MORE Conversations From the Professional Front Lines

[InsaneTD]

Probably using a smart phone and hit the call button that's presented by some sites. It puts in all the needed calling codes for it to connect for you and they wouldn't have noticed the international code.

[Raw Shark]

Not my job, but related to white water rafting:

RAFTING GUIDE: So we're going to mostly be doing Class 4 rapids today, with a couple spots that are Class 5.

ME: So that's on a scale of 1-10, right?

RAFTING GUIDE: No, 1-5.

ME: Well, shit.

RAFTING GUIDE: You'll be fine, just paddle hard, watch your head, and stay in the boat.

~~~~~

TIME PASSES:

RAFTING GUIDE: So, we're going over a waterfall in a minute. Do you guys want to flip the boat backwards and go swimming?

ME: Fuck no.

THE REST OF THE TROOP: Hell yeah we do!

ME: [facepalm]

The rafting company had a photographer stationed at all of the "fun" spots. My parents still have the picture on the wall in their hallway, right next to the one of me meeting George H. W. Bush, who I would not have voted for, but c'mon, how often do you get to shake the hand of a POTUS? #eaglescout.

[LadyTevar]

Wow. That sounds like Upper Gauley River. 5 Class 5's, the rest Class 3-4, and Sweet's Falls is a waterfall.

Where was your trip?

[Raw Shark]

Penobscot River, Maine. Shit was crazy, until lunch, which we had in the calm spot. The 12' waterfall was almost right after that.

[LadyTevar]

Had a woman call in, looking for photos of her son's Boy Scout rafting trip.
She couldn't tell us when they went. She couldn't tell us who scheduled the trip. She couldn't tell us the Scout Master's Name, or what the troop Number was. She had no idea who her son was traveling with, or where her son was.
But by GOD she wanted us to get her pictures for her, and it was all our fault that she couldn't find a boy with his shirt off in all the pictures on the photographer's website.

Sadly, she was talking to one of the ladies that joined up the same time I did, but who doesn't have experience being firm with people. Another lady took the phone from my co-worker and firmly told the lady "Look, go talk to the Scout Master to get the information, and then we'll help you. Have a nice day."

For the next hour all the mothers were furious with the caller, unable to believe that she was that clueless about her son's hobbies and whereabouts.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

But, you're supposed to magically have the information, because you're the grunts.

AIIIIII!

[SCRawl]

Background: I work for a company which develops ERP software. We have a shitload of customizations for many of our clients, and while we do support them when things go wrong, not every developer understands every client's customizations. For this one client, there's one guy who understands their custom stuff, and we'll call him Batman. The client was calling in, looking for someone to figure out why his stuff wasn't working.

CLIENT: Can we get Batman to take a look?
ME: Batman is off until Monday.
CLIENT: Is there a way to get hold of Batman? Perhaps send him an email today?
ME: No, he's on vacation. Incommunicado, as far as I know.
CLIENT: Oh, he's gone overseas?

In the client's defence, english isn't his first language.

[LaCroix]

I's now five days I am looking for the ghost of a really bad error - emails are going POOF somewhere inbetween saving and getting sent out...
Five days, no trace, no logfile, no debugging, no hacking the app to cause weird states and hoping that will recreate the problem...
Five days of 12 hours nonstop debugging and getting bugged by the Business partner if we have a solution, yet...
For a code some hired guys wrote, published and left the company, which I am now responsible for as the only coder in the newly created team(since about a week). So I am supposed to be the expert on it, even though I've never seen line of it...

I'm contemplating leaving this job and taking up a career in shelf stocking...

[InsaneTD]

Did the previous guy at least comment his code?

[LadyTevar]

Just got the "We're going to lay off everyone by Oct 21st" email from the rafting company. After all, you don't need 100+ employees when it's too cold to run the river.

So, back to job-hunting again. If I'm lucky I'll get called back next April/May when it's ok to go rafting again.

At least I'll be able to re-apply for my Free Insurance and possibly Food Stamps again. They got taken away because I had several good sales on one check. Income limit is $1500/month Gross Pay for food stamps. That one check with my bonus pay was $1000 (gross pay). If they'd gone by Take Home pay, it'd have only been $800.

[Khaat]

Background: I work for a company which develops ERP software. We have a shitload of customizations for many of our clients, and while we do support them when things go wrong, not every developer understands every client's customizations. For this one client, there's one guy who understands their custom stuff, and we'll call him Batman. The client was calling in, looking for someone to figure out why his stuff wasn't working.

CLIENT: Can we get Batman to take a look?
ME: Batman is off until Monday.
CLIENT: Is there a way to get hold of Batman? Perhaps send him an email today?
ME: No, he's on vacation. Incommunicado, as far as I know.
CLIENT: Oh, he's gone overseas?

In the client's defence, english isn't his first language.

"Incommunicado? Where's that?"
"Twenty miles east, then take a left."

[Raw Shark]

DIPSHIT: Yo, I'm trying to get the fuck out your store.

ME: Okay. Be my guest.

DIPSHIT: Well, why yo ass not getting behind the counter?

ME: Because you talked to me.

GOLD TOOTH: Yo, Matty. What's good?

ME: Having friends in times of uncertainty.

DIPSHIT: [backs down like an unfunny clown]

[LaCroix]

Did the previous guy at least comment his code?

Guess...

[U.P. Cinnabar]

My guess would be a big fat nope.

[InsaneTD]

Yeah, I figured it would be too much to ask as I was typing it.

[Raw Shark]

Back in the one coding class I ever took, I used to comment my code with jokes mostly. EG: "Can you believe this ugly fucking kludge took me 90 minutes? 1 free beer if you make this at least 100% more elegant."

~~~~~

NEW BOSS: So, we have a fourth employee again tonight. I need you to show him around, but he's worked for us before, so he doesn't need training.

ME: Okay. Where did he work for us?

NEW BOSS: He's coming from Quebec and Iliff, but he's worked at Colfax and Hudson before, and 58th and Broadway, and 10th and Broadway. He's bounced from store to store but nobody actually fires him.

ME: Um. At least he's familiar with a wide range of company procedures?

NEW BOSS: Yeah, let's go with that.

[LaCroix]

I finally found that bug...

First - it wasn't caused by the new code I added. so I spent two weeks of combing through code bit by bit without finding anything because they told me it comes from "there".

We had a guy fly over and record one of them entering a dozend cases so we had a log of what the hell they were doing. Lo and behold, instead of the ne "QuickClaim" app, they often used the standard "Claim" app, as well. And of course - the cases that we could not explain ALL orignated from the old code. Thats why I could not find anything in the logs - they never came through may code...

The problem is that one part of the old code handles automatic sms notifications, and another automatic emails (email != sms, so it needs to be handled different, fine...) But seemingly, they designed the old code in a way that expects that SMS can only be writen in this case, and THAT case only writes emails. Now, this customer defined his process that for some contracts, he wrote emails where we expected SMS and vice versa. Not many, maybe 10-20% where people did not want emails or did not have smartphones in office.

And the fun thing - the code was the perfect honey trap.
As long as the customer didn's fully trust the systen, and did a "just to be safe" saving before klicking the "notify" button, it worked fine - mails were sent, and SMS as well.
But once the user started to trust the system and klicked the button right away without saving.... depending on how the contract he was creating the claim for was defined regarding emails and/or sms sending, it occasionally dropped emails or sms into the void, becaus the first sending operation altered the claim in a way that meant the other code did not find the parameters that would make him send its messages, anymore.

[LaCroix]

"As long as you don't trust us, we play nice. Turn your back on us, we'll stab you in the back and twist the knife."

A fitting motto for my company...

[Raw Shark]

Mispost.

[LaCroix]

Co worker (attractive ukranian girl) asked me if I could make some extra holes (and make all the holes bigger because the peg doesn't really fit into the existing ones) in a new (expensive) belt her boyfriend has bought her... (He's the coding department boss here. Nice guy. We all are kind of friends in this company. )

Next day, on a team building event, I had it with me, and since she wasn't there, I gave it to him, quoting "I've got something for Natalya, can I give it to you?"

Cue brief moment of confusion how I came into the posession of one of his girl's articles of clothing, followed by an inquiry into this.
It took me some effort to explain this without using the phrases
"She needed three holes done"
"She asked me to widen her holes."

She had a big laugh when I later told her about this, and how awkward it was to explain to him how I came into possession of her belt.

Yesterday, she asked me once more, needing three more holes, claiming she needs a much tighter fit, still. On a whim, I tried to fit the belt around my waist and barely managed to make it fit when pulling in my belly as hard as possible. We had a big laugh.

Today I gave it back, and later, bossboyfriend came by and noticed the belt, and she told him I took care of her holes, once more(exact phrasing).
When he asked why she needed even more done, she remembered and told him that it did fit me, and asked what size he bought, and "do you think I'm fat?" -ed him.
*Cue me frantically wheeling out of my cubicle on my office chair muttering "keepmeouttathatkeepmeouttathat...* under general laughter of the whole office space while he hastily explained it was the smallest size they had there, and obviously are not usually selling to eastern european topmodel shaped girls in that boutique.

Other female coworker, overhearing this commotion suddenly stopped laughing, and homed in on the important piece of information: "You do holes? Can you do mine? Is tomorrow ok for you?"

Bossboyfriend, talking before thinking: "Your talents seem to be displaced here - you should start a business. Just charge 20 bucks per hole you do..."

Everything went downhill from there...

[U.P. Cinnabar]

1) Isn't it exasperating when people communicate with you and not each other?

2) You do have a lot of wicked talents that you've been hiding...

[LaCroix]

#1
Internal monologue transcript:
*Peels his orange in a way that the peel looks like a facehugger.*
*Briefly plays with it*
*Wonders* 'Am I the only one?'
*Looks around in office*
*Sighs* 'Thomas, whenever you wonder whether you are the only one, the answer is most likely yes...'

#2
Coworker (C) talking about some task he needs my help with.
C: 'I've made a list.'
Me: 'And you've been checking it twice?'
C: 'Why?'
Me: 'Cause you've gotta find out who's naughty and nice...'
C:'What? Why?'
Me: 'Cause Santa Claus is coming.... tooo tooooown....'

[LaCroix]

Coworker: You had a nice Valentine's day?
Me: We had a "Donald Trump Valentine"...
C: A what?
Me: I did not get her flowers, but I built a wall for her... [Currently doing the drywall walls in the house extension]
C: *laughs* Nice - and did you make her pay for it?

Me: *leers* I did, ohhh yes, I did...

C:*sighs* I ran right into that, right? Geez...

[The Romulan Republic]

At work today, dealing with customers, I overheard a little girl who looked about four arguing with her mother, and asking her to explain why she couldn't watch Game of Thrones.

The mum handled it really well actually- she was firm, honest, non-judgmental, simply said that it had lots of violence and sexual content but that the kid could watch it when she was an adult if she chose to. Pretty good parenting, really, I thought.

[SCRawl]

A reply from a colleague to a client:

"Hi [clientName],
I am running a little late, I will start meeting at 1:45 PM.
I apologize for any incontinence."

Auto-correct is not always your friend.