A young guy I work with burst into tears today, I had no idea what happened so I tried to comfort him and ask what was up.

It appears his main client had gone nuts with him because they wanted him to make an internet toolbar (think Ask.com) and he politely informed them toolbars doesn't really exist anymore and it wouldn't work on things like modern browsers or mobile devices.

Being given a polite but honest opinion was obviously something the client wasn't used to and knowing the guy was a young and fairly inexperienced, they started throwing very personal insults and asking him exactly what he knows about things (a lot more than them).

So being the big, bold, handsome senior developer I am, I immediately phoned the client back and told them to either come speak to me face-to-face and apologise to him in person or we'd terminate there contract with immediate effect. They're coming down tomorrow...

So part my rant, part a rant on behalf of a young developer who did nothing wrong and was treated like shit, I think we've all been there.

We'll see how this goes! Who the hell wants a toolbar anyway?!

First thing this morning I heard my boss had taken some PSDs to a client today. I thought it was a bit weird because he doesn't have a laptop. Midday I got a call to say all my PSDs were corrupted:

"I'm with the client now. We're very unhappy, we can't get your files to open."
"Oh, right. They should be fine. What version of Photoshop are you using?"
"The latest."
"Okay, what's the error?"
"There isn't one."
"Okay, so it's freezing?"
"No, we can't see the files at all."
"Which laptop are you using?"
"The Nexus."
"The what?"
"That tablet thing."

So after about 20 minutes we figured out he's copied the PSDs and a shortcut to Photoshop on to a USB stick. Then plugged the USB into a USB to micro USB cable and stuck that in an Android Nexus. Expecting to open Photoshop.exe and the PSDs.

I don't mind people being confused with technology but when it's your own boss, who doesn't even bother to let you know anything, then phones up and tells you off you just want to strangle him.

"A developer? What, like a landscape gardener?"

No idea to this day what they meant, but it's always stuck with me!

"We want to change the scrollbar colour." -Client

Oh no, no no no; we sorted this years ago. Nobody should have that power.

"Can our app work from 8am to 9pm, Monday to Friday?"
"Yes but it's an app, it can run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."
"Oh... Is it possible to make it work only from 8am to 9pm Monday to Friday? They're our opening times and we want everything consistent!"

Slippery slope, a very slippery slope...

So many new developers I know complain about not having the latest gadgets to learn to code. What I loved about learning to code was all you really need is something like Notepad and a few ideas, it's amazing how far you can go!

"A client wants to buy 'the source', can we give him the source but not the code. We don't want him copying."

Reset 65 passwords today already, a new personal best for one day! No idea why the reset password button is so hard for clients to use, aghh!

Company email sent around last night that 'for security' we need to use the latest software, fine. But we are also told only to develop in Edge as it's the newest and most secure browser, therefore is the only one we can use. There no way I'm using Edge to develop.

Fuck you, Mr Consultant, you've taken the company for a ride.

devRant_swear_count++;

"Why do you need version control? The latest code is all we need."

An email from a bosses new deputy to us...

A bosses son started working with us today. Found out at 5pm I'm now expected to give him a lift to and from work each day because he doesn't drive. This is a boss who easily earns 5 times my wage and isn't offering anything in return. He doesn't even live close or on the way.

Part of me always imagines myself as a surgeon trying to save a patient when there's an 'old computer can't be fixed'.

Live damn you, live!

"We e-mailed out the wrong newsletter last night, how do we get them all returned back before anyone reads them?"
- Client

...I, uh, nope.

An old client reappeared the other day wanting his Flash website updated to HTML5. He didn't want to pay because "It is exactly the same, just needs to work on tablets.".

The worst part of debugging my code isn't the hours of wasted time, it's the fact I know I wrote my own damn bug!

"You can teach my son to code. He doesn't like typing so just use that mouse thing (track pad). He's got an idea for an app (Flappy Birds clone) that'll make millions. It needs to be done tomorrow for his school computer project."
- Boss

"We need you to take control and make these decisions on your own."
...
"Why have you done this without checking with us first?!"

Today we were told our work attitude was poor when we laughed aloud at a CEO's idea of building a satellite to give all clients 3G coverage. We usually build computer software and websites.

Last year we were given an app to patch that was completely in Arabic (including the documentation). We had a tight deadline to get the app fixed so we paid for a big company to translate the Word document we'd be given.

After 2 weeks we were given the translated documentation only to find it was select recipes from an Egyptian cooking book.

Just been asked to test the website in Netscape. Today will not be a good day.

Favourite item has to be our coding monkey. He sits next to me and every time I can't figure out some code I leave him on my keyboard and have a break, hoping he'll fix it for me... Never works but there's always hope!

"Can we build an app that works only in South Africa, for multiple clients, with no WiFi connection, each app contains an entire website and database to use offline, where any changes to one database synchronises every client's app, and also save those changes to our servers?"

These clients are hundreds of miles apart and on the other side of the world.

A colleague and I were asked to build a website to show every product from a chain of hardware stores. Each product (1000+ products) needed a 3D model and we needed to recreate the model ourselves from stock photographs. The idea was the user could rotate a product and it from any angle. We also needed to write a description for each product without ever seeing any of them. There were only 2 of us, a 5 week deadline and it needed to be made in Silverlight. The whole thing lasted about 3 days before we convinced them it was impossible!

So this was only a few weeks ago. A client told us to turn our Android/iOS app into an app compatible with his phone - it needed to work online/offline and it needed to be able to take photographs. We didn't have much to go on but after a few calls we figured out he was using a very old Nokia (Snake era) that didn't even have a camera.

The hardest part was getting him to understand why we couldn't make the app.

I managed to accidentally clear everybody's usernames and email addresses from an SQL table once. I only recovered it because a few seconds before, I'd opened a tab with all the user data displayed as an HTML table. I quickly copied it into Excel, then a text editor (saving multiple times!), then managed to write a set of queries to paste it all back in place. If I'd refreshed the tab it would have all gone!