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Yes, the spade told the ground to shovel off.
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We need a "frustration index" when we log time. On a scale from, say, 1 to 3, which automatically multiplies the logged time by the frustration index. So if we put in 3 hours on a frustrating project and give it a frustration index of 2, the actual time logged is 6 hours, so we can take 3 hours to psychologically recover.
If time cards actually did that, I bet managers would pay a lot more attention to making life less frustrating for developers!
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My current project rates a straight 5. It's a hand-me-down from a competitor who works with our customer, neither one of them knows what they are doing and how they got to the current point nor what has to be done. Documentation is unavailable and what little there is in written form is either outdated or plain wrong.
My role? Developer, system architect, system administrator, documentation writer (for safety certification), system integrator, validator, Terminator (sadly not).
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Yup, you get to use the "multiply the multiplier" button. 
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den2k88 wrote: It's a hand-me-down from a competitor who works with our customer, neither one of them knows what they are doing and how they got to the current point nor what has to be done. Documentation is unavailable and what little there is in written form is either outdated or plain wrong.
 Wow! That perfectly describes last year's project (affectionately referred to as my Covid project) where a customer basically gave us a competitor's crappy output (no code of course) and asked us to reverse engineer it. The customer was fed up with poor support for a poorly designed system. Bad for them, good for me...now it's my recurring revenue for a product that only took 7 months to build and doesn't require much attention.
I have the same roles as you with the addition of direct customer support for everything I write/create. I prefer it this way, but it's a lot of responsibility knowing that the company would fold if I got hit by a truck. 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"
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kmoorevs wrote: got hit by a truck
Damn I always used to worry about a bus!
Being a one man show/consultant sure can be interesting but spending 50% of my time chasing invoices quickly became boring. Changing to contracting made life so much easier and less painful on the budget.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -
RAH
I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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I don't mind those kind of projects, as long as I am free to do whatever I want with it.
I hate it when they say, no you can't refactor that! Can't you add a few if statement in that method instead?! 
I.e. I enjoy turning pieces of crap into shining jewels, but I despise making the pile of crap higher... 
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Super Lloyd wrote: I.e. I enjoy turning pieces of crap into shining jewels, but I despise making the pile of crap higher...
Why is it that other people's code is always crap, but never mine?
I never hear me complaining about my code.
Nothing succeeds like a budgie without teeth.
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It's common...
However... look at your own code (a large pile of it), 5 years later... you might think that some part of it could be... improvable, to say the least!
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I only have to look back 5 months ago. 
Nothing succeeds like a budgie without teeth.
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Wizard of Sleeves wrote: Why is it that other people's code is always crap, but never mine?
I never hear me complaining about my code.
Really? I'm pretty self-aware about when I'm writing beautiful code and when it's crap. I mean, never as crappy as others' code, but still crap for me.
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Disagree. In my experience, very few managers care whether you're frustrated or not.
They just want to throw developers at a project (regardless of skills needed or acquired), and call that 'management'.
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agolddog wrote: In my experience, very few managers care whether you're frustrated or not.
Not only that, but if your manager hates your guts and is one of those sadists who take pleasure in mentally abusing his subordinates, you're now providing him with the feedback he needs to know what type of work to hand to you to keep you there.
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Marc,
In the old days, we referred to this as Combat Pay!
We spoke openly with our managers (it was NEVER actually paid to us, but they understood).
In more than one case, the billing was open until I was ready to get back to work again...
Meaning they paid for the recovery. My boss learned to bump those estimates. So, it was nice to get to bill 8 hrs (the day) for a 4hr engagement with a user who treated IT like the mail room workers he supervised... LOL. {After a 2hr meeting: So, you want the report configured for tri-fold OR bi-fold... Got it! PULLING HAIR OUT!}
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Get used to it dude, it's called work, not play. Things are they way they are because they have worked for us for a long long time. We are getting better as we go, but... if your work is easy and not at all frustrating then you can very easily be replaced by an AI, a Robot, or a younger person willing to work for less. Be careful what you wish for 
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I think I do 8 hours a day at a frustration index of 10. Can I take the next month off to recover?
My manager actually does quite a bit to try to reduce the frustration around here. It's all the other departments we have to watch out for.
Money makes the world go round ... but documentation moves the money.
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They wouldn't know how.
The trick is just to do the best you can.
They pay us because they can't find anyone else to do it as well, for less money.
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Today the frustration index was 2.97:
1. I'm responsible for the Windows system images installed on our equipment. We've had trouble with distributing the ISO file we 'burn' to a bootable Flash drive, and it turns out the freeware app (Rufus) we were using gets bitchy at the drop of a hat. Any hat. Hats in Cleveland, Leeds, or Dubai, for cryin' out loud. I am now forced to write an alternative, because I'm sick and ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://codeproject.freetls.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) ing tired of third-party, freeware sh!t.
2. One of our customers keeps changing the rules on a special feature we added for them. They didn't want to implement our 'standard' interface, so they requested a single addition to an interface we use for special features. You guessed it - they keep adding sh!t to the special features so that it looks like the damned standard interface.
3. One of our phone support guys called me on Microsoft Teams to ask me if he can send me stuff to diagnose a problem. Just send it, dammit. He sends it, I tell him how to fix the problem. The guy in the field gets to the next issue, so support guy passes it back to me. No, no, NO! We have service guys for a reason - call them!
4. My 30-day contact lens, which I've only been using for a couple of weeks, went crappy. In the course of switching to a new lens, at one point I had the new lens on top of the old one, in my eye.
5. The wife has been especially needy and grouchy today, probably because the euphoria from her vacation last week has worn off.
I am going to spend the evening watching movies that Siskel & Ebert would have despised and drinking hard ciders until my frustration index is back down to its normal steady-state level, or I'm ing unconscious.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I'm referring to the avalanche of mouth breathers that flood the QA with obvious homework assignments with the just as much obvious expectation that someone will simply solve those for them.
There are so many reasons it is a bad idea... do they think they are the first to think about it? Do they believe their teachers aren't aware of CP and SO (heck if they are like some of mine I believe they themselves graduated thanks to QA)? Do they think we can't recogninze an obvious assignment? Why are they even studying Computer Science if they don't even want to put in the bare minimum of work?
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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I'm a believer of the "microwave vs. crock pot generation" paradigm.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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den2k88 wrote: Why are they even studying Computer Science
Because they think it is a passport to untold wealth. Sadly for them no one told them that they might actually need to do some work.
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Richard MacCutchan wrote: untold wealth
So that's why I'm poor, all the wealth is untold.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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 Welcome to the reality of existence.
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Richard MacCutchan wrote: they might actually need to do some USEFUL work.
FIFY
This vast Q&A brain-trust is out there following in the footsteps of their predecessors as (usually overseas from here) contractors making crappy software.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote: contractors making crappy software.
Exactly so. The last project I was involved in went down the tubes for precisely that reason. Although, to be fair, it was not helped by some pretty useless management (in the USA).
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