rob Posted March 27, 2007 Share Posted March 27, 2007 So, my boss's boss comes into my office today and tells me that he wants me to "help out" on a feature that one of my colleagues is struggling on. This feature is a pile of shit, and I tried to back away, saying that I really didn't want to take ownership on this feature, etc. Everyone avoids this feature like the plague. "Oh, don't worry, it's just temporary. I just want a second pair of eyes on this, it will be a joint effort, blah blah blah" he says. However, I happen to know the owner of the feature is planning on leaving the company soon, but my boss's boss still thinks that nobody knows (including me). So, basically, he's giving me this huge snow job, saying "oh, this is just temporary; we just need a little extra help." Of course, when this guy ends up leaving in a month or so, guess who is going to inherit the crap? That's right - me. After all, I'll have been (conveniently) "helping out" on the feature and so logically, I will be a natural choice to inherit it. And, of course, when reviews come around, guess who gets the blame for the stink? And of course, I can't say anything, 'cause I'm not supposed to know my buddy is leaving in the first place. I picked up the PM spec today - 103 pages double-sided. Holy shit, what kind of lobotomy do you need to become a PM? Hopefully all this fucking rain will stop so I can get the flu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaskadskyjKozak Posted March 27, 2007 Share Posted March 27, 2007 So, my boss's boss comes into my office today and tells me that he wants me to "help out" on a feature that one of my colleagues is struggling on. This feature is a pile of shit, and I tried to back away, saying that I really didn't want to take ownership on this feature, etc. Everyone avoids this feature like the plague. "Oh, don't worry, it's just temporary. I just want a second pair of eyes on this, it will be a joint effort, blah blah blah" he says. However, I happen to know the owner of the feature is planning on leaving the company soon, but my boss's boss still thinks that nobody knows (including me). So, basically, he's giving me this huge snow job, saying "oh, this is just temporary; we just need a little extra help." Of course, when this guy ends up leaving in a month or so, guess who is going to inherit the crap? That's right - me. After all, I'll have been (conveniently) "helping out" on the feature and so logically, I will be a natural choice to inherit it. And, of course, when reviews come around, guess who gets the blame for the stink? And of course, I can't say anything, 'cause I'm not supposed to know my buddy is leaving in the first place. I picked up the PM spec today - 103 pages double-sided. Holy shit, what kind of lobotomy do you need to become a PM? Hopefully all this fucking rain will stop so I can get the flu. I love refactoring other people's shit and making it nice and tidy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weekend_Climberz Posted March 27, 2007 Share Posted March 27, 2007 Sounds like there's more there that needs a virus other than yourself :tup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaskadskyjKozak Posted March 27, 2007 Share Posted March 27, 2007 Sounds like there's more there that needs a virus other than yourself :tup: rm -rf / Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-spotter Posted March 27, 2007 Share Posted March 27, 2007 Dude, waaaaah You sound like Gary _Yngivitis Did Sandy refuse to book a room for you too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weekend_Climberz Posted March 27, 2007 Share Posted March 27, 2007 Only Gary is a student and pays for his misery Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon Posted March 27, 2007 Share Posted March 27, 2007 I didn't even need your IP address to figure out where you work. Classic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuMR Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 lemme guess...the evil empire?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevbone Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 I didn't even need your IP address to figure out where you work. Classic! You can tell where someone works by there IP address? Cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 lemme guess...the evil empire?? No dumbshit, he works at Initech! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Phil Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 Dom Portwood: Hi, Peter. What's happening? We need to talk about your TPS reports. Peter Gibbons: Yeah. The coversheet. I know, I know. Uh, Bill talked to me about it. Dom Portwood: Yeah. Did you get that memo? Peter Gibbons: Yeah. I got the memo. And I understand the policy. And the problem is just that I forgot the one time. And I've already taken care of it so it's not even really a problem anymore. Dom Portwood: Ah! Yeah. It's just we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that'd be great. All right! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaee Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 I love refactoring other people's shit and making it nice and tidy. I'm sure this is just a vent, but KK is right in that it's called work and you get paid to do it. If the only way you can do it right is a clean sheet of paper you'll not get a lot done unless you're already a genius and working as an architect. Review the spec. Review the code. Obviously your boss will have to provide time for this either now or when your cohort leaves. If it stinks provide some solutions for your boss that will make it work, even if it takes more time/resources, or justification to ax it. Do it right or get it removed from the schedule. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaskadskyjKozak Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 Write test cases to wrap the shitty code. Refactor mercilessly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archenemy Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 Write test cases to wrap the shitty code. Refactor mercilessly. Pick up paycheck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaskadskyjKozak Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 I once had to work with a class hierarchy consisting of 4 6,000+ line SAX parsers. The code looked like an unholy union of FORTAN, C, and Java, and included things like "constants" that were set repreatedly, hand-rolled JDBC result/set wrappers, and 200 line if/else-if statements. After refactoring the shit down to something reasonable the author accosted me for making his code "more complicated", and inconsistent w/r/t to other code in the codebase that he wrote. His definition of "more complicated" - if you split a class into more than one class, then by definition it is more complicated. I told him to lick sack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob Posted March 28, 2007 Author Share Posted March 28, 2007 If it stinks provide some solutions for your boss that will make it work, even if it takes more time/resources, or justification to ax it. Do it right or get it removed from the schedule. Great idea, 'cause that's the nice thing about corporate IT -- they always give us the time we need for fixes, and never force shitty stuff out the door. But yeah, it was just a rant. At least I'm nt flippin' burgers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archenemy Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 I LOVE dev geeks. My favorite exchange here so far has been when one coder (a hot-shot young guy who is very good at his work) went over an helped a fellow coder who was working away. Dev #1 says, "you gotta move that to there because that's how code works". Best explaination I've heard ever!! I laughed so hard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbw1966 Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuMR Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 lemme guess...the evil empire?? No dumbshit, he works at Initech! wow, jon...you're so smart... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catbirdseat Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 How Shit Happens Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
octopuswithafez Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 Write test cases to wrap the shitty code. Refactor mercilessly. Let us do it! Let us do it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaskadskyjKozak Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 Write test cases to wrap the shitty code. Refactor mercilessly. Let us do it! Let us do it! Unfortunately THEY probably can't do it. Those offshore guys more often than not write crappy, kludgy code that needs refactoring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob Posted March 29, 2007 Author Share Posted March 29, 2007 Have you ever noticed that the more education a candidate has, the less competent he is? It's weird. I interviewed one guy with a Masters who kept walking off the end of his string and couldn't figure out where all the garbage was coming from. He was genuinely shocked when I explain the null character to him -- like everything had finally just come together in his mind. Scarey. I think all that schoolin' must be bad for the brain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuMR Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 ...poor gary... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaskadskyjKozak Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 Have you ever noticed that the more education a candidate has, the less competent he is? It's weird. I interviewed one guy with a Masters who kept walking off the end of his string and couldn't figure out where all the garbage was coming from. He was genuinely shocked when I explain the null character to him -- like everything had finally just come together in his mind. Scarey. I think all that schoolin' must be bad for the brain. Well, I've got an MS and I know what is what. My favorite question is to ask about the equals() method in Java. Why would you need to override it, and what *else* might you need to do... If they don't get that they're almost certain to get the boot immediately. I once had a guy who wrote on his resume "expert at Java 1.4.x API". So I asked him to tell me a little about what interfaces and classes were in the java.util package. "uh, I don't memorize the packages, I use Javadocs to look stuff up". OK, how about the collections framework. Tell me about some of the classes and interfaces there. Surely, you can come up with something you don't have to look up. "UHhhh...". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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