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The colleague:
- I can't work, my chair is uncomfortable
- I can't work, my chair is not ergonomic
- I can't work, my desk is too small
- I can't work, my legs are uncomfortable
- I can't work, my keyboard is not ergonomic
- I can't work on this task, John knows how to do it better
- I will only work on <this> type of tasks. I will not work on others
*gets assigned <other> task; browses the internet all day; at the EOD task isn't even touched*
- I can't work with Jack, he's too noisy
- I can't come to the office on time, there's traffic in the city
- I couldn't come yesterday, I was out of town. No, I will not log a vacation day - I was NOT on vacation. It's personal
- I can't<...>
Manager, 2 days to the end of said colleague's probation period:
- I am very sorry to tell you this, but our attitudes are not in line and we cannot continue working together. Since this is your 5th warning, we have to let you go.
The colleague:
- What?? How come?? I did NOT see this coming... You can't do this! I work here! This is where I work and you can't fire me!
*got his things from his desk and left. Never came back*
Everyone at the office:
- YAYYYY!!!! Let's have a shorter day today and let's celebrate this riddance in a pub! (manager agreed)7 -
#3 Worst thing I've seen a co-worker do?
A 20-something dev, 'A', back in the early days of twitter+facebook would post all his extracurricular activities (drinking, partying, normal young-buck stuff). The dev mgr, 'J', at the time took offense because he felt 'A' was making the company look bad, so 'A' had a target on his back. Nothing 'A' did was good enough and, for example, 'J' had the source control czars review 'A's code to 'review' (aka = find anything wrong). Not sorting the 'using' statements, and extra line after the closing }, petty things like that. For those curious, orders followed+carried out by+led by 'T' in my previous rant.
As time went on and 'T' finding more and more 'wrong' with A's code, 'J' put A on disciplinary probation. 'A' had 90 days to turn himself around, or else.
A bright spot was 'A' was working on a Delphi -> C# conversion, so a lot of the code would be green-field development and by simply following the "standards", 'A' would be fine...so he thought.
About 2 weeks into the probation, 'A' was called into the J's office and berated because the conversion project was behind schedule, and if he didn't get the project back on track, 'A' wouldn't make it 30 days. I sat behind 'A' and he unloaded on me.
<'A' slams his phone on his desk>
Me: "Whoa...whats up?"
A: "Dude, I fucking hate this place, did you hear what they did?"
<I said no, then I think we spent an hour talking about it>
Me: "That all sucks. Don't worry about the code. Nobody cares what T thinks. Its not even your fault the project is behind, the DBAs are tasked with upgrades and it's not like anyone is waiting on you. It'll get done when it's done. Sounds like a witch hunt, what did you do? Be honest."
A: "Well, um...I kinda called out J, T, and those other assholes on facebook. I was drunk, pissed, and ...well...here we are."
Me: "Geez, what a bunch of whiney snowflakes. Keep your head down and you'll get thru it, or don't. Its not like you couldn't find another job tomorrow."
A: "This is my first job out of college and I don't want to disappoint my dad by quitting. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing. All J told me was to get better. What the fuk does that even mean?"
Me: "He didn't give you any goals? Crap, for someone who is a stickler for the rules, that's low, even for J."
Fast forward 2 weeks, I was attending MS TechEd and I was with another dev mgr, R.
R: "Did you hear? We had to let 'A' go today."
Me: "What the hell? Why?"
R: "He couldn't cut it, so we had to let him go."
Me: "Cut what? What did he do, specifically?"
R: "I don't know, 'A' was on probation, I guess he didn't meet the goals."
Me: "You guess? We fire a developer working on a major upgrade and you guess? What were these so-called goals?"
R: "Whoa...you're getting a little fire up. I don't know, maybe not adhering to coding standards, not meeting deadlines?"
Me: "OMG...we fire people for not forming code? Are you serious!?"
R: "Oh...yea...that does sound odd when you put it that way. I wish I'd talk to you before we left on this trip"
Me: "What?! You knew they were firing him *before* we left? How long did you know this was happening?"
R: "Honestly, for a while. 'A' really wasn't a team player."
Me: "That's dirty, the whole thing is dirty. We've done some shitty things to people, but this is low, even for J. The probation process is meant to improve, not be used as a witch hunt. I don't like that you stood around and let it happen. You know better."
R: "Yea, you're right, but doesn't change anything. J wanted to do it while most of us were at the conference in case 'A' caused a scene."
Me: "THAT MAKES IT WORSE! 'A' was blindsided and you knew it. He had no one there that could defend him or anything."
R: "Crap, crap, crap...oh crap...jeez...J had this planned all along...crap....there is nothing I can do no...its too late."
Me: "Yes there is. If 'A' comes to you for a letter of recommendation, you write one. If someone calls for reference, you give him a good one."
R: "Yea..yea...crap...I feel like shit...I need to go back to the room and lie down."
As the sun sets, it rises again. Within a couple of weeks, 'A' had another job at a local university. Within a year, he was the department manager, and now he is a vice president (last time I checked) of a college in Kansas City, MO.10 -
#2 Worst thing I've seen a co-worker do?
Back before we utilized stored procedures (and had an official/credentialed DBA), we used embedded/in-line SQL to fetch data from the database.
var sql = @"Select
FieldsToSelect
From
dbo.Whatever
Where
Id = @ID"
In attempts to fix database performance issues, a developer, T, started putting all the SQL on one line of code (some sql was formatted on 10+ lines to make it readable and easily copy+paste-able with SSMS)
var sql = "Select ... From...Where...etc";
His justification was putting all the SQL on one line make the code run faster.
T: "Fewer lines of code runs faster, everyone knows that."
Mgmt bought it.
This process took him a few months to complete.
When none of the effort proved to increase performance, T blamed the in-house developed ORM we were using (I wrote it, it was a simple wrapper around ADO.Net with extension methods for creating/setting parameters)
T: "Adding extra layers causes performance problems, everyone knows that."
Mgmt bought it again.
Removing the ORM, again took several months to complete.
By this time, we hired a real DBA and his focus was removing all the in-line SQL to use stored procedures, creating optimization plans, etc (stuff a real DBA does).
In the planning meetings (I was not apart of), T was selected to lead because of his coding optimization skills.
DBA: "I've been reviewing the execution plans, are all the SQL code on one line? What a mess. That has to be worst thing I ever saw."
T: "Yes, the previous developer, PaperTrail, is incompetent. If the code was written correctly the first time using stored procedures, or even formatted so people could read it, we wouldn't have all these performance problems."
DBA didn't know me (yet) and I didn't know about T's shenanigans (aka = lies) until nearly all the database perf issues were resolved and T received a recognition award for all his hard work (which also equaled a nice raise).7 -
Some 'wk306' highlights from different people:
Walk around the office in his underwear, because he forgot he left his trousers in the bathroom
Run a red light outside the office due to not wearing his required glasses. When questioned by co-workers, replied "I don't follow those facist rules"
Asking if we work less will we get paid more, because the project will take longer to do (while in a startup with no funding trying to secure some)
Tell a senior dev to stop testing in his spare time, as we won't be able to release on time if he keeps finding critical security bugs
Telling me "your timezone is not my concern", when asking for help with new tooling so we don't have to be online at the same time
Blaming my team for requesting too much help, leading to his team missing deadlines, in a meeting with very senior managers. When the reason we were requesting help was the handover doc we were given was filled with lies about features being finished and "ready to ship" and lacking any unit tests
Being accused of bullying and harassment to the CEO, because someone asked "did you follow up with X about the partnership they emailed us about". The person who was responsible, forgot 4 times, and saw it as an "attack" to mention it in team meetings
Telling an entire office/building mid November they've secured funding for at least the next year, then announcing in January after the Christmas break that its cheaper to move to India, so they are closing the office in 30 days2 -
Somebody put milk in the tea kettle.
To be entirely fair, I'm sure nobody from here has ever seen a kettle, let alone used one.18 -
Worst thing I've seen a co-worker do?
Its all relative, I've seen a lot of "worst's". Here's one of many I'll try to post.
A (married) DBA would often come to work drunk, starting fooling around with a couple of devs (which we suspect she had sought adventures outside the IT dept based on rumors), and ultimately got fired because she was caught sleeping at her desk (and she was drunk). One of her conquests told us she came from a very poor childhood and this was her first real high paying job. Abusive husband, being attractive herself, and being surrounded by other attractive, highly intelligent, single bucks (aka horny) that had no morals, equaled bad decisions.
She wasn't the worst, it was the assholes who took advantage of the situation that makes it in my top 10 worst things I've seen.8 -
#4 Worst thing I've seen a co-worker do?
Not a direct co-worker, during a fire drill, a call center manger told all the agents to ignore the alarm and keep working.1 -
Our company Nerf wars got a little rowdy one year, and a co-worker knocked over a (senior citizen) co-worker just to “win”. Like full on take down body slam. So much for no physical contact.3
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We do infra as a code, and one of my coworker worked on the project alone. Few months down the road, when shit hits the fan, he just message me this is not working.
First of all, I did not write that shit, and also I was never part of the conversation during the decision making. So when shit hits the fan what do you expect me to do? Do some black magic and fix it magically???
1 -
Dude picking his brain over my coke. Yes I mean attempting to tickle his brain trough the nose hole.
A piece of nasal excrement landed in my coke and made it go fizz, that was how I noticed.6 -
Lie in the interview saying he was a frontend web developer and try to hide the fact that they didn't know JS. Wtf.5
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I created our login system to be secure and reliable.
One coworker hardcoded the roles a person who is logging in receives and built a backend to just assign roles you want. He pushed this to prod...
Yeah...2 -
Once caught my co-worker masturbaed in a zoom meeting, without realising the webcam and mic weren't off.9
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At a previous company we hired an 18 year old guy and father from a minority and without a high school degree. He could write enough code to get the job. However, he took 3h long lunches, came in late to work and apparently had a problem taking orders from women. At one point all the juniors got an earful because of his attitude and he got let go, not long after. It still saddens me because he could have made a really good career if wasn't for his attitude.1
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These were all the same person.
Filled a glove up with milk.
Got hold of a spray bottle cap, put it in a soda bottle, and was spraying other people.
Dropped a golf ball down some stairs.
He quit before he was fired. -
Not co-worker, but class mate. Specifically, my group mate.
Boy, I could fill an entire book with the “what the fuck” moments.
Here, the prior question of his was “why is this happening?”
23 -
Not the worst, but probably the only one I can sort of explain & not get into trouble for NDA breach..
Umm.. here it goes.. wrong id returned from db procedure, tried to do something on db with that id and got exception that the id doesn't exist. Instead of checking why the procedure returns nonexistent id, he just wrapped everything in try catch without any logs.. & of course, didn't tell anyone about this.. o.0
I know, I know, code review could have prevented this, but holy fuck..
Guy's cv had more experience than I have now, so at the time, I didn't think I'd have to check every line of code he wrote, especially not for shit like this.3 -
Years ago we hired a new employee in our department, her first week was kind of slow, she had training materials to get through but otherwise didn't have much newby work for her. I noticed she was missing one day, she wasn't at her desk or in the area training, I found her hiding behind a door playing a video game and texting on her phone. She didn't last long there. She should have asked for something to do, or asked what she could be doing, instead of sneaking off and playing on her phone.3
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the guy won't reply messages, he won't do his job and everyone who depends on him is punished for his behavior. he's hanging by a thread but also no one know how to do his job because it was not documented2
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The guy kept laughing all the time, so I turn and I see… a guy browsing anime underage feet pics.
And yes, before you ask he looked like the basement dweller meme guy.4 -
Well here it goes,
I started out in customer support (A lot of stuff to tell here).
1.
One of my colleagues would come to work drunk, like every day he would smell of boze (the hard stuff 80%+). When a customer got on his nerves he endet the call and threw his Keyboard across the room. He worked in the company 3+ Years after I left.
2. Another colleague would connect to his Personal Computer at his home and play WoW while at work ( Allthough the man was a genius with a lot of free time, until a new task was assigned to him)
3. My Boss at the time did some really shitty things. I worked 17 hour days (while I was 18) for a week, and at the end of the week he shredded the accrued overtime with some Bullshit Explanation. (I did not stay long after this shitshow happened).
4. A dispatcher who sent our technicians out scheduled their tasks so that they were on the road for weeks and did not see their families. This led to a very strong turnover among technicians.
And yes, this company still operates today.1
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