Did not. Did too.

It’s not quite as bad as the title suggests, but Matt is heading in that very direction. His behaviour is getting childish.

He’s not up to his task, again. Happens. He did the best thing one can do in that situation and asked me for help. “Marcus, how do you create a bootable CD?” The question seemed odd. I had the feeling that a bootable CD would not solve his problems. It would just postpone them until later. (We’ll talk about asking the right questions in a different post.) After I had interviewed him about his original task (install software) I knew I was right. He didn’t need a CD. So I gave him detailed instructions on what he needed to do.

About three hours later I overheard a conversation between him and his boss. His boss gave him the exact same instructions I had given him earlier. The tone was different though.

After his boss was out of sight, Matt approached me again. He said that if I noticed he was having trouble, he would appreciate if I tried to help him instead of telling on him. My jaw just dropped.

Update: Matt sent an apology by e-mail. I accepted.

Borrowing hardware.

Borrowing hardware is a wide-spread phenomenon.

Matt has possessed the nerve to borrow RAM from a server. A test system that is not running 24/7, but still; he could have documented the move in some way, or taken all the RAM instead of just 75% of it. – So when Steve started up the system a few days later he observed very bad performance. It took us quite some time to figure out what was wrong. It’s not like the RAM is something you expect to change on an often-used system.

My task for today involves mirroring several GB of data (double digits) to a remote site. With only a 1 MBit/s connection at the remote site sending the stuff over the net is not a real alternative. For that very reason we have a mobile harddrive. After a lengthy search it turned out, that Miles had taken the device home. Apparently he’s the only person around the office who does not have a personal mobile harddrive (for his porn movies). Unfortunately all the other people who do (including me) don’t have theirs around today. So I started burning DVDs. This went fine for the first chunk of data. Other chunks contain files that are larger than 2 GB, thus they cannot be burned to ISO-compatible media without splitting them first. There are other issues as well, such as availability of enough media (I had to revert to single layer) etc.

In short: I’m pissed. Too much effort and thinking necessary for a simple task, only because people borrow hardware.

Little details. #2

Matt’s gotta hate me, or printers, or both. Today he came running to me, again. A printer wasn’t printing. He had tried “everything” but couldn’t get it to print. I pressed the “on-line” button. I entered the correct password.

Very carefully worded.

From a developer for product A, when asked to compare the performance of his product to solution B, with marketing people around:

I do not think that A is not significantly slower than B.

*chuckles*

Job update. #2

I am no longer Director of Sales. It’s a step forward. More about the new job, about the long-term perspective, and about everything else, later on this blog… The new position will likely yield more time for writing, blogging, creating a comedy routine, even for playing Desktop Tower Defense.

Coolest way to waste your time.

Play Desktop Tower Defense. (Via Secretgeek; there’s also a “Secretgeek” scoregroup.)

Bad elevator design meets stupid lady.

I was assigned to a project at one of our clients’ offices. On short notice and right after having returned from my honeymoon. No sales work for the moment, no stupid co-workers or interns. Very pleasant. Except for one thing: elevators.

My (temporary) office is on the top floor of the building. Tall building. I usually take the stairs on my way down after work, if time permits. When time is an issue, though, i.e. before work, or during lunch breaks, meetings, etc., I must rely on the elevators. And they have a major design flaw: too-easy-to-push-buttons on the wall, too far inside the elevator.

Every once in a while somebody leans against the buttons and hits (usually just) a small number of them by accident. I have gotten into a habit already of warning people about the buttons. Like today, when this lady’s purse kept hitting the button that re-opens the doors. She looked up, turned around, took her purse off her shoulder, appologized, turned back around, and then leaned against the wall in such a stupid way that she hit all (!) of the buttons with her ass and back. This caused the f**king elevator to stop at every level on the way up. What a waste of time.