Story time...of how HR actually did its job of taking care of employees.

So, I started at this new gig on December, the boss was all sunshine and promise (big red flag now to think back). Then as time passed, he started seeming...off. To a point I considered quitting my boss just after 2 months of working for him.

Then one morning we had a project meeting. He started verbally abusing me, calling me incompetent, bashing my work (of which he knew ~nothing, his experience 30 years back). Earlier in the week he demanded me to make a presentation which he in this meeting told is complete bullshit without actually reading any of it. He told me 'I am your boss, you do exactly as I say' when I told him something is technologically impossible in the situation we're in. He *actually* told me to break the law with data protection...

This was like wtf dude. That's not how you manage people. So, I made an HR ticket about his behaviour. They were *shocked* and escalated the matter.

Long story short: he was a bully, he's getting fired, my team has a new manager. My workplace actually appreciates my expertise.

Bad thing in this is, now I actually need to continue doing my job. ;_;

Make all fancy Azure blob storage with SFTP connection through firewall with dedicated public IP.

...to just find out that the webcameras you want to send stuff to the blob storage take in max 16 or 30 character passwords for sFTP. While the autogenerated passwords for SFTP in Azure are 32 characters long.

WHO THE HELL RESTRICTS PASSWORD LENGTH!? ASfjksdnfjksdjfnjksdakfadsnjkfjdsa

So, my goal for 2023 was to survive it without a burnout. I spent 8 months on sick leave with nearly constant migraines (approximately 25 days a month, episodes lasting the whole day). I guess I'm kinda wondering did I succeed in my goal or not...?

The original idea of the starter lines goes to someone here like over a year ago or something. Found this piece while cleaning my desk and thought you would appreciate it.

Rubber duck
What the fuck
Why didn't you tell
This god awful smell
Of this spaghetti code

I guess you reap
What you sow
Rubber duck
What the fuck
I'm out of luck

Specs: script adds extra files to zip, take the part out that adds the extra files to the zip
Me: *takes out the part that adds the adds the extra files to the zip, tests & ships to production*
Boss: Nooooo, I wanted the remaining bits added to this other script!!
Me: ...

I mean, she admitted that she made faulty specs but it still doesn't make it any less irritating and annoying and disrupting to my autistic brain. >:C

Survive without a burnout like every year so far.

I'm too old for this shit.

I was away sick for a week. Come back to a chat log with messages about how the other dev team is trying to figure out a solution to a bug that they only show three services listed in the system.

Me couple of weeks ago on my second day in the project figured it out relating to a task I was doing. It's not a bug, it's a feature. It's a constant defined in the constants-file.

And the best thing: my team mate quoted me and said "Lankku figured it out last week". And it was passed down back to the team who had actually developed the whole feature and couldn't figure out why it was working so now. xD

I've never coded (for work) on vacation. I just turn off my work laptop and my work phone. So I can spend the first week of back to work for going through my email & messages.

I'm not irreplaceable and I work with competent people. (At least that's my goal at work.)

Turns out: Pearson VUE is bad at communication. After I reserved the Microsoft certification exam, it was adjusted with my accommodations. So I didn't entirely die (only a little) and was allowed to have my life saving fidget 'toys' with me and just be myself with my stims.

So after all that hassle, I am now certified Azure developer associate. \o/

Looks good on paper, doesn't solve the problem of getting through the project interviews. (To normies, I seem ever so slightly off and the natural instinct is to perceive me as a liar.)

Failing at human interaction today (at particular).

I interviewed to this small company. It was a position requiring a lot of experience they said. They did Microsoft SQL server and their technical interview questions were so easy it took me a lot of time to answer them because I was looking for traps, like for real. Think I might've answered too complex for them as well.

In the non-technical interview they joked about how they'd need to reserve two saunas in team events (Finnish thing) as they were all male and I would've been the first female.

Then they asked questions about my *children*. "Who takes care of them when they're sick?" Ummm, yeah, illegal much.

In the end they didn't hire me but they took two interns from the vocational school (or applied sciences). Yeah, so hard a job a Master of Science in Software Engineering with (at that point) three years of full-stack experience couldn't handle but some not even graduate interns could do?

Oh, and fun thing was. A couple months later a recruiter called me about the same company. I told *her* the story and she said she's gonna drop that company from her list and said no wonder they complain about not getting people for them. xD

I also send a tip to my unions discrimination department. They used my case as an example in presentations so suppose this experience served a purpose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Update on: https://devrant.com/rants/5877229/...

So. I finally called the number two weeks ago. (Been sick in between. 0/5 would not recommend.) A person with a heavy Indian accent answered. As far as I could tell about what he said, that number couldn't really be used to reserve the certification testing time. Bloody great. So he proceeds to eat half the letters of words and emails to 'someone' about reserving the testing time hand writing all the accommodations I've been granted. Haven't heard back since, don't even know if the email was ever sent.

Screw Pearson VUE and their so called accommodations. >:C

So, next Monday, I booked myself a 3h torture session before I forget every bit of Azure trivia I've memorized the past two months as I start a new client project soon. >.> And after that I'm gonna be spending the rest of the week in fetal position under covers in bed.

Background: I'm on autism spectrum so I get anxious easily and social situations just generally fuck me up. I also have social anxiety disorder. Well, it's just an extension of my ASD really. Making phone calls in uncertain situation is the worst thing ever and I do not do it.

F*ck Microsoft certification exams. I applied for exam accommodations due to my background. (Someone is constantly watching you, you can't move even your eyes off the screen, yeah, screw that. I need to fidget/stim a lot.)

Got accepted. Now I just need to reserve an exam time THROUGH PHONE.

Someone reeeaaally didn't think this through. Normal exam can be reserved online. >.>

Working only four days a week. Gives you that one day to have actual fun.

I used to love coding. I have ASD and it was one of those rare things I could just do for hours without realising the time. I used to do my own projects, or at least plan them.

Now it's my job to code (& design when I don't have a pleb project, software engineer). I still kinda like to code but as I *have to* code, I just hate it.

Every fun thing that turns to work just turns to torture. Maybe I'll break my arm slipping this winter and have to have an extended sick leave...

Scrum master asks how I'm doing and how I'm finding the project I'm working with.

I complain about the lack of documentation and that it kills me (well, kills my brain with increased migraines) due to my Asperger's as I need CLEAR instructions and not ~something~ I need to piece together from asking from 5-10 different people who all know some minor part of the final answer.

"*You* could do the documentation, lankku, while you're figuring it out!"

Just...FML.

And the reason I was trying to find out this one thing related to a completely different repo I have never worked on was because I was trying to write documentation for something totally different that just needs a login redirect from this different repo. <.<