This is Hooovahh

[JÞB]

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@Hooovahh wrote:

.  Like wow you guys aren't terrible at planning after all...nope nevermind, still terrible.  I put in a bunch of work to get ready for the next day only to realize they weren't anywhere near ready.  Since then I've tried a new tactic and that is to not work on anything, until I've been asked to do it twice.

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This is a great example of exactly why I have chosen to NOT BOOT UP  MY LAPTOP before reading this thread.

Do you know how much S#!| the IT personnel give you when you say...

It's not MY fault that all the coffee sneezed out of my nose landed on the keyboard!

[Gregory]

Pair Programming

I was working on a team with a very seasoned programmer, but he was not very familiar with LabVIEW or TestStand. He would frequently say how much he hated NI stuff and how we should scrap all of our software and re-write it in C++, even though we were both primarily hired to work on LabVIEW software.

We were working in the same lab one day when a technician started telling us that a tester was having problems. I began looking at it and had a good idea of which input was not being set correctly, but hadn't quite traced it back to why it wasn't correct. After about 10 minutes, my colleague comes over and says he wants to take a look at it.

At this point I felt like I was pretty close to finishing up. I had watched him debug something before and he spent a lot of time rearranging windows. His main method for debugging was just changing something at the beginning of the test, running the test for 5 or 10 minutes, and seeing if anything changed. One of his main complaints of LabVIEW was how hard it is to debug stuff.

So he was insisting that he should take a look at it, but I was reluctant to give up control of the mouse. At this point he puts his hand on mine to try to move the mouse around, and I just sit there uncomfortably but don't move. It was probably only about 2 seconds, but it felt much longer. After that he gave up, and let me continue working. A couple minutes later I was able to show him where the error was coming from.

I hardly ever clash with coworkers, so this was a very bizarre experience. I had heard of "pair programming" and "extreme programming" from computer science friends. This experience gave new meaning to those terms.

[crossrulz]

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@Hooovahh wrote:

I put in a bunch of work to get ready for the next day only to realize they weren't anywhere near ready.

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I once had a coworker that took that to an extreme.  He would yell at you and complain to upper management about how he needed X to get done before he could progress in a project.  I was supporting a production system (you know, the thing that actually makes the company money) when he came to me asking for an update to an application I made for him.  I told him to fill out the software change request form (being the CMMI lead, you would think he knew this procedure) and I would get to it that afternoon (it was late morning).  He instead went to my boss and the VP stating that I refused to support him.  So after I spent most of the afternoon trying to get requirements out of him and teaching him how to fill out the form, I made the update and put it on the test machine he was using.  He didn't touch it for 2 weeks.  But I got written up for "not supporting management".

He did similar things to the people in the model shop (insisted he need a part immediately and then it sat on the shelf for 2 weeks), so they refused to do any work for him.

[JÞB]

Gosh Tim!

Bad memories?

[JÞB]

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@crossrulz wrote:

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@Hooovahh wrote:

I put in a bunch of work to get ready for the next day only to realize they weren't anywhere near ready.

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I once had a coworker that took that to an extreme.  He would yell at you and complain to upper management about how he needed X to get done before he could progress in a project.  I was supporting a production system (you know, the thing that actually makes the company money) when he came to me asking for an update to an application I made for him.  I told him to fill out the software change request form (being the CMMI lead, you would think he knew this procedure) and I would get to it that afternoon (it was late morning).  He instead went to my boss and the VP stating that I refused to support him.  So after I spent most of the afternoon trying to get requirements out of him and teaching him how to fill out the form, I made the update and put it on the test machine he was using.  He didn't touch it for 2 weeks.  But I got written up for "not supporting management".

He did similar things to the people in the model shop (insisted he need a part immediately and then it sat on the shelf for 2 weeks), so they refused to do any work for him.

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That's really really bad you know you should probably try spending a couple of days in a h i l setting where three or four people are all looking at the same screen trying to debug the same code with four computers and five mice every once in awhile somebody gets to move one of those mice out of their way and it just jerked out of your hand on the screen you were workin with!

The Schultz were deadly but we did get it done the worst part is the day after I got her done and I mean I got her done the president of the company was called in to observe how we got her done congratulated me and fired me the next day

[Hooovahh]

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@crossrulz wrote:

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He didn't touch it for 2 weeks.  But I got written up for "not supporting management".

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Oh man my give a f*** meter clearly can not be any lower.  Because I just see myself quitting on the spot for that.  If an individual wants to throw me under the bus that's fine, but if management believes I should be punished for sticking my neck out, then I'll go work somewhere else.

[crossrulz]

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@Hooovahh wrote:

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@crossrulz wrote:

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He didn't touch it for 2 weeks.  But I got written up for "not supporting management".

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Oh man my give a f*** meter clearly can not be any lower.  Because I just see myself quitting on the spot for that.  If an individual wants to throw me under the bus that's fine, but if management believes I should be punished for sticking my neck out, then I'll go work somewhere else.

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I was still fairly early in my career at that point.  But I was not there much longer (final straw was being denied a promotion for stupid reasons).  One of the best moments in my life was turning in my resignation at that place.  I find it ironic that I got the acceptance letter to my next job right after a morning of layoffs (~10% of the site fired on the spot).

[JÞB]

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@Hooovahh wrote:

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@crossrulz wrote:

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He didn't touch it for 2 weeks.  But I got written up for "not supporting management".

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Oh man my give a f*** meter clearly can not be any lower.  Because I just see myself quitting on the spot for that.  If an individual wants to throw me under the bus that's fine, but if management believes I should be punished for sticking my neck out, then I'll go work somewhere else.

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There was some icing on the cake later.....like being able to say " oh, you bounced those cheep-assed relays! Didn't ya?" In public. 

Still, I want a  thorn on my Samsung keyboard!

[Hooovahh]

This isn't one conversation, but a combination of several I've had over the years that all feel the same.

Every task from upper management

We need you to do this complicated, and ultimately unnecessary work.

<Very basic question about how to do it>

Why would we need to know that?

<Basic explanation about why it is needed>

Well we don’t really know, and haven't thought about that yet.

<Second very basic question keeps me from starting>

We can’t know that until you are done.

<Third basic question highlighting that they aren’t ready for my work>

Why are you being so difficult?

<Asks about priority and timing of the task>

Well ideally we want this task to be completed by last week.  This is now the highest priority task you have.

<Asks about the other highest priority task given earlier>

Oh right, I’ll talk to another manager about it.  So when do you think you’ll be done?

<Asks about when my questions will be answered?>

I’ll try to get those questions answered as soon as possible.

<I commit to completing the task 2 weeks after getting those answers>

Two months go by...

Are you done with that task yet?

<Have you gotten my answers yet?>

I’ll look into it.

[crossrulz]

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@Hooovahh wrote:

Every task from upper management

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I pretty much knew where this was going as soon as I read this.  I have too many stories about a former direct manager and his boss.  Let's just say that if the upper manager had an idea for test, we should go in the opposite direction.