Writing user documentation is still such a boring part of the job :((

This work project is so annoying to work on. We are not making any meaningful process. There just needs to be more manpower on the project but there is a hiring freeze (makes sense since they expanded their IT team a lot the past year). Our backend developer is constantly working on different codebases. I'm constantly blocked by his work.

This week, I got an email from my local college advertising some education possibilities that would take 75-150 hours depending on the course. One of them does interest me a lot but now I am wondering what it is better (offensive cybersecurity).

A) follow that course at that college (still WFH)
B) follow similar courses online, possibly cheaper but maybe less credentials on my CV/resume.

Judging by the duration, it's certainly not enough to do it professionally. But it will certainly make my resume stand out a bit more.

I had yesterday a meeting with the backend-dev/manager. He at least mentioned that GraphQL was not the way to go and that he has no idea how to tackle certain requirements. He is planning to sit together with the internal future users to check what data is truely needed (fyi, he started the project 11 months ago).

So yeah, the project is now on hold and he assigned me a 2h task for the rest of this week; fun.

I don't really understand the flow that my senior dev wants to do for graphql. Normally graphql should be 1 request for your data with what you need but this is proposed flow.

1) Get all custom fields/columns of "products"
2) Append the custom fields in the frontend by all hardcoded default fields in my object
3) Fetch the relationships
4) Fetch the custom fields of the relationships
5) Add hardcoded default fields + Append that to my "master object"
6) Fetch the custom fields of "secondary key" that is not included in step 4 or step 1
7) append that to my master object
8) Fetch data

So the frontend needs to be rebuild the database structure and send 4 (or 5) graphql requests to load in 1 table... I don't know how to describe it anymore lol

This flow has to be redone for every table

I had yesterday a 1-on-1 with my manager (the only backend dev) and he wants that I, the only frontend developer, creates the needed SQL tables via API calls. What the hell is this company.

I don't even have access to the production data nor have access to the database.

The college I went to has changed their rules regarding AI-assisted coding. Any proof that you are vibe coding or using AI tools would be an immediately failure of that class

I wonder how they detect that efficiently and without any errors.

They also had rules for not copy pasting code from stackoverflow, blogs or docs. I used to do that and add the link & tried to explain the code myself. But I never got feedback if that is good or not or if the professor did grade that part of the code or did not grade.

it makes sense for me that you want the students to actually learn. But is it also not important that students can use AI tools efficiently? Does the end user really care if your website is AI coded or not (not the content, but the actual website) as long as it works like you want. It's also important to stay upto date especially as a student. But at the same time, being stubborn and bashing your head on a problem till it works is a nice skill, sometimes AI can't solve it.

Also, the college does not offer computers and you have to buy one yourself. So they can't manage it. Even if they can do it, doesn't the average IT student have a very easy time to go around the block? I'm so glad I'm not in official education anymore lol

My colleagues are really addicted to Pokémon. They took their lunch break at 10:00 to go to shop because the pokémon cards are restocked today at 10:00. Now half of the team eats their lunch while working cuz their lunch break is already used lol

Also, the company doesn't even measure the breaks. They usually take multiple smoke breaks totalling over 1h each day. Nobody complains about that. Idk why they suddenly care about the duration of their lunch break

yay, the deadline has been pushed back to an undefined time next year. Senior dev admitted that his approach is wrong and we will work on documentation & set clear expectations with the shareholders & define what endpoints the project needs... Literally those things I did warn him about and he ignored previously.

The stress is now a lot lower, sadly still a lot of stress from my private life :[

Who the fuck thinks that giving the user the possibility to delete/create any DB column is a good idea on a table that should have 100k+ records.

Why does this senior guy not realize how bad this is.

My senior dev pushed the backend on lab finally. It's even worse than expected.

- No documentation
- 1 query that retrieves data
- the one query is not even usable in our application without changes
- the total of 1 record that is able to fetched
- somehow misses queries he demo'ed in a meeting more than a month ago

I've been working in my freetime on a hobby project that a certain established community will use (sub 10k users, unironically the project with the largest userbase I ever created so far). We had yesterday a design meeting for that project. Now I'm even more frustrated that this, unpaid, position has much more documentation and clearly set expectations than my work project. Nobody is being paid for that project compared to a project that costs nearly half a million per year to just run now (we are working on a cheaper replacement now).

But nobody is being paid in that community, everyone is volunteering. Heck, the people that are running it do not have professional experience in project management or running a company and they are doing an awesome job. I do however notice that they are inexperienced in some parts. They want to make designs for that project and just had 1 brainstorm session and just started working on it. It did look great but not really usable (UX-wise). i'm very motivated by their passion lol

We have recommended some design flows & changes in their flow and they were open in trying it.

I've finally been rejected today for a job that I applied to roughly 10 months ago.

---

I wonder if the backend will be pushed to the git repo today by the senior dev or if it will be possible to run locally.

Oh man, I kinda start to regret changing this job. Currently I'm employed at as a contractor through a third firm but I work pretty much full time. The initial deal between the client & the consultancy firm is that I would start there after 1 year

cons:
- My previous wage was more optimized and I now earn a €25 more per month after taxes despite earning €600 more before taxes. I did not see the calculations after taxes before starting.
- It seems since I started after July, I don't get the end of year bonus (thus making less money after taxes in 2025 despite switching jobs)
- My colleagues at the new job are friendly but they barely talk even during lunch. And if they do, it's about Pokémon trading cards
- One day work-from-home instead of 3 (I thought it would be great change since my social life is quite bad lol)
- Company kinda glorified that I could learn a lot from a very senior developer but after 4 months, I still haven't had the chance to work with him and there seems to be no plan. As of today, I was always the most senior FE dev in every workplace.*
- No agile development (I thought this was a plus in the start but kinda miss it)
- No project manager or product owner
- Unreleastic deadlines with a visible backlash when failed
- No project specifications to combat unclear expectations and when creating one, it suffers from feature creep.
- Senior dev is a "yes, we will do that by the deadline"-man
- No shops in walking distance
- Shorter lunch breaks
- People can easily see my screen so can't really do reddit
- smaller dev-team: 3 vs 11 (HR said 10 people in the IT-department, it is true but I did understand it as 7-8 devs at least but nope)
- More time tracking
- Technically a 1 year probation period so the legal protection would reset again after I swap jobs officially (like if I get fired next year, I don't have to be paid off for an extra few weeks)
- No testing department
- Was lied to about being able to do some backend work (they said 75% FE, 25% BE work, now 90% FE - 10% design)
- Was lied about the existence of the technical specifications of a project (one was very well, the one with the deadline does not exist, one more was simply not needed)
- more office noise
- no relax room (even when the one at my previous job was only used once a month)
- bus factor of 1

pros:
+ At least the workplace is a 10min drive instead of 25-55 min previously
+ Less meetings
+ free fruit & unhealthy snacks in the office (refilled Tuesday but gone by Friday)
+ AI is not being glorified
+ more privacy concerned (even when this dataset needs less privacy regulations)
+ Working charging ports for EV
+ fresh code base
+ The big boss is chill
+ design freedom
+ Less people are getting fired
+ Less responsibility so far but that will change
+ We stop one hour earlier on Fridays (technically still paid for now)
+ Actually work I could do here (if it is not blocked by the lack of existence of the backend)

Same shit, different company:
- Lack of clear communication with the other developer. (previous company, it was great to work with a few remote developers but sucky to work with an other remote dev, now there is a lack of communication with a dev that sitting across of me)
- No documentation
- No project specifications
- Both companies feel a bit immature
- Both projects are a bit uninteresting
- Still a feeling of not being satisfied with the job

If I go fulltime at the client:
- I would lose 6 extra holiday days (26 vs 32) since the work contract would swap from 40 hours to 39 and thus I would lose 'overtime day' per 2 months.
- The salary would become slightly less optimized
- They don't have to pay the consultancy fee that I do not see so I can ask for a big raise & have more leverage as the only FE dev.

I know I did ignore some red flags since I really wanted a job switch. I thought the lack of agile would be compensated by existence of technical documentation and clearer requirements.

\* not fully true but any senior FE dev either sucked at communication (for example; I had PRs open for 9 months unreviewed) or got fired after 2 months. I had one senior dev that didn't really teach me anything but did learn indirectly from him.

Might delete the rant later

An HR manager was knocked down (tragically) by a bus and was killed. Her soul arrived at the Pearly Gates, where St.Peter welcomed her. “Before you get settled in” he said, “We have a little problem…you see, we’ve never had a HR manager make it this far before and we’re not really sure what to do with you.”

“Oh, I see,” said the woman, “can’t you just let me in?”

“Well, I’d like to,” said St Peter, “But I have higher orders. We’re instructed to let you have a day in hell and a day in heaven, and then you are to choose where you’d like to go for all eternity.”

“Actually, I think I’d prefer heaven”, said the woman. “Sorry, we have rules…” at which St. Peter put the HR manager into the downward bound elevator.

As the doors opened in Hell she stepped out onto a beautiful golf course. In the distance was a country club; around her were many friends, past fellow executives, all smartly dressed, happy, and cheering for her. They ran up and kissed her on both cheeks, and they talked about old times.

They played a perfect round of golf and afterwards went to the country club where she enjoyed a superb steak and lobster dinner. She met the Devil (who was actually rather nice) and she had a wonderful night telling jokes and dancing.

Before she knew it, it was time to leave. Everyone shook her hand and waved goodbye as she stepped into the elevator. The elevator went back up to heaven where St. Peter was waiting for her. “Now it’s time to spend a day in heaven,” he said.

So she spent the next 24 hours lounging around on clouds, playing the harp and singing; which was almost as enjoyable as her day in Hell. At the day’s end St. Peter returned. “So,” he said, “You’ve spent a day in hell and you’ve spent a day in heaven”. “You must choose between the two.”

The woman thought for a second and replied: “Well, heaven is certainly lovely, but I actually had a better time in hell. I choose Hell.”

Accordingly, St. Peter took her to the elevator again and she went back down to hell. When the doors of the elevator opened she found herself standing in a desolate wasteland covered in garbage and filth. She saw her friends dressed in rags, picking up rubbish and putting it in old sacks. The Devil approached and put his arm around her.

“I don’t understand,” stuttered the HR manager, “The other day I was here, and there was a golf course, and a country club. We ate lobster, and we danced and had a wonderful happy time. Now all there is, is just dirty wasteland of garbage and all my friends look miserable.”

The Devil simply looked at her and smiled, “Yesterday we were recruiting you, today you’re staff.”

Back from my holiday and we still don't have any code pushed for the backend lmao

An other week without a backend, an other week closer to the deadline... Less than 2 months to go (excl 2 weeks of PTO :D)

Fuck my life, it's storming and something in the building is resonating after each gust of wind. Constantly tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut

fucking tinnitus simulator

I've enrolled in a language class of a niche language. We had to do our first homework and there is a grandma that wrote her test via Gemini.

What is the purpose of paying for a language class if you don't do the effort to actually learn the language yourself lmao

For the people who run a small server at home, what are you using it for?

Can ill people please stay home :(

Now I also caught the flu :(

I hate the current "trend" where developers are adding onClickHandlers on buttons that pretty much only functions as links. The context menu & middle mouse clicking on the "link" does not longer work like expected. So annoying

Why does my company think that replacing a €500k/year product is doable in less than half a year with a team 2 and no product specifications except to "make a copy".

I wish that my previous company gets investigated. They probably got more violations if they are investigated. Here are a few examples:

The company is in the telecom business and they wanted to create AI summaries of their phone calls. So they used real private calls of their clients as test data without their knowledge & consent.

The CEO also made fun of someone handwritten CV on LinkedIn. Sure, he blurred out the obvious data but shit like certificates, past history & rough location was still present. It was not be hard to find who it was.

The 2FA of some IT services was still on the ex-CTOs private phone (now he is a consultant 1x a week)

One of their engineers moved back to Russia and has access to sensitive data. (aka call recording of insurances, banking, fire departments, ...)

Offering users to write a public review of the company for a discount if the review is positive. The "paid review" is not mentioned.

The reviews of their new feature are done by 'external' people but they all benefit from the companies success. The review is written from their own company but it was written by the external design company (CEOs wife under her own company), marketing consultant (under his own company).

They did fire an employee illegally (as in did not follow the legal procedures, the new COO thought she was a consultant, she was in fact not so she had more protections)

They did fire an employee for untrue reasons and waiting till he was on holiday & abroad (dick move but legal I think)

They did spy through the security cameras and made up a reason to fire someone. Company offered free soda during that time, employee did not like the offered soda and filled it with a diet-variant on their own dime. He then took his own bought diet-soda back home (not all) and got fired for stealing. (or idk, it might have been ice tea or fanta)

They did not report that an employee sold company data but he was let go.

They run cookies on their website but has no clause for cookie-consent.

Their features that they are promoting & selling is not working like expected

They lie about their server uptime or heavily manipulate it.

They sell a feature that is no longer supported and broke a few updates ago.

They are offering a product as a fix that is simply not longer supported by the development team

They have fired consultants and then refuse to pay their last month salary or only pays it partially. Happened as far as i know, 4 times (no proof).

Everyone had access to the full password vault including the login credentials for business routers and the credit card info of the CEO, CFO, CTO. It took me multiple times to report it to the IT admin for mine to be restricted.

Every new dev has access to production data within a few weeks or direct database access

Any person who has access to the admin-portal can spoof phonenumbers in a few clicks.

A colleague is blacklisted at the police portal for past crimes where they have to fulfil police orders. He did them pretending to be a different employee who was approved. Also, they do not keep track of the data needed to fill in the yearly report (idk why the company has to them but the police does not do it).

They forgot to implement a warning (legally needed) before someone hits their data limit. those people cannot be billed. Someone was watching 4k movies in Signapore and costed the company tens of thousands of Euro.

If I think of more, I'll add it comments lol

After 3 months after leaving my previous company, I'm still getting SMS because someone included my telephone number in their automated test flow.

Maybe some good news?

https://finalroundai.com/blog/...

It's still so amusing to me the amount of projects that are posted on /r/react, /r/angular or /r/sideprojects that are blatantly AI written and others that have their LLM API key exposed.

I got a new job a few months ago and carried over my PTO from previous job. I still have 16 days of PTO to be taken by the end of the year. The projects deadline is also the end of the year. With the current development progress, I don't see it anywhere being close to possible. There is also no agreed expectations what the project should do.

And yet, the deadline cannot be pushed back and there is no one else at this company that can do my job at this point. We have 2 people who can learn how to do it but they have no experience in this programming language.

My previous company that I ranted too much over recently released their AI product. They advertised it on their website with 3 testimonies; The CEO praising the product, The CEOs wife praising the AI suggestion and their freelance marketing guy praising it also.

This new feature/product is also advertised with an outdated screenshot of our product (it was redesigned twice by now) and the other screenshot is of a scrapped feature. At least they had 1 correct screenshot that was used twice in that webpage

Also, they forgot to attach the license billing to this new feature and lost 1.5months of revenue because of this :D

My boss (senior dev) promised that I would have the first iteration of the API on Tuesday at the latest. It's Thursday and it seems it will be for next week again.

Oh yeah, the API for the other project that was promised 2 weeks ago is not yet finished. This project will be a mess :D