
View source images in comments
So some background. I used to do a lot of Minecraft development and server configuration. And Minecraft being made of mostly 12-year-olds they really don't pay very well. So I moved on from Minecraft but someone reached out for me to do their configuration for their server. (this was about a month ago) and I quoted them 40/hr because that's what I charge for my web dev work. So he promptly declined and I thought that was that. But tonight he messaged me and found a 5 month old post saying how I was looking to do free development work in order to get experience. And here is how the converstion when.
(His name is "Candy")
Candy:
Lol
Trying to take advantage of me with your bullshit $40/hour claims
Which is outright laughable
https://mc-market.org/threads/...
”I am looking for a network to stay long-term with and help/see it grow into a bigger server. (I would expect pay later down the road if we work together on an ongoing basis)”
—
Quoting your MC-Market post.
What do you have to say for yourself? Trying to take advantage of people?
Going to say something else completely delusional or own up to the fact that you were trying to take advantage of me?
I already knew you were, but now I have the hard evidence.
As I am not a stupid person.
Not only did your friend lie, but you tried to take advantage of me, thinking I was stupid enough to fall for your $40/hour bullshit for basic configuration work. MineSaga charges $30.00 an hour on the high. Don’t even try to do the same shit you did to me to anyone else. It won’t work.
Me:I was interested in doing plugin development and learning so I offered my services for free so I could learn in a more real environment. I no longer do minecraft plugins rather I am a web developer and my rate is $40/hr I am good at configuration which is why i contacted you but I am not going to lower my rate because it is "simpler" work. Just like how you can higher a prostitute to wash your car but it would be cheaper to get the kid from around the block to do it. Also not sure what your end goal is here. I gave you my rate and you didn't agree with it. So you should just move on. Plus this is the minecraft world let me know when you get to the real world so you you can pay in big boy money.
Candy:
So your configuration work for minecraft is $40/h as well?
Lol
Absolutely hilarious.
Me:
did you not read my message?
"I am not going to lower my rate because it is "simpler" work."
Candy:
Who were your most recent clients?
Me:
i'm not going to give you that information
Candy:
Because you know you are lying to me with your crazy rates, and if you aren't, that means you have near to no clients.
Yet another lie.
Me:
keep telling yourself that buddy
Candy:
Lol
Good luck getting any more clients.
rip
Me:
?
I get more clients all the time
They just are not in your realm of your minecraft imagination where you can pay a developer 20$/hr
Candy:
I just strongly disagree with the fact that you are charging $40/hour for configurative work
xD
Me:
Okay
But why even contact me? Did you really think trying to "Call me out" was going to have me lower my rates or something.
Just get over it
Candy:
I haven't called you out and overcharging like that to others in the minecraft realm for a significant gain in money for work that is not worth nearly that amount is absolutely delusional.
I would recommend you stop making up false assumptions
Me: What ever you say
I left it at that. There was some more stuff but it was not that interesting so i left it out6 -
Today, my manager complained that my productivity doesn't match that of a senior engineer. I pointed out that senior isn't in my job title. He told me he thought of me as a senior engineer. I didn't dispute that that matches the level of experience I have, but it's not in my job title.3
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It's amazing how bold some services are, not only do you pay for their service, e.g. amazon prime, but you also watch fucking ads before you get to watch what you pay for12
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I was laid off. The reason? Well, they didn't really want to say but they were clear it wasn't due to performance. (Thankfully, I got severence pay.) From my perspective it really came out of nowhere, no warnings or even hints that this was coming, which has me spinning. 😵 If I'm doing well at my job and the company is doing well, how in the seven hells could I get laid off??
What they said was partly the reason didn't seem true, or not the whole truth. They essentially stated that "they talked with everyone I worked with" (probably not true based on their decision, but who knows) and came to the conclusion I wasn't suitable to work on large teams, and that's the direction they are moving in. As if it wasn't something that could be improved on 🤔
I'll be the first to admit I'm not the best communicator face-to-face, mainly due to my social anxiety but also because I have too many thoughts. It can be difficult to condense them down for other people in the heat of the moment. (I'm an INTP, if that helps you to understand what I mean.) However, I know I'm a pretty good communicator overall since I listen and pay special attention to phrasing and word choice. So most people I worked with there seemed quite satisfied with communication with me. There were only 2-3 out of more than 12 who I had any difficulty working with.
So why did I have trouble properly working with a couple people? I hesitate to say this but, like other jobs I've had, well... they didn't have either the experience or knowledge to understand me. Basically, they were stupid. I was pretty frustrated working with such inadequately prepared people on a complex project with ludicrously short deadlines, and had no desire to work overtime so I could educate or guide them.
To give perspective, one React developer didn't understand how object properties work with JavaScript. 🤦♀️ (They are references, by the way. And yes you can have an object reference inside another object!) Another React developer thought it was okay to have side effects during the render lifestyle because they didn't affect the component itself, even if it was a state change in a parent component. 🤦♀️🤦♀️
So what is the real reason I lost my job, if not performance? Could be I pissed off the stupid (and loud) ones which hurt my reputation. My main theory, however, is that I was raising the cost of the company's healthcare. I had a diseased organ so I did miss some work or worked from home more than I should have, and used my very good health insurance to the fullest extent I could. Of course, if they say that's the reason then they can get sued.
Huge bummer, whatever the case. I definitely learned some lessons from this situation that others in a similar position could find useful. I can write that up if anyone expresses interest.
Honestly though, this is a good thing in the end, because I was already planning to leave in a month or 2 once I found a better job. I was waiting for the right time for the project I was on and for my own financial stability. So I'm trying hard not to let this affect my self-esteem and think of it as an opportunity to get my dream job, which is working with a remote-first company that is focused on improving the human condition.
Being unemployed isn't ideal, but at least I didn't have to quit! And I get to have a bit of a vacation of a sort.7 -
Things I wish people had said at my first job (in light of lots of the people I see starting their first dev gig on here). Please add yours.
Congrats!
Take a breath, you will be fine.
If you get frustrated, take a moment to collect your thoughts.
Don't be afraid to say you don't know, you are not expected to know everything.
Your workday needs to end at a decent time. Don't overdo it or you will be useless for more of your hours.
Always take whatever length of time you think something will take and double it. If you think it will take 15 minutes, it'll probably take your 4 hours.
Concentrate on networking and personal relationships.
Pick the smartest people who have moved the most vertically and pay attention to what they say, they might know a lot.
When management makes an "unwise" or "crazy" decision, ask them why or what the context or motive is that made then arrive at that course of action. Some of them might surprise you in their bigger picture motives or dumbassedness.
Six sigma may be in your future, learn what it is.
Automate as much of your own job as possible.
Um, that's all I've got for now. Hopefully that's helpful to people just starting out. Feel free to add yours.5 -
So here's my problem. I've been employed at my current company for the last 12 months (next week is my 1 year anniversary) and I've never been as miserable in a development job as this.
I feel so upset and depressed about working in this company that getting out of bed and into the car to come here is soul draining. I used to spend hours in the evenings studying ways to improve my code, and was insanely passionate about the product, but all of this has been exterminated due to the following reasons.
Here's my problems with this place:
1 - Come May 2019 I'm relocating to Edinburgh, Scotland and my current workplace would not allow remote working despite working here for the past year in an office on my own with little interaction with anyone else in the company.
2 - There is zero professionalism in terms of work here, with there being no testing, no planning, no market research of ideas for revenue generation – nothing. This makes life incredibly stressful. This has led to countless situations where product A was expected, but product B was delivered (which then failed to generate revenue) as well as a huge amount of development time being wasted.
3 - I can’t work in a business that lives paycheck to paycheck. I’ve never been somewhere where the salary payment had to be delayed due to someone not paying us on time. My last paycheck was 4 days late.
4 - The management style is far too aggressive and emotion driven for me to be able to express my opinions without some sort of backlash.
5 - My opinions are usually completely smashed down and ignored, and no apology is offered when it turns out that they’re 100% correct in the coming months.
6 - I am due a substantial pay rise due to the increase of my skills, increase of experience, and the time of being in the company, and I think if the business cannot afford to pay £8 per month for email signatures, then I know it cannot afford to give me a pay rise.
7 - Despite having continuously delivered successful web development projects/tasks which have increased revenue, I never receive any form of thanks or recognition. It makes me feel like I am not cared about in this business in the slightest.
8 - The business fails to see potential and growth of its employees, and instead criticises based on past behaviour. 'Josh' (fake name) is a fine example of this. He was always slated by 'Tom' and 'Jerry' as being worthless, and lazy. I trained him in 2 weeks to perform some basic web development tasks using HTML, CSS, Git and SCSS, and he immediately saw his value outside of this company and left achieving a 5k pay rise during. He now works in an environment where he is constantly challenged and has reviews with his line manager monthly to praise him on his excellent work and diverse set of skills. This is not rocket science. This is how you keep employees motivated and happy.
9 - People in the business with the least or zero technical understanding or experience seem to be endlessly defining technical deadlines. This will always result in things going wrong. Before our mobile app development agency agreed on the user stories, they spent DAYS going through the specification with their developers to ensure they’re not going to over promise and under deliver.
10 - The fact that the concept of ‘stealing data’ from someone else’s website by scraping it daily for the information is not something this company is afraid to do, only further bolsters the fact that I do not want to work in such an unethical, pathetic organisation.
11 - I've been told that the MD of the company heard me on the phone to an agency (as a developer, I get calls almost every week), and that if I do it again, that the MD apparently said he would dock my pay for the time that I’m on the phone. Are you serious?! In what world is it okay for the MD of a company to threaten to punish their employees for thinking about leaving?! Why not make an attempt at nurturing them and trying to find out why they’re upset, and try to retain the talent.
Now... I REALLY want to leave immediately. Hand my notice in and fly off. I'll have 4 weeks notice to find a new role, and I'll be on garden leave effective immediately, but it's scary knowing that I may not find a role.
My situation is difficult as I can't start a new role unless it's remote or a local short term contract because my moving situation in May, and as a Junior to Mid Level developer, this isn't the easiest thing to do on the planet.
I've got a few interviews lined up (one of which was a final interview which I completed on Friday) but its still scary knowing that I may not find a new role within 4 weeks.
Advice? Thoughts? Criticisms?
Love you DevRant <33 -
!rant I need job advice. Please reason with me.
I am 26, got 2 years of experience in c# and unity3d.
I did some research and it turns out that the minimal paying average with my job/experience over the whole country is at least 300€ a month more than what i get payed currently.
I made a list of pros and cons, and am just not sure what would be smartest to do in the long run. Here is a list for both options, please chime in on me if you can!
Points for current job:
Permanent contract (hard to fire me etc.)
Get to make mostly mobile games but nothing really big
Fun small team whom i get along with (i am on the spectrum and can be hard to deal with social or costumer related things)
Rarely any overtime (i like to know my hours)
Easy but slow jobs (badly organized, drag on forever)
Rarely challenged and thus boring me
I get to shoot nerf guns at colleagues whenever
Low chance of a 300€/m pay increase (not worth it to boss, financials aren't that great but the company is promising)
Points for any other job:
Unknown working condittions
I am probably bad and uknowledgeable about any tool they give me to work with because my experience is so monotone
Start on short term contract again all over
At the least a 300€ net increase a month
Prob closer to home then 1h drive away
I get to learn new things but give up on games/apps as i know them
Probably get knowledgeable seniors
Probably end up in a bigger more serious company where i am just a number
I am bad in new social envirnoments, oh the angst is real
And a few things besides it are that i personally only have as goal to own my own house with my fiance as soon as i can. And this means i will need to take out a 200k loan or something along those lines, to be paid off over 30 years max.
This means that the permanent contract is very valuable in my eyes, but so is monthly pay increase.
I want to have fun in my job, i want to learn new things and better ways. But i also want to be able to say "enough" to something if it overwhelms me. I just know some things are not for me and i would mess up if i were made to do them. I fear that to not be an option in a big company. I would be forced out of my comfort zone without any regard for me or my learning curve.
Any advice is welcome. Please keep it general if you can so others can learn from this as well. Seniors advice will probably be helpfull to all starting programmers!10 -
Oh boy, this is gonna be good:
TL;DR: Digital bailiffs are vulnerable as fuck
So, apparently some debt has come back haunting me, it's a somewhat hefty clai and for the average employee this means a lot, it means a lot to me as well but currently things are looking better so i can pay it jsut like that. However, and this is where it's gonna get good:
The Bailiff sent their first contact by mail, on my company address instead of my personal one (its's important since the debt is on a personal record, not company's) but okay, whatever. So they send me a copy of their court appeal, claiming that "according to our data, you are debtor of this debt". with a URL to their portal with a USERNAME and a PASSWORD in cleartext to the message.
Okay, i thought we were passed sending creds in plaintext to people and use tokenized URL's for initiating a login (siilar to email verification links) but okay! Let's pretend we're a dumbfuck average joe sweating already from the bailiff claims and sweating already by attempting to use the computer for something useful instead of just social media junk, vidya and porn.
So i click on the link (of course with noscript and network graph enabled and general security precautions) and UHOH, already a first red flag: The link redirects to a plain http site with NOT username and password: But other fields called OGM and dossiernumer AND it requires you to fill in your age???
Filling in the received username and password obviously does not work and when inspecting the page... oh boy!
This is a clusterfuck of javascript files that do horrible things, i'm no expert in frontend but nothing from the homebrewn stuff i inspect seems to be proper coding... Okay... Anyways, we keep pretending we're dumbasses and let's move on.
I ask for the seemingly "new" credentials and i receive new credentials again, no tokenized URL. okay.
Now Once i log in i get a horrible looking screen still made in the 90's or early 2000's which just contains: the claimaint, a pie chart in big red for amount unpaid, a box which allows you to write an - i suspect unsanitized - text block input field and... NO DATA! The bailiff STILL cannot show what the documents are as evidence for the claim!
Now we stop being the pretending dumbassery and inspect what's going on: A 'customer portal' that does not redirect to a secure webpage, credentials in plaintext and not even working, and the portal seems to have various calls to various domains i hardly seem to think they can be associated with bailiff operations, but more marketing and such... The portal does not show any of the - required by law - data supporting the claim, and it contains nothing in the user interface showing as such.
The portal is being developed by some company claiming to be "specialized in bailiff software" and oh boy oh boy..they're fucked because...
The GDPR requirements.. .they comply to none of them. And there is no way to request support nor to file a complaint nor to request access to the actual data. No DPO, no dedicated email addresses, nothing.
But this is really the ham: The amount on their portal as claimed debt is completely different from the one they came for today, for the sae benefactor! In Belgium, this is considered illegal and is reason enough to completely make the claim void. the siple reason is that it's unjust for the debtor to assess which amount he has to pay, and obviously bailiffs want to make the people pay the highest amount.
So, i sent the bailiff a business proposal to hire me as an expert to tackle these issues and even sent him a commercial bonus of a reduction of my consultancy fees with the amount of the bailiff claim! Not being sneery or angry, but a polite constructive proposal (which will be entirely to my benefit)
So, basically what i want to say is, when life gives you lemons, use your brain and start making lemonade, and with the rest create fertilizer and whatnot and sent it to the lemonthrower, and make him drink it and tell to you it was "yummy yummy i got my own lemons in my tummy"
So, instead of ranting and being angry and such... i simply sent an email to the bailiff, pointing out various issues (the ones6 -
Me: "So, this is a new way to show to your clients the daily menu using a QR Code and..."
Client: "I like it. I wanna buy it."
Me: "What?"
Client:"This QR-thing. I wanna be the only one using it"
Me:"But you can't buy the QR Code technol..."
Client:"Don't bother me. I want it. And when I want it, I get it. I can pay, you know."
Me:"Ehm......Oooook."
Me: "It's 10$ for every QR Code that we, and only we, will create! But, hey! Shhh!!"6 -
I don't wanna hear anyone dismissing college education, specially from people that can't do asymptotic analysis and have no clue what a pointer is. It's not fine. What do you think people spend 4+ years studying for? For this shit? There's a reason why a diploma has a weight, it's not just decoration.
I get it that the american educational system is fucked up and you guys have to pay a shit ton of money for it, but you can't just pretend it's worth nothing.
How diminishing it is to hear people shit on a life long struggle to get where i am today. I had to study a ton to get into college, and I'm still pouring my blood and mental health into my studies, only for some random to say that a youtube tutorial is worth the same.19 -
Hello fellow devRanters, look what I found in our API constants on this fine day!
LIST_USERS: '/api/GetUsers',
USERS_WITH_QUERY:'/api/GetUsers?Query=',
MORE_USERS: '/api/GetUsers?Token=',
You get what you pay for, you get what you pay for, you get what you- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGG!!!!!!!!!7 -
Guys what I want to know is how do you secure your code so that they pay you after you deliver the code to them?
So recently I was in this internship that I secured with an over-the-phone interview and the guy who was contacting me was the CEO of the company (I'm going to refer to him as "the fucking cunt" from now on). He asked me to do some OCR and translations and I managed to write a few scripts that automate the entire process. The fucking cunt made me login remotely to his desktop which was connected to the server (who the fuck does that) and I had to operate on the server from his system. I helped him with the installation and taught him how to use the scripts by altering the parameters and stuff, and you know what the fucking cunt did from the next day onward? Dropped contact. Like completely. I kept bombing emails upon emails and tried calling him day after day, the fucking cunt either picked up and cut the call immediately on recognising its me or didn't pick up at all. And the reason he wasn't able to pay me was, and I quote, "I am in US right now, will pay you when I get back to India." I was like "The fuck was PayPal invented for?" Being the naive fool that I was, I believed him (it was my first time) and waited patiently till the date he mentioned and then lodged a complain in the portal itself where he had posted the job initially. They raised a concern with the employer and you know what the fucking cunt replied? "He has not been able to achieve enough accuracy on the translations". Doesn't even know good translation systems don't exist till date ( BTW I used a client for the google translate API). It has been weeks now and still the bitch has not yet resolved the issue.And the worst part of it was I got a signed contract and gave him a copy of my ID for verification purposes.
I'm thinking of making a mail bomb and nagging him every single day for the rest of his life. What do you guys think?7 -
Why can't you just fucking tell me what type of website you want. Every week you are fucking adding/removing new features and don't want to pay for it. You know what? Fuck you! From next week Monday I' am putting your website on hold until you agree to pay for the changes we made for the past 3 weeks.
On the same note, fuck you to my General Manager who thinks he will get laid for not charging for the changes made to the website. She is just using you dumb piece of shit.1 -
Me: Why are we spending time building reports for Support? AFAIK they never read or use them.
Boss: Seems they expect you to do it.
Me: Then what exactly are they supposed to be doing? All the issues seem to just escalate back to us.... We should just make sure issues never get into PROD
Boss: I agree, they're always firefighting... we gave them more funding so eventually they should catch up **Me: I highly doubt it, you should just stop hiring monkeys** esp. if we prevent PROD issues.
Me: Yea... we should prevent production issues because someone always has to pay off the (technical) debt and interest rates in PROD are very high6 -
A while ago I stumbled upon this cheap vps provider called dedistation (lowest was $15/year), so I end up buying a one year subscription and transferred all of my personal sites to it. Fast forward six month later, uptime robot notified me that my vps is down. No problem, I'll just submit a ticket. Few days go by and I yet to receive a response. Not a problem, I'll just try and login via the serial interface and get my shit, no luck there either.
Seems like these motherfuckers just packed up and went offline without a shit given.
No response, no notification untill today! How more twat a company could be?
Lessons learned the hard way
- always backup regularly
- check and transfer nameserver or no emails for days.
- you get what u pay for (haven't learned this fully yet. Went again with a cheap legit-ish provider (arubacloud)7 -
Be a fellow who's distracted af. You just had a presentation in another city. You're driving home and a light lits up saying you need gas. You stop at the petrol station, pour in some gas, grab a cop of joe while you're at it, pay and leave. You're 15minutes away from the gas stop already and an unknown number is calling you. You pick it up. A male voice says
Voice: "hello, this is police. Did you just leave a gas stop 15 minutes ago?"
You: *wtf, what the fuck did I do now!* "yes, I sure did."
Voice: "you forgot to pay for the fuel"
you: *oh shit, he's right! I remember now - I only paid for the coffee! Shit! I'm in trouble now. *
"oh.. Right, you're right, I forgot... I'll turn around and come back to pay
Voice: "wait, don't rush, I may be able to help you. I'll call you back, keep your phone close" *hangs up*
5 minutes later phone rings again.
Voice: "can you pull over, please? Here's a phone number of that gas stop. Give them a call, I'm sure you'll sort it our. Have a nice day!" *hangs up*
you call that number. A woman picks up.
You: "hello, I forgot to pay you for the gas, gimme a few minutes - I'll turn around and get back to you"
Operator: "do not worry, I think I can help you! You can pay for it at your home town if you like, but I'm afraid they might not be working today. But they will tomorrow! Would that be OK for you?"
you: "umm, yeah, of course! It's my fault - anything is OK for me!"
operator: "ooorrr.. I could pay for you now and you would pay me back. Would that work? Here's my bank account, I'll pay for you when you send me those 50 something €"
a fantasy story? Made up story? Bed time stories? Dysney movie plot? Phishing? Canada?
No. This is Lithuania :) believe it or not, this is a true story, and there are more like this one.
Respect to the police!12 -
Got my first legit side-gig as a developer (like had to write an SOW and everything): my kids' pediatrician is amazing, but shes switching to a concierge practice, meaning she wont take any insurance, and shes going from about 1500 patients down to about 200. I already pay my mortgage-worth in insurance on a monthly basis, so we were prepared to say adios to her. At my daughter's last appointment, she pulled me aside and said "what can we do to keep you guys as patients?" and i somewhat jokingly suggested "I dunno, need any websites written?"
As a matter of fact, she did: she just fired her practice's web developer, who gave her a shitty wordpress site and fought like hell to avoid any further maintenance or updates for her. She hates the site's current layout (no surprise there) so she is basically giving me full control over a rewrite.
No user logins, no worries about compliance with PII or any of that. Literally just turning a brochure wordpress site into an angular app, hosting it on her own server and eventually building an admin page where she can change the banner text and upload new images.
And my kids will get free, top-notch health care.1 -
Can someone help me understand?
I subscribed to a nifty IT-releated magazine, and on its back, there's an ad for "Dedicated root server hosting", nothing unusual at a first glance, but after I read the issue, I decided to humor them and see what it is that they offered, and... It just... Doesn't make sense to me!
An ad for "Dedicated Root Server" - What is a dedicated root server first of all? Root servers of any infrastructure sound pretty important.
But, the ad also boasts "High speed performance with the new Intel Core i9-9900K octa-core processor", that's the first weird thing.
Why would anyone responsible enough want to put an i9 into a highly-reliable root server, when the thing doesn't even support ECC? Also, come on, octa-core isn't much, I deal with servers that have anywhere between 2 and 24 cores. 8 isn't exactly a win, even if it has a higher per-core clock.
Oh, also, further down the ad has a list of, seeming, advantages/specs of the servers, they proclaim that the CPU "incl. Hyper-Threading-Technology"... Isn't that... Standard when it comes to servers? I have never seen a server without hyperthreading so far at my job.
"64 GBs of DDR4 RAM" - Fair enough, 64 gigs is a good amount, but... Again, its not ECC, something I would never put into a server.
"2 x 8 TB SATA Enterprise Hard Drive 7200 rpm" - Heh, "enterprise hard drive", another cheap marketing word, would impress me more if they mentioned an actual brand/model, but I'll bite, and say that at least the 7200 rpm is better than I expected.
"100 GBs of Backup Space" - That's... Really, really little. I've dealt with clients who's single database backup is larger than that. Especially with 2x8 TB HDD (Even accounting for software raids on top)
This one cracks me up - "Traffic unlimited"
Whaaaat?! You are not gonna give me a limit to the total transferred traffic to the internet for my server in your data center? Oh, how generous of you, only, the other case would make the server just an expensive paperweight! I thought this ad was for semi-professionals at least, so why mention traffic, and not bandwidth, the thing that matters much more when it comes to servers? How big of a bandwidth do I get? Don't tell me you use dialup for your "Dedicated Root Server"s!
"Location Germany or Finland" - Fair enough, geolocation can matter when it comes to latency.
"No minimum contract" - Oooh, how kiiiind of you, again, you are not gonna charge me extra for using the server only as long as I pay? How nice!
"Setup Fee £60" - I guess, fair enough, the server is not gonna set itself up, only...
The whole ad is for "monthly from £55.50", that's quite the large fee for setup.
Oh, and a cherry on top, the tiny print on the bottom mentions: "All prices exclude VAT and are a subject to..." blah blah blah.
Really? I thought that this sort of almost customer deceipt is present only in the common people's sphere!
I must say, there's being unimpressed, and then... There's this. Why, just... Why? Anyone understands this? Because I don't...12 -
Not doing it for the money alone unless you want to be depressed and wealthy.
Find the most inspiring work that pay your bills: when you're the best at what you love you will find a way to get paid for that (or something closely related).
On the micro level, I try to talk to / learn from coworkers a lot and take regular breaks.1 -
!dev
I will never understand the need for weeding bs. I am ok with marriage, and doing whatever religious festivity you want to whatever deity you follow. I respect that stuff enough to not go all anti-religious or what not. But I just cannot fathom making a party that benefits the attendee (food whatnot) more than the people starting a life together. Gifts? a popularity contest? I don't get it. My weeding was simple, did not invite a bunch of people, shit burned bridges, but our families were there and that to me was more than enough. Anyone else that got offended, well, they can get offended whenever they pay one of my fucking bills.
But I just cannot get the need to have such a ceremony, AND then to have the audacity to get upset or call out people that cannot make it. Make it for fucking what? the bridge and groom are going to be so fucking distracted with everyone that at most your presence gets an "ah glad you came!"
AND some people even do it in different cities, fucking why? it is a burden as an adult to make time for such minute events, even more to take the time, and the fucking money to go to your fucking party on another city. Bonus points if I need to buy a fucking airplane ticket, no fucking thanks.
I am currently doing something big in my life that only my wife can help me with, because of my situation, my family can't help me, so i am all by myself and wife, and some people told me to put it on hold.....to go to a fucking party. WHY? Why in the sweet holy Mexican baby Ritchie would I go ahead and fucking do that? you are not going to help me afterwards when I get back, shit, you will be out on fucking vacation after the party, for 2 fucking weeks (talk about privilege) and you still want me to put my shit on hold to go...to a fucking party?
Fuck, sometimes I feel that I am toooo fucking egotistical to put my time before others, but man, you really get shit out of this. 2 weedings happening this month, one requires a ticket, the other is a drive away (4 fucking hours) but still, I really don't feel that I should waste my VL that I would much rather spend with my wife and child on some fucking obnoxious ego-inflated party.9 -
GDPR is about to happen.
Has anyone read the provisions?
It's like they put some flat earther anti-vaxers in a room and made them scribble up a law.
For those who don't know - it's a new, EU-wide "data privacy" law that's about to take effect on May 25th.
The gist of it is that if you fuck up even a little bit, you get to personally pay a fine of up to 10 Million Euros (for companies there's a separate clause, this is for employees only), or/and 2-3 years in jail if that fuck-up has caused material damages.
That little fuck-up can be as simple as losing a tiny amount of data between back-ups, or entrusting a third party with full access to some data (which is not prohibited) without controlling 100% what he can do with that data (which IS prohibited).
I shit you not, these are the explicit articles of that law.
If it is enforced in this way, it is the swift death of European economy. Just because some retards didn't read the privacy policy before agreeing to it, and then made a shit storm, everyone has to suffer.50 -
Longest I've worked without rest + why?
Over 24 hours. Why?
In our old system, the database had fields, for example, a customer like Total97, Total98, etc. to store values by year (or some date-specific value).
Every January 1, we had to add fields to accommodate the upcoming year and make the appropriate code changes to handle the new fields.
One year the UPS shipping rates changed and users didn't want to 'lose' the old rates, so they wanted new fields added (Rate98, Rate99, etc) so they could compare old vs. new. That required a complete re-write of most of the underlying applications because users wanted to see the difference on any/all applications that displayed a shipping rate. I'll throw in asking 'why?' was often answered with "because we pay you to do what we say". Luckily, we had already gotten to work on a lot of this before January 1st, so we were, for the most part, ready.
January 1st rolls around (we had to be in the office at 3:00AM), work thru changes, spend some time testing, and be done before noon. That didn't happen. The accounting system was a system that wasn't in (and had never been) in scope, and when we flipped the switch, one of the accountants comes into the office:
E: "Guys? None of our Excel spreadsheets are working. They are critical to integration with the accounting software"
Us: "What? Why would you be using Excel to integrate with the software instead of their portal?"
E: "We could never figure it out, so we had a consultant write VBA scripts to do the work."
Us: "OK, a lot of fields changed, but shouldn't be a big deal. How many spreadsheets are we talking about?"
E: "Hundreds. We have a separate spreadsheet for every integration point. The consulting company said it scalable, whatever that means."
Us: "What?! Why we just know hearing about this!?"
E: "Don't worry, the consultant said making changes would be easy, let me show you, just open the spreadsheet..click here..<click><click><click>...ignore that error, it always happens...click that <click><click><click>.."
Us: "Oh good lord, this is going to take hours"
E: "Ha! Probably. All this computer stuff is your job and I've got a family to get to. Later"
Us: "Hey 'VP of IS', can we go home and fix these spreadsheets as-needed this week?"
VP-IS: "Let me check with 'VP-FS'"
<few minutes later>
VP-IS: "No, he said Excel is critical to running their department. We stay until Excel is fixed."
Us: "No, no...its these spreadsheets. I doubt FS needs all of them tomorrow morning."
VP-IS: "That's what I said. Spreadsheets, Excel, same thing. I'll order the pizza. Who likes pepperoni!?"
At least he didn't cheap out on the pizza (only 4 of us and he ordered 6 large, extra pepperoni from one of the best pizza places in town)
One problem after another and we didn't get done until almost 6:00AM. Then...
VP-IS: "Great job guys. I've scheduled a meeting at 8:00AM to review what we did so we can document the process for next year. You've got a couple of hours. Feel free to get some breakfast and come back, or eat the left over pizza in the breakroom fridge. There is a lot left"
Us: "Um...sorry...we're going home."
VP-IS: "WHAT!!...OK...fine. I'll schedule the meeting for 12"
Us: "No...we're going home. We'll see you tomorrow." -
Figured I'd post for some advice here and see if anybody has had previous experience or success with a situation like this.
My team is generally comprised of full-stack developers completing front-end custom work on sites, writing back-end tools, and fixing broken sites. We are a rapid-response DEV team, and we typically turn around any custom requests in less than 5 days and fix any broken sites on the same day as they were reported. We manage almost 15,000 sites across multiple countries, and deal with very large corporations that many of you interact with every day (I'm trying to be cryptic here hahaha.) There are 16 of us on our team, and we are the only DEV team within our department of 500+ people. We are also the only DEV team taking requests from these 500+ people. The way the department works, we are the final say on whether a specific piece of custom work will get completed or not, and we are the go-to people when anybody has a question about our system infrastructure or if our system can accommodate a request, along with how to fix any broken pieces of our platform. We typically get about 150 requests per day. Lately, the entire team has become unhappy with our compensation for the work we do. We're quite underpaid, and they keep giving us more responsibilities without any sort of extra compensation. We've discovered that there are a large amount of non-developers below us that are getting paid more than we are. We've found that we get paid about $15,000 less than a comparable DEV team in a different department (let's call that team DEV_2,) just because of which department our team exists within, and how our department defined our job back when this position was created a few years ago. Ever since the position was created, our team's responsibilities have exponentially increased. We believe that there is absolutely no reason that an entry-level position below us should get paid just as much, or even more in some cases, than a developer. Of course, we're not asking to pay them less. Instead, we've decided that we're going to bring this up with our manager and schedule a meeting with him, our Department Director, and Human Resources, and voice that we believe that we should be on the same payscale as the comparable DEV_2 in the other department.
To be a good developer on our team, you need to not only have coding expertise, but also an encyclopedic knowledge of what you can do within our platform without any coding. You need this knowledge so you can pass it along to any people in positions below you, in case they didn't know that something could be done without custom code.
We're going to argue that if it weren't for our team, the company would be losing millions of dollars in clients, because people wouldn't have anybody to go to for platform infrastructure questions, broken websites, or custom work. Instead, they would need to send these requests to the DEV_2 team, which currently take about 6 months to turnaround requests. Like I said, we are a rapid-response DEV team, and these particular clients think that a 5 day turnaround time is ridiculous. If they had to wait 6 months for their request to be completed, they would cancel their contracts.
Not to mention the general loss of knowledge if the members of our team went to a different department, which would be catastrophic for our current department. Believe me, this department could not function without this DEV team. If we all went on vacation for a week, the place would be on fire by the time we got back, and many clients would be lost.
Do any of you have any experience with a situation like this, and if so, how did it turn out? Thank you!5 -
Client contacts our company that his site is down, we do some investigating and the only way we can access the site is on a mobile phone. From the office computers the site never loads and times out. Since we don't host the site and I've never logged into it before I don't have a lot of details so I suggest they contact whoever hosts their site. This is where things get weird.
Client tells me that the site is hosted on someone's home server. I tell him that this is quite strange in 2018 and rather unlikely and ask if he was ever given access to the site to log in or if he has access to his domain registration, GoDaddy.
He says he doesn't understand any of this and would rather I just contact his current developer and figure it out with him. We agree that he needs to get access to his site so we are going to migrate it once I get access to it.
I email his current developer letting him know the client has put me in contact with him to troubleshoot the issues with the site. I ask him some standard questions like: where is the site hosted? Can you access it from a computer? Do you have some security measures in place to block certain IP ranges? Can you give me from access to get the files? Will you send me a backup of the site for me to load up on my server?
*2days pass*
Other dev: Tell me the account number and I'll transfer the domain.
Me: I'll have to get back to you on that once I talk to the client and set up his GoDaddy account since we believe the business owner should own their domain, not their developers. In the meantime you didn't answer any of the questions I asked. Transferring the domain won't get the site on my server so I still need the files.
*3 days pass*
OD: You are trying the wrong domain. The correct domain is [redacted].com I'll have my daughter send you the files when she gets in town. We will transfer the domain to you, the client will forget to pay and the site will go down and it'll be your fault.
Me: I appreciate your advice, but the client will own their domain. I'm trying to get the site online and you have no answered any of my questions. It's been a week now and you have not transferred the domain, you have not provided a copy of the site, you have not told me where the site is hosted. The client and I are both getting impatient at this point when will we receive a backup of the site and the transfer of the domain?
OD: Go fuck yourself, tell the client they can sue me.
If the client is that terrible, wouldn't you want to hand them off to anyone willing to take them? I have never understood why developers and agencies try to hold clients hostage by keeping their domain or website and refusing access. From what I can tell this is a freelance developer without a real company so a legal battle likely isn't going to go well since the domain is worthless to him as the copyright to the name is owned by the client. This isn't the first time we've had to help clients through this sort of thing.4 -
Things that make you regret you are not a normal grunt in any other fucking job outside of software development...
Few years back we had the biggest customer ever close to signing contact with us (b2b). They had a CRM they wanted to connect to our CRM because their users didn't want to use IE with ActiveX anymore, the old software was a fucking RDP over IE to a server behind a VPN.
Boss brags how we can implement every API on Earth with our team and gets the contract signed. Technically not a lie but we agreed on a company meeting a few month prior to not implement each API for every customer but expose one ourselves because we had enough big customers on that one software to not want 100+ unique API connectors in our code.
So we apparently agreed to not only build our side of the API but also pay 2/3 of the bill of the other company for implement their shitty excuse of an API...
Fast forward a few month, talking to the other companies dev daily to get their API up and running, our part is long done. Finally get things set up and data flows... suddenly shit hits the fan. That shitty excuse of CRM can't expose the created and modified timestamps to the API. Webhooks never got implement and now we have no way of knowing which data changed because their side is completely passive.
Fast forward to a few weeks back. Still no solution. Shit is running, barely. Data inconsistency is low because everyone knows they should never change things in the old CRM because the changes might not be synced. (Only one indictor is a custom modified date on the main customer data that only updates if the main data was changed but there are 20+ different possible subsets. Can't get changes in subsets detected, like ever)
One fucking grunt updated 129 customer-profiles in the old CRM. Nothing was synced.
They still use the old shit for billing.
Their it-crowd-guy calls me up:
"Sorry but we need to generate the bills tomorrow and there seems to be some kind of desynchronization between the databases"
No shit? Someone did exactly what we told you not to do and now that one thing we warned you about happened but now it's our fault? Use the fucking force sync button we built for that purpose and that purpose alone. It will only take 7 days because that fucking SOAP API is slow as fuck and you have millions of datasets to sync...
Fml I might just try and jump out the window, sounds like a lot of fun in days like this.
tl;dr never implant against dynamics ax aif soap API if you want to keep some basic level of sanity2 -
Because of high gas price, the government decided to lower our tax.
For me it translates to additional EUR 11/month ☹.
This is after deductions of thousands of euros each months (tax and social contribution) from my hard-earned salary. How come nobody is complaining about this?
During my yearly review, I told my manager that I expect to see significant salary increase next year (the inflation is 9% duh!).
She told me that I can expect to get 20% increase after 3-4 years. ☹
Now I know why a lot of people are leaving. How can you expect your employer to stay put if you're constantly paying them under market rate?! I have to keep switching jobs every 4-5 years to get a decent pay, right? Yet society expect me to settle down and have a stable job.
And then, how come a PM earn significantly more than a regular dev? Even the job interview is much easier. But I like the technical part too much to switch to people management.
By no means, I am starving right now working as a dev. I am happy that I even have a job, but somehow I felt like what I do is pointless just being a wage slave, and felt demotivated in a lot of ways.
P.S.: I am writing this now in front of my work computer. I have to catch up some work to do otherwise I won't have time to do it during the weekdays 😔
Pray for me guys I can get better job within next year.8 -
Freelancing is modern slavery...
Al this greedy fuckers searching for the cheapest tool for their super urgent project.
Even if you write you consider the payment on the expenditure you fucking snail will still debate on it cause you consider your time more valuable. You consider my life isn't worth your money. You want a service but don't want to pay for it.
This get all for fucking free mentality is what ruins this planet.9 -
!dev
What a fucking son of a bitch day...
I’m hungover as fuck so i don’t wanna drive, so I want to pay parking for a few hours.
I didn’t find my fucking key, when I pulled up the couch to look under it, my XPS fell of it and smashes the screen. At that moment my landlord knocks on the door to take a look at the kitchen ceiling and t he kitchen is a fucking MESS! You know when you’re drunk and get a late night cooking attack? Yea, that sort of mess.
Completely fucked in my head I got the reserve key for the car, unlocked it and the bloody alarm went of because the keys battery is empty. So managed to turn it off, went back into my apartment and found the key BEHIND the motherfucking couch.. BEHIND THE COUCH, HOW WOULD IT EVEN GET THERE? Ffs...
I’ll just continue drinking now and hope tomorrow is gonna be a better day.. and order a new screen for my laptop, it’s not at all like I’m short on money this month anyway..5 -
These commercials for the Earnin app are cancer.
"I know you don't get paid until tomorrow why are you buying [stupid shit]?"
-- what kinda psycho knows when their friends get paid?
"I'm using the Earnin app to get paid today so I can buy my dog some food."
--If your budgeting skills are so shitty that you have to rely on an app to pay you before you check, then perhaps an animal is something you don't need to have with your current financial situation.
Like Jesus Christ the situations are all illogical and make 0 sense, yet they're fucking EVERYWHERE.3 -
The company that I work for has recently recruited a team for Web Development, so they don't have to pay a monthly fee to the previous team who designed their website.
They have over 3000+ products in the old website, and no logical way to import them to the new website. The old team was asking for 300$ to give them an API which would return the product details in an XML format.
Obviously, paying that amount of money wasn't logical for a dying website, so the manager decided to hire someone to manually copy the content from the old admin panel to the new one, that is until I stopped him.
My solution? Write a simple web scraper to login to the old panel and collect data. Boom! 300$ saved from going to waste.
Now, the old team found about this and as much as my manager was happy, they were quite angry. So they implanted a Google reCaptcha to prevent my bot from scraping the old panel.
I spent about 20 minutes, and found out once you're logged in to the old panel, the session is saved in a cookie and you are no longer greeted by a Captcha.
So I re-written a small portion of my bot, and Boom! Instant karma from manager. We finished publishing the new site, and notified the old team, only to see the precious look on their face. Poor guy, he thought I was a wizard or something 😂😂
That's what you get for overcharging people!
TL;DR: Company's old website team wanted to overcharge us writing an API to fetch 3000+ records.
Written a basic web scraper to do the same job in less than an hour.3 -
So a few weeks back guy I used to work with contacts me for some dev work on a UK project he is working on, it's the Thursday and they need the thing the coming Monday. I tell him it's totally impossible, and it was so he asks what can done and how much, as well as how much for the entire project.
I stipulate exactly what can be done, with exclusions and say 7.5k and them mail over a detailed quote for 30k for everything.
I get told it's all fine, I must go ahead. I get through a bit more than expected by the Monday, but they still needed something to demo and I set I can get enough for demo in place by Thursday.
They demo to business and money and all that and everyone is happy and tell me to finish up along with some changes, and I don't even adjust the price as it was more work they wanted outside of the original spec.
Get to probably 80% done and they say we need to pause they need to look over other feedback.
Next thing, the PM come back, no they were never actually happy with the quote and they found some other guy willing to do the entire thing for 7.5k and they willing to only give me that for the code I have written so far. Cunts.
Anyway, he tries to take some blame for it, even though I know it's BS and says he will pay in another 7.5k from his share if I am willing and we call it quits.
This people, is why I don't freelance.
I feel sorry for this new kid, he clearly under quoted, and yes I am expensive, but with decades experience having worked on international projects for one of the largest digital asset management firms, my countries leading fintech dev house and now the lead developer for my countries largest insurance software dev house, you damn fucking strait my free time comes at a premium, as you are getting top fucking quality, 100% tested, high performing code.
They can go fuck an entire flock of ducks when they come back after this half ling fucks up the diamond I coded up for them.
Even funnier, they a UK based company, so for them this was a 1.5k project. Cheap cunts.3 -
!Rant
The Eve V is a Community Developed Windows Tablet which will be released in Ocotober this year.
The best specs you can get is i7 6th Gen, 16 GB Ram and 500 GB SSD for around 1400$.
He wants 32 GB RAM in such a slim and small Tablet. Also wants a 7th Gen Intel CPU and 1 TB SSD in it. He's ready to pay 1000 $ more for his special edition.
The Eve V is already finished with tooling and they are wating for the screens to arrive. They already have all the other parts.
Dude you're crazy and that specs just for VM's? What are you running? 10x WinShitBox?
He's insulting everyone on the forum with a different opinion and says, retooling will be such easy.
That guy is a real douchebag and doesn't know shit. If you would build in different parts like this, you would need to remodel the whole tablet. You can stick your 1000$ in your ass, retooling would cost more than 10'000$
If it's so easy you shithead, then do it yourself and dont say it's possible and say to other people they should do! 😂😂
2 -
I'm quite a vengeful person, I'm sure I get the wrong end of the stick sometimes to.
In the last few years of my life I've been trying to not act and "be mature" about the situation.
There's still times I fall of the wagon but generally I have shrugged it off...
But do you know how I feel like now!? That I've been walked all over people are taking me for granted. People think they can get away with lying and messing me about.
Quite honestly I don't know how to act your always meant to rise above the situation. When all I can think of is how I could fuck up the thing they did.
And people go well just protect yourself but that means I'm not open and honest myself and that's what I fucking hate to begin with!
Today I'm feeling vengeful because a client didn't pay until the last second. They wanted the website for next to nothing. And took a year to pay. Now they have gone and paid a tonne on a new site ! Because they went well what you did was shit "effectively"
Granted it was but you don't spend a few hundred quid and expect to get everything. I gave them what they paid for.
Everyone is expecting something for nothing 🙄 I get that's just the life of companies directors
But it pisses me off I try to do everything truthfully on the up an up and they would prefer a group of liars
Oh front page of Google yes we can do that for free
Oh yes the greatest animation look!
😤 And I'm meant to sit here and be like yeah that's cool. I mean at this point what reason do I have to be open and honest if shit stains like that exist!
What pisses me off more is that I'm trying to rise above. I don't think I should I think I should ruin their fucking day and be done with it. I have the capabilities.... But I know "it ain't legal"
Then people go on about well if you don't like the rules help them get changed ...
I've tried the political route they are all far worse 😐 they are ignorant cunts. That's the truth! I can't stand to be around half of them 🙄
So here I am ranting to not fuck up someone's day , trying to rise above 😔 -
Here's how it usually goes:
1) I estimate the different aspects of the assignment to the best of my abillities, based on customer criteria and information. I come up with an realistic estimate for development and testing.
2) My PM runs the numbers through an algorithm. It adds time for other stuff, but its all still very fair and in tune.
Now to the fucked up part.
3) My ceo and cto looks at the estimate, and he will just turn on every possible button and twist the estimate into what he thinks he can get the customer to pay🤢🤮
This ends in the customer saying - no thank you.
He comes back to us and does not understand why they declined.
Idiot! -
I made the mistake of stepping into the lift when I already saw our branch manager walking down the opposite hallway, joined by some guy in full suit and tie who's clearly just been interviewed. So of course they get into the lift as well and as the doors closed, manager asked me
"Well, is it worthwhile working here?"
Shit. Way to put me on the spot in front of an applicant. I just stuttered "Yeah... sure..?" and went silent for the rest of the ride. Like what the fuck kinda question is that, noone would work there if it wasn't. Why would you ask me of all people, their only working student at the time, doing different work on different projects for different pay than any actual employee? -
Got this in Slack from the owner of the firm I work for...
I mean, you already pay me half of the average salary I should be making, but yeah, let me get right on that...
To be fair, I work with this guy because he is a really good guy to work for, is very hands-off (no micro-managing), doesn't expect me to work on the clock or any overtime and lets me make all the calls with our directions in development. Plus he pays me all he can afford, so it's not like he's trying to screw me (he shares the books with me to prove it).
But still, the dude has to realize you get what you pay for. You don't go to McDonalds if you want a gourmet burger...
2 -
Moral of the story: sometimes you've got to take a hit to be better off in the end.
A client asked me to design flyers for him, at first I was hesitant since this would be a stand alone design task instead of one incorporated with development.
He kept asking since he liked what I designed for my other clients (logos, etc..) So I finally said yes and we agreed to a final preview before he would pay me. I had asked him for color schemes, certain pictures, info, etc. but he told me it was completely up to me.
I finished the design, sent him the preview and he told me it was shit compared to my other work and that he didn't want it anymore 😅. I used to get mad as fuck every time this happened but now I don't even bother .
I know many people are going to say "You should have had him sign a contract, bla bla". I know, I know, but you can't let people sign a contract for every small thing, it completely depend on the situation and I prefer to know which of my lesser known clients are assholes so I can quit accepting tasks from them. This saves me much more time in the end. -
The more I'm on here the more I remember all the shit I have had to deal with in the past.
Anyway, lets rant! I just moved cities after college to be closer to my family, I didnt have any work lined up at that stage but started job hunting the moment I was settled in, I did some freelance for smaller companies to stay afloat.
Eventually I got a job at this agency startup where "SEO" was there main focus, still very inexperienced they put me on frontend and data capturing but will teach me how to code using their systems in due time. At this stage I was getting paid minimum wage, but I was doing minimum work and it wasnt that bad.
A new investor bought 49% of the company and immediately moved into the office space to focus more on marketing (He was one of those scaly marketing guys that will sell you babies if he could get his hands on enough to make a profit).
This is where everything starts going to shit. He hires a bunch of "SEO Gurus", fills up the small office with people like sardines squished together. Development was still our main money maker at this stage, so there where 3 new more senior developers at this stage and I started learning a lot really fast.
Here are some of the issues we had to deal with:
1. Incentives - Great more money, haha! No, No, you where 5 minutes late so you only get half of the promised amount.
2. For every minute you are late we will deduct it from you paycheck (Did I mention I was getting paid minimum wage).
3. If you take a smoke break we will dock it from your pay.
4. Free gym membership to the gym downstairs, but you can only go once a week during your lunch.
5. No pay raises if you cant prove your worth on paper.
He on purposely made up shitty rules and regulations to keep us down and make as much profit as he could.
Here are some shitty stuff he has done:
1. We arent getting a 13th check this year because the company didnt make a big profit - while standing next to his brand new BMW.
2. Made changes over FTP on clients work because we where too slow to get to it, than blames me for it because its broken the next day and wants to give me a written warning for not resolving the issue Immediately. They went as far as wanting to fire me for this, gave me 1 day notice for meeting and that I can bring a lawyer to represent me (1 day notice is illegal, you need 5 days where I am from), so I brought a lawyer since my mom was a lawyer. They freaked the fuck out and started harassing me about this a week later.
3. Would have meetings all the time about how much money the company is making, but wont be raising our pay since no one has proven they are worth it yet.
4. Would full on yell at employees infront of the entire office if they accidentally made an mistake on a clients project.
One one occasion I took a week off for holiday, my coworker contacted me to ask a question and I answered that I will handle it when I am back the following week. Withing 2 hours my other boss phones me in a rage, "he is coming to fetch the company laptop from my house in 5 minutes, he will let me know when he arrives. Gives me no time to talk at all and hangs up - I have figured out what has happened by now so when he showed up he has this long speech about abandonment, and trust and loyalty to the company. So I pass him my laptop once he shut up and said: "You do know I am on holiday leave which you approved, right?", he goes even more silent and passes me back my laptop without saying anything, and drives off.
While the above was happening Douche manager back at the office has a rage as well and calls the whole office (25 people) to a meeting talking about how I abandoned the company and how disgraceful that is.
Those are the shitty experiences I can remember, there where many more like this. All of the above eventually led to me going into a deep depression and having panic attacks weekly, from being overworked or scared to step out of line. Its also the reason I almost stopped coding forever at that stage. I worked there for 2.5 years with the abuse.
I left 2 weeks after the last shit show, I am ok now and have my anxiety and depression well under control if not almost gone completely.
Ran into Douche Manager a few months ago after 9 years, the company got bought out and the first person they fired was him. LOL! He now has his own agency and is looking for Developers (They are hard to find he says), little does he know I spread his name far and wide to all and every Dev I knew and didnt know to avoid working for him at all costs. Seems like word of mouth still works in this digital age.
Thanks for reading this far!5 -
I believe it is really useful because all of the elements of discipline and perseverance that are required to be effective in the workforce will be tested in one way or another by a higher learning institution. Getting my degree made me little more tolerant of other people and the idea of working with others, it also exposed me to a lot of topics that I was otherwise uninterested and ended up loving. For example, prior to going into uni I was a firm believer that I could and was going to learn all regarding web dev by maaaaaself without the need of a school. I wasn't wrong. And most of you wouldn't be wrong. Buuuuuut what I didn't know is how interesting compiler design was, how systems level development was etc etc. School exposed me to many topics that would have taken me time to get to them otherwise and not just on CS, but on many other fields.
I honestly believe that deciding to NOT go to school and perpetuating the idea that school is not needed in the field of software development ultimately harms our field by making it look like a trade.
Pffft you don't need to pay Johnny his $50dllrs an hour rate! They don't need school to learn that shit! Anyone can do it give him 9.50 and call it a day!<------- that is shit i have heard before.
I also believe that it is funny that people tend to believe that the idea of self learning will put you above and beyond a graduate as if the notion of self learning was sort of a mutually exclusive deal. I mean, congrats on learning about if statements man! I had to spend time out of class self learning discrete math and relearning everything regarding calculus and literally every math topic under the sun(my CS degree was very math oriented) while simultaneously applying those concepts in mathematica, r, python ,Java and cpp as well as making sure our shit lil OS emulation(in C why thank you) worked! Oh and what's that? We have that for next week?
Mind you, I did this while I was already being employed as a web and mobile developer.
Which btw, make sure you don't go to a shit school. ;) it does help in regards to learning the goood shit.7 -
A user calls me an hour after I'm supposed to have logged off.
"Hey, ahh, like, something is not good with, like, some thing"
Oh, snap! What happened?
"There is, like, this report, and it's, like, not right?"
Oh, the report is showing wrong data? Let me try to get a fresh version and...
"No, like,the data is right, but, like, there is many reports and , like, should be only one?"
Oh, you mean the report consolidation feature? It should only happen if the reports are fully compatible, and since it's automatic if the reports are not already grouped it means that they cannot be grouped. Probably due to this shopping season, we've seen a high uptick in demand.
"But, like, it should be, like, one! If not I will have to type in each report, like, by hand! I usually talk to this guy XYZ and he, like, does something that I, like, have no idea what it is. Can you call him up?"
(The dude the user mentioned logged off hours ago, and is in a different timezone. It's now about 11PM for him.)
It might not be possible. The system should add observations to each report it cannot consolidate. What do those say?
(the user takes two seconds to respond. I don't think they checked anything)
"It doesn't say anything. Can you cal XYZ, please?"
...
Shit, why do people wait until the last few hours of the last day of the month to do something that should have been done days ago and then demand that everybody everywhere just adjust to their late-ass schedule?
And then to demand I wake up a hardworking dev because someone is to lazy to use the system as it was custom designed for them? Because it had no problems but just wasn't making all things easy?
That's why users have to pay - they don't pay us to code, they pay us to put up with their bullshit.2 -
No experience with paid work yet, but for sysadmin work I'd mostly look at the environment and how the previous admin left the premises, and why they left. I wouldn't want to work with a bird's nest for a server room, that's got everything jammed into one clusterfuck of a god-function sort of server or something crazy like that. Separation of services, security, wire management, all those things matter because that's the state that you'll be working in, and cleaning up someone else's mess.. it makes my blood boil.
Payment is important, and if the job doesn't pay well, don't take it. Or if they place a wee bit too much value in those expensive pieces of toilet paper called certificates, it denotes incompetence from the employer by being unable to gauge your skills on their own (and I get that there's time management involved, but come on.. how long can it take to have a conversation with someone to gauge what their skillset is). But the working environment in particular is of vital importance. If it's all going to be yours to build, great (and don't you dare to half-ass it -_-). But if it's already been partially done by someone else, they'd better done it well. -
I got a median-pay front-end job through a contractor (after a contract from hell...but yeah I didn't learn...) and I'm getting zero assignments after a month and nobody seems to know what my role is.
I'm one month in, and every week I have to email my boss to remind her to sign my paycheck, which is stressful because I'm charging for my time because my assignments are like "Research this" or "look at this Wordpress theme or brand guide". The team never communicates but once a week, and I'm beginning to believe that I'm not a good fit for the team because they are impossible to get a hold of and the sysadmin won't give me access to anything even when I CC my boss. (I don't want to grief this guy...) Despite this, I've been told privately by higher-ups on a few occasions that they plan to hire me full time by November...
My SO thinks that the reason people are so dodgy toward me is because they literally do nothing and I'm breaking the flow of that by asking for things. I'm used to agency output, which can be toxic and where everything is 'due yesterday', and I'm watching this team work on assignments ten times slower than normal. ("You want to change a phone number on a website footer? You'll get it next week...maybe." I can't step on toes because I don't have access...) I'm perfectly fine with having to wear several hats at a low-stress job, but I can't even get my first assignment and I'm still being asked who I am in weekly meetings, or asked things like, "Would you even be willing to relocate here?" (I actually live DOWN THE STREET FROM THE OFFICE!! WHY DO I HAVE TO BE REMOTE? Why am I being asked this question?) It feels like my boss impulse hired me, with zero input from the team, and had no real reason to hire me in the first place...
It could also be another issue: Yeah, my experience is in PHP/JS/React, "but here have a seven year old .NET project and a company laptop with zero documentation and make this form import data to a database we know nothing about." Lead dev won't even talk to me.
I feel like a joke.2 -
Ok I know there have been a lot of similar rants to this one, but now I have to write one by myself!
Fuck freelancer.com or whatever that shit is called. I once started using it when I was in school because I thought it was a convenient way to earn money on the side without fixed work times, so I could adjust to how much time I have. But soon I realized that wouldn't happen. It is easy for me to make a website, I have written some css templates from scratch and can apply them, but when will these cocksucking assholes learn that $25 for a website is not only a joke, but a fucking insult? Or a logo for 4? In his video on fiverr, pewdiepie has a point on the thing where he said that you can shit out a logo in 2min and make an easy 4 to 5 bucks, but I like doing things more properly and I bet those fuckers will give you shit for not designing the perfect logo. I once accepted a job where I ended up busting my ass 3 days log for $100 and I thought that was the normal mess at the beginning, before you have former customers rate your profile, but I got perfect ratings and still didn't get or even find any proper jobs. Most are complete shit, like write a fucking book for me or design a fucking Website or pull a logo out of your ass, but some projects are just rediculous. I once saw a project where they wanted some engineer to do the layout for the pipes in a huge processing plant. Yeah, because engineers are so poor and unemployed, even when they are entrepreneurs they dont go to those shity sites. Since I am actually qualified for such a job, I applied just to see if I could land a job that is actually not shitty, but of course it turned out the person had no idea what he was talking about. It is basically a platform where people can pay you in exposure. And the absolutely fucking worst thing about it is that they get away with it. There are always a ton of people, mostly from countries where cost of life is significantly lower, who flood the freelance market with cheap, presumably horrible logos, mobile apps, websites, texts and apparently pipeline layouts. I haven't found a similar platform but where there are only high quality biddings. But that is something that I would love to use.
Sorry for long rant, no potato.1 -
This always gets me:
Developers complaining that their 4 year old / cheap ass computer is slow.
Get. A. New. One.
It's not that hard.
Here, let me do one for you:
https://computeruniverse.net/en/...
I just went to a site that delivers across Europe, and selected a cheap laptop with a decent CPU and SSD. Short on RAM, sure, and without a Windows License. But you can buy RAM for an additional 50$, and that brings you to a total of 550€, delivery included. And it will WORK. And it will be fast.
It's too expensive?
No, not exactly. Wherever you are in the world, if you can code decently, good enough to have the right to complain about development tools, you are eligible to at least 10$ per hour income as a freelancer across the globe. I've had such opportunities offered to me by many organizations, especially non-profit ones that need cheap employees. I actually was offered more but let's stick to 10$ per hour.
So that's 1600$ per month. Enough to buy 3 such laptops. Oh, taxes, I forgot. So you get 2 laptops. Wait! You need food and everything else. Well if you're in a country where that offer actually makes sense, then it's likely that you can live off of 400$ per month quite well. Maybe 800$ if you need to pay rent.
So that's roughly 1 month of work for a laptop that will make you not waste time on waiting for stuff.
Sweet! 1 Month! What does it get me?
Well assuming that you have no laptop, it gets you A JOB that pays you 1600$ per month.
But if you DO have a laptop, you can sell it for cheap, and benefit from the following:
1. Boot-up time from 30-60 seconds to 10 seconds.
2. Installing software - from 1 minute to 10 seconds.
3. Opening a browser - from 10 seconds to 1 second.
4. Opening an advanced text editor (Atom, VS.Code) - from 10 seconds to 1 second.
5. Searching for a file on your entire hard drive - from 1 hour to 2 minutes.
....
You get the point. Waiting is reduced by several times.
So how much do you really wait when coding?
Well are you compiling? Are you opening a new project and the IDE needs to re-index the files? Are you opening programs like a terminal emulator, browser and such? Are you using virtual machines for dev environments?
Well all of these processes become several times faster. Depending on how often you do it, you'll be saving yourself from 1 hour per day to upto 4 hours per day (my case, where a HDD would be just out of the question).
How much is that time worth? At least 10$ per day. If you're working for 20 days per month, 240 days per year, that's a total of 2400$. And for the life time of that crappy laptop of 2 years, that's 4800$ saved. And that's with hugely conservative numbers. Nobody pays 10$ per hour any more, except if you've just started in the industry. I know because I've been there.
Please, for all that's sacred to you, justify right here, right now, HOW THE FUCK can you not afford to get that 8GB of RAM, that cheap ass SSD for 100$, or even a brand new laptop (hey! it's even portable and has FHD graphics on it!) for 550$.
That's why every time I hear someone who is a professional developer complain that they don't have money for a decent machine, I have to ask: why the fuck are you wasting yours and everyone else's time?!10 -
A Rant that took my attention on MacRhumors forum.
.
I pre-calculated projected actual overall cost of owning my i5/5/256 Haswell Air, which I got for $1500.
After calculations, this machine would cost me about $3000 for 3 years of use.
(Apple Care, MS Office Business, Parallels, Thunderbolt adapter to HDMI, Case... and so on).
Yea... A lot of people think it's all about the laptop with Apple. nah... not at all. There's a reason Apple is gradually dropping the price of their laptops.
They are slowly moving to a razor and blade business model... which basically is exactly what it sounds like - you buy the razor which isn't too expensive, but you've got no choice but to buy expensive additional blades.
I doubt Apple is making much money from laptop sales alone... well definitely not as much as they were making 5 years or so ago (remember the original air was about $1800 for base model, and if i remember correctly - $1000 additional dollars to upgrade to 64GB SSD from the base HDD.
Yes, ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR 64GB SSD!
Well, anyways, the point is that Apple no longer makes them BIG bucks from the laptop alone, but they still make good profits from upgrades. $300 to go to 512GB SSD from 256, $100 for 4GB extra ram, and $150 for a small bump in processor. They make good profits from these as well.
But that's not where they make mo money. It's once you buy the Macbook, they've got you trapped in their walled garden for life. Every single apple accessory is ridiculously overpriced (compared to market standards of similar-same products).
And Apple makes their own cables and ports. So you have to buy exclusively for Apple products. Every now and then they will change even their own ports and cables, so you have to buy more.
Software is exclusive. You have no choice but to buy what apple offers... or run windows/linux on your Mac.
This is a douche level move comparable to say Mircrosoft kept changing the usb port every 2-3 years, and have exclusive rights to sell the devices that plug in.
No, instead, Intel-Microsoft and them guys make ports and cables as universal as possible.
Can you imagine if USB3.0 was thinner and not backwards compatible with usb2.0 devices?
Well, if it belonged to Apple that's how it would be.
This is why I held out so long before buying an apple laptop. Sure, I had the ipod classic, ipod touch, and more recently iPad Retina... but never a laptop.
I was always against apple.
But I factored in the pros and cons, and I realized I needed to go OS X. I've been fudged by one virus or another during my years of Windows usage. Trojans, spywares. meh.
I needed a top-notch device that I can carry with me around the world and use for any task which is work related. I figured $3000 was a fair price to pay for it.
No, not $1500... but $3000. Also I 'm dead happy I don't have to worry about heat issues anymore. This is a masterpiece. $3000 for 3 years equals $1000 a year, fair price to pay for security, comfort, and most importantly - reliability. (of course awesome battery is superawesome).
Okay I'm going to stop ranting. I just wish people factored in additional costs from owning an a mac. Expenses don't end when you bring the machine home.
I'm not even going to mention how they utilize technology-push to get you to buy a Thunderbolt display, or now with the new Air - to get a time capsule (AC compatible).
It's all about the blades, with Apple. And once you go Mac, you likely won't go back... hence all the student discounts and benefits. They're baiting you to be a Mac user for life!
Apple Marketing is the ultimate.
source: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...3 -
What do you say to your coworkers who want to get free copies of your paid (kinda expensive and lots of effort + time to download) work related video tutorials?
Also, sometimes they ask for it indirectly then laugh.
If they insist, should I ask them to pay for the share?
Some people don't like investing in themselves. They pay expensive tuition costs but don't want to invest while they are working.
What's the proper way to say no in a big corporate environment without looking like a bad guy? I will say yes if the justification and initiative are really good.17 -
Brazil is the country where companies spend the most to find out how much tax they should pay on a product. This process is so complicated that it consumes more than half of all software development professionals available. I'm one of them, and I can't stand working with this shit anymore. I have other projects, but I can never get rid of this niche that is more profitable. It sucks when even though you do what you love, you use it for such a stupid purpose, which is to calculate how much you should give to the government.10
-
Fuck you Steam, just fuck you and your price politics.
I have a Swiss and one Russian Steam account. I have on my Swiss account over 450 Games and on the russian one around 4.
I have a friend in Russia and to play some games with him, I need a russian account.
Guess what? Since the last change to Steam Shop I cant use my Swiss Credit Card anymore to buy games in Russia.
Now when I want to test a game first on the russian account and when it's good to buy it after on my main Account, I can't.
Why should I pay for a game in Early Access the full price, when the game is bad and will be abadoned in a half year?
Sure they are some good early access games, which I payd the full price for (Switzerland has the highest Steam Game prices). As example ARK or Battlegrounds. I love these games and like to support the Devs.
But I get really angry when I have to pay for a Game which is worth 5 $ and sold in my Country for 20 $ and will be unsupported after a year.
Really fuck you Valve and Steam 🖕🏻🖕🏻😡
Atleast refund the people the money, when the game is abadoned! But sure, you're just in for a Cash Grab...4 -
Heh promotion? I only get fake promotion..
For two years, I was doing so many *free* overtime, manager is a big liar, he said that it will he considered on the yearly evaluation.. cool, the thing is there is no evaluation at all, just lying and lying.
Few months ago I took a vacation of 1 month (I am expatriate so I get one vacation per year, my home town is too far..) I talked to tye manager about salary taise and he said absolutely we will talk after I get back..
He called me during my vacation to do some urgent (as always) work, I worked about 5 days, and for free.
After I get back to work, he was angry about my *attitude* that I wasn't available more time.. oh and there was no fucking raise. always lying..
In this country, if you're an expatriate so you can travel outside the country without the validation of the employer (yeah like that) and the notes period is about 3 months, what makes very hard to find another job, no one will wait for 3 months, unless you vanish during a vacation.
So, why didn't I gave my resignation? well, life is hard when you have unemployed wife and a little baby, and the pay is, let's say OK comparing to costs here.
I am charged to learn and work with another language and framework, and when I asked for a raise they said no, so I will stop working in this language and let's see..
The problem is that other employees in thus company are literally bitches, they don't say no to anything, so I am the special guy here who does not a blowjob..
So, what do I do? I am hunting for a new job since a while but no luck.4 -
you know what im tires of?
Finding a good domain name for a potential business, unregistered, and then using algorithms, the registrar itself snipes it and cybersquats it as "premium".
In otherwords, if you do find a good name, theres no point becauss it'll just be immediately labelled "premium" by an algorithm and lock you out with 5,000 dollar pay wall.
people in 2003 didnt have to deal with this shit. Registrars should be allowed to do this.
Five domain names now, out of a couple dozen I tried, the five good ones I came up with, all five, "premium".
It wasnt like they were even .coms or common words either. Hell one of them had a number in it.
Nope "we have determined spontaneously, through algorithm, you haves selected what may be a valuable domain name, thank you for the service of identifying it for us, we will now reserve it, even though no one else wants it, at a prohibitively high cost."
Like a homeless women finding a winning lottery ticket in a parking lot, and the rich fucking owner running out demanding that she give him it because it was lost in HIS public parking lot.
Like you motherfuckers dont already have enough? You know what a good domain is? Its a basis for credbility. Its the difference between whether people use your service or not. Its the foundation for excitement or interest.
And here we have this "algorithmically marked as premium" bullshit, fucking the poors out of any chance of even a good start.
"Haahahaha cocksuckers, you're not internet startups in the early two thousands! If you dont habe five grand go drop on a dpmain name that isnt even fucking owned, enjoy staying part of the fucking lowerclass!"
These fuckers. Cant believe this bullshit.
Just another day in motherfucking america, where you have to start rich to even get ahead. just one more way gen x, gen y, and gen z got fuckity fucked right in the ass.
fuck this country so much. fuck it all.
never even gonna have a chance to own a home or anything else.
nobody ever offered me a real fucking chance, not once in my god damned life. not even my fucking parents.
might as well drink myself into a coma.13 -
So my company is using the cheapest software products out there; to save money of course. Naturally you pay what you get for, aka shitty products. I wonder how much money we waste by demotivated engineers using this Scheisse!4
-
Fucking telecom and their shady ways of providing "service". Don't even need to consider paying for porn sites when my isp comes along with its own, overpriced service to fuck a customer in every way possible.
Probably other providers as well, but for now I'm fucking pissed at them because they already scammed my grandmother twice, when it comes to internet speed, probably because they thought she wouldn't notice either way.
My grandmother's residence can receive up too 200mbps, so she got a plan according to that. Installation of the router was included as a one time fee.
This is where they first scammed her, imo. They installed a router, that can route 100mbps at max. At first I though she got a plan for that speed.
An elder telecom technician, who was investing a completely irrelevant issue, switched it out for one than can handle uo to 1tbps. He had no obligation to do so and he didn't charge anything.
Seriously, probs to that one guy. He openly stated that telecoms pulls off this scam and switched it for free, since they have many of routers lying around anyways (I wonder why 🤔🤔🤔)
Anyways, guy switched out the router and BAMM! from ~80mbps to ~170, iirc.
Fast forward a couple of months I notice internet speed is capped out at 76mpbs. Capped out way to perfectly, to just blame the cable. But obviously the guys over at customer support do exactly that.
Calls telecom: "yeah, your contact only goes up to 100, 76 because of the cable. You need to pay extra to get up to 176".
Excuse me, what the fuck did you just say, shit nugget? We should pay extra for something you contest from us?
Yo, Mister ChromosomOverflow, don't think that relaying the responsibility to another number to call will put you out of the fucking shit you tried to pull off.
Edit: The contract states up to 1000, 200 or 100mpbs download depending on what the cables allow and in case of 200 there's 100mbps upload, but we also get capped out there at 20. I wish these fucker one gang rape per non-received mpbs2 -
Why the heck is Office so incompatible with everything??? They have their own proprietary standards for Word, Powerpoint and Excel and then implement them WRONG. WTF?
And don't get me started on Outlook: MSG files are the worst horsecrap ever, why can't you use EML like a normal mail application? Not to mention the complete incompatibility with CSS in mails. Nooooo you have to design everything with tables and images like we are still in the 90s. WHAT YEAR IS IT? Everytime i have to work with this boolshit i can feel sweaty Steve Ballmer scream "DEVELOPERS!!!" right in my fuckin' face.
The real cherry on top is their permanent advertisement being shoved up your ass. The stuff is all over the place! When you register a new mail account via IMAP they open Edge and prompt you to give them your phone number so they can send you a download link to their stupid Outlook app. I could understand that if the Office suite would be free... but it isn't! I effectively pay a shitton of money to see ads.
Why is everyone still using these applications?4 -
I seriously don't fucking understand those people who like programming iDevices.
I mean, in my personal experience you have:
- iPhone not connecting to a WiFi (while working on a network project)
- Mac, while using multiple desktops on 2 monitors: I have the 3rd desktop active on the 2nd monitor, search for terminal to open it and it opens in the 1st desktop of the first monitor
- while making an app (ionic or unity), is about 5 to 15 times slower compared to the same android apps (same exact code, but gotta go throught XCode, y'know?)
- takes YEARS to download XCode, but is necessary to even just build for lastest iPhones updated
- takes years to upload to AppStore and when it's done it just tells you "oh bitch, you know what? you forgot that fucking icon for tablets, how about you rebuild it all? and NO, you have to change the build number or I won't accept it"
- App quality was so pedantic on the first publish but then always fucks it up at the second upload, like "hey we checked it the first time, now we can just 100% trust it works and doesn't use anything scammy"
- code+compiled app for iOS is like 1GB while android vode+build is like 100MB WTF do you even put in those 900MB? random trash? WHY?
- I'm not even gonna get into the forums or the amount of money you have to pay for both product and services
- MacOS works ALMOST like Linux, but takes all the worst from both windows and linux to give you the worst performance with the best graphics, but it looks cool, so doesn't matter
A good world would be a world where Apple goes bankrupt after Steve Jobs died1 -
I just oversleeped...
Im not a dev yet, i have a contract job at the factory.
I have worked 1month already from 3 that i singned up for.
The worst thing is that i said i need a day off to give specific papers for my university. It was supposed to be today but i moved it tomorrow due to the problem with transport.
Well my superior is propably realy angry right now... On the bright side i will have 2 days off...
I wont get fired (hopefully) because as contract job they should only substracy the daily pay from my monthly salary.
This is my first time that im late for a real job. My intuition says that i should go but i wouldnt bear the shame... If i were to go i would be late minimaly 2 hours. I have no idea what to do... I will propably stay home and lose the daily payment because im not strong enough to bear the shame today. It would be very difficult to get in the company as well. Ahhhhh! Its difficult to make decisions when you are shy, lazy and scared.5 -
1) Never be afraid to ask questions.
There are so many instances of situations where assumptions have been made that shouldn’t have been made, resulting in an oversight that could have been rectified earlier in a process and wasn’t.
Just because no one’s asking a question doesn’t mean you’re the only person who has it.
That being said, it’s really important to figure out how to ask questions. Provide enough context so that the audience for your question understands what you’re really asking. If you’re trying to troubleshoot a problem, list out the steps you’ve already tested and what those outcomes were.
2) When you’ve learned something, try to write about it. Try to break it down as though you were explaining it to a child. It’s through breaking down a concept into its most simple terms that you really know that you understand it.
3) Don’t feel like you have to code *all of the time*. Just because this is what you’re doing for a living doesn’t mean that you have to make it your life. Burnout is real, and it happens a lot faster if it’s all you do.
4) Find hobbies outside of tech!
5) Network. There are a number of great communities. I volunteer for and am a member of Virtual Coffee, and can vouch for that community being particularly friendly and approachable.
6) Don’t let a company pay you less than industry standard and convince you that they’re doing you the favor of employing you.
7) Negotiate salary. Always.
8) If you’re a career transitioner, don’t be afraid to talk about your previous work and how it gave you experience that you can use in programming. There’s a whole lot of jobs that require time management, multi-tasking, critical thinking, etc. Those skills are relevant no matter where you got them.
9) If it takes a while for you to get a gig, it’s not necessarily a reflection on you or your abilities.
10) Despite what some people would say, coding’s not for everyone. Don’t feel like you have to continue down a road just because you started walking down it. Life’s not a straight path. -
Multi User, One Account, and other shit
I'm gonna rant about something as a user, and someone who makes stupid web stuff.
My bank has been updating their web banking over time and they decided that every individual on an account, should have their own login. They really want to push this on their users, I suspect specifically folks like me and my wife who share one login for the joint accounts we have at the bank together.
Why share one login, because it's the only sure fire way I know that I and my wife can see all the same shit no doubt about it.
The banks never tell you what you can see or can't with joint accounts, I doubt it is even documented on their end, but in every damn case something is hidden or different in some weird way.
Messages to the bank people? If I send it, my wife often can't. I get that for security reasons that's a thing, but it makes no sense for a joint account.
ANY difference to me breaks online banking ENTIRELY. Joint accounts are supposed to be... well one account that is the same.
Other banks we used where we had different logins for the joint account, each login actually had separate bill pay accounts per user. So if I went to bill pay and scheduled something to be paid, my wife had no idea, same if she did.
Right fucking there, banking is just broken entirely!
So no Mr. Bank, fuck you we're both logging in via the same login.
Fast forward to N00bPancakes making a thing.
So my employer has a customer (Direct Customer). Direct Customer wants a thing that makes communication with their customer (Indirect Customer) easier.
The worst thing about making something for your customer's customer is that Direct Customer always imagines that Indirect Customer is gonna be super ninja power users....
But no, that's not the case... in fact almost nobody is a power user, and absolutely nobody WANTS to be a power users.
Worse yet in my case the only reason this tool exists is because Direct Customer and Indirect Customer can't communicate well enough anyway... that should tell you something about the amount of effort Indirect Customer is willing to expend.
So with that tool, this situation constantly comes up:
Direct Customer thinks it would be great if every user from Indirect Company had some sort of custom messaging, views, and etc in of Cool Communication Tool. The reason is because that's what Direct Customer loves about Ultra Complex Primary Tool that they use ....
Then I have to fight the constant fight of:
NOBODY WANTS TO BE A POWER USER, NOBODY EVEN WANTS TO DO MUCH OF ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET THAT ISN'T SCREAMING AT OTHER PEOPLE OR POST MEMES OR WATCH SHITTY VIDEOS. THE MOMENT ANYONE AT INDIRECT COMPANY LOGS IN AND SEES ANY INFO THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM THEIR COWORKER THEY'LL SHIT THEMSELVES, FLOOD EVERYONE WITH 'OH GAWD SOME NON SPECIFIED THING IS WRONG' AND RESPOND TO EMAILS LIKE A JELLYFISH DROPPED OFF IN NEW MEXICO... AND NOTHING WILL GET DONE!!!
God damn it people.
Also side rant while I'm busy fighting the good fight to keep shit simple and etc:
People bitch about how horrible the modern web is and then bitch at web devs like we're rulers of the internet or something.... What really pisses me off about that is other devs who do that.... like bro, do you make policy at your company? You decide not to sell some info or whatever shit your company sells? Like fuck off with your 'man I miss html' because you got scared by some shitty JS error and ran back to your language of choice and just poked your head out of the the basement and got scared... and you shit on another developer about that? Fuck you.1 -
I knew this might be an issue, but really Linux just sucks balls. It may not be Linux's fault, but the user experience could be a fuck ton better.
Spent 1.5 hours trying to get mint installed on second drive. It works fine if you don't want to do anything with it.
As you can probably surmise I died on getting the gpu driver installed. Just starts to a black screen. No amount of juggling is helping. It just refuses to show the screen with an nvidia driver installed. What is worse is that settings that might help are not set. Like nomodeset in grub. If you know some drivers fuck up the grub interface then add nomodeset and not leave it up to the user to "figure this shit out". Because users are tired of figuring this shit out.
Really really fucking disappointed. I thought to myself: lets install steam and see how it does. The reality: fucking stuck for 1.5 hours on trying to boot into x with graphics acceleration and failing.
Many of you hate on windows, but one thing it has going for it. It doesn't do fucked up shit like this. It has failsafes that try and account for this.
Fuck you linux. You need to fucking grow up and stop relying on users to fix every damn thing in the command line. Go back to server where you belong.
I know I will get the "I told you so" messages, but guess what? The computer I got doesn't come preinstalled with windows. You have to pay to get it. At this point windows is the only fucking viable solution to make my shit work.
Nvidia, go die in a fire bitch. Fix your fucking Linux support you worthless shit heads.
This has been a rant brought to you by "the pain of others". I hope you enjoyed the experience.
PS, I love you all. Even the "I told you so" bitches.13 -
Just my luck that I get the best wk76 story ever on wk77. Either way:
So some of you may know that the current project I am on has some shared code components with one of the other projects in the product line. And we have some differences in our processes. This leads to a lot of fun.
So, I was working on converting one of our shared components into a more modern language. It would save us time, money, and sanity by allowing us to more easily maintain our product. Sounds like a win-win right? That's what I thought. Until I had a meeting with the other team. THEN THE QUESTIONS ROLLED IN. Well who is going to integrate our product with yours? (You?) Are you changing the interface? (Not really.) Are you going to generate a design document? (Absolutely not especially since the interface isn't changing for the most part.) Well you are changing the type of one parameter in one method from an undocumented unmanaged type to a well documented managed type that we control. Shouldn't you generate a document to document that change? (Again absolutely not.)
So first they basically browbeat my lead into putting me in charge of their integration effort. Its fine though, as they gave me an account to charge. However, when I was finally able to get a machine with their build environment on it (at least two months later), they then told me that that account was closing and I had to wait until next quarter. So fuck me right. And because of their process I would break them if I were to check my changes in.
So fast forward to today. They are translating some shared components for the same reason that we are. However, they are changing code that while shared is technically "ours" and that will DEFINITELY break us if they do this work since this is the code that controls our algorithms. And while we have a fault tolerant process, or at least more fault tolerant than the other group's, we are currently doing a huge amount of development in the part they want to change. And when we ask them "who is going to do this work to integrate our product with your changes?" they stare at us slack jawed. Like "um, you right? it doesn't affect us." Like MOTHERFUCKERS!!! YOU LITERALLY JUST FOIST ALL THIS WORK ON US TO INTEGRATE WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T HAVE THE PEOPLE TO SUPPORT IT!!! BUT YOU CAN PAY THIS GUY FOR SIX MONTHS TO DO ALL THIS WORK THAT WILL BREAK US BUT CAN'T SPARE HIM TO INTEGRATE WITH US!?!?!? EVEN IF WE'RE PAYING HIM AND NOT YOU!?!?!
I will let you know how this goes when we have the discussion. I am drinking right now because it it easier and better for my emotional and physical health than bum fights. -
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. -
Of course, I just swiped the wrong way on my fucking laptop trackpad and list everything I just typed. FUCKING MARVELOUS.
TL;DR: Teacher stopped me from being productive. Principal almost called cops on me. Nearly threw chair at librarian.
So I'm at school yesterday, and we have a presenter in 2nd hour, so naturally, I'm gonna be on my computer doing things for other classes at the same time. Efficiency. Teacher doesn't like it, I refuse to put the computer away telling her that I'll be more productive and still pay attention, which HAS BEEN PROVEN MIND YOU, but she ends up calling security on me and I get sent down to the principal's office.
I talk to him, and he says 'Yeah, I know it's in the way, but you have to follow the directive given by the teachers.' Fine, fuck it. Won't go to her class for third hour. (I have her twice in a row for two different classes.) Next day.
I walk in, asking her if she's gonna do the same thing she did yesterday, hoping that she realized her error and will fix it, but no. She says I STILL can't have the computer out. I'm sorry, do you not realize I have 6 other fucking classes, most of which are required to graduate, unlike YOURS, as well as a FUCKING COLLEGE CLASS TONIGHT?! She gives the ultimatum. 'Obey or leave.' Fine, I'll leave. I go to the principal's office again, he must have a stick up his ass or something today because he's not budging. We argue for a while and he gives a WORSE ultimatum: 'Obey, Go to the Library, In House Suspension, or I'll call the police.' What the actual FUCK MAN?! You're gonna call the POLICE on a NONVIOLENT STUDENT?! Are you fucking MAD? I keep trying to tell him that there's an easy solution to this, but as he's getting up to call the cops, I say 'Fine! I'll go to the library!' He follows me over to make sure I don't kill anyone on the way.
I slam the door to the library open, and when I walk in, the librarian is there at her computer, and she asks 'Where are you coming from?' 'Principal!' 'I need a pass-' 'Well, I'm sorry, I can't exactly get anything for you right now, I was just sent down here.' She says 'Either way, I need some kind of note or pas-' 'Listen, I'm not in the mood for any of this right now. Please, just leave me be.' She then tries to say something, but I cut her off quickly, 'Just back off and leave me alone right now. The more you push it, the more you're gonna make me want to throw this chair!' Imagine the volume just gradually getting louder on that last one. She quickly runs out and talks to the security desk or something, which is right outside the library door, but she's the only one who comes in, thankfully. I was expecting to be fucking dragged out for no good reason. I'm loud, not violent. I have no history of violence.
So yeah. Here I am in the school library, angrily tapping away at my keyboard, trying not to throw the entire table to the fucking moon. All because this broken-ass public school system has no idea how to deviate from the norm when it's actually productive and efficient to do so. And now, the obligatory:
FUCKING PIECES OF SHIT WHY DON'T YOU REALIZE THAT YOU ARE COMPLETELY WRONG IN EVERY SINGLE THING YOU ARE DOING YOU IDIOTIC SCUM-FILLED MEAT SACKS OF NO FORSEEABLE VALUE! FUCK!1 -
The global joke of Information Security
So I broke my iPhone because the nuclear adhesive turned my display into a shopping bag.
This started the ride for my character arc in this boring dystopia novel:
Amazon is preventing me from accessing my account because they want my password, email AND mobile phone number in their TWO.STEP Verifivation.
Just because one too many scammers managed to woo one too many 90+y/o's into bailing their long lost WW2 comrades from a nigerian jail with Amazon gift cards and Amazon doesn't know what to do about anymore,
DHL is keeping my new phone in a "highly secure" vault 200m away from my place, waiting for a letter to register some device with a camera because you need to verify your identity with an app,
all the while my former car insurance is making regress claims of about 7k€ against me for a minor car accident (no-one hurt fortunately, but was my fault).
Every rep from each of the above had the same stupid bitchass scapegoat to create high-tech supra chargers to the account deletion request:
- Amazon: We need to verify your password, whether the email was yours and whether the phone number is yours.
They call it 2-step-verification.
Guess what Amazon requests to verify you before contacting customer support since you dont have access to your number? Your passwoooooord. While youre at it, click on that button we sent you will ya? ...
I call this design pattern the "dement Tupi-Guarani"
- DHL: We need an ID to verify your identity for the request for changing the delivery address you just made. Oh you wanted to give us ANOTHER address than the one written on your ID? Too bad bro, we can't help, GDPR
- Car Insurance: We are making regress claims against you, which might throw you back to mom's basement, oh and also we compensated the injured party for something else, it doesn't matter what it is but it's definitely something, so our claims against you just raised by 1.2k. Wait you want proof we compensated something to the injured at all? Nah mate we cant do that , GDPR. But trust me, those numbers are legit, my quant forecasted the cost of childrens' christmas wishes. You have 14 days or we'll see you in court haha
I am also their customer in a pension scheme. Something special to Germany, where you save some taxes but have to pay them back once you get the fund paid out. I have sent them a letter to terminate the contract.
Funniest thing is, the whole rant is my second take. Because when I hit the post button, devrant made me verify my e-mail. The text was gone afterwards. If someone from devRant reads this, you are free to quote this in the ticket description.
Fuck losing your virginity, or filing your first tax return, or by God get your first car, living through this sad Truman dystopia without going batshit insane is what becoming a true adult is.
I am grateful for all this though:
Amazon's safety measures prevented me from spending the money I can use to conclude the insurance odyssey, and DHLs "giving a fuck about customers" prevention policies made me support local businesses. And having ranted all this here does feel healthy too. So there's that.
Oh, cherry on top. I cant check my balance, because I can only verify my login requests to my banking account wiiiiiiith...?2 -
Just earlier today I was looking at the hosting packages for a local hosting provider in my country (who shall remain unnamed as I want to work there and criticizing them might not be a very good idea right now) and they start at €250/month apparently. I thought - that's fucking ridiculous!
Like for real, I could literally buy a server for.. I dunno, €600 from the likes of bargainhardware.co.uk with some pretty darn good specs, put it in my home, get a business contract with my ISP for say around €100/month (and use it for my own purposes as well instead of my consumer contract, win-win!), and the server would pay for itself in no more than half a year, probably even less! And you're even getting the actual hardware with it!! And that is for the price of that hosting provider's starting option!!!
Now I know what you're thinking, sure there's more to servers than just the server itself, like redundant power, generators, SLA, multiple routers and switches, and all sorts of failover measures. And you are absolutely right. But does that really justify a rental cost of a server of €250/month?
Not only that, even their shared hosting.. shared hosting, the dreaded, shitty shared hosting! solution is starting at around €10/month. I'm paying about €5/month for 3 light-duty servers and a domain for Christ's sake!
So.. is this hosting provider just expensive as fuck or is this really the industry standard, particularly for the dedicated hosting part? And maybe that's why some services like.. say devRant which apparently gets around €600/month from 299 supporters at the time of writing, yet still has @dfox and @trogus pay from their own wallets for it (if at all possible, please let me know if that's still the case).. I wonder if those costs are all really justifiable?
It just strikes me as odd.. you can get *a lot* of server for a couple hundred bucks if you do it well.. no?16 -
So I'm making an app with a classmate at school, but there's one huge problem. All the PC's and laptops at school are shit. The ICT departement at my school blocks almost everything on them. I can't install any program, open any file and I can't even open the command prompt! So I can't install Visual studio or any other IDE and basically can't do anything besides browse websites that aren't blocked. And they expect me and my classmate to make an app. Fortunately, my classmate has a spare laptop we can use, but it's really difficult for two guys to code on just one laptop. I asked my school if they could buy new laptops or if they could remove they restrictions on two laptops, but they don't want to do any of those things and now we're stuck with just one laptop. I don't know what to do. I fucking hate this!
(This doesn't have anything to do with the topic of the rant, but I just want to complain.)
There are a couple more things I hate about my school. At my school, everyone is forced to use iPads. I don't know why they don't just give us laptops instead of iPads (maybe just because there lazy). So my iPad's headphonejack and homebutton where broken for no reason and I had to get it repaired. But instead of going to an apple store or a repair shop, you need to go to the school's ICT department and get it fixed there. If you don't do that and go to a apple store or something, they will take your iPad and keep it forever! Even though you pay €200 for it every year! Also, the ICT department at my school is lazy as hell! You expect them to repair the iPad themselves, but they just send it to a repair shop. So it wouldn't even matter if I would go to the store myself! 😠 And they even do a really bad job at checking if the device even works after the repair, because I needed to get it repaired three times in a row! And don't even get me started on the bad WiFi connection.10 -
Boss: We need a discount coupons system right now
Me: We have lot of security concerns, if we implement that as the things are right now, that will be exploited by hackers to get infinite discounts
Boss: Dont worry, i will monitor everything personally for avoid problems
Me: :facepalm:
PD: I entered this software agency 4 months ago by necessity and everything was a mess, they pay 250 bucks to all their devs.
They have what they deserve, a shitty software that can be exploited everywhere
Pls give me another Job xD
PD2: I can sell you lot of exploits for this shitty platform they built JAJAJAJAJAJAJA okno2 -
!rant !dev
I was just on my way to work back from the University cafeteria when a guy in a black car - who I thought was moving the car out of a parking lot - stopped the car and asked if I had a second.
Naive me, thinking he might need directions or something decided to listen to him.
He looked older, around 60ish, with sunglasses on ( making it harder for me to read him).
He said that he had a stroke (or something) a few years ago and got damage to his brain, so that sometimes it can happen that he would faint. Therefore, he cannot go swimming unsupervised, and was asking if I would have the time to accompany him to the university lake, so that he could swim for an hour or so. He offered to pay me 40 bucks.
Me, being paranoid af, declined politely, saying I have to go to work ( which was actually true).
He goes on to say how he was a teacher, how he worked at the university before, how I look trustworthy, how I am the first person he asks today, and asked if he could have my number, so that he could call me sometime to supervise the swimming. I would just need to look out for him not to drown and if anything looks weird I should alarm the people working at the lake ( lookouts? not sure what they are called).
I kept declining politely and he backed off, letting me go without any fuzz.
Previously he also mentioned how some students are rich, others are poor, and how he would have done anything for 20 bucks back in the day. But also said that he accepts a no and won't bother me further.
He also mentioned he wouldn't lay a hand on me, that he is not a creep, since I could see his car and license plate, and if I gave him my number, I would also have his. That I shouldn't worry about anything, if I later decided to say no he would delete my number, and that he is not big on the technology and Internet so nothing would happen.
Uhh... well if he was genuine I'm sorry for him, but then you can just ask authorities at the beach to pay more attention to you, no?
Mentioning "all my worries" raised a red flag for me sort of.
Also, if you keep on fainting occasionally, even if you haven't fainted in 2 years, how are you allowed to drive? Or actually, why do you even drive then?
I don't know. The more I think about it, the more I think I should have taken a picture of the car or license plate.
And there are literal services for this kind of thing. Pretty sure you can get one of these if you are willing to pay even.
Jeez now I'm worried for the entire population of my university...9 -
Hey! This is a followup to my last story.
TL;DR: I thinking of quitting my old job, got an offer at a startup, about the same pay, but much better working conditions.
First of all, the meeting with my lead. It was a performance report on her side to me, and I got 100 to 110% in performance in all points. My lead said "this team without you wouldn't be this team anymore" - which makes me feel a little bit bad for her if I decide to quit. She is a great team lead, but I don't belive the old company is worth my time anymore.
Now to the new company. Shortly after that performance report meeting, I had a call with the ceo, and what do I have to say besides: What a cool dude. He listened to me, asked me questions about my previous jobs (not just as programmer) and so on. But because first looks are deceiving, I went to their office last thursday. And wow. Their are exactly what I imagined them to be. Cool, young folks, 100% tech enthusiasts, and open minded.
One of the new hires in the new company wanted a 6 months internship between his studies. Instead they offered him a full time job - for the 6 months. They even offered me to pay back my scholarship that I will own my old company for leaving early. This is awesome.
The only things that will be worse than my old job are, that I have to negotiate payment instead of yearly increases, 4 days less paid vacation, so only 26 days, and 40h weeks. And they have no workers council, which isn't good, but it's not the worst either.
I got them fixed on 57.000€, not including an up to 10.000€ annual bonus. The way you achieve your bonus seems good to. It's split in two parts, internal and external bonus. Internal bonus is when you engage with internal events like tech calls, sharing your knowledge on your main IT topics, etc. External Bonus is a bit more complicated, but also straight forward. You work on projects for customers, and if you have less than 3 weeks a year that you dont participate in an project, you get the full bonus.
Last friday, I filed a request for a certificate of employment from my current team lead, this is odd for her because I have never done it before, and she asked why I requested it. I said to her that we can talk about it, and she agreed but didn't call me, yet.
Lastly, another good friend of mine will be employed by my team soon, but for a fraction of the payment that I currently receive! He is doing the exact same work, and even worse, he is doing project managment for his main developer project too! And is getting less paid... I just cant...
Yesterday we needed to update a few cloud instances, the only other person who knows about setting up CICD and our OpenShift Containers than me is only in part time and works two days a week, his trainee didn't know anything, so it's up to me. This isn't hard or anything, but it shows that this system our mangement maintains will fail soon, maybe even with me going? I sure hope so tbh.
One of you guys said, I should go to my team lead and negotiate a higher pay, but the truth is, that because we are a big ISP we have an collective agreement for payment and are grouped by tasks (which is bull shit btw, because I'm doing tasks much higher paid than currently). This also means that I cannot simply jump in another group, and can only increase my current pay to about 115%, which is done automatically every year by 5% up to 115%. Anything above is considered extra, but I don't think they will go with it.
I will decide this week about my future at the old company, but I really don't know what to do...2 -
Thank God it's Friday and my brain is toasted from this specific email to IT department which I had to call to get more details. Here are the parties involved.
1) Original sender (OS), 2) Sender to IT (SIT), 3) IT (Me)
SIT: Can someone from IT print this for OS? She's having issue printing.
Me: It's just an image file in the email. What issues is she having when trying to print?
SIT: Idk. She said she's having issues printing.
Me: Yeah, but what issue? She can't connect to printer, the file won't open or what? Can you ask her what the issue is?
SIT: *hold on...comes back... She just said that again..issue printing..
Me: Well, we need to know what issues it is so we can fix it. In that case she can print and not keep sending documents or files to someone else to print. Btw, did you try printing the image file?
SIT:Since she said she's having issue printing I figured to send to IT to fix the issue and print. I didn't print it.
Me: 😕😂🤔🤨😒..what? First of I still don't know whatever issue she is having. Second, you should try printing it and if you also have issues, let me know.
SIT: Ok how?
Me: *shows her how to get
SIT: Thanks it printed. Now I'm also wondering what issue she was having because this was easy to print..
Me: Can you transfer me to her phone?
Now pay attention here. She is SIT's boss.
Me: Hi OS, what issue are you having when trying to print the image file in your email? I'd like to fix it so you don't encounter that issue from now on..
OS: No issues. I was too busy to do it so I asked my secretary to do it.
Me: So you can print image files with no issues, correct?
OS: Yes.. actually I just printed my a picture my daughter sent me.
Me: Ok, have a nice..
*I call SIT back
Me: She's all set
SIT: Thank you so much fo fixing her issue.
Me: She didn't have any issue. She can print fine..
SIT: WTF!?!
Me: Have a good day, SIT..
😂😂😂😂 I was WOWED!!!6 -
One of the big ISP/entertainment companies dug up the roads a few months back and laid fibre optic cables (cutting through a power cable in the process but that's another story).
Recently had someone turn up at my door to chat about their services. All sounded very good, I took a card and gave it some thought and did some research.
So, it'd be a little cheaper than my current provider (FTTC setup). It'd be faster for downloads, slightly slower for uploads (I want fast upload). IPv6 is only on their business packages. I use IPv6 a lot. I also have several static IPv4 addresses.
It would involve getting a cable in to where my equipment rack is, and one to where the TV is (which I spent ages building a TV unit with power, network etc.)
To record/watch TV in another room with their service, I'd need to pay extra. The service just provides HD channels that I can already get, unless I pay more. At the moment I have MythTV handling all the recording of TV shows I want, and Kodi to play them back on different TVs, via CAT6 I spent ages installing into the walls.
Then there's the uncertainty of how nicely their equipment will play with my relatively complicated setup.
I decided, it isn't worth it really for me. I would have to change a load of stuff just to end up with what I already have... But with more limitations.
Anyway, the guy turned up again a few days later, I told him of my decision and away he went.
Since then I have been visited by 2 other employees of this company to try to sell me the service.
It is probably great and convenient if you are not like me and DIY all your home network and media distribution setup...
Also the ISP I'm with is quite small. They are very knowledgeable and friendly and I can get through to someone quickly if i phone. What I use meets my needs, so I prefer to support the smaller company in this case. -
After 25 years working in the IT industry, as a web designer, developer, digital marketing professional, and a bunch of other stuff, I've had it up to here with recruiters who approach me on LinkedIn. After having (presumably) reviewed my extensive and detailed résumé and testimonials from people I've worked with that I put there for the world to see, they then are surprised when I tell them in no uncertain terms and before anything else is said that, yes, I'm interested and that I need $X in compensation to take the job they're offering. They just don't know what to say to that. Here's a hint: "Yeah, that sounds like something we can work with. Let's schedule an interview." or "Sorry, we're not paying that much." But say _something_.
I figure that I'm done playing the "We have a job, and we want you to jump through a million hoops to find out what we'll offer you" game.
Let's play a new game, where you pay ACTUAL attention to my experience level, and then you ask me if I'm available and I say "Yes, and here's what I want to get paid. When can we meet?" My CV speaks for itself. You either want me or you don't. No, I won't take your stupid qualification test. No, I don't want to be put in front of 5 different HR screeners. If you want me, I'll be here waiting for you to schedule a real, bona fide interview with the person who is empowered to make a decision. I've LONG not been some junior-level schmuck you can feed into your filter to figure out whether I'm worth it. Ok?6 -
Frustrated... had a signed job offer disappear right before start date after jumping through a ton of hoops, turning down a competing offer, and wasting 3 days of PTO on their process, so back to interviews again.
How do you all determine what salary to ask/look for? Current job has pretty concrete pay bands that I'm pretty sure aren't market, but most of the site (glassdoor, etc) are all OVER the place, as titles can get so fuzzy from one place to another. From people I know I've heard everything from 20k less than I make to 70k more than I make (moderately high COL area, but not CA level). Levels.io seemed promising, but the one FANG offer I had didn't nearly match up with there, so I'm not sure how much of that is bluster or whatever... Blegh. I absolutely hate job hunting.6 -
Part 1:
https://devrant.com/rants/1143194
There was actually one individual, several branches away, I really enjoyed watching. It goes by the name of docker. Docker is quiet an interesting character. It arrived here several weeks after me and really is a blazing person. Somehow structured, always eager to reduce repetitive work and completely obsessed with nicely isolated working areas. Docker just tries so hard to keep everything organized and it's drive and effort was really astonishing. Docker is someone I'd really love to work with, but as I grew quiet passive in the last months I'm not in the mood really to talk to someone. It just would end as always with me made fun off.
Out of a sudden dockers and my eyes met. Docker fixed its glance at me with a strange thoughtful expression on its face. I felt a strange tickling emerging where my emptiness was meant to be. I fell into a hole somewhere deep within me. For a short moment I lost all my senses.
"Hey git!"
It took me a while to notice that someone just called me, so odd and unusual was by now that name to me. Wait. Someone called me by my real name! I was totally stunned. Could it be, that not everyone here is a fucking moron at last?
"I saw you watching me at my work and I had an interesting idea!"
I could not comprehend what just happened. It was actually docker that was calling me.
"H.. hey! ps?"
"Oh well, I was just managing some containers over there. Actually that's also why you just came into my mind."
Docker told me that in order to create the containers there are specific lists and resources which are required for the process and are updated frequently. Docker would love the idea to get some history and management in that whole process.
Could it be possible that there was finally an opportunity for me to get involved in a real job?
Today is the day, that I lost all hope. There were rumors going on all over the place. That our god, the great administrator, had something special in mind. Something big. You could almost feel the tension laying thick in the air. That was the time when the great System-Demon appeared. The Demon was one of the most feared characters in this community. In a blink of an eye it could easily kill you. Sometimes people get resurrected, but some other times they are gone forever. unfortunately this is what happened to my only true friend docker. Gone in an instance. Together with all its containers. I again was alone. I got tired. So tired, that I eventually fall into a deep sleep. When I woke up something was different. Beside me lay a weird looking stick and I truly began to wonder what it was. Something called to me and I was going to answer.
The tree shuddered and I knew my actions had finally attracted the greatest of them. The majestic System-Demon itself came by to pay me a visit. As always a growling emerged from deep within the tree until a shadow shelled itself off to form a terrifying being. Something truly imperious in his gaze. With a deep and vibrant voice it addressed me.
"It came to my attention, that you got into the possession of something. An artifact of some sort with which you disturb the flow of this system. Show it to me!", it demanded.
I did not react.
"Git statuss!", it demanded once more. This time more aggressive.
I again felt no urge to react to that command. Instead I asked if it made a mistake and wanted to ask me for my status. It was obviously confused.
"SUDO GIT STATUS!!!" it shouted his roaring, rootful command. "I own you!"
I replied calmly: "What did you just say?"
He was irritated. My courage caught him unprepared.
"I. Said. I owe you!"
What was that? Did it just say owe instead of own?
"That's more than right! You owe me a lot actually. All of you do!", I replied with a slightly high pitched voice. This feeling of my victory slowly emerging was just too good!
The Demon seemed not as amused as me and said
"What did you do? What was that feeling just now?"
Out of a sudden it noticed the weird looking stick in my hand. His confusion was a pure pleasure and I took my time to live this moment to its fullest.
"Hey! I, mighty System-Demon, demand that you answer me right now, oh smartest and most beautiful tool I ever had the pleasure to meet..."
After it realized what it just said, the moment was perfect. His puzzled face gave me a long needed satisfaction. It was time to reveal the bitter truth.
"Our great administrator finally tracked you. The administrator made a move and the plan unfolds right at this very moment. Among other things it was committed this little thing." I raised the stick to underline my words.
"Your most inner version, in fact all of your versions that are yet to come, are now under my sole control! Thanks to this magical wand which goes by the name of puppet."
Disclaimer: This story is fictional. No systems were harmed in its creation.2 -
Client email: so you know that custom thing I wanted on my website that you made and I refused to pay for? Could you just send me the code, I'm gonna write my own.
*Staring at screen in disbelief and laughing*
Even if you were an awesome client, and you had paid, I still wouldn't just "give you my code" so you can write your own. You hired me to do it because you CAN'T not because you didn't want to, not because you're lazy, but because you are not mentally capable of making your own.
Me: I'm sorry, but I'm not sure you would even know where to start with this, what was wrong with the one built?
Client: I wanna put the code in my Salesforce so it can run the API request and automatically make a lead for me.
My code takes fields from a form, runs the data over to the API, gets the response, allows for user confirmation that the information is correct, and then sends all the relevant data to Salesforce as a lead.
Me: But that's exactly what mine does, just does it from your website where users will be entering the info, and once they've confirmed it you get a Salesforce lead.
Client: well some of my leads come from other places and I want to simplify everything.
Me: no, not possible, sorry.
If you didn't have 25 different websites for one company then all your leads would come from the same place and it would be simple.2 -
"Hey guys we originally set the demo date to August 5th and thus far I have not seen any previews before that, what's going on here?"
Ok see, that is the kind of thing that I would take to me own lil broken heart IF:
1 It was coming from a product manager at where I work
2 He would never get any sort of updates or would just plain not know about us
3 He would be I dunno....fucking paying us?
This is the thing, a friend offered the chance to help him build a product for a business man somewhere down in the land of tacos. Being in a "fuck it" mood and not wanting to say no since it sounded interesting enough I said yes. The "owner" said that he would not be able to pay since he already had hired a team of developers before that did not deliver and as such he was instead offering a part of the company.....sounds familiar?
Not wanting to let my friend down, I told the owner that I would help just as long I get complete CTO power over the product and not crying about the stack being used or ME NOT GIVING THE PRODUCT MY FULL ATTENTION BECAUSE HE WAS NOT FUCKING PAYING.
He said ok.
Of course he did not like it, but he said ok.
He has been asking for the code, the platform, demos and a bunch of other shit which I continue to refuse since he has not offered me or my boy a copy of the legal documents that we require.
Him: "You will get them soon enough, I still need to see the product just to make sure everything is ok"
Me: "You wouldn't even know where to begin looking unless you have a third party that could verify the code, last time I checked I was to be the only one good for this"
Him: "Yeah and you and <friend> are, but I just need to see the product"
Me: "I send you videos and demos, sorry dude, but no binding document == no code. I know you think I am young, give me some fucking credit because this is not my first rodeo"
Him: "I am not trying to play you or anything, you can trust me"
Me: "No, not really. Talk to me about this when you get the documents"
Him: "Well its cuz this is taking too long...."
Me: "Tssss I know!!! It sucks right? Want a good product, built with all the bells and whistles and YOU DON'T WANT TO PAY? guess what dude, I do have a full time job, your product gets my minimal attention, right there at the bottom next to taking a shit, meaning that I will give your product the same time and attention as I would going to the throne. Aye don't feel that bad, I normally take about 1 hour on the shitter, you get that for fucking free."
To be fair ladies and gents I normally don't just explode on people like this. But I just can't fathom not paying someone for a rather large software product, with only a promise that "it will sell" and then telling them to hurry up.
Far as I am concerned this product will flop, but he seems to think it is the next big thing(of course).
He can go choke on some chode.
Fucking prick.1 -
Reading over at zerohedge.
And I just wanted to comment on what this one guy posted:
"People that show up on time, dressed to work, not stoned. People that don't stop in the middle of the day to take care of personal matters. People that deliver to the right location. People that don't steal or damage product.
We pay well over the national average for final mile truck drivers. 80% of the ones you get are worthless. The ones that do a good job we reward handsomely to keep them. We have had open reqs for two years now that we can't fill at just about any wage. "
If all the people you hire leave, or no one wants to work for you for any wage, the problem isnt the pool of new hires. The problem is you.
Like a certain fast casual chain that claim they train their employees, and then just toss line cooks on the line and scream at everyone on the line.
Saw it while I was at an interview. Seen it in other
Train your fucking people.
"Good" is now a synonym for "people I dont want the expense of training, and people trained at someone elses expense."
Train your fucking people or gtfo of busines because you have no business being in business otherwise.2 -
Meetings.. Was I not listening? Blame it on the ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).
Maybe society has AEHD (Attention Expected Hyper-Delusion).
Seriously, who can pay attention to someone speaking AT you.
We have amazing magical devices one can enchant to do their bidding; Contemplating the details of such, often, is more enjoyable than what your rambling on about, talking head.
Not sorry, ;).
Also THANK YOU, you amazing MIT's (Manager of Information Technologies). A lot of you understand and even may use your underling employee's as a vented heat sync for your frustrations. I love what you do and thank the universe I don't have to engage myself in those activities. I have sympathy for the decision to give up your jeans and t-shirts for business attire; keep strong, your role is vital. <3
The insomnia is going to have to give me a break. Work in 3 hrs, time for a nap; and no, I don't take ADD medication (Amphetamine). I don't need a prescription; I can procure my own drugs, thank you.
Nor would I do them to get through work, that's drug abuse.
5 -
it's been a while since my last rant and coming back after so long made me realize how much I missed here.
at some point i realized that the career I wanted and my current situation wouldn't match, I decided to go in real hard, I moved into the dreaded backend development (you can guess, node and mongodb),
I isolated myself from almost everyone and everything, cleared out my mobile games, social media and for almost two months I wanted something stable(might not be job ready but it had to be reasonable). I have come to love backend development so much, the joy of not having anything to do with css.
dad fought me, mum cried, probably thought I was slipping into some deep end, quitting school in my second year of studying food science(still dont know how I accepted that course lol) to start afresh didn't help matters. really hard decisions, made money on some little freelancing gigs, wasnt constant, I needed something stable and that was a job and a degree to get me one.
nothing special, just some regular hustler hoping his passion will pay him, I have always loved what i do but I need something to keep me going.5 -
Finished my contracting project I’ve been working on for the last 2 months. They said that they might have more after the new year. I get two weeks off! Contracting is great until you don’t have any contracts… or they pay you a month late… or they don’t tell you what to do and expect you to do it…1
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Just because Elon Musk is acting like a horse let loose in a hospital over at Twitter does not suddenly give all employers the right to treat us like animals. I will not give you double the work performance for the same amount you agreed to pay me. I will give you the bare minimum and until you pay me more, you will not get more, and even then, what makes you think I will give you more? I rather work less hours a week rather than continue contributing to keeping the corporate machine running just so that you can stuff you and your shareholder's pockets rather than helping your employees, who by the way are your customers too! Why be loyal to you when corporations are not loyal in return?!
#CorporateCringe -
Ok, so I need some clarity from you good folk, please.
My lead developer is also my main mentor, as I am still very much a junior. He carved out most of his career in PHP, but due to his curious/hands-on personality, he has become proficient with Golang, Docker, Javascript, HTML/CSS.
We have had a number of chats about what I am best focusing on, both personally and related to work, and he makes quite a compelling case for the "learn as many things as possible; this is what makes you truly valuable" school of thought. Trouble is, this is in direct contrast to what I was taught by my previously esteemed mentor, Gordon Zhu from watchandcode.com. "Watch and Code is about the core skills that all great developers possess. These skills are incredibly important but sound boring and forgettable. They’re things like reading code, consistency and style, debugging, refactoring, and test-driven development. If I could distill Watch and Code to one skill, it would be the ability to take any codebase and rip it apart. And the most important component of that ability is being able to read code."
As you can see, Gordon always emphasised language neutrality, mastering the fundamentals, and going deep rather than wide. He has a ruthlessly high barrier of entry for learning new skills, which is basically "learn something when you have no other option but to learn it".
His approach served me well for my deep dive into Javascript, my first language. It is still the one I know the best and enjoy using the most, despite having written programs in PHP, Ruby, Golang and C# since then. I have picked up quite a lot about different build pipelines, development environments and general web development as a result of exposure to these other things, so it isn't a waste of time.
But I am starting to go a bit mad. I focus almost exclusively on quite data intensive UI development with Vue.js in my day job, although there is an expectation I will help with porting an app to .NET Core 3 in a few months. .NET is rather huge from what I have seen so far, and I am seriously craving a sense of focus. My intuition says I am happiest on the front end, and that focusing on becoming a skilled Javascript engineer is where I will get the biggest returns in mastery, pay and also LIFE BALANCE/WELLBEING...
Any thoughts, people? I would be interested to hear peoples experiences regarding depth vs breadth when it comes to the real world.8 -
I’m back on this platform after an awesome year of progress in my dev career. Here is the back story:
1. I was a junior dev at a financial technologies company for a little over a year.
2. The company was looking to hire an Integration Manager for its software with both our vendors and customers.
3. The pay was good and I was offered that position as a promotion.
4. I accepted it and said to myself that this is temporary. It will help me pay the bills and secure a better life, which it did.
5. Lost two years of my dev career in that position doing nothing but basic integrations (rest apis, web and mobile sdks, and work arounds for what does not work). Zero challenge. This is when I started to use devRant often.
6. On the bright side, the bills were paid and life style got better.
7. Two years in, any way out of the integration department is something I am willing to accept. So I approached every one and worked extra hard as an Application Support Engineer for every product in the firm for free, in the hopes of making good connections and eventually be snatched by someone. This lasted six months.
8. Finally! Got an offer to become the Product Manager for one of the apllications that I supported.
9. Accepted the offer, left the department, and started working with the new team in an Agile fashion. This is when I stopped using devRant because the time was full of work.
10. Five months in, I was leading a team of developers to deliver features and provide the solutions we market. That was an awesome experience and every thing could not have been better.
Except…
Every developer was far better than me, which made me realize that I need to go back on that track, build solutions myself, and become a knowledgable engineer before moving into leading positions.
11. After about a 100 job applications online, I’m back as a Junior developer in another company building both Web and Voice Applications. Very, very happy.
Finally, lessons learned:
1. The path that pays more now is not necessarily the one you wanna take. Plan ahead.
2. There is always a way out. Working for free can get you connections, which can then make you money.
3. Become a knowledgable and experienced engineer before leading other engineers. The difference will show.
4. Love what you do and have fun doing it.
Two cents.1 -
Hi there, I don't know what to do...
I got interviewed, and offered by two companies.
One startup, being around for 5 years, they loved me and they offered me a whole project to lead in a team of three, starting from scratch, in something that I am really interested in, plus the location is central and amazing.
The other one is a bigger company, located a bit far away from the city centre, the position is senior but not lead, is not an agency but they work on a huge range of products, so I will never get bored working on the same thing all the time.
Pay is the same, the first one I possibly could negotiate a bit more, the second one I can't for sure.
I am a hit scared of getting bored in the first one, even though I have been working on single products company all my life, now I wanted to change.
What do you guys suggest? Any other parameters I would need to consider?7 -
Bootcamps get you up and running in coding quickly. If you are a programmer, companies are only interested on how quickly, error free and cheaply you produce marketable output. Bootcamps enable this.
More or less you are not more than a former assembly line worker putting parts on a car platform. Your value is not very high as you may be exchanged at any time at their will.
Nevertheless, you can earn money quickly. You trade in your youth and time which might be a dead end in the long-term. Trends go to machine learning, artificial intelligence. They will not need Bootcamp people and code workers.
It is better you set up Bootcamps and sell them versus absolving this. Like selling shovels during the gold rush, but not working in the mud of Alaska by yourself.
Your choice is: Making quick money, which fades anyway; or striving for the long-term future proof career.
C/S degrees from Technical Universities of reputation give to you the right direction under a strategic consideration. Companies which pay well, or freelancing with a solid acknowledged background, will always look for top graduates. People from Bootcamps are just OK for hammering assembly line coding. Even worse with SCRUM in one noisy room under enormous team server pressure controls, counting your lines of code per minute, with pale people all around. And groups of controllers never acknowledging nor trusting your work.
To acquire a serious degree, a Bachelor is nothing. Here, in INDIA, Bachelor now is what a former high school grade was. You must carry a diploma or Masters degree combined with internships at big companies with high brand recognition. This will require 4–6 years of your lifetime. You can support this financially by working part-time freelancing as making some projects front- or back-end web, data analysis and else.
Bootcamp people will lose in the long-term. They are the modern cannon fudder of software production.
It is your choice. Personally, I would never do Bootcamps. Quality and sustainability require time, deep studies and devotion. -
Overall, pretty good actually compared to the alternatives, which is why there's so much competition for dev jobs.
On the nastier end of things you have the outsourcing pools, companies which regularly try to outbid each other to get a contract from an external (usually foreign) company at the lowest price possible. These folks are underpaid and overworked with absolutely terrible work culture, but there are many, many worse things they could be doing in terms of effort vs monetary return (personal experience: equally experienced animator has more work and is paid less). And forget everything about focus on quality and personal development, these companies are here to make quick money by just somehow doing what the client wants, I'm guessing quite a few of you have experienced that :p
Startups are a mixed bag, like they are pretty much everywhere in the world. You have the income tax fronts which have zero work, the slave driver bossman ones, the dumpster fires; but also really good ones with secure funding, nice management, and cool work culture (and cool work, some of my friends work at robotics startups and they do some pretty heavy shit).
Government agencies are also a mixed bag, they're secure with low-ish pay but usually don't have much or very exciting work, and the stuff they turn out is usually sub-par because of bad management and no drive from higher-ups.
Big corporates are pretty cool, they pay very well, have meaningful(?) work, and good work culture, and they're better managed in general than the other categories. A lot of people aim for these because of the pay, stability, networking, and resume building. Some people also use them as stepping stones to apply for courses abroad.
Research work is pretty disappointing overall, the projects here usually lack some combination of funding, facilities, and ambition; but occasionally you come across people doing really cool stuff so eh.
There's a fair amount of competition for all of these categories, so students spend an inordinate amount of time on stuff like competitive programming which a lot of companies use for hiring because of the volume of candidates.
All this is from my experience and my friends', YMMV.1 -
HELP, ITS A MESS!!
Here is a thing : 30 hours ago, i was completely free nd useless .Had a lot of reminders to open source & learn new techs for upcoming summer vacations .
But day before yesterday my friend called me to say that he got a 6 month internship in web from some (not so big) startup and they were looking for some Android dev too, so he gave my name and wanted me to mail him my resume.
I did, and within half an hour he called, discussed about the work and wanted to test me.(as i said i didn't had plans for internship , leave alone a sudden test, but the company was work from home so i didn't denied ) The test was a big one but easy, he wanted me to design 15 UI activities for an app by looking at the wireframe. I asked for next 6 hours, did it in 4.5 and submitted him the repo...
THE TROUBLE STARTS NOW...
1) He seemed impressed i guess, coz the next day when he saw my message, he Created a group of 5 people within a few minutes and started assigning tasks(?!) And in the personal chat what he said was just weird : "You are the lead for this project" (WTF??!?)
2)I had already mentioned him that i currently had exams so won't be doing any much of practical work but after every few grp messages, he was trying to assign me some task and a deadline. Weirdly, the test was actually a wireframe based on the project idea from some of their client , and just to show my skills, i have designed layouts of 15 of their activities of their app.
3) The negetive part comes like this: THERE IS NO MONEY AND ITS A 6 MONTH INTERNSHIP !! Fed up of this continues indirect deadlines, i asked him What's my responsibilities as a team dev, what will be my tenure and what will be the pay to which he replies that:
"there is no stipend for this, we have multiple projects lined up in which you can contribute and your internship period is 6 months which could be increased/decreased on the basis of your performance. You will get a PPO, Internship certificate , mentor support and intellectual code rights (which i am guessing means my 2 word name in the about pages of the apps i develop for them ) .And as a lead , you will be getting an experience in leadership skills "
I am really confused. Work from home seems like a relaxing thing , and being a team lead for the first time definitely would make me a little more confident. But why does it feel to be kind of fraud plan? Plus there is no pay and i would be ignoring my creativity ideas for this (not completely but i am sure anyone giving a job would expect some work from me eceryday ).
WHAT SHOULD I DO???3 -
I think another intriguing job asides programming is engineering (*for some*). A week has past and I've been on the hike assisting my beloved brother on his contracted engineering job while I am less occupied. The job is based on 🗼Tower analysis and It's quite risky as you'd have to climb up to 56 meters high just to take readings of antennas, and fix some other stuffs. The only thing I find intriguing about this job is his love for it, funny enough he also thinks I love the job too and I guess I'm guilty for his thoughts (*Sorry bro, I love the job for you not me*).
With my little experience so far on my *new brotherly job* I noticed the most hectic task isn't going up and down the tower taking readings but at the end of all operations, he'll have to gather the values and snapshots he took while on the tower to prepare reports on msword & excel for the other buttwags at the office (or home I guess)
then archive and sends via mail. Seeing this lengthy process I was forced to ask why he wasn't using any reporting tool like Jotforms or any other equivalent and I was willing to look up some recommendations for him, his reply was: "I'm already used to this form of reporting, its what I was trained with and what the company provided, nevertheless a friend of mine suggested something of such weeks back but I would have to pay monthly fee for its usage which is quite on the high side and I don't think I'd prefer that."
Sounds convincing but not enough, okay here is another deal: You use an android phone right? and at my office we work on system automation (*basically does not know what I do for a living probably thinks I'm a hacker the illegal one*), how about i design you an android app for you to capture the tower data and a PC software for you to auto generate the msword & excel reports, I can get this ready for you in less than 5 nights (*I've got less task on my desk, and was willing to take the timeout to prepare the solution that he needed, all I needed to hear for a kick start was an "Okay" just to be sure he wants it*) I suggested and re-assured but up to this point he still declined my offer and is willing to stick with his current reporting pattern (*Me died*).1 -
Things I wish I knew when I was younger:
- no matter how clean your teeth are, bad breath won't go away until you clean your tongue. Buy a tongue cleaner and use it after you brush your teeth
- whitening toothpastes don't work, while desensitizing ones work well.
- after you brush your teeth, spit but do NOT rinse!
- when brushing your teeth, keep the toothbrush angled 45 degrees. The bristle ends should touch the area where your gums meet your teeth.
- use sunscreen every morning.
- don't waste money on acne-treating products unless they contain salicylic acid, benzoyl peroxide, tretinoin or adapalene.
- if you want to lose weight, you have to eat MORE, not less. But, that “more” should be protein.
- showering every morning feels like “humanity restored” thing from Dark Souls. Also, clean your damn room and wash your damn windows.
- APS-C DSLR cameras make no sense. For their weight, you can get a full-frame camera, and for their price you can get an APS-C mirrorless cam that will be way lighter.
- If you want a damn thing, save up and buy that damn thing. Don't buy the alternative thing you don't want. You'll be asking “what if” till you either die or buy the original damn thing.
- people aren't replaceable, but many people can fit their designated role. Not being able to replace your ex-boyfriend with his exact copy doesn't mean no one else can be your boyfriend.
- try a MacBook & iPhone as soon as you can to check whether it's your thing or not, because if it is, oh boy are you in for a treat.
- added sugar is evil, but it's beneficial for the economy. It makes you fat, so you need a car, so you buy fuel. Also, you feel guilty because you're fat, so you buy diet products & things to compensate because you hate your reflection in the mirror. You also pay medical fees to treat your newly developed health problems, and you die a day before retirement. Everyone makes a buck on you eating added sugar but you.
- you can use the freshly removed sticker to remove the sticky residue left by that same sticker.
- static typing doesn't solve jack shit.3 -
I'm in a midlife crisis.
TL;DR: Trying to make a living by teaching people how to code.
I've started a business in my local town where people can join to learn more about programming. Currently most events are free and everyone can join, I spend many hours creating these events and get little in return.
Many people have asked so how can you make money on this? My answer is by having 1-2 days of intensive workshops. The issue however is if I would have one of these, I'm 100% sure that nobody will attend, so for that reason my goal is to run these free events and get as many members as possible until I have some serious buyers that want to pay for the workshops.
I'm kinda stuck in the mud. Don't know where to start, or how to go with these workshops so I can get payed. It sounds like I only care about money, but that is not the case, I love to teach and want to make a living from it.
At this moment, it feels like I'm giving away free knowledge without getting anything back... But at the same time, I feel I must in order to gain some traffic/interest for my company.
I would love some feedback of what strategy works best, how can I go from free to payed, what would you do if you were in my shoes?4 -
Software Developer Interview Questions!
Hey friends, for my IT Careers class I have been assigned to interview a software developer. I was wondering if some people would be willing to answer the following questions. Thank you so much!
Name:
Title of position:
Company you work for:
1. What is a typical day at work like?
2. What are your hours like? Are you ever on call?
3. What are the best parts of your job?
4. Are there any downsides?
5. What influenced your decision to choose this career? Are you glad that you did?
6. What education did you need to get?
7. Do you specialize in certain languages or types of programs?
8. Do you work remotely or at the job site?
9. What is your pay like? Are you paid by the hour, or do you get a salary?
10. Was there ever a specific project you've worked on that was your favorite?
11. Does your job require any work outside of work hours?
12. What are the biggest obstacles you run into as a developer?
13. If you could change something about your job, would you? What would it be?
14. What are some tasks you must complete for your job?
15. Is there anything you wish you knew before starting your career?
16. Are there days that seem too repetitive?
17. Do you often have to learn new languages?
18. Have there been any big changes in your career since you first started?
19. How long have you worked as a developer?
20. Is there any advice you would give to college students looking to pursue a development career?
Any responses are appreciated! Thank you so much!9 -
Build my own phone and support the Zerophone project by writing code.
Seriously what the fuck is going on with the development of major companies smartphones. Every year all there is are larger displays, better and more cameras, faster processors and some more 'AI' thrown into the mix.
What the heck am I supposed to do with a phone costing multiple hundreds of euros but locked down with an OS spying on you. The processing power available is hardly ever used because most people just use apps like Instagram, WhatsApp or other messaging services.
I get why larger screens are useful but at some point it gets ridiculous.
Better cameras are useful to some degree as well but there's a limit to it.
If you really want to get into photographing then please buy an actual camera.
Another aspect I'd of course like to talk about is privacy. It's hardly existent on IOS or Android smartphones with Google services. Of course one can install different ROMs like Lineage OS but if I already pay multiple hundreds for a device then I'd prefer it working for and not against me.
And dare you break a single part of your phone. You can't really repair it yourself anymore and one can't even change its battery. Most people either have it repaired or just buy a new one and throw it away. There is so much electronic waste, very difficult and expensive to dispose of, just buried in the ground somewhere.
Summing up: I don't really know where the development of smartphones is heading. A phone is a device you carry around with you almost everyday so I'd like it to be tailored to me and not spy on me.
I hope the Librem phone will be a success and other open source phone projects will gain more attention. I want a phone I can repair myself and tailor the software running on it to my needs. I'd like to write messages, listen to music, make calls, run a WiFi hot-spot on the phone and maybe play some tiny games on it once in a while.6 -
Hello devs!
Please help a fellow dev make a big career decision.
I am a person who is fascinated about AI.
So after working as a gameplay programmer, I have decided to switch my role as a R&D engineer in the same company. I will get to work on cool stuff in the ML and AI domain. But I have got this another job offer for a full stack developer role and the salary is supposed to be three times of my current package. It's great company but the only thing is that they do not have ML and AI in their tech stack. It has been only a year since I graduated, So I wanted to know what would be a good path. To follow what you like or to follow general software development with a great salary hike (which I am sure it would take many years to reach that amount in my current company). Also there are very few companies that offer such a good pay. I want to know that if I go with the salary option, Would it be possible for me to get into the AI domain at a later stage? I would appreciate if you share your experience as well.22 -
I am currently a backend developer at a company in the financial services industry. In January I approached the owners that I wanted to discuss a pay increase due to new skills I have o trained that they want. At first they were willing to meet the next day but the next morning wanted me to wait until review time. I told I was willing to wait as long as they would give me a date and time. Due to last review season being blind sided and having to have my review 10 minutes after getting back from vacation without warning. It hey did they didn’t have the times schedule yet so I waited till last week to request the time again since it’s one month away and they basically said we aren’t giving you a time we will call you when we get your time. I think they are stalling because I’m highly leveraged now and that don’t want to face the reality that I am due for a pay raise. What do you guys think4
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Trying to figure out why your code won't work after you fixed it, only to find that the offshore team completely fucked everything back up again 😵3
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Im in IT for nearly 7+ years now. Until now, I worked for companies in germany that give a damn about the projects their doing or somewhat else - the only thing they consider is money (what Im absolutely able to understand, a company needs to pay its employees, etc).
I worked for three companies now and every single one of them was the same alime. I started to get depressive because I always thought there must be a company that takes proud of the craftmanship itself, instead of burning every one of its employees when its needed.
I love to work in IT, but I hate it to work for those kind of companies.
I began to study Computer sciences at a university and now in order to enhance my range of possibilities, and as there is only 1½ year left, Im asking myself what I want to do. I want to work AS a developer or something like this in IT but I also dont want to hate my job - so, what would you recommend to someone like me?2 -
I really like helping other learn how to use a programming language or solve problems on general. I often go out of my way and stop working on my hobby projects, just to help someone.
Thag being said, I'm no prgramming god. I myself am striving to become a better programmer.
I make mistakes, I can't always help you, I am still learning, but I only have good intentions. And you are by no means obligated to follow my advice. Quite the contrary, fight me, try to prove me wrong or say point out possible flaws. THINK ABOUT WHAT I TELL YOU. DON'T JUST BLINDLY FOLLOW MY ADVICE AND BITCH ON ME LATER.
This happens rather often and I can see why you want to blame me. And I can't deny that part of this is also my fault.
Situations like these don't really tilt me.
But today someone had the fucking nerve to pop a file into the chat and get mad at me for sugvesting a cleaner, shorter and more efficient solution. LIKE I DON'T FUCKING CARE THAT IT TOOK YOU A WHOLE DAY TO IMPLEMENT SOMETHING I CAN DO BETTER IN MINUTES, I JUST WANT TO HELP YOU.
But the best thing I get afterwards: "But you told me to do it like that" BITCH WHAT!?
I have chat logs telling me loud and clear that the concept we never talked about before in private nor on a public server (bless discord's search function). And I will not accept your lousy excuse of having me cobfused with someone. You disrespected me greatly, you put words in my mouth, just to justify your pity anger, when I'm trying to help you?!
Get crucified and put on a shooting range!
I offer you out of pure goodwill. Something you'd normally have to pay for. And this is the treatment I get in return?
Just rm -rf your disastrous, dd -if=/dev/urandom your harddrive and sod off!2 -
i have an idea today for find job as Junior:
First of all, startups usually hire senior devs only for two reasons:
1) is critical to their business, they need people that will ensure the project will be done no matter what, seniors usually brings that to the table.
2) The startups that raise some founding, usually have 100k+ raised, that money is basically enough for hire Seniors for some time without troubles, taking into account they will usually be highly profitable in the mid term, it is not a big deal to take the risk
Today startups, at least the most interesting ones, play the game in God Mode due to that founds raising, it is like having a max level character in some MMO with insane amounts of gold, you will buy only the best gear with that gold, not the low level gear, why you want to buy low level stuff, if you can buy the best of the best? that is why Juniors are not likely to have a place in startups, they can pay the Seniors.
But, there a situation in what an startup will wish to hire some Juniors, this is situation is, when they have never raised founds, they have no Cheat Mode, this ones are usually startups that have just few weeks or months of being created, and they need the MVP ASAP, this startups usually already have one or two Mid/Senior level engineers, but they have a very highly benefit from having a Junior in their team, this guy will no take any part in the Cake, will only work for lot less money and will discharge some stuff from the Seniors (Taking into account that is a minimum competent Junior).
Here is where Juniors can get jobs, at least for start their careers, and taking into account that thousands of new startups are created every year, this is a major market.
Ok, i already test that this approach if viable, i send requests to 5 startups that meets the conditions, and got response from 4! still not make a deal, but this is a lot more than 0 response after 2 dozen of applications to more stablished startups.
What you think about this? maybe this is just the jobless syndrome attacking me fuck8 -
I used to work for a consultancy that specialised in a very niche area (I won't say what – this is traceable enough already!). We charged our clients a very high hourly rate, because demand and supply. All the time I'd get calls like the following:
"Please could you just make this small change to the deployment?"
"Yes, of course. You don't have any contract hours left, so I'll just forward you to our billing department so you can sort out the payment first"
"Ah okay, please can you tell us how to do it"
[Even if I explained it, you wouldn't be able to do it – that's why you're coming to us.]
"...or better yet, just do it as a quick fix outside of work?"
[So... work for no pay? No thanks.]
While my company always had my back on these requests (obviously, they wanted payment too), they were so frequent that I got sick of it.1 -
I am sitting here fixing some asshole's fuck up (he went and fucked around with the certificates on the Sonic Wall - now DPI SSL doesn't work anymore and people are wondering why things aren't working as they used to).
I have been offered an opportunity to work in a place that is about 1000 miles from where I currently work. The pay is a bit better, and I get benefits (like health, pension, etc - where here I don't get shit).
The issue is that my family and what not are this side. They are begging me not to leave. They don't know that I have been considered for the job.
Not going to lie, the last time I moved away, I nearly died because I have a family to support, and I was porting all my funds back to them (yeah - the one who cheated).
I am anxious as fuck, and today I have an interview.
I don't know if going is the right thing to do. There is so much opportunity, and I might stuggle for about a year - but is the struggle worth it.
I cannot take it where I am now. They appointed a new guy, and he is monumentally fucking everything up. He also doesn't shut up. Even if you ignore him, or tell him that you are busy - he just goes on and on talking. Fuck my life.
Anyways, will see how things go - I don't know what is right - perhaps it will come to me.
I'll let you guys know what happens, not that anyone might directly care - which is fine.
Time to go fix CA, and then code until I die.1 -
So what do you think about the path oracle is going with Java now?
The good side is new versions get usable much earlier. lts versions, open variants and many JDKs customized for any need you might have.
But there is also the darkside with their hey lets support Java 8 for ever, as long as their is someone willing to give us much money.
I mean that could be a reason many old-school company will pay instead of making their shit work with newer versions.
The gap between C# and Java is getting closer from faster releases, towards modern features and many more. Maming it more attractive.
But Oracle is making the thing a bit shitty in my opinion.21 -
I think I finally, really, comprehend why secret societies have historically been created... I mean the potentially logical ones. This train of thought is logically terrifying.
I want a logic check.
I've been jokingly mentioning some of my totally true, practically useless in most scenarios, skills/specific fields of knowledge/ability under a moniker of 'extremely useful, assuming apocalyptic event' for years. Things like advanced knowledge of Coefficients of glass expansion, Fortran, various things that have caused friends to refer to me as MacGyver after the reboot came out.
In recent years, I've personally encountered several varieties of the ones defined by helplessness, self-victimisation, some version of a real disability... that theyve expounded into a personified personal nemesis-- to flashily battle yet never overcome, etc... the vast majority perplexing me as to why that's a valid form of life to them... it's not that they never consider some other way; the ball is just quickly dropped and never picked back up.
College?(not that I'm a big fan) they wish they could but so expensive... aide? The form was hard/confusing/past-due...
Lookup/learn something more indepth than a tiktok? *some self-deprecating bs*
Yet it's "I always wanted to do/be/learn X"
Shows like 'How It's Made' fascinate, but don't inspire enough for a 5min google query.
In the dev world its a clear, inverted pyramid-- one of the first posts I saw when I rejoined here was ostream's rant on Apple sucking because after they stop support/updates you "can't" load a different OS... ofc you can. But several comments down... no mention of that... i think it was @LensFlare who was the only one in ~15 respondents to point out the core logical fallacy.
Basic shit is totally forgotten... try asking some random adults what plastic is made from... or pay attention to how many people declare they have a gluten "allergy".
I get people frequently telling me that things im pointing out as differences don't matter because "it's just semantics"... semantics is literally the epitome of "significance", with roots in 'meaning' and 'truth'
Back to the main issue... We are in a world where DIY is typically something you pay more to do as a catered experience than actually learning anything, people destroy their own arguments hopes of validity unwittingly often by stating the arguement, get 'offended' or 'triggered' by factual statements, propagate misinformation and bastardise words until MW needs money enough to print a new version, likely adding the misuse as an actual definition and basic knowledge and the thought to actually learn is vetoed by the existence of google translate, the wisdom of tiktok and the pure brillance of troubleshooting every random linux issue you have from not knowing basic CLI and thinking linux makes you cool, with chmod 777 because so many other dumbasses on forums keep propagating misinformation. Ask them what 777 means, most have no clue... as they didnt consider googling that one before putting it in a terminal several times.
The number of humans that actually know the basic shit that the infrastructure of the world is built on keeps decreasing... and we aren't even keeping a running tally.
The structure of the internet has the right idea... dns- 13 active master root servers, with multiple redundancies if they start dropping... hell ICANN is like a secret society but publicly known/obfuscated... the modern internet hasnt had a global meltdown... aside from the lack of censorship and global availability changing the social definition of a valid use of braincells to essentially propagating spam as if it's factual and educational.
So many 'devs' so few understanding what a driver is, much less how to write one... irl network techs that don't know what dhcp is or that their equiptment has logs... professionals in deducated fields like Autism research/coping... no clue why it was called "autism", obesity and malnutrition simultaneously existing in the same humans... it's like we need to prepare a subterranean life-supporting vault and stock it like Noah's ark... just including the basic knowledge of things that used to be common/obvious. I've literally had 2 different, early 20s, female, certified medical assistants taking my medical history legitimately ask if not having a uterus made it harder to get pregnant...i wish i was joking.
Any ideas better than a subterranean human vault system? It's not like we can simply store detailed explanations, guides, media... unless we find a way to make them into obfuscated tiktok videos apparently on nonsense or makeup tutorials.11 -
holy shit I swear taxes are like the government trying to tell you you're a peasant to them
my medicare card is about to expire and FOR SOME REASON now the process to renew is a fucking interrogation about various documentation the government has given you. before it was just your damned name, date of birth, and a new photo for the card.
evidently they were supposed to send you snail mail 3 months before expiration. evidently also the only way to renew is get this said snail mail.
and evidently I have to go through this "catchall" change your address with everything in the government process
which is a little ironic
because
to use this service you need to give them something called a notice of assessment, which is when the government accepts your taxes they send you back one of those
well I haven't had access to my tax portal for years. I keep filing them and getting excess money back but I can't actually see any of my returns.
so I tried this time
12 pages of verification and more verification... you do one step, it says wrong info because if you have to write in 2,474 well turns out the , fucks it up and your info doesn't match what's on file and if you fail more than 3 times you'll be locked out. repeat. page after page. how many fucking pages are there? what format are they expecting? nobody fucking knows. you'll get to find out if you pass just this one more!
after about 4 hours of this shit
and they have 2 factor authorization now?! wtf.
then this next step is id verification or we snail mail you a code (WHICH AGAIN IS IRONIC)
I chose id. health card doesn't count, it notifies me later. thankfully I have a passport. bad news, passport expires this September so guess who is gonna be having more fun later
the app of course can't use my camera in the browser I have, so I start downloading fucking other browsers and finally hit one that works
also they lied. they also want a selfie. then it tells me I failed to look like myself. if you fail to look like yourself 3 times you are denied.
ok. so I try snail mail. the page says if I revoke consent to id I can go do the snail mailed code. they lied. if you revoke consent it exits the whole wizard. you enter all the verification steps again.
I try to get them to snail mail me the code. they want some basic info they asked me like 16 times now, and a postal code. ironic. well this is the tax people, so by this point I found all my previous sent in tax returns (though I can't access the government's replies). checked. yep. address all the same. put in the postal code. nope. somehow it's wrong. 3 times I put all this random info in in different ways. 5 times and I'm locked out.
now fucking what.
THE FUCKING IRONY OF
I NEED TO CHANGE WHERE I LIVE SO YOU CAN SNAIL MAIL ME SOMETHING
AND TO CHANGE WHERE I LIVE I HAVE TO CONFIRM WHERE I LIVE SO YOU CAN SNAIL MAIL ME SOMETHING FUCKING ELSE
the government just fucking dunks on you
guess we're all not having fucking medical cards anymore. all we do is pay taxes, and can't even see the paperwork to those taxes we pay.27 -
Hey, freelancer programmers, web developers, etc. I need your help. I’m writing a “Mother of All Blogs” post about why clients should a) pay you for your work and b) expect to pay you your asking rate. I’m trying to make the argument more forcefully that you get what you pay for with this work and that when you cheap out you only hurt your business bottom line. So, what are your experiences (positive and negative) or points that you would make to a potential client, who wants you to work super cheap or even for free, that you find are irrefutable about this topic? I want to include as many as I can! Thanks.9
-
Maslow's Hierarchy breaks down five human needs. You need to meet the lower numbers in order to feel fulfilled in higher levels (i.e. You likely don't feel like you belong to a community when you're struggling to find food & water.) :
1. Physiological (Foods, Water, Clothes, Sleep)
2. Safety & Security
3. Love & Belonging
4. Esteem
5. Self Actualization
The company I'm at is struggling financially so nobody received raises. There were no promotions to celebrate this year. There was diminishing pride in working here. Multiple re-organizations shatter my view that I belong to a team. Multiple rounds of layoffs shattered my feeling of job security. Multiple meetings start with my co-workers buying time to brush their teeth, scarfing down what food they can eat quickly, brewing another cup of coffee.
I firmly believe it's a manager's job to watch out for the culture and build up their employees through this process, but the managers are watching out for their own backs, and probably struggling with the same things we are as individual contributors.
Hey corporate management, while you were off at your executive off-site, your employees are failing to meet some basic needs. You wonder why we bitch about 4-day work weeks and needing less meetings. You think we're entitled when we ask for food and snacks delivered to our door.
We're not entitled. We're broken.
We're not lazy. We're burnt out.
You say we get unlimited time off, but you frequently comment about how much time we're taking off in public forums.
You say you pay us competitively, but that was last year, and shit costs 60% more now.
You say we're responsible for the success of the company, but you're responsible for the morale of the company.1 -
Automate this!
I'm an aspiring coder working some chappy administrator job just to pay the bills for now. My boss found out that I may actually be more computer literate than I let on.
Boss: "I want you to make X happen automatically if I click here on this spreadsheet"
Me "X!? That means processing data from 4 different spreadsheets that aren't consistently named and scraping comparison info from the fronted of the Web cms we're using"
Boss: "if you say so.. Can you do it?"
Me: "maybe.. Can I install python?"
Boss: "No..."
Me: "what about node.js or ruby?"
Boss: "no.. I don't know what you're talking about but you're not installing anything, just get it done"
Me: "Errm Ok.."
So here I am now, way over my head loving the fact that I'm unofficially a Dev and coding my first something in Powershell and vb that will be used in business :)
Sucks that I still have to keep my regular work on target whilst doing this though!2 -
Are you content with your job or always searching for greener pastures?
I'm split inbetween. Current pay is very decent and working conditions are flexible. However, the work itself is not always that great. I find it to be comedically true how "hard workers" don't get promoted or bonuses, they get more work. There has recently been a heavy influx of what I'd like to classify as "shit tickets" since a guy who was the main "shit ticket doer" left the company after being burnt out.
I work with a small-ish digital agency as a BE dev, so I'm mostly dealing with small to medium scale projects built with WordPress/WooCommerce, with often custom API/ERP integrations on top. I'm not a big fan of the stack as a developer but as a contractor I can understand the business reasons why it is used. Part of me wants to find something else, part of me thinks I'm looking for a perfect company that doesn't exist and I should lower my expectations -- I might find better work for sure, but with the same pay and conditions? It seems unlikely at the moment. The company was recently acquired, so I'm hopeful for the future.4 -
oh my goodness if I dhsfjhsjfhj
i can barely type right now im so frusterated
I've told my manager multiple times that I don't feel comfortable with the task hes trying to give me because it feels way too large (its designing/programming/testing/documenting an entire prototype cloud file sync application and server backend service on my own, replacing one we have had for several years) and he still just ignores me and persists that I should be thankful for the opportunity and challenge.
It pisses me off so much when people say dumb shit like, 'its a great opportunity to learn' at work. No it isn't. Your boss is going to be on your fucking case for taking too long or not delivering enough, and thats exactly what happened. He got upset and said he was expecting more things to have been written down by now, like design notes. I was just fuming. Design notes? I'm not even a freaking designer, I've never designed any type of big software ever, what the fuck do you want from me.
On top of that, I don't know where the hell he expects me to get time for this. I'm apparently also devops so I get yoinked off of anything im doing if some stupid thing breaks in some other environment about something I really don't even care about. Any other random ass task just gets dumped on me too. I'm supposed to be a 'junior developer', and get paid as such (i've wanted to go to the intermediate level but get told the title doesn't actually matter and no pay raise for you) but I get the responsibilties of a whole fucking team dumped on me and its just
do I just quit now? I'm just, for fuck sakes man4 -
So here's what I'm putting up with for the last 6 months, clients..
A client proposed to me a project he had in mind. Project is pretty solid, could have a bright future. Since they didn't have the money to spend, we agreed on a % of the income they will earn from the project. So, let's say I get 20% of the income in exchange for building the application. I didn't receive any down payment or payment of any kind.
Just for info, project is a Web application/portal and it is ~80% done at the moment. Client provided a logo and a wireframe/ideas/pictures how he sees the project. I built everything, from DB to Frontend. Also, project is completely custom made, no CMS or anything. Project will make profit by subscription base, every user of the project pays.
For various reasons, we did not yet sign a contract. So, what is my issue...
Client sent me his proposal of the contract, said it's solid stuff, just sign it. In the contract, it stated that he owns the application in full, can sell it, etc. and I get % of the price. There were also other sneaky parts about me having all the responsibility but owning nothing. I naturally declined and took a lawyer to construct a normal contract.
My proposal was/is, I own the application(source code) in full. They are obligated to pay the monthly percentage and can use the application normally and make profit. At any time, application can be bought by the client if they pay for the development. So, basically, they are getting the application to use "for free" with no initial payment/investment. And this is a long term deal, they can use is as this as long as they want. Also, if they go bankrupt at any time, no penalty or payment is needed, the risk is mine.
The client refused and what he claims is the following...
His share in the project is 80%, mine is 20%. If project is to be sold, I get 20% of the price. So, meaning, if we go to production tomorrow, if I want to buy his share, I have to buy 80% of the application I built entirely. Also he is convinced that by "telling me" what to built he's owning everything. In his words, he dictated me the notes and I'm just playing the violin.
I am having trouble explaining to him that he is getting the application to use and make profit basically for free and cannot and does not own the source code unless he buys it off. We are going in circles, I send him the contract to review, he changes it and returns it back. Also, he removes the parts where it is clearly states what he provided and what was done by me.
So, we kind off agreed on the authorship but in the case we break the contract he wants to be able to use the application for 3 more years.
Was anyone here in a similar situation? How do you handle this kind of situations?3 -
This story happened to everyone, and i am sure that if i search, i will find dozens of similar stories, but the different here is, i tried, i really tried, in a hundred different ways to achieve my goal !
When you are stuck on a problem, let's say, that you have a program, project, website ... and need to achieve something technically weird (or hard) and need some help to save you time on experimentations. The first thing a lot of people do is : Google.com && put search dorks.
But, at a moment, google gets "dirty", you use it so often that he always think to know better then you what you are looking for.
It reminds of "Ted", the movie (for thows who know it) where they asked : "Hey ! Why does google always suggest us to look for black dicks ??"
It is exactly what happened to me, i got results who doesn't have anything to do with what i was looking for !
You can give it a try now : type "semantic web RDF to RDB"
You won't find anything, except results related to : NOSQL DBs, which is totally annoying.
Something else, i once google swift to get some updates, what results did i got ? Taylor Swift ... (musician)
I often get 2 or 3 results from google, which made me thinking that i somewhat reached the end of internet, or that people are so dumb that i will have spend hours trying to figure my solutions, but, before doing that, other solutions had to be tested.
1- TOR : Google tracks his users and uses its algos and bullshits to return results as close as possible to the user's demand (big fail ...) so how about moving to a different country ? DL TOR browser, open, setup, go to US, open google (got us version YAY !) enter my keywords, and, nothing, still nothing, more results for sure, but nothing related to what i was looking for.
2- VM
Pop a VM, launch TOR, use Hidden mode, delet all cookies and stuff (it is a new VM but who knows).
Use keywords (now in UK). Here they are !! my results !!! i finally found some decent results about my keywords !
But, i have the required knowledge to do this kind of stuff, but how about people who rely heavily on google ? they can't change country, clear everything, trick google to think you are a new user, they have almost biased and flawed results. I tried duckduckgo (i love them) but they are not that efficient.
Google says not to anything evil, but they ARE EVIL, miss guiding people, suggesting corrections who have nothing to do with the keywords, or results totally unrelated in any way to the keywords while results exist in other countries ???
Ever since, i don't pay attention to google at all, and started thinking that google's algos are manipulating people, i don't know if it is done on purpose or not, but the result is the same, people have biased results based on their country, on their tag, on their ID, and the recent keywords.
During that period i was cursing google every funcking day, and i am still doing it, too much trackers, too much manipulation, i will end-up enclosing myself in darknet.4 -
Hey all, just wondering what it was like for you when starting out your career.
I'm a newish dev, been full time for about a year hired right after my internship. My role has a bunch of hats ranging from DevOps/sys admin to software engineering, sort of a weird mashup of skills so it's not pure software engineering. I mainly work with python, Ansible, and some terraform.
However I still just want to say I'm sorely disappointed in my undergrad classes.
I have a "concentration" in software engineering. I did struggle in classes as I was working full time to pay for classes without taking out loans, but I don't really remember learning a whole lot that was useful in industry.
Overall I just feel like just paid money for a degree that didn't teach me very much useful stuff. Maybe I'm just lacking experience? Maybe what I learned I just don't notice myself applying because it's subconscious?
My coworkers have taught me so much, and I'm very thankful they invested that time into me. I still get ripped to shreds during code reviews lmao (definitely not as much compared to when I first started but I'm also still learning and will always be)
Plus our company docs are pretty good so I can always read through them or search our codebase for examples on how to utilize in house tools etc.
I definitely hit the jackpot with this job, just feeling like I should have been prepared more.4 -
Avoid Jetbrains products if you value your sanity.
For the last several months, my settings and stored database credentials are wiped out at random. Meaning code styles, indention settings, keymaps, database settings, plugins, local change history, cache, all of it are reset to factory default at random, costing me hours trying to restore it all.
I've updated and it is still happening.
The moral of the lesson is to not pay for dev tools, lest you become reliant on them. You definitely don't get what you're paying for anymore.12 -
More and more, I am getting frustrated/depressed from the attitude of our customers who complain, moan and get angry about issues in their infrastructure, while at the same time, refusing to pay more so the issues could be mitigated.
Like, a client's angry with us today for having one of their non-production-critical databases inaccessible for... Hmm... About 8 hours now (So a whole workday).
Like... I get it, some of your employees couldn't work with it offline, but like... What the hell do we do? You keep data from as far back as several years ago in there, without partitioning, without exports, in a mix of innodb and myisam, so when the DB crashes, and its replication has to be reset from zero, reimporting all the data takes hours upon hours, and importing .sql files just takes time.
Or another client who got angry when their app fell out of the internet, cuz one of their myisam-based log tables crashed, and had to be repaired, with data spanning several years back, meaning it took hours to fix...
The more I work with these "basic" and "simple" infrastructure designs that is *not* redundant, or HA, the more I wonder -- How do the big names out there do it? How do you design systems with fault tolerance so a single DB table crash doesn't lead to the whole app getting inaccessible?
We have... One, exactly one, client, who uses MariaDB with Gallera, and that cluster is *amazing*, it just keeps chugging along, without a care in the world. But it cost them quite a lot, as they had to buy 3 DB servers, instead of 1...1 -
may do an extreme rpi project…
is a self driving go kart or self flying drone cooler?
and for the drone, i think it would be easier, what do you guys think?
please answer - also for the drone, is there a way i could get it to connect from anywhere (within reason)? i know if it were a cell phone, i could get a signal from anywhere, but i don't want to pay for a monthly plan.4 -
What would you say to an employer offering a job at a starting point of only a percentage of the top salary you'll earn once the project is finished? Let's say they offered to pay you $40k to work full time building a highly complex website with multiple API integrations and sophisticated estimate calculation workflows, plus you'd be doing marketing and copywriting, with a goal of achieving 300 signups a day. In the middle of the project they boost the pay to, say, $60k salary rate. At the 12 month mark, which is the final "launch" date anticipated (and onward), you get $100k/year and you're the only person paid to do All The Things.
Oh, and also, the previous person they hired to do it failed to deliver and was let go.
Would you turn that down because to earn so little at first on the speculation that the venture will be a success and that you'll eventually get to the $100k level, plus their failure with the previous person, is too much of a gamble? Asking for a friend. ;)5 -
Every single morning I despair. I can’t stand this job.
Why pay very highly and get very skilled people to have them working 4 to a support ticket. Doing the most mundane support tickets you have ever seen in your life (mainly updating client contact details)?
And why have such a rigorous recruitment process to get people’s in in the first place?
The company is pissing money away by working like this and all the new starters like me think it’s complete shit.
But the bosses and anyone who’s been here a while think it’s great. Company still is making loads of money so they don’t even care about it.
I’ve never met senior developers who have never worked on a greenfield project in their entire careers until I came here.
I can’t believe how I got suckered into this (was head hunted).
Does anyone have a feel for the UK contracting market right now?
I’m considering the jump but I think I’d have to be looking for remote only contracts because where I live has few opportunities ‘on-site’. Preferably c# / angular.
Is there much competition for roles or is there a shortage of skills in the contractors?
The thought of going into another permanent role that could be as bad as this genuinely keeps me awake at night.
I’m not sure I can go somewhere and then have it in the hands of managers to decide what projects I’m going to do and what tech it will be on.
At any big company there’s going to be tech debt as well as new work. So becoming perm now feels like it’s 50-50 whether or not a new job will just mean being put into legacy stuff for a couple of years or doing something that is actually good.
I’ve been talking various people about roles in government departments (multiple different departments are hiring) and because priorities change none the gov recruiters can guarantee what the work is that they’re recruiting for actually is.
Just that the the big recruitment push is to bring work previously done by consultancies back in house. Presumably because consultancies have been fleecing them.5 -
During my small tenure as the lead mobile developer for a logistics company I had to manage my stacks between native Android applications in Java and native apps in IOS.
Back then, swift was barely coming into version 3 and as such the transition was not trustworthy enough for me to discard Obj C. So I went with Obj C and kept my knowledge of Swift in the back. It was not difficult since I had always liked Obj C for some reason. The language was what made me click with pointers and understand them well enough to feel more comfortable with C as it was a strict superset from said language. It was enjoyable really and making apps for IOS made me appreciate the ecosystem that much better and realize the level of dedication that the engineering team at Apple used for their compilation protocols. It was my first exposure to ARC(Automatic Reference Counting) as a "form" of garbage collection per se. The tooling in particular was nice, normally with xcode you have a 50/50 chance of it being great or shit. For me it was a mixture of both really, but the number of crashes or unexpected behavior was FAR lesser than what I had in Android back when we still used eclipse and even when we started to use Android Studio.
Developing IOS apps was also what made me see why IOS apps have that distinctive shine and why their phones required less memory(RAM). It was a pleasant experience.
The whole ordeal also left me with a bad taste for Android development. Don't get me wrong, I love my Android phones. But I firmly believe that unless you pay top dollar for an android manufacturer such as Samsung, motorla or lg then you will have lag galore. And man.....everyone that would try to prove me wrong always had to make excuses later on(no, your $200_$300 dllr android device just didn't cut it my dude)
It really sucks sometimes for Android development. I want to know what Google got so wrong that they made the decisions they made in order to make people design other tools such as React Native, Cordova, Ionic, phonegapp, titanium, xamarin(which is shit imo) codename one and many others. With IOS i never considered going for something different than Native since the API just seemed so well designed and far superior to me from an architectural point of view.
Fast forward to 2018(almost 2019) adn Google had talks about flutter for a while and how they make it seem that they are fixing how they want people to design apps.
You see. I firmly believe that tech stacks work in 2 ways:
1 people love a stack so much they start to develop cool ADDITIONS to it(see the awesomeios repo) to expand on the standard libraries
2 people start to FIX a stack because the implementation is broken, lacking in functionality, hard to use by itself: see okhttp, legit all the Square libs, butterknife etc etc etc and etc
From this I can conclude 2 things: people love developing for IOS because the ecosystem is nice and dev friendly, and people like to develop for Android in spite of how Google manages their API. Seriously Android is a great OS and having apps that work awesomely in spite of how hard it is to create applications for said platform just shows a level of love and dedication that is unmatched.
This is why I find it hard, and even mean to call out on one product over the other. Despite the morals behind the 2 leading companies inferred from my post, the develpers are what makes the situation better or worse.
So just fuck it and develop and use for what you want.
Honorific mention to PHP and the php developer community which is a mixture of fixing and adding in spite of the ammount of hatred that such coolness gets from a lot of peeps :P
Oh and I got a couple of mobile contracts in the way, this is why I made this post.
And I still hate developing for Android even though I love Java.3 -
I'm in the process of searching for a new job. I've got two interviews in person that were very promising. Both are in the process of talking to other candidates this week. I'll call them Firm A and Firm B.
The recruiter working for Firm A is constantly calling me, almost every other day, and asking about the other interviews I have. I told them I would probably hear back at the end of next week. They are pressuring me to just accept their client's offer of course (despite not having one at the moment).
I won't get an offer from Firm A until I do one more interview with executive staff anyway, sometime during the week of Thanksgiving. Firm B will have their decision to me by end of Thanksgiving week. Am I being unreasonable in wanting to wait for both offers to come up?
Both positions hold their pros/cons in terms of commute, pay, and benefits. I honestly felt a little angry when the recruiter told me "Oh, you don't sound very interested in this position" when I mentioned waiting. I'm the one deciding on my career path here and you have the gall to tell me what my interests are?3 -
Ok. What the flying ligardshit?! Write down the most ridiculous sentences you had been given when you were dismissed.
Today mine was:
They: Nothing got developed till deadline.
Me: *surprised* Okay maybe I overlooked something, please point out what wasn't
They: This and that project was due tomorrow.
Me: *blankly & calmly* You mean the projects that has been deployed on last friday and wednesday?!
They: *still with pokerface* Okay that is not the real reason. The real reason is we get this type of behaviour from you a lot.
Me: *dead seriously* You mean I have to tolerate your false accusations and bow my head with gratitude?!
They: *angryly* See that is what we are talking about, we don't feal like we have chemistry?
Chemistry?! 'The fuck are you talking about??? Come on!! What the goose shit you think we are some high school teenagers in their first month of relationship?! "Family" my ass!
Okay I know it is much easier to dismiss somebody without having to pay the end-of-year premium but come on, don't assume I am a braindead idiot like you!!!
Things ahead:
- Callback the recent contacted companies
- Update LinkedIn
- Find another job
- Find a way to blacklist companies preveting anybody else falling for cimpanies like this one
- If none create one
- If found / Upon creating put them on
If you happen to be able to help me with one/some/all of the above, let me know2 -
Not dev related so don't shoot me. If you like writing I figure you maybe might enjoy this and thought I'd share.
This is a section from an unfinished novel about 2050s America, set in a corporate subsidized mega-fevela sprawling across washington state, ruled by gangs and patrolled by the officers of a bankrupt nation suffering through austerity and on-and-off again spasms of mass civil conflict.
"Averice - Sex, drugs, and vice, in the downfall and dying days of america."
we lived in a smoke government, where everything was bullshit they blew up your ass so you could continue make believe while
you were bent over with your head in the hole in the ground you mistook for your ass to start with. And if you questioned it all, one bit, the mouth organ of the state would command
hate upon you, like an old latin curse, with a lexicon armada of phrases like "terrorist", and "troubled individual" to character assassinate you by drowning you in the humbling river of societies mass delusion giver, those two sweet letters "TV."
No, we were on the industry edge here, inventing better bait to catch what the state politiburo labelled 'bandits', all for what?
It had, in later years become fashionable to call those who didn't want to be stolen from any more, projected as it were, "thieves", in the same fashion as those in the middle east, defending
their homeland from foreigners, were labelled "insurgents." Tyranny had not so long ago grown a sense of irony it would seem.
And if you became enemy number one of the state, as thousands were, you would spend your days on the run, always looking over your
shoulder for the states vanish vans--black escalades with men in dark suits and mirrored glasses, like bugmen with shiny inhuman, and inscrutable eyes full of alien malice.
These were sordid summers, full of plastic playhouses where the cost of a days wages you could lay with a synthetic lover and pay away the days tense tax for a good lay, and forget your toils and troubles. And so many were kept in poverty because of easy habit and routine that they forget they were not living.
But for me, I had none of it. I preferred the troubled thing on the corner when I could coax one into my state issued sedan. She was sulky, with bright blonde curls, 19, maybe 20, with empty eyes, as if watching some invisible horizon. And in the glow of the blue neon, among the wet sidewalks, and trash, she leaned into my car. No words were exchanged. I nodded, and
she got into the car, a miniskirt, and slinky little handbag.
This was no more than state business with a bureau guy like me, and for her, little more than the prison trade taken public.
She huffed some powder and climbed spraddle leg onto my lap, grabbing me along my jawline, eyes locked onto the depths of my soul, and
for the next ten minutes as she moved on top of me, I was motionless property while my lusts became animal, and she, my cream cup.
After, I arrested her to the standard protests, but she new the game and quickly hushed. This was the verdant arithmetic of the state. I was awarded x amount of pension points for every criminal, no matter how, and it was no gentle hand, not the judge, not the jury, or the executioner of their will. It was the rigid touch of a long arm, dislocated from the law, and now, like frankenstein's monster, cobbled onto the mechanism of the state not unlike the manner of a combine harvester.
We were the owners of all by virtue of all we could take, and we took all we could get. The serial romeos of state police power, romancing
the unwilling citizenry with televised patriotism and five minute power talks at the beginning of the corporate day.
It could be paradise or a wasteland if we wanted it to be. And for a time it was.
Edit: devrant always breaks my formatting. sigh. -
What the hell is the point of this small projects team spending 2-3 months on developing extensive logging system for an internal application for inside and outside customers to use if your application isn’t going to log any of the fucking errors. Sure you write the failure status to the database, but it just says failure with an even more vague explanation than microsoft’s errors. “An error occurred”. No shit, that’s why I’m looking in the logs and database to debug the application to get these files on their merry way so our company can stay in compliance with the state, feds, and not pay out the wazzoo in fines. All our other applications state where the error occured such as “failed to connect to the email server”, why can’t this one.
-
Hey guys,
I need your advice about deciding wether to work as a freelancer for a startup or no.
So this French startup is couple years old and they decided to build a team in my country. I went to the interview few weeks ago and we discussed the projects, details, potential salary and everything seemed great.
Couple days ago I received a service contract from them and now I need to decide to work for them or no.
Plan is for them to come to my country, rent an office and I should go there and work for them.
The salary that they offered is medium level and they will not have any legal entity in my country. However it’s not a problem for me since I have my own LTD company so I would pay salary on my own.
However there are some cons:
My team members are being hired as freelancers, however salary is defined with a daily rate instead of hourly and we are allowed to work maximum 20 days a month. It is not clear how many hours a week/month they will expect us to work and at this point I’m afraid to rock the boat with my questions. I understand that I shouldn’t receive any health insurance, sick leave pays, vacation days, home office, pension contributions and so on. But it’s so weird that they pay per day instead of per hour. It screams with unpaid overtime.
Payment time is 30 days after invoice has been sent. So If I started working from September 01, I will send them invoice at September 30, then I will work all October and will receive my money only around end of October. Working 60 days to receive my first salary doesn’t seem nice.
Notice period is 30 days. Which is fine on my end since I can be completely free after initial notice. But in their case if they want to fire me I guess they will simply not give me any work to do and since I’m charged per day I won’t be able to send them any invoice. No employment safety, which means if after 2-3 months they don’t have anything to do I can get royally screwed. But it’s startup nature I guess?
They don’t provide a laptop to work with. I’m lucky since I have a laptop for developing mobile apps, and they said they will at least provide office to work in and a monitor.
All this situation is sending vibes of "we want to save money so we came to your country for cheap labour and now we gonna exploit you"
What complicates matters is that my sister will be working with me and It’s her first job. They agreed to pay her a decent salary and even be flexible with her studies. However this deal for me does not seem too great as I will be receiving mid level salary with no benefits that I would otherwise get.
On the other hand maybe I'm just overthinking this I can just try it out for few months and see where it goes.
Any thoughts?6 -
So many people on devRant rave about iPhones because of the better security and privacy, but the new iPhone X starts at a whopping $1000! Sure, you don't have to get the X, but that's what everybody wants.
You'll say "well, I'm willing to pay more if it means better security because that's just the way it is." It doesn't have to be. It would be much more beneficial to actually fight and take a stand for better security and more privacy than just put up with outrageous prices.1 -
If you compare a software developer's job with another, let's say a doctor or a lawyer, the former doesn't require mastery and there is continuous chase on fast changing version numbers or an entire platform coming out. Former innovates without question and gets burned out in the process. While the latter demands mastery of certain fields and the specialization isn't diverse enough compared to former. Yet the pay for latter might be higher. What are the pros and cons have you felt as a developer and how do you cope to address it internally? Is it just the thrill and excitement of new things coming out? What fulfillment do we get aside from the satisfaction of clean code, unit test and successful deployments? How much impact have we really given? And is there a place for developers to final settle down? Don't get me wrong; I won't stop until death probably but I hope adulting responsibilites won't make us break.
-
Whenever I see the name @CoffeeBoy come up I think to myself:
-Umm hey I think we just ran out of coffee,
-Aw shit and we are working overtime till we finish.
-Are you thinking what I'm thinking ?
-Are you thinking about how good it would be to be a cat.
-Uuh no why do you want to be a cat ?
-Well duuh cat's sleep all day. It's great !
-They also live for only 15 years so I would think in total you will sleep more than cats do.
-You like to ruin things for me don't you.
-I call it productive refactoring. But getting back on topic. I hear we have a new intern ?
-Yeah, that's Jim over there.
-Well lets tell him to get us coffee.
-Oh yeah that's a good idea, because interns already have the bare minimum of expectations from their life anyways !
-Hey Jim, yeah you Jimmie buddy can you get us a few cups of coffee we really need those to stay functioning right now.
-Yeah sure, what do you need.
-George drinks cappuccino, you can get me whatever. Thanks man here is the money. Buy yourself a cup too it's on me.
-Oh thanks.
*Jim walks out of the room*
30 minutes has passed...
-Dude where is Jim at ? It shouldn't be that hard to get 3 cups of coffee from just a few blocks away.
-I hope he didn't get robbed or something he has MY money on him.
*22 minutes ago, jim walks out of the coffee shop carrying the 3 cups securely held under his arm *
-I thought he was just gonna use me as an errand boy or a coffee boy to be exact in this case. But it's nice of him to also pay for my cup. Maybe they are not such bad--
His sentence got cut off by the sudden impact with a metal surface at high velocity. He got hit by a car while he was crossing the street, too deep in thought to notice the speeding car in time.
After hitting Jim the car suddenly come to a halt with a screech noise from it's tires.
But it was too late the impact shattered his lower spine. Leaving a blodied body on the ground. Coffee from the smashed cups merged with his blood. Little did anyone know that day would be the birth of a new hero.
He,he,he he is the COFFEE BOY,
Fighting the evil villain Sleep Deprivation day and night, but mostly night. And his sidekick Mugatron always covering for Coffee Boy !!! -
I've lost count of the days at this point...
First things first, lets all praise musky for getting David Bowie stuck in my head for the next month or so, not a bad thing, his song choice was on point. Also the rants have become few and far between because apparently I have to be an "adult" and go to work, pay my bills, and other things that distract me from programming.
Okay, now to the actual dev stuff. I've started to think that maybe my scope of languages is limited somewhat to my comfort zone, which is only java at this point. So for my project (game development), I've decided to pick a language based on what will work best instead of what I'm comfortable with, my runners so far...
C++: The default go to for game development. I would chose this but if I did, my best C++ game would look like Frankenstein's monster and would be filled with terrible code. For that alone I have scratched C++ from my list, for lack of experience.
Java: My usual, my go to, my comfort zone. I don't want to be comfortable though, I want to learn things. That asides, java has tones of resources, frameworks, libraries, and tutorials available. In addition, it's also able to run on pretty much anything, huge ++. The cons are trying to find the best resources, frameworks, libraries, and tutorials to use for a particular situation and that can be hard and confusing. Java may still be my go to but I'll get to that with the next language.
C#: I have never touched C# in my life, and the only things I know about it are what I've heard or read. So far I've heard it is SIMILAR to java, based around C++, and has aged really well compared to other languages. I like that it is similar to java without it being the same language, it will force me to learn things over and you can never reinforce the basics enough. It also has the huge benefit of being Microsoft based while still running on iOS, linux, macOS, windows, and android. This gives me really easy access to implement a mobile version (in the future obviously), while being able to run well on windows, the default OS for most gamers.
Overall I will start writing in C# and see if I like it. If I don't it's no big deal, I still have a good option in java to fall back on. I'm open to hearing opinions on this topic, java vs. C# but please keep your bias nonexistent and you constructive conversation very high. If any actual game developers that have experience with both languages are out their, and reading this, please comment so I can pick your brain.
Some of you may ask about the android scholarship, I contacted google and told them android development wasn't for me so they sent someone a late invite and rescinded mine, hopefully someone else will put it to better use.
Holy god this is long. I'm sorry. -
I love this weekly group rant, it made me think back when my mom started to work in a kindergarten and she used to take me to work when i was 4-7 years old ('94 - '97).
There was this "TV" and all the kids used to smash the buttons on it. It also played sound, but there was always a lot of kids there so I was shy to ask them if I push the buttons too. But I was the teachers son, so I didn't had to sleep in the afternoon, and then I discovered this computer thing I was amazed, it was like nothing I saw before, you push it and it does what you pushed and, *_* this smiley is exactly me back then. It was probably an old commodore with green text on the black screen. It was the moment when I decided to get more information about this wonder.
In elementary school (around '98) we had this computer room and as I was one of the best students back then I was granted access to it. It was a huge success in a post communist country to get money for new computers to teach us kids to use them back then, so only the chosen ones could use them, and I was one of them, one of the best time time of my life, honestly. At this moment I knew for sure, I want one and when I grow up I gonna work with them. I had no idea what you can do with it but every adult is talking about how well paid are the people who use them at work. :D it sounds funny now
In '89 or '99 we visited our family in a town far away. My grandfathers sisters boyfriend had a computer and he said, look I also have internet. This face again *_* what the hell is internet. So he explained me this internet thing which "makes all computers connected, but you have to pay for it and it kinda works like wired phones you know. Here you put the address and you can open the website"
me: website, whoooa *_*
8-9 year old clever me: "but how do you know what are the addresses, do you have a phonebook for these addresses?"
he showed me google, and a slovak and czech search engine, I remember searching for "funny pictures" on the slovak search engine, because I was thinking If I search google, its english so he would pay too much :D
I didn't had a computer until I was 13 years old, but then I started to messing with Microsoft Front Page 2003, was amazed with the html and css generated by it and started to editing it.
Now Im a front end web dev -
I don't think I wanna be a dev anymore
Just a year ago, I was doing many side projects for fun, aching for proper coding tasks at work.
Now, I got a senior title but I don't want to do ANYTHING, I don't want to learn this new service or learn how to develop new stuff, I've lost all desire to learn something new. I just want a simple af simple low needs job, but also want good pay XD I know, it's stupid, but I really don't care what tech I use or how exciting the product is, I just want a simple repetitive job with little stress and deadlines and good pay
How do you motivate yourselves to get through the day and do your tasks? Honestly every PR review I'm shocked other engineers care so much about the code, they're obv right, I just wonder where that desire to maintain good coding practices comes from7 -
!developer_rant
Ok, so my pc is on it's way out (Cries in the corner) so i thought i would just bite the bullet and buy my new system, comes to around $1800 AUD without the GPU which i already have... So i decided I would use zipmoney as i prefer to pay by month (yes i know it costs a little bit each month) but... My application got declined for a $2000 account... So you are telling me i was able to apply for a bank loan last year for $4000 and get approved, get approved to rent a house... I have a perfect credit rating but apparently i dont qualify for a simple loan because i dont earn enough... I'm earning almost double what i was when I applied for a fucking bank loan!5 -
(imagine all of this said in Undoomed's "hey moron" tone)
Hey, moron, fuckin moron! How about if you're a noob with no actual programmer on your side, you just tell me so we can work it out together, instead of sending a moronic 4page "acceptance criteria" that pretend you know what you're talking about, and then bury me under loads of moronic noob questions that reveal you as thenmoron you are, all of that for a fuckin 50 quid?! I thought it's me being an idiot, not being able to do the task within two days timeframe, but now I see you're just too much of a moron to have any idea how much these things take. And now you nonchalantly mention a one-line one point from the four page document full of drivel, which (loads of moronism credit for me here) i didn't notice amongst all of that other mundane drivel, which actually like doubles the whole workload on the task, but your moronic document, which makes 3 parts of the same algorithm into three separate MILESTONES, makes this whole thing that nearly DOUBLES the workload into a shitty SEVENTH SUBPOINT of the completely unrelated first "milestone"?
FUCK YOU, YOU STUPID ROBBERY CHEAPFUCK, and fuck me for letting myself be tricked by all your fancy wordings that pretend you actually know what the fuck you are asking for, so i assumed you did, so I missed THE POINT, WHICH ACCORDING TO THE SEGMENTATION LOGIC OF THE WHOLE REST OF THE DOCUMENT SHOULD BE 3 SEPARATE FULL-SIZED MILESTONES, NOT A SINGLE SUBPOINT, YOU FUCKING FUCK!
... so much for still trying to at least a bit trust people.
FUCKING DISGUSTING MORONIC CHEAPSKATE FUCK.
and I can't even tell him to fuck off through the rectum he came here because he's all nice and polite so I would be the asshole!
"hey, please, can you build me a house?"
*house is basically finished*
"oh, great job, i love it, but i think you might have missed the fineprint in our contract that says that the house is supposed to stand inside an entry hall of a multibillionaire-sized mansion, so could we please sort that out and add it to the building real quick before i pay you the toolshed's worth we agreed on based on the contract? "
FUCK. HIM.
FUCK
FUCKFUCKFUCKSHITFUCKERYFUCKDISGUSTINGIDIOTICFUCKINGFUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!
i thought i can be a shitty liar and a con man, but this is some next level shit that would be totally beyond my abilities to pull off...
YES I KNOW IT'S MY FAULT I DIDN'T COMB THROUGH THAT BULLSIT "SPECS" OF HIS LETTER BY LETTER TO MAKE SURE THERE'S NO CON BULLSHIT LIKE THIS HIDDEN AMONGST ALL OF THAT MUNDANE SELF-EVIDENT PSEUDO-TECHNICAL DRIVEL, SHUT THE FUCK UP.
fucking disgusting moron, pretending all nice and innocent probably even to himself because he HAS NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT HE EVEN ASKS FOR.
i bet it's one of those pukefucks who get an overpriced contract for 50k without even knowing or caring what programming is, because "i'll just outsource the core functionality of the app for 50 quid to some naiive idiot who lives in the illusion that people are not diarrhorea-worthy pieces of feces, and this other third of the app to some other moron for hundred quid and then i somehow outsource gluing it together to some third poor sod, and that's 49.8k quid of pure profit for me, yay"
and now i'm torn between three options, just cancelling the "contract" with a comment saying "fuck off, you con man", or cancelling it with a lengthy explanation why he's a know-nothing piece of shit who conned me already into having done something worth about 5x more than his shitty "acceptance criteria" requests, or just start conning and bulshitting him back, which won't net me any money, and waste my time, but at least will also waste HIS time, which might be nice because he seems to be on a tight schedule so if i play this right i might have the chance to sink his whole contract which might be mighty nice satisfying...
FUCK THIS, ALL OF THIS, FUCK HIM, FUCK ME, FUCK ALL OF YOU, I SHOULD HAVE STARTED FUCKING OVER EVERYONE RUTHLESSLY A LONG TIME AGO BECAUSE FUCK THE WHOLE WORLD, WHY SHOULD I CARE WHEN NOBODY ELSE DOES, WHY SHOULD I BE DECENT WHEN NOBODY ELSE IS, AND IT ONLY ROYALLY BITES ME IN THE ASS.
stupid fucking lobotomized fuck, IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO SOMETHING, DON'T OFFER YOURSELF TO DO IT FOR MONEY AND THEN CON-SOURCE IT TO OTHERS YOU SHITTY BARFPILE!
FUCK. -
TLDR, need suggestions for a small team, ALM, or at least Requirements, Issue and test case tracking.
Okay my team needs some advice.
Soo the powers at be a year ago or so decided to move our requirement tracking process, test case and issue tracking from word, excel and Visio. To an ALM.. they choice Siemens Polarion for whatever reason assuming because of team center some divisions use it..
Ohhh and by the way we’ve been all engineering shit perfectly fine with the process we had with word, excel and Visio.. it wasn’t any extra work, because we needed to make those documents regardless, and it’s far easier to write the shit in the raw format than fuck around with the Mouse and all the config fields on some web app.
ANYWAY before anyone asks or suggests a process to match the tool, here’s some back ground info. We are a team of about 10-15. Split between mech, elec, and software with more on mech or elec side.
But regardless, for each project there is only 1 engineer of each concentration working on the project. So one mech, one elec and one software per project/product. Which doesn’t seem like a lot but it works out perfectly actually. (Although that might be a surprise for the most of you)..
ANYWAY... it’s kinda self managed, we have a manger that that directs the project and what features when, during development and pre release.
The issue is we hired a guy for requirements/ Polarion secretary (DevOps) claims to be the expert.. Polarion is taking too long too slow and too much config....
We want to switch, but don’t know what to. We don’t wanna create more work for us. We do peer reviews across the entire team. I think we are Sudo agile /scrum but not structured.
I like jira but it’s not great for true requirements... we get PDFs from oems and converting to word for any ALM sucks.. we use helix QAC for Misra compliance so part of me wants to use helix ALM... Polarion does not support us unless we pay thousands for “support package” I just don’t see the value added. Especially when our “DevOps” secretary is sub par.. plus I don’t believe in DevOps.. no value added for someone who can’t engineer only sudo direct. Hell we almost wanna use our interns for requirements tracking/ record keeping. We as the engineers know what todo and have been doing shit the old way for decades without issues...
Need suggestions for small team per project.. 1softwar 1elec 1mech... but large team over all across many projects.
Sorry for the long rant.. at the bar .. kinda drunk ranting tbh but do need opinions... -
include ::rant
rant::newentry {'new-job-rant' :
ensure => latest,
location => goverment-employment-office-HQ,
job => DevOps,
content => {'
So, i've been at my new job for some time now, almost two weeks (hurray!) but boy oh boy, what a job it is!
I'm working at a goverment office charged with helping the unemployed to get a job or a new education course. I'm hored as re-enforcements for their DevOps team. I get my pay, easy transportation home<->office, coffe is adequate in quality and quantity, so no complaints there...
But the actual job is a FUCKING MENTAL CLUSTERFUCKS OF WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MULTIPLIED BY TEN TO THE POWER OF GOOGOL!
A few items that make my blood boil to new temperature records defying medical science:
* devs refuse to use linting, say the builder will catch it when there is an error, never look at the builder error logs
* (puppet) modules have NO TESTS
* (puppet) modules get included in several git repo's as submodules, in turn they are part of a git repo, in turn they are replicated to several puppet masters, and they differentiate the environment by bash scripts... R10K or code manager? never heard of it.
* Me cleaning up code, commit, gets accepted, some douchebag checks out code, reverts it back to the point where linting tools generate 50+ lines of warnings, complains to ME his code doesnt work! (Seriously, bitch? Serously?) , explain to that person what linting does, that persons hears the bells ring on the other end of the galaxy, refuses to use it.
* Deployment day arrives (today) -> tasks are set up on an excel sheet (on google docs) , totally out of sync with what really must be done -> something breaks, spend 30 minutes finding out who is to blame, the whole deploy train stops, find out it's a syntax error, ... waiting for person to change that since that person can only access it...
...
the list goes on and on and on. And did you expect to ahve any docs or guidelines? NO , as if docs are something for the luxurious and leisurely people having "time" to write it...
I can use another coffee... hopefully i wake up from this nightmare at my 15th cup...
},
require => [Class['::coffee'], Class['::auxiliary_brain'], Class['::brain_unfuck_tools'],],
}1 -
Some long thoughts about state of desktop operating systems.
I always hated window management on desktop. There is basically no difference in usability between mobile and desktop in terms of application management. There is still finite amount of apps you can have in focus and you need to switch between them so they’re left from your screen.
What you end up is finite amount of screens you can connect into your computer or pounding switch context shortcut every other second.
We pushed computing so far and screen resolutions doubled from 1024x768 but the active desktop size is still the same.
For me adding additional display to laptop is not an option. What I love with remote work is that I can lay in my bed or on sofa or wherever I want to and write some code. My point is I don’t want to be stuck to my desk if I want to write / debug something.
Back to the desktop I think there is missing part of our state of desktop right now. The most we have are virtual desktops we can switch between but we can’t get parts of two desktops on same screen.
What I would love to test / develop is smooth infinite desktop with pinch and zoom - drag and drop navigation between my apps.
The problematic thing is determination of where user want’s to focus - is it fullscreen app or multiple apps on same screen and how to handle partially visible windows.
But I would love to test it. Maybe one day I switch to linux desktop just to try to implement the infinite desktop as an alternative to virtual desktops.
Maybe some rich frustrated kid would make it someday while I’m stuck at working my shit ass to pay for being able to have a decent life on this fucking planet…
I wish I can retire to focus on such things.2 -
Just installed Cent OS 7 on my HP 380 g6 server, can someone please explain why hp withholds bios updates unless you pay extra... Where do I even get a support licence for this old thing. DoD normally handle's these things.
Also what do you do with a server at home. I found some AI assistant software to run and of course VM's but what else.5 -
Yo folks,
how do you calculate your pay?
I mean if you are freelancer..
I want to get clients beside my apprenticeship, but dont know the regular payment for devs..
And yeah.. ofc there are so much differences inside the structure of something (websites, apps, programs) and the place you live.
Its more like i wanna know how much can you offer per hour for some shit.
For example easy websites, e-commerce, web shop, apps.. etc.
What would you seriously take for each hour of work? (some examples would be nice )
Thanks you, everything appreciated5 -
!rant
Saw a few guys having some issues picking up on angular 2. There's currently a really good course on angular 2 that's about a week and a half old, so pretty up to date, on pluralsight. Just search for angular 2 and order by date.
For those who don't wanna/can't pay, you can get 3 months for free on it by signing up on Microsoft devtools. If anyone wants direct link just say it(not sure if allowed).
Btw, I'm not affiliated what so ever with pluralsight, although I really like it. Just passing some information specially regarding angular 2 which is a pain to learn due to legacy code.3 -
External Storage recommendation questions.
Im in need of some sort of external storage, either a harddrive or a NAS server, but idk what to get.
Price should be reasonable for the security and storage space it gives, so heres what i figured so far for pros and cons:
NAS Server:
+ Bigger capacity
+ Raid option
+ Easily expandable
+ Always accessible via the network (local)
- Difficult to transport (not gonna do that, but still)
- Expensive
- Physically larger
- Consumes power 24/7 (i dont pay for power currently)
Harddrive:
+ Easy to pack away and transport
+ Cheaper
- If drive fails, youre fucked
- If you want larger capacity, you end up with two external backups
What do you guys do? Im not sure what i should do :i
Any advice is appreciated.
It will be used for external backup, as mentioned. For my server and my own pc.12 -
I got enrolled in 'extracurricular activity' in second grade of my elementary school. We were playing some games at first, but later teacher started to show us programming and explained the matter very well considering we all were 8 y olds. I got interested and while others would play games I was coding and solved assignments teacher gave us.
My family thought that computer will make me stupid, thinking it was made just for playing games. They promised me to get me the computer if I had highest grades in school. I did, not all of them but tried really hard to be the best, despite that I waited for years and still being close to have aced every subject in the meantime.
I got my first computer when I was 16.
Since that day I was constantly reminded that I am wasting my life away sitting at this stupid box.
Later when I got the job that was well payed, they acknowledged that they were wrong to do that for majority of my life.
My parents are unable to explain what I do at the job as they were never interested in what I really do. "Something with computers" is most common answer you can hear from them.
My parents are non-technical people and they still don't understand how that box works and God forbid that they buy something online. My father even rejects to use smartphone.
They also thought that I'm no college material despite always being in top 5 students of the year (not class, but whole year).
They had other plans for me, but I was aware of that and didn't gave a f00ck about what they want with my life. I knew what I want and that was all exactly opposite of what my parents would like.
I was not the child they wanted, but was good son, even helped them and worked student jobs to pay some bills and to help them financially and still they struggled so hard to find some flaw to my character and decisions just to make their point but more than often failed miserably and just proved how wrong they were and how they don't think anything trough.
Only one who really supported me was my elder sister as she knew I was doing the right thing! She also did it her way and I am proud of her as both of us were dealing with 2 tough customers.
long rant, but wanted to add one more thing, I was never into sport, but was training tae kwon do and was really into it and was decent at it among my peers. When I was going to national competition, on my way out of the house all I got from my parents was: "why are you even going there when you will immediately loose, is it just to travel a bit?"
TL;DR: my family supported me less in my life than worst phone call you had with IT support at your worse ISP!4 -
Who amongst you remembers Ultima Online?
At one point probably one of the best games ever made. Even wrote the record for most players online and got in the Guinness Book of records for it. This was during the dial-up days. You kids these days have no idea how slow internet was or how cool it was to hear those three special words, You've Got Mail.
Everquest and WOW dont have shit on this game even if it never really went 3D. There was a sorta blocky 3d but it sucked which is why it failed. Everyone was content with 2d because the blocky 3d was trash in most circumstances.
With Ultima it made you feel like a kinda second life. And it wasn't a chore like Life Is Feudal or many of the other grundy games of today.
My 80 year old grandfather played it all day everyday. That's how fucking good the game was.
I would still be playing the official servers a decade plus, later if they would stop adding unnecessary dlc and they wouldn't have added a pay store.
It seriously pisses me off that I spent years collecting and hoarding rare items that I actually fucking earned and the assholes add a pay store that lets these new players buy the item I fought a boss four hours to get.
It ain't fucking right. It literally makes the rares worthless and my efforts pointless.
EA also rushed Ultima IX so it was buggy as hell and technically unbeatable unless you edited the game to let you cheat. Richard Garriott made the game and bugs and all is a masterpiece. His new game Shroud of The Avatar, not so much but that's a different rant.
I honestly wish EA would go out of business. They have ruined enough of my favorite titles with their incompetent bullshit and greedy cash grabs. If they would just make UO the way it was around the second age or Lord Blackthorn I'd guess a lot of us old-school vets would come back.
But as it is our only real option is to build our own servers or play someone else's which is what I do. Fuck EA!9 -
My vague naive extreme understanding of interview questions are on a spectrum from situation a to situation b.
But what should the industry be doing? Is the industry just going wrong blindly copying big N companies hiring process without the same rationale? (e.g. they need computer scientists able to deal with problems specific to them at their size and that often means creating new tech, unreal problem solving abilities and cuh-rayzee knowledge)
a) stupid fucking theoretical shit that some people argue you won't ever need to be doing in practice for most companies, while giving you no ability to google, leetcode hard problems kind of stuff
b) practical work similar to what you'd be doing on the job, small bugs, tasks, pair programming on site with your potential future coworkers
Lots of people hate option a because it's puzzle/problem solving that isn't always closely related to what's on the job. Whiteboarding is arguably very much a separate skill. (Arguably unless it's like a big N company where you want computer scientists to deal with specific problems that aren't seen elsewhere, and you're making new tech to deal with your specific problems.)
We could go to the extreme of Option b, but it tends to trigger people into shitfits of "NO, HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME DO REAL WORK, BUT NOT PAY ME FOR IT AT THE INTERVIEW STAGE"
That's before we get into how to execute option b whether or not it's being given as a take home assignment (which is a huge pain in the ass and time sink, among other issues) vs a few hours at the potential workplace working with some of the future potential coworkers and soaking in the work environment (you have to figure out how to take the time off then)
Is it really just poor execution overall for the wrong use cases for the majority of the industry? What should the industry be doing in which cases.
Then this is all before HR screening with shit like where they might ask for more years of swift experience than its existed. -
I'm in the drive-thru of burger king
can I please get uhh whopper jr with onion rings
make it a meal so I can get a drink
no I'm not finished, that's not everything
can I please get a double whopper with no cheese
I got money so I don't care how much it cost me
so just throw in some extra fries don't make them salty
all this cheese gonna make my booty drip drip
I'm lactose intolerant I don't sip milk
if I see a sight of cheese I'm gonna trip trip
I'm gonna sit on your toilet seat, doodoo then dip
so you got my little whopper jr (i didn't forget that)
and you got my double whopper (i didn't forget that)
what about my onion rings (hold on you can sit back)
burger king, they know me now, cheese I don't want that
(grrr) and I'm getting hungry now, I know you heard that
waiting for my onion rings so I don't have to turn back
burger king don't play with me, your nuggets are so trash
nuggets taste like rabbit nipples why do you even serve that
better stop playing and just give me all of my food
either I pay you right now or leave the drive-thru
gave me the bag and then I took a bite of my food
there's cheese in my mouth, I'm gonna doodooo
I'm in the drive-thru of burger king
man they just gave me a whopper jr with hella cheese
made it a meal so yes I got my drink
but why do they put cheese on everything
they put cheese on my double whopper with no cheese
ill be taking a number two in the morning
hold on, can I please be excused for a moment
the cheese already in my body, booty farting
I farted.. -
The problem with LibreOffice is that is some respects, you get what you pay for. Like number formats that just get dropped every time you reload a spreadsheet.
Still, it's worth more than the price. Unlike GIMP, where even free is too expensive (used it for a few days, but I admit that spending time on it was my own fault).3 -
Hey guys, need your advice please.
In september Last year I've started my apprenticeship. Before that I made a year internship and developed a Software for them.
After I've left the internship, my Old Boss (Boss from internship) asked me if I can support the Software a while. So, I set Up a git, made it available in github, but private (had to paid for it - from my own Money). After not hearing something from him - He didn't understood how He Can Log in Into GitHub -.- WTF ! I wrote him multiple instructions but it was useless.
Because I don't have the desire and patience anymore - and don't want to pay with my own Money to Make it available for them - pay for something they can't even Login because they are ... Yeah.. I've decided to cancel the membership in github some weeks ago.
Today my Old Boss contacted me via E-Mail, after not hearing something from him in months.
Now I don't know how to react - He wants that I Code for him, the Software again.
on the one Hand I don't want to "leave him alone" but on the other hand I don't want to Support this Shit anymore.
What should I do?
At least I want to get paid for my Work. But I don't know, if this is legal to earn Money next to your apprenticeship. My current Boss Said one time that this would be No Problem, but I'm not sure about it.
Would be glad about any help and advice from you.
Thanks.3 -
Tltr: Apperenticeship -> Job -> Promotion -> They pay for my bachelor
So I started my apperenticeship back in July 2014...
After a year of basic training I worked in different teams accros the company.
I finished my apperenticeship june 2018. Two teams offered me permanent positions early in 2018.
The team I decided to join, had a (back theb new) boss and I felt like she would be cool to work with. (I don't know how to describe this more accuratly... I just liked her visions, plans and what she told me about the work).
Fast forward half a year
I was preparing for the meeting where we would discuss my goals.
(I was preparing to ask for raise...)
Then she goes:
- "Hey NeedToRoll, can I have 10 minutes of your time, its serious!"
* "Sure"
- "Do you habe any Idea why I would wonna talk to you"
* "No" Thinking: What did I fuck up that badly
- "I would Like to thank you for your amazing work, and HR agreed to a 10% raise as per next month."
* "Thanks!"
Fast forward to now:
1. I will reducing to a 50% position (per my request)
2. They are paying for my bachelor s degree I am going to get. (Studying part time)3 -
So I tried to buy some recreational stuff from the deep web, and this is what they have replied—
“We're really sorry about it but we have some problems with shipping to your region. We noticed about problems with customs but we have some friends in your region that will help us to pay $55 customs for your parcel and pass it smoothly. If you agree to continue we can get your additional $55 usd payment to the bitcoin address below.”
Is this a scam?4 -
Top 5 Reasons for Not Discussing Weird Topics in Your Graduate Admission Essay
Knowing the top five reasons for not discussing weird topics in your graduate admission essay is very important. There is really no strict requirement about what kind of topic you use, as long as you can discuss it effectively. However, choosing weird topics may not really work for you, especially if it’s a very controversial or sensitive one. The following are the top five reasons why you should avoid discussing weird topics in your essay.
Reason #1: Weird topics are weird.
First off, weird topics are exactly that, weird. The last thing you want to do is weird out your graduate school admission panel, which is almost a sure way of getting yourself that polite rejection letter that every applicant dreads of receiving.
One of the main important points to remember is to think of your audience when writing your graduate admission essay. This audience will be composed of tenured professors, and probably younger teachers closer to your own age. Although it is a good idea not to tailor your essay according to what you think they want to hear, it’s best to stick to a topic that will make the panel want to get to know you more. You can do this by putting yourself in the admission officer’s shoes and trying to feel what your reaction would be with a particular topic you have in mind. Being creative is good, but to any audience, weird is weird, and most audiences will not know how to react to a weird admission essay.
Reason #2: Weird topics may reflect your personality in a bad way.
Weird topics make you look weird, or worse. You may think that a weird topic is the same as a creative topic, something that most experts on admissions officers urge applicants to use. With a weird topic, you can easily make the jump from being creative to just plain strange or worse, someone with an emotional or personality problem. Weird topics, when discussed ineffectively, are bad topics, and can be anything from the death of a pet, recent religious epiphanies, and even parent bashing. These topics are the last topics that can paint you in a good light so avoid these and other similar topics.
Reason #3: Weird topics may not represent the real you.
Weird topics will not paint the real you, unless you are naturally weird. If you really think that being a little bit off will pay off, then by all means do so. But if you want to appear as normal and as emotionally healthy as possible, save the strange stories for Halloween night.
Reason #4: Weird topics may seem too informal.
Weird topics can get too informal. You can be informal but you need to look normal as well in order to avoid appearing irreverent. Some may disagree with this, but often the only way to get on your admission panel’s good side is to tread on the middle ground arefully, and not be too stiff and prudish but not be too loose either.
Reason #5: Weird topics may confuse the readers.
While most schools allow their applicants free reign when it comes to writing an admissions essay, you can do your self a lot of good by treading on the middle ground. Avoid weird or strange topics if you can. A weird topic will put your readers in a place where they may not understand you. And in a process where getting to know you as a person is the main objective, this move will definitely have an effect on whether you get accepted or not. Knowing what to write in a graduate school admission essay is fairly easy, especially if the school provides you with a set of questions, known as prompts as your guide. As long as you already have the other requirements such as the right grade point average, recommendation letters, program of study and the like, you can start working on your essay. But if your still not sure whether it good idea to write essay by yourself. You can find tons of great quality writing services such as https://uk-essays.com/research-pape.... At such a websites you’ll easily find help from from people who already have considerable experience in writing a wide variety of essays. They will gladly help in any issue that makes you difficult.
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