When you punch a crack into the top of your desk in front of your wife and kids, it’s time to walk away from IM’s for a bit.

Worked on a HR system where someone needed to add an 8th dependent and the system gave an error. I took a look and found the problem: The dependent table was designed with a set of columns for each dependent…like this, DepFirstName1,2,3,etc. That was fun to explain.

I hate it when “We’ll, we’re agile” becomes more of an excuse than a plan.

I don’t care how many tests you’ve passed, how many certificates you have on your wall, or how many letters you put after your name. I can tell if you’re an idiot one way or another.

So the team I joined has been producing garbage software in C# for 10+ years. The solution proposed by the tech lead - start using Java because it’s better than C#, that’s why we have problems. This actually gets signed off by management. Why did I choose this career?

I finally get Agile!: Go Live, whatever happens - happens, fix and repeat. See…I kept getting hung up on delivering something that that actually worked.

I wouldn’t be surprised if 50% of systems at major companies are redundant and/or provide zero contribution to operational efficiency or revenue. So many systems are created because someone had an “idea”, but really just wanted to make themselves look good.

I think IT is one the few professions where if someone can’t make it in the lower ranks, they’re quickly considered for management.

That feeling when you are on call and a report comes in of a feature not working correctly for a system you know nothing about. Sure, I’ll dig in a bit and troubleshoot before throwing over the fence. Hmm, feature was never coded - not in a shelve-set or branch…just never done. Was supposed to be done over a year ago I’m told. Humanity is too sick to survive.

Is anyone aware of planning methodologies related to estimating a teams support capacity? I’m getting tired of working on a team that builds more than it can ever possibly support.

I think IT Applications is the only field where spending tons of money on something new that only does 50% of what is being replaced is considered a win.

I feel like I need a slap in the face here: My team can’t agree on a platform for our apps (Windows/.Net or Linux/Java Middleware/Java). So we have apps all over the place, and our team is fractured. Support is a mess, and I’m caught in the middle because I’m the only one willing to try to keep all these systems upgraded (our infrastructure team refuses to work with anyone except me on our team because I just shut up about my platform beliefs and get work done). I’ve pitched trying .Net core on Linux although I know very little about that. We have no technical challenges that require one platform over another - these are simple business apps. I think our architects should force one platform. Am I nuts? Maybe it’s time to look for another career if this is the new norm.

I feel like the fear of technical debt is driving organizations to make rash decisions. I think we’re creating more technical debt by rushing to replace perfectly working and supportable systems with clobbered together ones using the framework of the week. Maybe I’m just old though too. I don’t know, I think I’m just getting tired of re-writing the same system over and over again.

You know what, I’ve spent the past month and a half doing all the team’s crap work like SOX compliance, vendor software updates, etc. I’m taking a week to just work on what I want and everyone can go F themselves if they don’t like it. Anyone complains, I’m happy to let them do the 10pm - 3 am implementations.

Any senior types out there find that you’re losing your coding “chops”? I’m involved in so many OS/Middleware upgrades, infrastructure upgrades, status meetings that I can’t code to save my life anymore. I can review and guide design, but I struggle to generate new code. I can get a new dev going really quickly though - is this just a natural progression or is it game over for me? I feel like if I had to get another job, I’d be very unsuccessful. They call me a leader, but I think I’m just a slave.

My favorite is when they just don’t come in one day (don’t give notice, just see ya!). If that happens more than once in a few month period, that tells you more about the department than the individuals.

Anyone ever stay on a set of projects they knew were going to fail? I got pulled off of 3 major projects to help another team that was failing at their very high visibility project. I got that back on track, but then they needed to keep me on for stabilization work and to onboard some folks. Then they still kept me on and my projects all suffered. I was very vocal to management about my concerns. Finally, management recognized that my projects weren’t getting done so now I’m back on them. The thing is, now it’s probably too late and I’m pretty sure I’m going to fail to meet deadlines on all three (plus there’s scope creep of course). I want to just walk away from this hell hole, but I’ve made some promises to folks that helped me get the job that I wouldn’t be a job hopper (been here 4 years, and each year is worse than the last). I think I’m just going to do the best I can and see what happens - and try not to have a heart attack in the process.

I’m in a tough spot - I’m completely overloaded with sysadmin type work (server upgrades, firewall and vendor coordination, security, password maintenance) that I don’t have time to complete any programming work assigned to me. My bosses are aware and have done their best to help, but I just can’t keep up (have two young kids too and just can’t work nights anymore without trouble at home). My bosses have been great, so I feel terrible about this, but I think I’m going to have to look for another employer, I can’t do this anymore. Am I a horrible person to leave them with so much work even though they tried to help me?

Anyone ever consider hanging up the office gig and pursuing a career in teaching Tech/IT? I’ve been part of a mentorship program at work for university kids, and it’s probably the most rewarding work I’ve done in a long time. I know the pay would be much less, but maybe I wouldn’t die of a heart attack at 50 like I’m heading for now?

Am I the only one that cringes when I see software developer consistently ranked as one of the best jobs to have? Are other jobs that horrible that this is as good as it gets? I’m probably too cynical I suppose.

I feel like I was seduced by the fun of programming only to have the corporate enterprise suck my soul dry.

Maybe this is naive, but I feel if an application/feature is strategically important to a company, at least two developers should always be assigned to support it routinely. This great resignation is no joke, and I’m getting tired of being the last man standing here. I’m too old for this shit.

WTF is an agilist? Am I a codist now? This crap is getting out of hand. I’m really starting to dislike this industry- it’s the same thing we’ve been doing for years people, you’re just putting fancy names and certifications on top of it now.

It’s taken me 20 years to realize that I love tech but hate corporate IT. The thought of spending another 20+ years sitting in meetings listening to people drone on about nonsense, spending countless hours performing system upgrades when all I want to do is code, etc. just makes me sick to my stomach. It’s the same day over and over again.

I’m starting to think that Agile means: fail fast, fail often, FAIL ALWAYS

I have a saying that always gets me confused looks at work: “More is more”. What I mean by that is every time management asks for a new system, that system needs to be built, maintained, upgraded (code and infrastructure), etc. My point is that new systems are not free of cost after delivery. Am I alone in thinking that way?

Curious, does anyone else that’s been in the tech/IT field for more than 5 years feel like we’re just solving the same problem over and over again, albeit with different tools as the years go by? Or am I just too grumpy to stay in this field after trudging it out for 20+ years?

Cross training is a flat out myth. It can’t be done unless the trainees are going to be working on the system day in and day out. How is someone expected to know a system they’ve only seen in presentations six months ago? There are developers that work on a system and ones that don’t - it’s that simple.

We need an innovation center and more AI plus predictive analytics.

More agile too with agilists

Let’s create three new departments to combat bureaucracy!

Curious to see if anyone else is in this situation: I somehow have become the “infrastructure upgrade guy”. I’m in this constant loop of retrofitting our applications to work with the latest Windows Version or Java Middleware. Or, I’m stuck porting apps from one middleware to another. I guess I got good at this, and now I’m stuck in this constant loop of being the “go to” for all system upgrades/ports, which seem to just be in this endless cycle. It gets me a lot of recognition, but the work is miserable. Anyone else experience something like this, and if so, how did you get out?