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Search - "someone-please-think-of-the-children"
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I have seen it. They say it doesn't exist; just a story we tell our children so that their innocence does not lead them down into a nightmarish adulthood from which there is no salvation. But the evil lives. So vile that were you to look inside its soul, all you would find is a terrible desperation for suffering. To cause it. To revel in it. To bathe in the tears of those it considers less than human and feed off the emotional detritus.
It was 2009. The financial crisis. I was one of the lucky, having found refuge in a large company right before the jobs dried up. General IT: system administration, documentation, project management, telephony, software training, second level help desk. No software development, but with a two-year-old at home and Ph.D.s lining up outside the local Olive Garden whenever a help wanted sign was posted, I grabbed the health insurance and entered into darkness.
The Thing did not need to hunt it's prey. A manager title with 21 reports brought it new opportunities for fresh meat by the hour. But I was special. I resisted. I needed to know my place.
My first mistake was incomprehension. I did not understand the Thing's lust to be right at all costs. I was reviewing some documentation it had brought forth from its bowels. I mentioned that two spaces were being used between sentences. That proportional type made that unnecessary. It insisted, I was wrong. It insisted that Microsoft itself, the purveyor of all good technical writing, required two spaces. I opened the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications that it demanded its staff use and showed it that the spec was one space. It was livid. I was a problem.
From that point on my work life became exponentially more wretched. I was given three Outlook calendars to maintain: one with my schedule, one with the team's schedule and one with the Thing's schedule. Every time I had an appointment, I was to triple schedule it. If I was going to be away from my desk for more than 15 minutes triple schedule. Triple schedule my lunch, vacations, phone conferences.
Whenever it held a meeting, I and a colleague would be taken off mission critical IT projects to set tables with name tents and to serve as greeters as attendees arrived.
I was called into its crypt to be told never to say anything in a meeting unless I told the Thing beforehand what I was going to say. Naive, I mentioned that I often don't know what I will say as it is often in reply to someone else. Of course the response was that I should not say anything.
I would get emails 10-20 times a day asking about a single project. I would regularly complete work that was needed to be completed ASAP, only to have the Thing rake me over the coals for not completing it a week later. And upon resending the emails proving I notified it of the work being competed, disparaged at length a second time for not sending repeated notifications of the competed work.
I would have to sit in two-hour meetings to watch it type. Literally watch it try to create cogent thoughts. In silence.
I received horrendous annual reviews. At one, it created a development plan that stated a colleague would begin giving me lessons on the proper ways to socially interact with personnel. I pointed out to HR that this violated privacy concerns and would make the business liable in many areas, not least of which would be placing a help desk person in the role of defining proper business practice. HR made the Thing remove this from my review. She started planning to remove me.
I had given a short technical training to a group of personnel months earlier. Called into its tomb I was informed that feedback surveys on my talk were disturbing. One person stated that they did not think I was funny. Another wrote that I made an offensive statement. That person did not say what the offensive statement was. Just that I had said something he or she didn't like.
The Thing interviewed the training attendees. Gathered facts. Held three inquest-like meetings where multiple directors peppered me with questions trying to get me to confess to my offensiveness. In the end the request to fire me was brought to the man who ran the business at the time. The statement on high: "Humor is a subjective thing. Please tell This to be sensitive to that."
The Thing had failed, but would no doubt redouble its efforts. I had to find a new job. I sent hundreds of resumes. Talked to dozens of recruiters. But there were no jobs. And I had a family. And the wolf was at the door.
So I didn't say a word to the creature. For six months. Silence. At one group meeting it shrieked at me "what are you smirking at? If you've got something to say then say it!" I just shrugged. For my salvation was revealed. The Thing could not stand to be ignored. And at the end of my penance I was transferred to another group: Software Development.
I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.4 -
Please disregard. I just need to vent.
Being a manager is so fucking shit. This is not even about devs or tech specific only. Never become a manager.
Why? Because it’s about handling people and all the dumb shit they do. It’s all about knowing what people suck at and preventing that weakness from leaking into other areas. The amount of fucked up people on this earth means that you have to work with at least some of them, and that means putting up with their stupid ass list of super special requirements, that if they do not fulfill, will make them a shit worker. It’s not even an issue of technical skills.
You have the guys that are often late, because “they have depression”, but will complain that “companies don’t treat employees like adults”. Being on time for work is apparently very difficult. Which doesn’t generally matter in general for dev work, but it ends up affecting other things.
You have the completely socially inept idiots that make half the team hate them and try to avoid working with them, increasing problems and work for other people. Just because they’re socially stupid, have low or no empathy, or are incapable of not being insufferable to others.
You have the people that are so bad at estimating that they keep making up numbers instead of waiting to think for a few minutes and say “ not sure, I need to research and estimate that”.
You have the surprise absentee for dumb as fuck reasons like “my phone died lol sorry”. They never do anything to actually improve, it is just “sorry guys! Btw I will do jackshit about this”.
Or the ones whining about virtually everything, all the time. Wtf why do I have to be on scrum at 12 tomorrow?! Wtf why do I have to record the result of that customer call? Wtf why should I talk with XYZ?
And if you leave them alone, everything burns. They actually need someone to tell them “hey mate you need to improve that, shall we plan something to do so?”. I think managers are useless and unneeded when you have adults working, but it seems like most of the population is composed of children. It’s basically another form of daycare.
And you have to prepare shit around all of these constraints.
Then you have the one guy that reads the requirements, has common sense, and is inoffensive and can work like a normal adult human that needs no baby sitting. A ray of light on this shitshow.
I just want to go back to pure dev.22 -
If there's something I fucking hate with all my goddamned soul is when you post something online and people get in their fucking high horse and judge you or tell you what to do
Like I understand if you're talking shit about people in the same community, then if someone tells you you're an idiot, I get it.
But if you're ranting about someone off site, then why judge this person? What's the damage being caused to you or the site?
For example, let's say I rant about my wife and the things that annoy me about her, and I use some colorful language to get it off my chest.
There's always one motherfucker, one stupid piece of shit that says something out of line.
In general it's one of these things:
* "wow, you need to calm down, you clearly treat her like shit, she is better than you*
YOU IGNORANT PIECE OF DOGSHIT. DO YOU HAVE CAMERAS IN MY HOUSE AS TO ASSUME THAT I TALK TO HER IN THE SAME MANNER AS I DID IN THIS POST?
YOU GULLIBLE SHIT EATER.
OF FUCKING COURSE I DON'T TALK TO HER LIKE THIS. I'M NOT AN ASSHOLE OR A MONSTER. I AM JUST R-A-N-T-I-N-G.
AND I RANT IN THIS MANNER SO AS TO GET IT OFF MY CHEST AND NOT FIGHT WITH HER. AND IT TENDS TO WORK. DOES IT REALLY NEED TO BE EXPLAINED?
Jaysus fucking christ. These people actually have the imagination of a fish, they can't fucking connect the dots.
Judging someone online is an egotistical thing. People like to judge others because of that morality high. It's the snack of the morally lazy.
Repeat with me: "I am flawed too, I have problems too. I should never judge others easily, let alone without full fucking context".
* "op, you should do <terrible advice>"
these ones are better, because they are trying to help, but still annoying as fuck.
they come in two forms:
old smug and condescending washed up idiots who overrate their life lessons and think they are applicable to every person A PRIORI.
yeah, fuck case by case analysis, these dinosaurs think they're the wise elders of the village.
Age does not immediately mean your advices are valid, your advices are valid on the sole merit of being valid by themselves.
I don't give 2 fucks if you're 60 or 120. If your advices are bullshit, please spare me the idiocy and the lack of case analysis.
I had old people tell me "trust me kid, happy wife, happy life" wtf is that shit? MY WIFE IS NOT YOUR WIFE.
YOU DON'T KNOW MY WIFE. MY WIFE IS ACTUALLY COOL, BUT SHE COULD BE AN ACTUAL PSYCHO AND I COULD BE OMITTING THAT FROM MY POST.
THEREFORE, HAPPY WIFE HAPPY LIFE IS A TERRIBLE THING TO SAY.
JUST STFU.
This reminds of that disgusting reddit post where a father asked advice on /r/relationships about her wife, and people told him "dude, duh, divorce her".
Guess what, she ends up murdering both of her children.
You would think such post would serve a lesson as to be careful giving advice online. But no, people think they're fucking dr phil or something with EXTREMELY LITTLE case knowledge.
People need to talk a bit less and listen a whole lot more.
You want to know how to help a person who is expressing problems?
You want to know how to be REALLY conpassionate?
Just listen. You can give minimal advice, but listening is the most important, with some occasional "i feel you man".
Everytime a journalist asks a suicide disuader what do they do, they always say the same " i just listen to their problems".
ITS NOT FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE FOLKS. YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW TO BE A GOOD PERSON? CLOSE THE MOUTH AND TAKE THE WAX OUTTA YA EARS.
There's also the younger ones who think they can help when they don't even have no experience at all.
This is being naive, but I Iike that more than the smugness of old people.12