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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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The (nitwits) here, in "my place of work" have been screwed over time and again by contractors. Nonetheless, they keep outsourcing (sometimes) critical operational needs.
Of those who create "competent" software, they basically hold the company (and its data hostage).
Apparently they're afraid that us in-house developers will have too much power over them (in reality, we've owned their asses for years but are cursed with ethics). Thus, when they want new software they still oft go to the out-house.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "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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And those are the people who managed to figure out how to open a browser and get to CO and SO, not to mention figure out how to post a question.
Some of these people can't figure out how to click the "Reply" buttons!
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They certainly believe they are smarter than the people they are asking for "help" which is an odd thing to do if you think about it ...
And some of them can get quite offensive when they are told we don't do their homework for them.
The ones I love are those that copy'n'paste the whole homework question, demand a full solution, and insist that's it's not homework but a real world problem.
Of course it is: I spend my entire day getting paid to write bubble sort functions ...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: Of course it is: I spend my entire day getting paid to write bubble sort functions
Fun fact: I actually did spend a day paid for it. Not my fault if the company used decades old software with an incomplete STL library, Boost was forbidden nobody knows why and Internet was limited to CP, SO and Bing (could "surf" using the cached page, with ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) -all images, formatting and active content.
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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den2k88 wrote: Why are they even studying Computer Science if they don't even want to put in the bare minimum of work?
I've actually posted to Q&A several times about how they ought to think about finding a career they'd like; pointing out that if they already don't want to code, what will happen if that's there job?
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "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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