That I will indeed rise to the level of my incompetence…

A few years back, I was a newly hired developer visiting the corporate HQ in NYC. We went to lunch, where the execs ordered a round of drinks.

I commented that drinking during the work day was an odd practice in my experience. The CEO jokingly explained how it made going home to his wife at the end of the day easier (or something to that effect). “You know what I mean?”

To which I reply (with no hint of irony): “No… My life loves me.”

😎

Recruiter: “What are your salary expectations?”

(The job listing indicates a salary range that STARTS at 2x my current total comp…)

Me, as nonchalant as possible: “The listed range is sufficient.”

My colleague wanted me to examine a script issue. I open it up, and it took several minutes to comprehend how it worked. Once it finally clicked:

Me: I can’t decide if this is idiotic or genius.
Colleague: Well, YOU wrote it.
Me: Oh… Genius it is, then!

I was 1 hour into an 8 hour data warehouse build on my VM, when Windows popped up with a dialogue informing me that it would initiate Shut Down in 10 minutes. No button to Cancel or Delay, just “Okay”.

To Microsoft, I offer a hardy Dickensian “GOOD AFTERNOON, SIR!”

Lost my cool on a colleague after she scolded me for saying “good morning,” as it was presumptuous of me to assume her morning was good…

Of course since she was already a soulless hag, it had no impact on her.

I discovered a function in our database that converts integers to ordinals by concatenating the number and a suffix:
- ends in 1: add “st”
- ends in 2: add “nd”
- ends in 3: add “rd”
- else: add “th”
Simple! Except I guess nobody considered the 11st, 12nd, and 13rd iteration of this function…

Early in my database developer career, I started a new job at a mortgage company. I was poking around the code, just getting familiar with things.

One script identified properties in certain states/territories for special handling:

AND STATECD IN (‘PR’, ‘HI’, ‘AL’)

I thought “Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and ALABAMA?? One of these things is not like the other…”

Yeah, that was supposed to be Alaska (AK)… But they’ve been special-handling properties in Alabama for years.

Apprenticeship instead of higher education might be a better mode of 1) learning practical skills rather than academic theory, 2) keeping those learned skills modern rather than stale and outdated, 3) skipping all the hippy-dippy college requirements that don’t actually add value to your career.

My typical morning Teams exchange:
Newb: GM (requesting connection)
Me: GM (connection established)
Newb: How r u? (requesting headers)
Me: Good (headers sent)
Newb: You free? (ready for comms?)
Me: Sure (comms ready)
…
Feels like a bad internet protocol.

Built a PowerShell script to keep my status “Active” all day. Appearing productive is what’s important!

Crank up the music!

Just rebooted my work station during a video conference because the VPN was flaking out.

After reboot, launch Teams to get back to the meeting. The VPN credentials dialog then pops up, but IS NOT MODAL, so I end up sending my password to the group chat...

Time to change my password, I guess.

Browse DevRant.

I got a degree in music performance. But at the end of it, I decided that I enjoyed the finer things in life, like having a house and, you know, food.

So I struggled through some entry level jobs until folks noticed I had potential, and a kindly manager paired me with our database developer. The rest is history!

Two words that instill fear in any database developer: Cartesian Join.

I didn’t realize what was happening until the DBA paid me a personal visit asking what I was running that had cached over a billion rows.

My mother seems to disengage her brain when using a computer, so you must give instructions in exacting detail...

Me: Close that window.
Mom: Um, ok?
Me: ... Click the little red button at the top left...
MS Word: Save document? Yes / No
Mom: ... Now what?
Me: Well, do you want to save that?
Mom: Yes! ...
Me: ... so... click Yes...

... and I die a little more inside...

I’m on a screen share watching an offshore associate copy code from my email to the target script...

... by switching back and forth between windows and typing in the code...

Is COPY-PASTE a little to advanced for this team???

I’m on a screen share watching an offshore associate copy code from my email to the target script...

... by switching back and forth between windows and typing in the code...

Is COPY-PASTE a little too advanced for this team???

declare @username varchar(255)
if @username is null
set @username = suser_name()

.........

WHAT DID YOU EXPECT @USERNAME TO BE RIGHT AFTER YOU DECLARED IT???

I was trying to fill out an application on UltiPro yesterday, but it kept throwing an error “Password must be at least 6 characters.” This was puzzling, as my password was 12 characters with upper, lower, number, and symbol.

After half an hour of futzing with the password and getting the same error, I discover that actual issue: I had entered my full middle name instead of middle initial.

THAT’S NOT WHAT THE ERROR SAID!!!!!

Lodging a ticket in system A...

Citing the ticket number from A to access the password in system B...

Using the password from B to log into database C...

Then doing our work in C, in which all our DDL and DML permissions have been revoked.

For the first time in my career, I have a specific job to aspire to, and a stack of books to read and certifications to garner to make it happen.

I think 2 years is a perfectly achievable timeline to make it happen.

Each month my department compiles a 4M row 150 column data table for compliance with a federal agency. Before submitting, we check it against about 400 rules.

The existing system was simply 400 queries that ran in sequence, table-scanning 4M rows each time, taking upwards of 6 hours, which is a huge bottleneck, especially if you have to make changes and rerun. Plus the output was rather one-dimensional.

I built a proper normalized database and created a sort of rules engine, running all 400 rules in one table scan. Not only does it complete in 30 minutes, but the reports generate automatically, and the results can be filtered on several dimensions to aid with root-cause analysis.

Management was pleased.

HELLO WORLD

When you have sextuply-nested sub queries, can we at least acknowledge the POSSIBILITY that there MIGHT be a better way??

Me: What filters would you like on this report?
VP: Here's the logic for the filter I want.
Me: Great! Anything else?
VP: Nope!
... Days of DB, ETL, and Report refactoring later ...
Me: Here's the updated report!
VP: Can we add this other filter?
Me: (You're welcome...)

The ups and downs of a corporate database developer job:

Ups: Great pay and benefits, advancement opportunities, job security.

Downs: Windows 7, Office 2012, Oracle DB 11 release 1 (2008)... not exactly a cutting edge environment.

I was out sick the day an urgent ETL job I was building would be due, so it got reassigned. When I return, I find most of my code commented out and replaced.

The first step was rewritten, with a comment that reads "Made changes to run faster." What used to be a single execution lasting 30 seconds was now a 4 step process taking 5 minutes, and yielding identical results.

Being a one-time execution (not a recurring job), I'm left wondering why they thought execution speed was even an issue, let alone what about their redesign they felt was an improvement...

WHERE CASE WHEN field1 IS NOT NULL THEN ISNULL(field1,NULL) END = ISNULL(field2,NULL)

So many wrongs, my wrong-o-meter broke...