** few years ago **
Other team: "There's a lot of overlap and misclassification between issue categories A and B; We want to merge them into one in our taxonomy"
Me: These are very different issues and have very different root causes. Shouldn't we fix the definitions instead? We don’t have major drivers for B now but if we remove it, it might bite us in year or two.
** loads of back and forth, and eventually B gets killed

** year and a quarter passes
Executive meeting: “So you’re telling us we can’t properly quantify the impact of B because we can’t distinguish A from B. It looks very clear cut to me why don’t we have split for these already and how long will it take to implement it?”
Me: Biting my tongue not to throw anyone under a bus.

An internal application is distributed as "bunch files without extensions". To figure out what types of files they are I need to hexdump each one, look for the identifiers, and then add the extensions…

Who distributes anything without extensions and why? Also how is a non-programmer expected to figure this out? (tool's audience is mainly EPMs)

Co-worker: "I'm getting files from customers which are in multiple types and encodings. Is there a way to force them to send only us-ascii so my tool gets only one kind which is easier to parse?"

Me: "Welcome to programming with arbitrary sources; you'll just have to build your tools to figure it out and not break (just rely on dozens of existing tools which you refuse to use)"

The importance of clear and specific communication:
"We're seeing unusual amount of failure X on products A and B"
Me: "Can you send me 50 samples for triage?"

My expectation: 50 in total, mixture of A and B
Reality: 50x A and 50x B

* before joining platform dev team *
"I wish I could always install the latest sw; then I would have all the cool stuff…"

* now *
"I wish I didn't need to live on pre-beta; none of my tools work properly anymore…"

Co-worker: "Should we keep this server up and running?"
Me: "Hmmm…"
C: "Do we have any other uses for it than the dedicated wiki?"
M: "Not really, and maybe it's time to move to the centralised platform Corporate™ introduced. Have we checked if anyone is using the server?"
C: "Good point, let me see…"
C: "… oh it's been down for last two weeks since the power outage."
M: "I think that answers the question. Let's leave it like this for a month more and if no one complains we can announce it dead"

* 3 months ago *
Vendor: We screwed up and need to start the project from the scratch, this delays the project completion by a year.
Me: OK. Anything you need from me?
V: The good news is that you've given us all we need. Everything should be fine to submit and review by the end of March. (Deadline for 2018 completion is mid-April 2017)

* This week *
Vendor: We need this (partially unspecified) documentation urgently, and also we're missing these parts (~3 weeks effort).
All of which could've been started 3 months ago…

My girlfriend seemed offended when I mentioned that I use pi-day as a memory rule for her birthday.
I always thought any way to make one remember such days better would be good…