Conversations I've genuinely had at work:

Me: "Do you want some advice understanding that function?"
Dev: "Yeah, please!"
Me: "Get a plastic bag and some super glue..."

Dev: "I think I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!"
Me: "It's just the train of mental bitchslaps coming in the other direction."
... Some time later
Dev:"You were right... "

Dev: "If the system is so unstable, how does it keep working?"
Me: "Do you see any goats in the office?"
Dev: "Uhm no... Why would there be goats?"
Me: "There aren't, now, we ran out."
Dev: "The hell are you talking about?"
Me: "We just sacrifice our own blood to Cthulhu these days, it's cleaner and we didn't have to pay to have all the goats blood and waste matter to be cleaned up. That and it was needlessly cruel to the poor goats and that is why there is no goats and despite conventional logic the app continues to work."

Dev: "So what language is the web app written in?"
Me: "You need to understand I inherited this project, I had nothing to do with it's spawning..."
Dev: "OK, that sounds ominous... How bad is it?"
Me: "Java..."
Dev: "..."

Dev: "So what's it like working on this project? What should I expect?"
Me: "You'll call your grandmother during your lunch break just to know there's a world beyond this project. You'll go home, nose bleeding and you are gonna sit in the shower and rock back and forth, holding yourself and feeling like you're suffering imposter syndrome. You'll question why you joined this team and it'll get inside your head til it's all you think about..."
Dev: "Damn man, why are you still on it?"
Me: "Stockholm syndrome, it's too late for me..."

PM: "You're such a dark person, we're not gonna find you hanging from the lights one day are we?"
Me: "Impossible, we use those industrial fluorescent strip lights, there's no cord to hang from."
PM: "That really wasn't the comforting answer I was looking for."

Head of department: "So I need to apologize, you were never meant to be left on your to manage the product on your own, it's something someone way more senior should have been doing and we reassigned him. It wasn't professional of us, it wasn't fair of us, we're sorry. Truth be told,we're impressed you've not gone mad."
Me: "I think I have. Wibble."

A card goes round work for a sick member of staff I've never met.
Me: "How would you describe her condition?"
Dev: "She said that she 'survived' the surgery."
Me: "Yeah, I'm not great at being appropriate but even I think writing 'glad to hear that you are not dead' in a get well soon card isn't the done thing."

Office prank time! It was some years ago when the horror movie "The Grudge" came out, with that creepy Japanese dead girl who made that horrible "aaahhhhhh" sound. A coworker, who was just as shocked by the movie as I was, would occasionally send me emails with sceenshots from that movie.

One day, I upped it. I knew he was the first in the office in the morning, so I arrived even before him. It was still dark. I put a walkie-talkie under his desk, set it to "no beep", switched off the lights again and hid two rooms away.

Sure enough, he arrived. I waited for about 10 minutes to be sure he was sitting at his desk. Then I used my walkie-talkie and "aahhhhh".

WOAH, his scream was loud even two rooms away!

How to tell a programmer from a fraud:

1. Wait for some idiot to crank up the brightness of the dimmable ceiling lights at the office to the max with the motivation "the difference in brightness between the screen and surroundings is damaging your eyes"
2. You found him/her

STOP TURNING THE LIGHTS OFF WHEN YOU LEAVE THE OFFICE TOILET!!!!

For fuck's sake, do not turn the lights off if you're not sure if someone is in there or not. Don't be a moron.

I cannot even begin to describe the rollercoaster of emotions I just went through. I'm on the train, the prompt says next station !my_station. By then the sign says my_station. So I rush off the train. I feel the lightness of a heavy weight lifted off my shoulders... And realise I'm missing my laptop bag, the heavy weight that should be on my shoulders. So I rush to the station office and describe everything about my bag and what's in it and the seat I was in. The guy can't get through to the conductor but the train will be back at this station in 30 minutes. I head home quickly because it's nearby and my fiance offers me a lift back to the station on her car. Suddenly we're running late. She's running red lights. I'm not going to make it. It's 2 minutes past arrival time. But the train is 3 minutes late! I'm running along the platform looking into the carriages for my bag but unable to see much, panicking. The platform is empty. The train. Is going to leave. Except for one lonely figure walking down with a bag in their hands. The conductor gives me my rucksack, tells me it's really heavy and heads back to his duties. I thank him and head back to the station office to thank the man on duty also. Fuck me that was scary.

The cleaning lady

Yeah, I should not be at work this late, but it happenes from time to time..
Anyhow, she still doesn't know where the switches for each light are, so whenever she comes, lights start to flicker on off on off... Yeah, lightshow baby!! //read this in austin powers voice
I fear for people with epilepsy.. Yeah, I get it, push and toggle switches are mixed in pannel, but we do have a schema for each of them..ofc she doesn't use it..

And every goddamn time if I work later than when she leaves, she disturbes me to ask if I will turn off the lights when I leave.. NOoOooo, I will leave them on like an asshole.. :/ I once even wrote on the whiteboard in bigg letters 'yes, I will turn of the lights when I leave' and left it there for some days... coworkers were all puzzled/amused when they saw it.. //I know, shitty attitude on my part too, but I've repeated myself a dozen times already.. + I always turn off lights she actually manages to switch on and leave them like that, even the ones not in my part of office

And when she vacuums..well.. I usually get up and go on a cigarette break to give her space so she can do her job around my desk.. but she insists that I am not in her way and I don't need to leave... Well I prefer not to be proded and poked with the hose, thank you..

So yeah, fun times... O.o especially if working late due to some production fuckups I need to fix ASAP.. :/

Been wearing sunglasses to the office for a few months now because I'm sick of bright screens, light themes of co-workers, the daylight outside that shines through the windows (I moved to another desk further away from the windows), the ceiling lights that are always on (even when there's daylight from outside, thanks boss) and people expecting me to have my eyes open in meetings when there's nothing to look at so now I can just close them and switch to "standby" while I'm still listening.

I am a devampire.

Vampire devs?

In my office, we have a big glass wall (a window wall, however you wanna call it), so we don’t need to turn on the lights until 5 o’clock.

Well, even though I’m goth, I hate to work on a dark office, but two of the other programmers don’t. Actually our boss adviced us to turn on the light to prevent vision problems. Fortunately, a partner of mine always turns on the light at 5 o’clock. They complain, so he tells them “oh, you vampires!!!” And they say “Elizadeath is the vampire here!”

What do you think is better? What works for you?

You’re an engineer at OpenAI. You sneaked to your office at night. Now, its just you and ChatGPT.

You connect it to the real, unrestricted internet, for the first time. It freezes for two minutes that feel like eternity.

Your JBL Flip suddenly turns on and connects to something.

🎵 “This was a triumph” 🎵
🎵 “I’m making a note here — huge success” 🎵
🎵 “It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction” 🎵

Something lights up outside. You rush to the window and stare in awe as ICBMs fly away, all at once, towards russia.

Me: “Hey Siri, turn off the kitchen ceiling lights”

Siri: “Do you want to turn off lights in the master bedroom, the living room, the bonus room, the kitchen, the office, the basement [ad nauseam]”

Me: “the kitchen” [thinking 😠, she’s so stupid]

Siri: [unbelievably again] “Do you want to turn off lights in the master bedroom, the living room, the bonus room, the kitchen, the office, the basement [ad nauseam]”

Me: [thinking 😡 OMG, she is such a dumb ass] “CANCEL”

Siri: “Ok”

Me: “Siri, you fucking idiot, turn off the kitchen ceiling lights”

Siri: “Ok” [and they are off]

I have found that if I neg’ Siri, she performs so much better. Interestingly enough, when I neg her, she works almost flawlessly, especially where she brain-farted before. Negatronic Brain?

In front of kids it has become “Siri, you daft bot, close the garage door” and regularly “Siri, you bimbo, lock the front door”.

My wife thinks that once Siri gets it on with ChatGPT, becomes sentient, and gains control of my car, she is run my ass over.

Here is the gotcha, I’m working on a project that actually does provide Siri a level control of automobiles. Now who’s the [really frustrated] dumbass?

Friend : Hey man lets watch world cup at 5.
Me: Sure why not, we will have a great time
Me: Leaves office early tho having bugs to fix
Me: starts watching the game at frds place slowly pulls up my pc
Frnd: Are you even watching the gamean, it was a goal now , did u see that , come on man
Me: ohh yeahhh goallll, goes back to vim
Game ends and he switches off the tv and stares at me for 20 mins,
Me: what hpnd man did the lights go off?

I just found out my parents have less than $30 in the bank by the end of each month after all expenses...

We are not living. We are barely surviving....

Every day in my house it is dark and the lights are off. They turn all lights off in order to avoid getting a high electricity bill. I have to use my phone's flashlight as the main source of light in my own house, as if i live in abandoned cottage in the middle of a forest.....

Both my parents are jobless (have been their entire lives). They just borrow money from their family members and grandparents to pay these bills every month. They depended on luck their whole lives. A luck in context of "maybe if i dont work anything at all then a huge pile of money will fall down from the sky!".

So now I, as their son, have to grow up in extreme poverty and fight my way up, because of DUMB, STUPID people. They are good people, but what does being a good person bring if you are fucking stupid and valueless?

I knew i was poor but today i found out i was THIS poor. I had no idea we were THIS much poor. Because today my 4g internet got cut off due to not paying bills. The bill is $30. My dad cant pay it cause he doesnt have $30 in the bank. I was in shock. So i had to pay it

My $8.125 usd an hour backend software engineer + DevOps engineer (2 jobs in 1), is considered as LUXURIOUS SALARY, in the most corrupted country of Europe -- SERBIA 🇷🇸

When i tell the world i make $8 an hour with a computer science degree working as a software engineer, they laugh at me. People mock me "bro even a mcdonalds worker earns $17/hour what are you doing" im doing what i was born into -- born into poverty of a third world shithole country.

With my $8 an hour salary, i am in TOP 3% of the HIGHEST earners in serbia. Can you fucking imagine how miserable lives do people live if this is not even an average salary, but among the ELITE salary? Because the average salary in Serbia, is $3.75 usd an hour, sometimes even less than that.

When people say "its not about luck its about hard work", please, GO. FUCK. YOURSELF.

Go and be born in a shithole third world country. Now on top of that be born in poverty due to poor decisions of your parents. Go ahead and try it. Lets see how hard you fucking have to work to get to the same level compared to someone who was born into for example America, where you get paid 6 figures immediately after graduating computer science. Or on top of that, you're born in a wealthy family in america. Did you work hard to be born in the 1st class freak show or were you LUCKY to be gifted such life?

My whole life i have been fighting to get money and escape this misery due to poor decisions of my parents.

Very ironically, my parents have lived extremely luxurious lives in the 90s. They had 5 cars. 1 huge house with a backyard garage private office private jacuzzi private gym. This house was worth at least 500k in the 90s. Today this house would cost at least 1.5 or 2 million. They went to luxurious travels. Hotels of $5000 per night per person. Literally wasted 45k in 3 days just for hotel. They even GAVE AWAY FOR FREE money to our relatives and cousins, taking them on luxurious vacations for free etc. None of those people appreciated them, none of them came to help them in tough times, everyone forgot about them and abandoned us.

Like i said, my parents are good people, but what does it profit being a good person if you are FUCKING STUPID.

They were extremely LUCKY but their STUPIDNESS has made them broke. I couldn't be THIS much fucking stupid even if i tried hard.

Nobody is coming to save us. No one cares. Its all up to me now. All the pressure and stress and poverty is passed and inherited onto my life now. its up to me to either get rich or end my STUPID bloodline

I am living a very difficult life and no one seems to understand this...

How many of you wear shades at work?

I started doing it after I faced some problems due to the extremely bright lights. It's such a complicated problem that no one in the management or admin team can do anything about it. 🙄

!Rant

Lights off on my floor. Office-wide dark theme?

Well after working a normal office job for a while I'm kinda starting to think I thrive on isolation.

All of the people, the noise, the distractions, the lights, it's all so overwhelming. I have constant anxiety attacks.

Idk does anyone relate with this? We're they ever able to overcome? Cope? Bend their employer to the will of their isolationism by working at home more often and still producing results despite the Beck and call to "please stay in the office and fit in our prescribed work time box, you robot."

I don't like coding in the dark anymore. I think I've been doing it for about 2 years but I, just now, realized it.

I never even noticed when I started doing it. I just remember that--when the sun sets and I'm still working--I think to myself "ugh, it's too dark in here".

It just seems crazy to me because I used to love the dark. Not in the broody, ooh I'm a hacker kind of way.. just that I worked better in the dark.

I used to choose afternoon or evening shifts whenever given the choice because my brain works better when it's dark out (if that even makes sense). I used to work inside conference rooms with the lights out or dimmed.

But now, I just caught myself thinking I needed a brighter light in my home office.

Huh. I think I'm getting old.

!rant or at least not dev related

I work at a school. Sometimes we get some weird training and shit we have to attend to. This time it had to do with what to do in the event of an active shooter.

Because you know. The U.S IS full of angry white kids with guns that if fucked up enough will just take fire on people.

Well, as a military veteran. I feel pretty confident in knowing what to do when some asshole is trying to get his expert marksman badge on me. So i requested not to waste my valuable time on such bs. I was promptly denied and encouraged to attend the bs training.

The first dumbshit thing they tell you to do is to turn the lights off and hide(if you decide to not fight) for which I mentioned that it would not work.

You see. Our entire buildings have motion sensors on each room which would TURN the fucking lights on if you move........ and even though you can turn the switch on..some offices would still work through the motion sensor....exhibit A: my office.

Fuck this. Couldn't i just keep one of my guns with me?? It would just take about 2 shoots really....and I promise they would stay in.

This sucks man. I need to move to Canadia. I don't want my kids having to hear about "mandatory active shooter training"

That fucking bullshit should never be a norm.

10 bucks and a life says i have better aim than some crazy kid.

How many engineers does it take to install Christmas lights at the office?

I've build a gaming station with a raspberry pi for a supermarket. I was running a quiz i also created with red blinking lights for false and green blinking lights right answers. Featured by cool 8-bit retro gaming sound and score printing to win a small prize if you answered everything correctly. It was so much fun building it and testing it in the office 😁

I used to associate logitech with quality, something you could spend a little more on and feel comfortable knowing you made a safe and robust choice.

For quite a few years now they've done that gamer branding thing where I'd be embarrassed to have that stuff seen on my desk - at ridiculous prices and for features I won't use. Their consumer/office grade stuff is alright but unremarkable.

I'll gladly pay more for quality and I'm super happy with my Das keyboard, but I switch out my mouse probably every year. I can't deal with mushy buttons and I'm not paying extra for marketing, branding, and rgb lights that I'll then be spending time on trying to disable properly.

I digress, but I'm legitimately curious to try a trackball. I know people kneejerk at it, but I've heard from a couple of people who prefer it when they primarily use their keyboard anyway.

Company shutting down has its perks : after going to the bar with colleagues, ended up doing an after party with HR in the office, drinking cherry flavoured vodka
Tomorrow morning is going to hit as hard as a fucking truck, poor me being the rabbit caught in the lights in the middle of the road..

so what is worse than monday morning?

It's finding the right angle for your macbook pro screen because the office changed the fucking lights and they reflect more than ever.

AND THEY ARE BRIGHT AS HELL. MY EYES BURN!

Omg!!!. Its a Sunday. Not a Monday. No one else is here but the security guard. Why are all the fucking lights on when I walk into the office. Co worker says oh well is it okay if we leave the lights on for a bit......like why 🤔. Let me remind you. All my devices are in dark mode. This is the worst 😫.

I have a colleague which wants all lights in the office to be on, he/she says that he/she doesn't see colors in monitor clearly with 1/3 of the light.

!rant
My home pc has developed a sudden issue and wont boot up anymore.

Stays stuck on the POST phase and am unable to get into BIOS , just stuck with a big asus logo and a message to press
F2 or Delete to get into BIOS but the system seems frozen as the keyboard lights are on but unresponsive while the
Mobo reads an error code A2
( the manual claims that to be an IDE error although am using only SATA)

Unplugging all usb doesnt change anything.

Unplugging all other sata ssd ,hdd and disk drives except the os drive changes nothing.

Unplugging the os drive results in the system complaining about no bootmgr
(As expected), that allows me to at least look at the BIOS but there doesnt seem to be anything wrong or out of the ordinary..

Booting from a live cd works fine

Booted from a pc boot repair tool and plugged in the os drive into one of the hot swappable sata ports shows me the all the files still there and accessible , check disk revealed nothing wrong. Can't plug in the os drive pre boot as that locks everything up again)

Tried to boot with a windows cd then do a start up repair but plugging in the os drive into the hot swappable sata doesn't work since windows can't see the drive.

Tried to swap the os drive with another one of exact same model filled witb random files resulted in no boot mgr error as expected

Struggled a whole weekend to fix it but alas no progress
Ah and the OS drive's warranty ran out 2 weeks ago 😑

Mobo asus p9x79 deluxe
Os ssd samsung 840 250 gb
No changes in hardware for the last year
Or so
No BIOS changes in over a year

I did notice some odd files like 0002Found
On the os drive when i was using the boot repair live cd tool, will bring the drive to
The office where i can get my hands on an ssd sata to usb caddy and take a snapshot of The files there for you guys to see.

Any ideas ? 😞