Do any of the rest of you work with idio ts?

“OK, so one of my co-workers emails me some questions, which I dutifully answer. They are about how certain things in our product should be documented.

She replies to my answers with the following question:

Since such-and-such file is delivered with the name in all upper case, shouldn't the documentation refer to the file in all upper case?

I had to sit and grind my teeth for a minute or two so I didn't pop off an answer like "That is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer."

My reply was "I think that would be best, yes."”

“You're a gentleman!”

“Fortunately, I am lucky to work with really smart people - all of them. Unfortunately, we occasionally come across a client who is a complete idiot. That would be OK, to some degree, but sometimes the idiot ones actually think they're really smart. Not good.”

“No, I'm just trying to remain employed, lol...”

“One of our classified call takers called back this morning and wanted to know what county we are in.”

“The people who I actually work with are all pretty smart...it's our QA people who seem to be dense.

Other people in my department blame in on the altitude...our QA people are all in Colorado.

With my luck, she's a lurker on this board and I am now toast, lol...”

“I AM an idiot. I feel sorry for my co-workers.”

“Geo, isn't your paper called the "Bucks County" whatever?”

“she needs to smoke a number and chill imo”

“Don't ask Bit any more dumb TT meesage board problem questions.
:-)”

“lol...

Next thread from me: Do any of the rest of you post on a board with idiots?”

“Funny you should bring this up right now. I just got forwarded an "anonymous" email from my VP.

In this email, the "anonymous programmer" details the unjust and "bearocratic" (I'm assuming this idiot meant bureaucratic) way I force his changes through the IT-wide change management system before I will allow implementation. He complains that my enforcing this policy has caused delays of important updates and bug fixes to the clients.

BTW, the VP forwarded this email with the message: "You're doing exactly the right thing. Keep it up!"

I know exactly who this putz is, and am feeling the urge to get even.”

“If you know who it is, likely everyone else in your department will know as well, after you trim all text identifying you and your VP from the email and post it next to the water fountain.”

“Pfft. I already forwarded the whole thing to my team. I'm talking REAL revenge here.”

“Yow.

OK, how about phenylphthalein on his sandwich?”

“Ahhh yes, the change management process. Sounds like he/she is not allowing for the time the CMP takes and their bug fixes/updates are late.”

“You do remember my comments from yesterday, don't you bitpusher?”

“Ours takes forever, because we only release twice a year. If a customer has a really big problem they want fixed right now, they have to sign something saying we're not responsible for problems that the otherwise-untested software may cause.”

“Most of the cats here are pretty intelligent.

Unfortunately, there's a few that are real a-holes. Good thing that team is going bye-bye in the not-near-enough-future....”

“About the kool-aid?”

“It's a HE, and he gets pissed when his fixes are wrong (there is a mirrored development system for him to test on), and I won't allow him to retry until he gets it right.

If you're going to test, do it BEFORE YOU APPLY THE CODE TO PRODUCTION.

Dumbass.”

“As you are on the trail you aee all that is grand and that life seems to slow down.

Looking around you see all the great things that the wilderness has to offer.

Being on the trail makes you fell like you are the last human on earth in places that are wild and free.

8)"
Crazy Mike Backpacks
02:39:59 PM
02/04/04
ignore this user

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yeah, but being at work makes me think I'm the last intelligent human on earth...."
smiley girl
02:54:34 PM
02/04/04”

“I don't know if anyone in this office is an idiot or not (except one guy) since our jobs are fruitless anyway.

My office is full of workaholics and a few slackers like me. Sometimes I take time out of my busy TT posting schedule to wander around cubeville thanking those who slave away day and night so I can surf the 'net all day. I'd add an LOL to that, but it really isn't funny.

I just had a conversation with one of the more anal workaholics - she's all in a tizzy about a woman in another office who is STILL out on maternity leave during budget time. omigawd!”

“Missed that, smiley girl.

In fairness to my co-worker, she's not a software development person, she's an end-user who we have hired to do QA. So, she has no idea what goes into creating software. I'm sure she believes that I stand around a big black cauldron in a smoky room, muttering strange incantations in Gaelic, and periodically go into trances where I sit down in front of a computer and automatic-write the code.”

“I work with a woman who doesn't understand the terms "cut and paste" or even - "open that file." Sometimes I feel like I need to hurt her.”

“Pets aren't disappearing in your neighborhood, are they, ynami? lol...”

“A few days ago one guy came into my cube complaining about his mouse. I showed him how to take the ball out, etc then said if that didn't help, we had a bunch of spares.
I go to his desk today, his blood pressure is thru the roof from banging on this dead mouse. I said (among other things) why didn't you tell me, and why didn't you get a new mouse. Where are they this is driving me crazy, he asked. I turned to the file cabinet behind him and picked up the one that was on top of it.
Where is the dead mouse now, you ask? He's still beating on it (I can hear him thru our cubes). He'll keep that up until someone actually changes it for him.
And I dated this guy for 15 years.”

“Bit do you mean to tell us that you don't stand around a cauldron?

Interesting cause we do.”

“She's close to retirement and really quite a nice old dear, but when I have to get up and show her how to open a file for the sixth time that hour, I do get the urge to beat her over the head repeatedly with the keyboard.
She actually can do this stuff, but just says that "she doesn't get computers," and refuses to think.”

“Oh, and speaking of stupid customers, I had one once that I swear must have been unable to read English.

He would ask questions, and we would point out the page in the documentation where the answer to his question was explained. He would say he didn't understand, and we would have to explain it further to him.

Once, I sent him an email with exact instructions on how to do something. He called and said he didn't understand. I read him the text of the email, and he said "Oh, OK. Thanks."

Freakin' morons...”

“No, HPM, I don't do the cauldron thing anymore. Just the trances and automatic writing...”

“We have a customer that will rehash every simple thing he says and you say at least 20 times. And that is NOT an exageration. I counted. Dude kills at least 4 hours a week of our time.

We have a running contest to see who can manage to get off the phone quickest while still solving his problems. The current leader in the contest is at 38 minutes last place comes in at 1 hour and 52 minutes.”

“If you really want to work with idiots, try doing jobs for the state where you have to deal with the bureaucracy.”

“Thankfully, I no longer work directly with customers. It's probably best for everyone involved.

I did actually ask a customer once why he wanted to do something so stupid, I kid you not. But we had a long, good relationship, so he took it as good-natured kidding.”

“HPM, I work with a guy like that. My strategy for dealing with him is this: "I understand the issue. I'm going to work on it shortly, and I will email you to tell you what I did." That's the only thing that has ever gotten me off a call in less than 30 minutes with this guy.”

“That's sort of what my co-worker is like. She feels the need to completely explain everything she did, including well-defined steps in the process, to produce the error she saw. Usually I can tell what the problem is from the output.

In our meetings, I've been known to cut her short by saying that I understand the issue fully and there's no need for further explanation. No doubt this is why she thinks I hate her.”

“Occasionally, I get calls from project managers that I have done work for asking me for help with PC-related issues. They seem kind of baffled when I tell them I'm going to transfer them to PC support.”

“DO you hate her?

I'm close on a number of these folks.”

“Bit, is hitting the delete button bad?”

“Nah, that would be like hating a puppy. I've come close, especially when she accused me of "not taking enough care when making code changes" in the body of a bug report. But she was just frustrated.”

“Mapleleaf, that depends.”

“"Geo, isn't your paper called the "Bucks County" whatever?"
bitpusher

No bit, we're inside Philadelphia, both city and county, which are the same. Have been for more than 100 years.

After that happened, my reporter called out to her and asked her what planet we are on.

I've been ragging on her all day about it.

With my job, it's not just working with idiots or working for idiots. We have other idiots, like the folks who get arrested and then come into my office asking me to not print their names in our police report because their kids will be embarassed. I tell them "Right thought, wrong timing!"”

“That's sort of analogous to customers, Geo, lol...”

“No he does the "so what you are saying" thing and the "let me put it this way" crap a bizillion times.”

“Okay, here's one:

I was walking through the control room the other day, and heard one of the computer operators talking about Caligula. The other guy asks, "isn't that like when you get a blood clot?"”

“Yeah, I work with idiots. All they do is post on the enternet all day and leave the work for others to do.”

“We had a guy who didn't know how to use the reply button on his email. Every time we would email him we would get a phone call about 15 minutes later, which would lead to a 30-minute conversation.”

“Here's one for those of you working with H1B visa holders.

My uncle is talking to a programmer in his cube and they fine a major (fatal) programming error. The programmer say "HOLY COW!!" really loud.

From the other cube comes a very strong Indian accented voice. "Yes, de cow is berry holy. Berry berry holy."”

“That reminds me of another idiot I used to work with...This guy loved to leave voicemail messages. It wouldn't have been so annoying if our voicemail system had had a "go to the next message" command, but like everything else at that company, it was the cheapest solution money could buy. Anyway, he once left me a five-minute-long voicemail, detailing a problem he was having.

I put the phone down, walked upstairs to his cube, and told him to never do that to me again.”

“I am fortunate to not have to work with idiots, just myself. But I encounter them most days anyways. I'm a court reporter and the other day I was in a deposition where this was said by a witness:

Q So how far from the hospital do you live?
A 10 - 20 miles, depending on how fast I drive.

The thing I found amusing is that none of the attorneys in the room noticed.
LOL”