"Hey, guess what? Next Thursday there's a presentation of the new version of WonderCode in a hall nearby by the local reseller, free admittance. Interested?", goes my boss.
"Uh...", I mumble as I try to read the forwarded spam. "Well, a lot of buzzwords, I've read about it all already, nothing I really need, they've just added a few layers of complexity, really... But okay, I'll go, if only because of the discount for participants."
Great. Another wasted day. Well, at least wasted with a blessing. Not that I like WonderCode. I like to work with CodeSpew, actually. But there's not many projects out there I can use it on. You know, one thing runs on Windoze, the other on Lunix. Drat. But one thing I've learned is never show enthusiasm. If you show enthusiasm for one thing you're sure to experience a lack of it. Therefore it's only logical for me to try to show at least a bit of enthusiasm for this promo crap.
"Where do you work, sir?", asks me a person in a penguin attire. Like, don't they have a clue? You don't put a man behind the desk to handle registrations. Only boring men full of frustrations come to such presentations. I really don't need to hear their jabber. Not today. Why didn't they put a neat blonde behind the desk? That way she'd attract men I could compete with in constructing the most clueless cue line to ask her out. And not listening to those boring presenters that barely know to read from slides. Great, a reseller that has a woman with a feminism complex to handle promo organising. I mean, what other brains are capable of such a decision? I must remember later to subscribe marketing@bloodycoolsoftware.com to a hardcore site dealing in... Um, I'll decide about that later.
"Behind a long wooden desk cramped with monitors, keyboards, mice, and such."
Oh, crap. I must wake up. Not even a blonde would get confused over such replies. But I can't help it. A man handling my registration... Besides, it's early. 9:30 am. Just 5 hours ago I was ircing with a cute blonde from Bahamas. Nearly talked her into visiting me. Well, that sort of gave her away. Or, I should say, him. No blonde can resist my offer. I tell you, irc is full of men with frustrations and FBI agents pretending to be minors.
"Er, haha, sir. The company you work for, sir, please."
"Oh. Wiseguys, LLC."
Like, no way you're sending more of that spam to my boss. Anyway, upon his request I feed him more random information to increase entropy of his data, and then head off to take a seat and try to daydream about Bahamas. Yeah, right.
"I've just mastered BlatantlyEasyInterconnect Objects, and now they've built DataTrullyDirect Objects which should shorten the development cycle even further. I tell you, they do this only so they can sell new versions of their software. I mean, do I really need a new compiler? They already made a very good compiler, my programs work just fine. But when they introduce their new super-cool objects, we just have to use them or we aren't super-duper-cool anymore."
No shit, Newton. Only, you're sitting next to Einstein. Want to hear some stuff about the Cabal that's behind this thing? You're seeing only the façade. But, eh, why should I bother? When you've got a badge with your name on it and you're not keeping a low profile, you're only asking for trouble. Even if it's not your real name. Those guys can be very persistent. Frustration has to be dealt with very carefully.
"Oh? Well, they must be quite resourceful. But I wouldn't know about that, I'm not using any of the high-level components. I design and implement secure communication protocols."
"Interesting. How do you go about doing that?"
"It depends on requirements. But basically I just take whatever protocol people used before and wrap it with a module, that first compresses data, and then adds random bytes so some obscure cypher, like SAFER-SK128, produces different encrypted packets even on repeating data. Easy. And worth lots of money." Well, that quieted him. No common ground. Always take care of having no common ground with frustrated people.
"Hello and welcome to our presentation of the latest version of WonderCode!" suddenly screams the announcer. How awful. I can just see him using half an hour to tell us about the swell history of their great product that saved Earth a dozen times already. And a Mars rover, too. Which he does. Except for the Mars part.
"And now I'll let mr. Hardcode explain what's new in WonderCode 2005!"
Ah. At last something I can engage my analytical mind with. Not that I expect it to be interesting. I'll try to sort out useful information from all the noise. I always find it interesting how an exciting presentation ends with little or no useful data at all. But I don't really care. It's logical they want to earn some cash with lectures. What I care about is to smash those enthusiastic thoughts trying to lift some of the frustration from the depressing folks around me. Why should only I be miserable? Patience, patience... Soon a practical application will be on schedule.
"I think we all could use a break now. We'll continue in half an hour, and in the mean time please help yourselves to a little snack outside."
Caviar. It smells awful. How can people eat that? I have a problem fighting the smell already. I have a theory about that. I think that eating caviar causes you to turn into a manager. But my sample size is too small to do a statistical correlation. Carefully avoiding being contaminated by airheads I thread my way back to the seat with a simple sandwich. Nothing special, but if it's for free... A few nerds are already there. Actually, I think they didn't get a snack at all. People in perfect suits with ties debating some design decisions. Horrible.
"In the second part of our presentation we will see mr. Crackblues showing us some new things while building a few demo apps."
Boooooooring. All those things have already been published on the web. Months ago. Databases. They just can't leave databases alone. Every damn demo involves a connection to a database. Why can't they show us something interesting? Building a digital satellite signal decryption program would be such a neat little thing. I'm sure that presenter can build it within 10 minutes. Considering his fast mouse dance over the screen not telling us what key combinations he is pressing alongside, he's quite apt at doing anything in WonderCode. And then a clueless weirdo started quarelling about a database design. But it's not funny. That presenter really doesn't know how to make fun of the situation. Booooring.
At the end I should fill out a survey for the organisers to get a feedback on how we liked the show. As usual, I write: "I didn't get a free laptop so it could be better." And by the way, the upgrade for the low-end paranormal version of WonderCode I use is not subject to any discounts. What a waste of time. I should've been more active and throw expired milk on the stage. This will teach me to read the discount coupon first.
A piece of pizza in front of me, Mozilla checking my mail, and me who just got to the office. Seems like a good start. Until the phone rings.
"Hi, that update you sent us yesterday, now there's something wrong when manually adding items to a bill. The invoice is processed fine, but manual items, like shipping, don't appear on the bill until I turn off the computer."
There's such a nice sunny day outside. And now suddenly I have these images of a large axe, chainsaw, and gillotine in my head. Something's missing in this picture. A substance.
"Yeah, ummm... Lemme think... I think I know... I employed the latest technology of database connectivity in the last update, it's very efficient and therefore fast, it stacks data together in chunks of maximum size so the data used for communication is reduced to minimum. It's quite good," I lie. You have to be clever in this business. You don't make mistakes. Others do.
"But, what does this have to do with my billing problems?"
Gawd, some people need to be told everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, to the last detail. They just don't think.
"You see, as you add that shipping item, it's too small. The protocol layer is waiting for more data to be able to construct a packet of maximum efficient size and then send it to the database. Just add another item, it'll work then."
"But... What? I just need to add this one shipping item!"
Why do people expect me to run their businesses? I have enough problems running my own, I don't need their problems, too. Perhaps I'm in the wrong business. Perhaps I should run classes on running a business.
"Well, you're handling this customer, right? Just add a handling item."
"A handling item? But that's included in the shipping item, it goes 'shipping and handling'."
Yeah. Definitely in the wrong business.
"Make two items out of it then. One item reading just 'shipping', the other 'handling'. Besides, the customer will be more willing to pay a bill if there are more items on it. Be creative. Maybe you'll think of another item to add. 'Processing', for example."
"Processing?"
I should take notes and then write a book. It seems it would be a best-seller. I'd practically make an advert for my classes and then earn from the advert, be very popular, and even earn shitload of cash from running classes. You know, high popularity means you can have a high price.
"Yeah, I mean, your computers aren't running on nothing. Electricity costs. And you need computers to process orders, right? And invoices. And so on. It's the cost of doing business. Processing."
Man, I'd laugh myself silly right now if this weren't an important customer.
"Oh... right! Well, thanks for help!"
Phew, that was close. Now, I quickly add a transaction commit after adding manual items, recompile and repackage the program, and wait for the next call.
"Hi, me again. I tried that, I added three items, but they're nowhere to be seen on the bill."
"Hmmm... odd. Wait! Did you update your computer? Microsoft released some critical updates the last week, and if you don't have them installed it may cause your computer to work unreliably altogether!" I lie again, now prepared for this call.
"Uh... no... I'm not sure how..."
"Well don't worry, I happen to go on some field work just in an hour, it's in your vicinity, I'll pop in at your place on my way there and update your computers in a snap. I have it all on a CD, so you won't have to wait for all that downloading and stuff."
"Wow, thanks! You're really something!"
Yeah, I know.
So I burn the new version of the program on a CD and leave for lunch. I'm good. Really good. Why change the business?
Greetings!
Just a quick post here. I've managed to trick..er... 'invite' Ales to join up as a member of this blog, and we're hoping its gona rock ;)
Enjoy!
<>
“So I’m going to have to help your sister then?” “Yes, but I don’t care if you really help out, its up to you.” Now, I don’t know about you guys, but when your girlfriend say that, its usually a trap. Its usually about this time you should set the stack of magazines on the coffee table on fire and run in the other direction. But I didn’t. Silly me. Ales should learn something from this and always carry matches.
”Ok, sure, no problem. I’ll follow your sister to the PC Fair, then help her get a notebook for her medical school,” I say, with a forced smile, my left hand pawing my shirt pockets for a box of matches.
Its 3 weeks later, and I’m lazing at the office, just waiting for a chance to get
“Hi, how may I be of service?” I say, pouring sarcasm into the phone like a drunk does with cheap whisky. “Yeah, that laptop you got me is not working right. I can’t find my files, and this comp is really hard to use,” says the Sister. I HATE people that refer to their laptops / PC’s as a ‘comp’, it sounds tacky.
“@#^&@(“ I say under my breath. “What was that?” “Nothing, just bad reception on my cell phone. Are you telling me that your ‘friend’ formatted the laptop?” “Yes, he’s been very helpful, unlike you.” “Right. Helpful. And this person has a degree in Computing?” “No, he’s an Arts major, but he’s used computers before.” “So have monkeys, but you don’t see people letting them format computers do you?” I say, this time I forget to say it under my breath. “What was that?” “Nothing. Look, if you say he formatted the laptop, why is the virtual drive software still installed?” “The what?” she asks me. “Um.. the ‘X’ drive. Why does it still show up? I don’t think he could have reinstalled the software, seeing as how I didn’t leave you the installer CD!” I tell her, feeling smug. “Look, I don’t know why. Anyway, he helped me remove the Russian Tutorial CD, so I can hear my MP3’s, but I keep getting an error on startup every time.”
“Let me get this straight. You removed a learning software, just so you could listen to MP3’s?” I choke out. “Well, yes. It’s lonely there in
“
I look at the wall clock, and I’m glad that the worst 5 minutes of my day is over. Feeling aggravated, I redial her number via the office phone and go, “Hi, err, my appendix just burst, could you just give me a few quick pointers on how to cut it out, I’d be REALLY grateful, Do I start cutting from the left to right, or the other way around? And just where IS my appendix anyway?” And with that I hang up and get to the pantry, for my morning cup of tea.
The Programmer and I are lazing in the hall, he's watching the TV and I'm reading the paper after a long day at work (in the other office even!)
There's an add for a movie, 'Sky Captain' I think it was, and he turns to me and goes:
Programmer: Hey, this movie looks cool. Have you seen it?
Me: Eh? No, cant say I have, but Jolie's in it.
Programmer: Sweet, what about Enith Baldro?
Me: Enith who? *at this point I give up trying to read the paper and face him*
Programmer: You know, Enith Baldro!
Me: Dude I dont know her, and I dont think she's acting in it man.
Programmer: Really? Wow, cause I read somewhere that she did... Ok so who else is acting in it then?
Me: Err... if I'm not mistaken... Gwenith Paltro is in it too.
There's a moment of silence as the programmer looks blankly at me, then slowly moves back to the tv.
Am I evil?
It’s early as I exit the pantry with my morning cup of tea, with lots of milk, just the way I like it when I see the NewGuy slip in the office and slither over to his desk nary a care in the world. I take a look at my watch and see its 9.34am, and this isn’t the first time the NewGuy’s been late to work. My mind slowly starts to think up of things I can make him do with the knowledge he’s been late one too many times, when I receive a phone call on my cell.
It’s the BOSS! And he sounds angry!
2 minutes later I’m back at my desk clearing it up and getting some files in order. The NewGuy peeks from his part of the half partition and chirps, “Busy morning huh?” “Yes, it always is for people that come in on time to work.” Its early, and I haven’t gotten into my normal frame of mind, so I’m a little more direct then I should, and I can feel my hold on the NewGuy slowly slipping. I know I have to shake things up, or he’s never going to look up at me. With this in mind, I reach down to my last drawer and pull out a nice looking diary notebook (the kind you get when you sign up for an insurance, except it wasn’t my insurance I was signing up for, that’s all I can say for now).
Standing over the NewGuy’s desk, I drop the notebook in his lap, delighted in the odd look he gives me, as I’m sure I almost missed the family jewels. “What’s this then?” he asks, slowly turning the page of the notebook, probably worried about it exploding in his face. Don’t worry, that’s for later!
“Its my very own manual, the best thing someone in the I.T. field can have. I call it, ‘BS and Buzzwords!’ with the punctuation mark and all.” “BS and Buzzwords huh? What’s it for then? And just what are ‘buzzwords’?” “Dear god man! Don’t tell me you don’t know what ‘buzzwords’ are!” “Well, no… I don’t.” “Wow, just what did they teach you in university? You DID go to university right?” “Err…” he stammers “…yes?” he says at the end of his stammer. “Ok. I’ll let that slide (for now). So come on, tell, what great knowledge did they impart to you there?” “Oh the usual stuff, you know, the important things!” he goes. “Right, things like how to clear the web cache and browser history so you won’t get caught browsing porn?” “Exactly! Oh my god, you went to my uni to?” “I might have, but for now, flip through that manual, there are a lot of things I’ll need to teach you, and I don’t have all week.”
The NewGuy nods and flips a few pages and comes to a numbered bullet entitled ‘#201 - How to get a free lunch, and act important while you’re doing it’. He flips a few more pages and comes across one that reads ‘#332 - The tie is your enemy, unless its for a free lunch, then see #201’. “Wow, this is great, all the good stuff they don’t tell you in class!” “Yes, it sure is a work of art,” I say, proudly beaming at my manual. “With this, you should be able to burn a few hours just trading buzzwords like ‘file sharing’ and ‘turnkey project’ and such. Guaranteed to work when you’re meeting the higher up’s and people that generally love being in meetings!” “Gasp! That’s what YOU do all the time,” says the NewGuy, slowly showing the respect he should to me.
“Exactly! And I’m here to see you learn it all, and become the best seat filler you can be,” I say to him slowly, hearing the door chime as the Boss walks in the office, laptop and documents in hand.
“We’re off then, we have that meeting I called you about, turnkey project and all.” he says and slips back out the office.
I nod, and lean over and grab my manual from the NewGuy’s hand, grab a tie, and am off to another important meeting, as the best meeting-seat-filler around.
The moments pass by, and I can hear the SC going on and on about how he had a virus crash his machine a few years back in the other office (an office without a router, or any form of firewall, even when they had XP Pro but didn’t bother to turn it on). “LOOK! I don’t know what you were doing opening weird attachments, or downloading off weird websites, all I need is the router password,” I say standing up and cutting the SC off mid-sentence. “Tell you what, I’ll give The Boss’ Daughter (BD in short) another extra IP address we have around, then I’ll look into it later,” he says packing his crap up and heading towards the door, for a meeting or something like that.
You can’t win them all, and the SC wins this round.
It always starts out on a quiet Monday, when everything seems to be going well, there are no emails in your inbox (because you spent the weekend reading office email and replying to odd requests) and you’re about to get the first cup of tea when the boss’ daughter walks up to my table and says, “My computer has an IP conflict.” It takes me a few seconds to register that she’s actually said something that made sense for once, and not just some random buzzwords mixed in some regular daily babble like she usually does.
“So, how do you know it’s an IP conflict again? Did you try pinging the office server and notice packets going missing? Was the network connection intermittent?” I ask her, still confused, since I haven’t had my morning tea. “Um no, the computer told me,” she replies, flashing me some teeth. Slowly it dawns on me that she must have XP Pro on her machine, and the network wiz bubble must have popped up and told her there was an IP conflict. Trying to act busy but being nice to her is hard, but I try anyway by asking her what her OS is. “OS?” I just get a blank stare. Ok Plan B, lets dumb it down a notch, make that a couple of notches. “What do you get when you switch your computer on in the morning, you know, the Operating System splash screen?” I say, mimicking switching a computer on and praying that she wouldn’t tell me that that wasn’t how she switched on her computer. “Oh! OS! I get it, um… I think my OS is ‘MSI’,” she says happily. I just stare at her. “MIS? MSI? Its something like that,” she tries again to get back to me, noticing the glazed look I have on my face. “What the he..” I stop and asses the situation. Work is a little slow (just the way I LIKE it) but it would be good to show that I’m helpful around the office. Forcing down my instincts to set something on fire and run like hell, I smile and say, “That is your Motherboard, I think its part of the bios. Lets speed things up, I’ll just come over to your room and have a look at the pc, then I’ll check it on the router ok?” “Yeah, router, good. I’ll go have coffee now, “and she slithers off to the pantry, even before I can suggest that I go in as well to get some tea. Oh well, might as well fix this and have an extended round of
I get to her pc, and it’s a sweet thing with a P4 (cant remember how many MHz) with 512 MB RAM and other bits I don’t even want to think of now. Its already up, and I was right, she does have XP Pro on, and there’s a little yellow bubble over her network icon that says there’s an IP conflict. I check her pc name, then her pc IP address then walk off quickly.
At my desk, I try to ping her IP and her pc name, and it doesn’t work. I’m sitting there and wondering why all of a sudden her IP address is causing a conflict when I see the boss walk out with another new laptop, this one he just bought a week ago. The thing is, the senior consultant ‘helped’ to configure it, and since that day, the boss hasn’t brought it in the office. I try pinging her pc again, and this time it works. So now I know it’s the boss’ new laptop that’s causing the problem, but I’m sure its easily fixed, I’ll just assign her a new IP address, open it up to the net on the router, and I’ll be a hero, maybe even get some expensive tea for the pantry.
I start clicking to get to the internal webpage/control panel in our router, when it prompts me with a password dialog box. Looking back, I knew things were going wrong when I felt like burning something and running away but didn’t. I key in the simple password we’ve had on that router for a while and sit back, wondering if there was any more milk for my tea when the password is invalid and I get a prompt to re-key it in again. After 2 other times, the page just kicks me out and I’m left wondering what the hell happned. I peek up to the senior consultant’s desk, and I see him messing about on 2 laptops. That’s fine with me. “Hi, been good? I sort of need the router password. Any chance you changed it lately?” I ask him semi-politely. “Router? Password? Oh yeah I changed it, cant never be too sure you know,” he says, almost looking down his nose at me, which is hard to do seeing as how I’m standing and he’s sitting at his desk. “Riiiight check ok cool look I’m going to need that password, and then you can change it again to anything you want, ok? I have a meeting soon, and I haven’t even had my cup of tea.” “Oh, you meen give YOU the password? I don’t think I can. Its because we need a sense of control in the office you see, cant have just everyone in the office with the password access!” he goes off on me.
“Well I don’t see what’s the problem here, people come to me when they have issues with the network, and I try to get their issues fixed as soon as I can, unlike some people that keep putting things off then driving off to other states for project implementations,” I retort, trying to make this quick.
"So, you're leaving then?" I ask over a mouth full of noodles. "Yes, my contract is almost up, and the office is pretty far from where I live anyway," says the drone.
"Right, cant have that can we?"
Later that day, I get my realpopup (www.realpopup.it) up and start a lively message conversation going with The Programmer.
The Programmer : So she's leaving, what then?
IT (me) : Um, well yeah she's been good to us, wana go out of our way and get her something?
The Programmer : Ohh that sounds like it might involve money, and spending it, and my money mainly.
IT Me : Err... well we could share, get her one of those thinggies?
The Programmer : Riiiight.... those thinggies where you go out to the corner store and rummage over their broken glass bin?
IT Me : Oh PLEASE! That was ONE birthday gift! I actually thought the shards of green and blue glass looked good on your desk!
The Programmer : That they did, and under my desk too, all around the area I prop my feet up even?
IT Me : Um, might have been some disgruntled worker! Someone who knew you worked with your shoes off! Yes THATS it! I'm sure of it!.
The Programmer : We just have 4 people working with us. 2 of them are out for a few weeks.
IT Me : Wow, some people plan in advance huh? *cough* err well anyway lets just take her out to dinner ok?
The Programmer : Yeah ok maybe get in a few beers too.
IT Me : Oh yes, beers.
The Drone is going about every desk and having a short chat with the person sitting there. I alt+tab my por..er.. 'jpg inventory' and pretend to be working.
"Hello there, I just wanted to say thank you for being helpfull for this past year or so, and here's something I'd like you to have," says the Drone, putting down a heart shaped mangoe fruit jelly on my desk.
"Yum, jelly with those square blocks of fruit!" I say, grabbing at it and patting myself for a spoon.
"Um, no, its a scented candle"
"hahha good one, where's my spoon again?"
"No, its really a candle, see the wick?" "Ooookay, whats those square things in it then?" I ask, feeling hungry already. "I dont quite know, maybe its the scent essence or something. Could you do me a favour? The NewGuy isnt in this week, I was wondering if you could give him this (puts another jell..er.. candle on my desk) Just tell him its from me ok?"
"Hey, how come his candel is alot more colourfull then mine?" I ask her, trying to get into more trouble then I already have with her and the NewGuy.
"No reason! What IS IT WITH YOU? Look, just take which ever one you want, just give him his candle ok?"
"Yes maam!"
Once last salute to her and she's off to her desk, clearing up her stuff and smiling that happy smile you have when you've either told off the boss and handed in your resignation letter, or you've just taken a huge dump on the parking attendent's table (dont ask, trust me)
Now I'm left with 2 candles on my desk, and I havent even hurt anyone this week. Must be getting slow.
Right, lets get this straight. This blog is COMPLEATLY a work of fiction. Nothing here (even if it seems like it) is based on stuff that actually happned. Now, since its a work of fiction, I get to hurt people and um.. be rude to them. Don't worry, its ok, its fiction :)
Enjoy!
PS: i can't spell