The dregs of I.T.

At times everyone's had to work or interact with some people that are supposed to have the knowledge they say (in their field) but don't. Most of the time we're able to side step them, explain the issue to someone else (hopefully someone above them) and then run away. Literally, run away. Jim : So, in a nutshell, the application has the ability to report out data via SQL, and since we're using Crystal Reports (CR), you can use the CR features such as export to PDF and even send out reports via email. Cat : Hey, CR! Ok, now we're talking my language here! Jim : I'm sorry, you're from the IT line as well? I was under the impression (looks down at meeting attendance list) that you're from Sales? You're the Sales Director even. *cough* its nice meeting you by the way. Cat : Uh huh. Oh no back when I was doing my degree I had plenty of CR experience! Jim : Well good so as you can see, using CR, we can 'push' reports out via email, a fact ...

A couple short anecdotes. ------- Sam asks Phil to merge a file for him. After a short explanation, they conclude the right term is patching. So Phil follows with the implementation simultaneously with Sam explaining the idea to him. As they go along, Phil makes a diff between the old and the new version of the file, only to apply the patch to the old version of the file. Well, an odd algorithm for copying a new file over an old file, says Phil, leaving Sam a bit embarrassed. ------- Phil is being asked by Fred to help pinpoint a problem by observing the stack trace of an exception that has been raised by a Java program. A multithreaded Java program. "So," points out Phil a source file name with a number printed on the sixth line of the stack trace, "this is the probable culprit as lines higher are from library classes. Could you trigger the error again, only printing out the stack traces of other threads, too?" And Phil got met with a blank stare from Fred: ...