TL;DR :

"when i die i want my group project members to lower me into my grave so they can let me down one last time"

STORY TIME

Last year in College, I had two simultaneous projects. Both were semester long projects. One was for a database class an another was for a software engineering class.

As you can guess, the focus of the projects was very different. Databases we made some desktop networked chat application with a user login system and what not in Java. SE we made an app store with an approval system and admin panels and ratings and reviews and all that jazz in Meteor.js.

The DB project we had 4 total people and one of them was someone we'll call Frank. Frank was also in my SE project group. Frank disappeared for several weeks. Not in class, didn't contact us, and at one point the professors didn't know much either. As soon as we noticed it would be an issue, we talked to the professors. Just keeping them in the loop will save you a lot of trouble down the road. I'm assuming there was some medical or family emergency because the professors were very understanding with him once he started coming back to class and they had a chance to talk.

Lesson 1: If you have that guy that doesn't show up or communicate, don't be a jerk to them and communicate with your professor. Also, don't stop trying to contact the rogue partner. Maybe they'll come around sometime.

It sucked to lose 25% of our team for a project, but Frank appreciated that we didn't totally ignore him and throw him under the bus to the point that the last day of class he came up to me and said, "hey, open your book bag and bring it next to mine." He then threw a LARGE bottle of booze in there as a thank you.

Lesson 2: Treat humans as humans. Things go wrong and understanding that will get you a lot farther with people than trying to make them feel terrible about something that may have been out of their control.

Our DB project went really well. We got an A, we demoed, it worked, it was cool. The biggest problem is I was the only person that had taken a networking class so I ended up doing a large portion of the work. I wish I had taken other people's skills into account when we were deciding on a project. Especially because the only requirement was that it needed to have a minimum of 5 tables and we had to use some SQL language (aka, we couldn't use no-SQL).

The SE project had Frank and a music major who wanted to minor in CS (and then 3 other regular CS students aside from me). This assignment was make an app store using any technology you want. But, you had to use agile sprints. So we had weekly meetings with the "customer" (the TA), who would change requirements on us to keep us on our toes and tell us what they wanted done as a priority for the next meeting. Seriously, just like real life. It was so much fun trying to stay ahead of that.

So we met up and tried to decided what to use. One kid said Java because we all had it for school. The big issue is trying to make a Java web app is a pain in the ass. Seriously, there are so many better things to use. Other teams decided to use Django because they all wanted to learn Python. I suggested why not use something with a nice package system to minimize duplicating work that had already been done and tested by someone. Kid 1 didn't like that because he said in the real world you have to make your own software and not use packages. Little did he know that I had worked in SE for a few years already and knew damn well that every good project has code from somewhere else that has already solved a problem you're facing. We went with Java the first week. It failed miserably. Nobody could get the server set up on their computers. Using VCS with it required you to keep the repo outside of the where you wrote code and copy and paste changes in there. It was just a huge flop so everyone else voted to change.

Lesson 3: Be flexible. Be open to learning new things. Don't be afraid to try something new. It'll make you a better developer in the long run.

So we ended up using Meteor. Why? We all figured we could pick up javascript super easy.Two of us already knew it. And the real time thing would make for some cool effects when an app got a approved or a comment was made. We got to work and the one kid was still pissed. I just checked the repo and the only thing he committed was fixing the spelling of on word in the readme.

We sat down one day and worked for 4 straight hours. We finished the whole project in that time. While other teams were figuring out how to layout their homepage, we had a working user system and admin page and everything. Our TA was trying to throw us for loops by asking for crazy things and we still came through. We had tests that ran along side the application as you used it. It was friggin cool.

Lesson 4: If possible, pick the right tool for the job. Not the tool you know. Everything in CS has a purpose. If you use it for its purpose, you will save days off of a project.

Hey I got reminded of a funny story.

A friend of mine and me were in internships in the same company. The company was specialized in territory resources management (managing water for agriculture, money to build industrial zones...). He got the interesting internship (water predictory modeling) and I got... The repairs of a reference sheet manager that never happened to work. It was in C# and ASP.NET and I was in second year of CS. I expected the code to be nice and clear since it was made by a just graduated engineer with +5years of studies.

I was very wrong.

This guy may never have touched a web server in his life, used static variables to keep sessions instead of... well... sessions, did code everything in the pages event handlers (even LinQ stuff et al) and I was told to make it maintainable, efficient and functional in 2 months. There were files with +32k LoC.

After 1week of immense despair, I decided I will refactor all the code. Make nice classes, mapping layer, something close to a MVC... So I lost time and got scoled for not being able to make all the modifications as fast as in a cleanly designed code...

After 4 weeks, everything was refactored and I got to wait for the design sheets to change some crystal report views.

At this moment I began to understand were was the problem in this company.

My friend next door got asked to stop his modeling stuff for an emergency project. He had to make an XML converter for our clients to be able to send decentralized electrics bills, and if it was not completed within a week, they would no longer be able to pay until it is done.

This XML converter was a project scheduled 5 years before that. Nobody wanted to do it.

At the same time, I was waiting for the Com Department to give me the design views.

I never saw the design views. Spent one month implementing a golden ratio calculator with arbitrary precision because they ain't give me anything to do until the design were implemented.

Ended with a poor grade because "the work wasn't finished".

Once I strongly hissed at my boss from that time in a "stop now or I start yelling" voice.
We had an emergency and I was already working late to fix it. 8pm, only the both of us were still in the office. I was in the zone, still searching for the source of the problem and he kept coming in every 2-5 minutes offering his help, ripping every shred of concentration right off my skull, but he had absolutely no relevant technical skills, experience or information. There was nothing he could do.
In the end I hissed at him "Get your fucking ass out of here and let me do my job. This piece of shit kills my day and there is nothing you can do besides to say 'go home'."
Then he finally let me do my job.

So what's up with bosses and employees that sporadically ask you to respond fast (like in the hour) to any request even though it is not an emergency? I feel like 50% of the people I work with are constantly in fireman mode, but never stop to think why they work like this.

When it comes to implementing helpful processes or improving shitty processes, I always get the "we don't have time, we are overbooked for this quarter." We never have time to improve and it fucking sucks.

Also, stop bothering me at 9-10 PM or during the weekends you bunch of no-lives. Maybe work smarter and less often?

It honestly makes me less motivated to work and depresses me a bit. I'm starting to hate my job.

I hate it that some people at work call directly to my phone when they need help. They think that this way they will get service faster.

Now I understand if it’s an emergency but 95% of the cases it’s not. I most likely am stuck in a meeting or got my hands full with other work, so I am unable to answer my phone.

For gods sake, send a ticket, email or an instant message so my coworkers will be able to see your issue or I can forward it to availabe person. Stop spamming me with phone calls when I can’t answer!

Windows 10 updating, decides it would be cool to install gigabytes of sdk, edge, and other bloatware without asking first, on a metered connection i use for work.

Guys, between you there and those fanboy demons in cupertino, one wants to just shut it all off and return to monke.

Sidenote this, because all of this nonsense started on that crap called Windows 8, which was in the end caused to copy that Unholy crap (sold as gold) that is Apple's range of products. It's a company that sells designs nowadays, like Prada, to say, Jobs era is long gone. Everything related to Apple, Mac, Safari, Development, Gaming, UI/UX, productivity and whatever is a

f***ing Nightmare.

We alreay have a global plague, and Apple exists, we dont' need you too making another catastrophe.

All this said,
Use your goddamn trillions to create your own customizable environment that is stable, fast, and WITHOUT BULLSHIT.

I don't give a mindflying F**k of the blurs, i know how to place them with a shell, if i need those. I want control, the shit i decide is going to happen, to happen fast.
This is of Critical importance, because it defines my productivity. And considering we're all sealed indoors since 2019, i want to get away from my pc asap and live my life, instead of spending time(and money, in this moment of emergency) fixing your F**kfests, or else seeing my pc slowing down to death.

First: IF i want stuff on my pc, I know how to install something, thank you.

Second: You can take it, all your Useless - Bugged as Hell - Nonsensical - and of no practical use Bloatware, and shove it deep in your Backdoor.
I'll debloat my pc with batches again, and there's nothing you can do to stop me doing that at every update you force me into.

So please, stop wasting my time, and yours.

Meetings.

Too many meetings.

"Why do you explain...." 10kv electrical shock.

Explanation so everyone has the same knowledge.

"But CD ES process of LCE..." Water. From the emergency hose. In the face.

For fucks sake, we are using speech in a meeting so stop using motherfucking abbreviations you shit hole.

"We had bugs". Taking an hot iron and shoving it somewhere nice.

Explain - what the fuck are you talking about? What bugs? Tickets? Documentation? Implications of the bugs? Hate. Much hate.

Um. I don't know. Maybe. But if.

Thumb wrenches.

Please, stop wasting time, if it's non important, a " No " doesn't hurt....

Let me show you. (4k Monitor, 10 px font, bright neon colors, IDE looks like LSD trip in bad).

Crucification.

If you present stuff, good - but for christs sake, shove your motherfucking shitty IDE setting in your own arse and turn on presentation mode with neutral colors - bright or dark mode, I don't care, but readable without danger of seizure.

I can't stream my monitor right now because of "bla" "blabla" (some private shit that has ZERO to do with work).

I'll need some oxy if this goes on.

Program: Meets a critical bug, potentially crashing the whole system.
Administrator: Presses the "Emergency stop" button.
Emergency stop program: Meets a critical bug in itself.
Admin: X . X

I was thinking about what the correct term is for the "." symbol at the end of sentences. Is it dot, point or period?
Turns out it is period, but I also learned that in British English it’s called full stop, which I find very funny 😂. It sounds like something that one would scream in an emergency. FULL STOP!

Anyway, in German there is only one word for dot, point, period and full stop.

Finally got some time today to cleanup my inbox after three weeks of almost non-stop emergency. Came home from work, sat down in front of my computer and got a call from unknown number. Answered it and it was my ISP telling me that I have virus in my network and was spamming everybody and they cut off my internet. I know they are pretty useless and only kinda semi-IT literate. Took me an hour to convince them restore my connection with blocked port 25. Suricata log of all my traffic shows that nothing in my network communicated to port 25, the only possibilities are managed switch in front of my router I didn't managed to get into yet which should have managing interface on completely different VLAN and their router. Or mess in their system. My guess is their system is a mess. Will see how it works out tommorrow.

Story of my first successful project

Being part of a great team, I've shared in a lot of successes, one I am particularly proud of is my first attempt to use agile methodologies in a deeply waterfall-managment culture.

Time was June/July-ish and we applied for a national quality award where one key element in the application stated how well we handled customer complaint resolution.
While somewhat true (our customer service is the top-shelf good stuff), we did not have a systematic process in resolving customer complaints. Long story short,
the VP lied on her section of the application. Then came the 'emergency', borderline panic meeting (several VPs, managers, etc) to develop a process to better manage
complaints before the in-house inspection in December.
As most top priority projects go, the dev manager allocated 3 developers, 2 DBAs, and any/all network admins we would need (plus all the bureaucratic management that wanted their thumb in the pie).
Fast forward to August, after many, many planning meetings, lost interest, new shiny bouncing balls, I was the only one left on the project. The VP runs into the dev manager in the hallway and asks "Is my program done yet? If its not ready before December with report-able data, we will not win the award."
The <bleep> hit the fan...dev manager comes by...
Frank: "How the application coming along? Almost done?"
Me:"No, haven't really started coding. You moved Jake and Tom over to James's team, Tina quit, and you've had me sidetracked helping other teams because the DBAs are too busy."
Frank: "So, it's excuses. You really think the national quality award auditors care about your excuses? The specification design document has been done for months. This is unacceptable."
Me: "The VP finished up her section yesterday and according to the process, we can't start coding until the document is signed off."
Frank: "Holy f<bleep>ing sh<bleep>t! No one told you *you* couldn't start. You know how to create tables and write code."
Me: "There is no specification to write to. The design document is all about how they plan on reporting the data, not how call agents will be using the application to serve customers."
Frank: "The f<bleep> it isn't. F<bleep>ing monkeys could code against that specification, I helped write it! NO MORE F<bleep>ING EXCUSES! This is your top priority from now on!"

I was 'cleared' to work directly with the call center manager and the VP to develop a fully integrated customer complaint management system before December (by-passing any of the waterfall processes that would get in the way).

I had heard about this 'agile' stuff, attended a few conference tracks on the subject, read the manifesto, and thought "I could do this.".

Over the next month, I had my own 'sprints' and 'scrums' with the manager (at the time, 'agile' was a dirty word so I had to be careful of my words and what info I shared) and by the 2nd iteration had a working prototype.
Feature here, feature there (documenting the 'whys' and 'whats' along the way), and by October, had a full deployed application.

Not thinking I would get a parade or anything, the dev manager came back from a meeting where the VP was showing off the new app to the other VPs (and how she didn't really 'lie' on the application)

Frank: "Everyone is pleased how well the project turned out, except one thing. Erin said you bothered him too much with too many questions."
Me: "Bothered? Did he really say that?"
Frank: "No, not directly, but he said you would stop by his office every day to show him your progress and if he needed you to change anything. You shouldn't have done that."
Me: "Erin really seemed to like the continuous feedback. What we have now is very different than what we started with."
Frank: "Yes, probably because you kept bothering him and not following the specification document. That is why we spend so much time up front in design is so we don't waste management's time, which is exactly what you did."
Me: "We beat the deadline by two months, so I don't think I wasted anyone's time. In fact, this is kind of a big win for us, right?"
Frank: "Not really. There was breakdown in the process. We need better focus on the process, not in these one-hit-wonders."

End the end, the company won the award (mgmt team got to meet the vice president, yes the #2 guy). I know I played a very small, somewhat insignificant role in that victory, I was extremely proud to be part of the team.

Fedora stop booting into emergency mode 😬😬😬

I never stop being amazed by how one of your people call and say "client X is stuck they can't do shit omg omg top tier emergency" and when you ask them what's the issue they say "well idk they didn't say anything, how are you gonna fix it?" as if i had a magic wand and could fix everyone's problems with a snap of my fingers and understanding what's happening with literally 0 details.

Turns out 1 minute later the "issue" was due to the customer being dumb, software was more than fine and running correctly 🤔

What a week.

A family emergency on Tuesday doesn't stop the client meeting on Thursday.

And yes, that 7 hour block of time was solid programming without stepping away from the computer.

I brought my laptop on vacation, but I left my archiso USB drive at home, assuming I wouldn't break anything.

I broke networkmanager. I just added a connection, it worked flawlessly, but for some reason it is now a reason to stop booting. It enters emergency mode, but I can't type anything... Possibly because it doesn't have read/write access or something idk.

But how on Earth would this break my system??? I'm beginning to understand why some people dislike systemd sometimes...

I guess I'll fix it when I come home...