e-tme!

The BBQ Pit
1

My true calling is to save the lives of marine mammals who have been injured by boats and crappy fishing practices. I know this.

But in the meantime, I am working as a fucking web developer building sites for people with the vaguest possible grasp of how the internet works in general, and how web sites work in particular. Jesus Christ, these people are morons. How in the world they ever got to the point where they could type, let alone be put in charge of directing the content and appearance of a web site, is a mystery to me. CODING AIN’T MAGIC, YOU GODDAMNED FUCKING IMBECILES! If you want your list of 900 books to link to each appropriate book in Amazon.com, I’ll need the click-thru information! Creating a function that automatically adds up the dollar amounts entered into several fields is NOT a 5 minute task! And yeah, you have to pay for that!! And textured backgrounds look like shit! Always have, always will. Please don’t make me put clouds and shit behind your randomly bolded and multi-colored text. It’s an eyesore, and it’s embarrassing to be associated with it in any way.

This job gets more jaw-droppingly hideous with every passing day. I swear to God if anyone in my vicinity uses the words “think outside of the box”, “e-tail”, or “e-frastructure” (what they hell does that even mean, anyway?) one more time, it will be the motherfucking zero hour. e-tme!

There. My first Pit thread. Please find me another job, before I break down into dry, humiliated sobs.

2

Agreed on the “e-tail” thing. First it was the “information superhighway”, then “cyber-culture”, then “e-tail”…it’s enough to make you gag.

I recently attended a job interview and people were honestly using terms like “i-commerce” and “m-commerce” as if the words themselves meant something special; as though saying them alone meant they were ahead of the game.

[hijack]
And WHAT THE HELL is this media obsession with the “Mobile Internet”[sup]TM[/sup]?? The technology is NOT YET GOOD ENOUGH for this crap. If I want to experience the results of being able to read emails on my mobile I’ll throw myself under the nearest bus! It’ll be a whole lot cheaper and faster and I won’t have to suffer any more forking “Surf the BT Cellnet” adverts. If I read about bloody WAP once more I guarantee[sup]*[/sup] I’ll build a bloody time machine, nip back and blow bloody CERN up.

If there’s one thing that’ll get me off the internet, it’s this bloody media obsession with it. It’s a definite case of pot / kettle / black but GET OVER THE DAMN INTERNET ALREADY.
[/hijack]

[sup]*[/sup] not an actual guarantee

3

beadalin, e-ven thought you have not e-quivocated about your e-motions pertaining to the e-vil e-vents which surround this e-mergency, perhaps the most e-fficient e-licit a response would be to e-lectrocute e-ach indivindual who pisses you off. Perhaps that would produce the desired e-ffect. It’s e-asy for me to e-ither let you bend my e-ar or e-late you with tales of enemy’s e-ternal damnation, but e-nough is e-nough. I am e-ager to e-vade your wrath.

4

The internet was so cool when only us techies knew about it. Hard to believe it is only 5 years since I created my first web-page. Now after having worked for an e-Commerce company which totally gagged me, I am sick of the internet, of computers, of all I used to love. It has all become so mundane and pathetic. I got fired from my job last Friday, so now I am gonna back up a few steps and see if I can actually find someone who has fun work for computer programmers like they had when I first got in this business.

e-Anything sucks!

5

Beadalin, are these people paying you to do this? If they are, it probably isn’t enough. I think you need to raise your rates, babe. Either that or start pricing scuba gear…

6

Beadalin, I can so identify with your woes … I too am a web designer, but unlike you, it is what I want to do, I love it, and I strive to become better at it! However it is freaking exhausting to be at the beck and call of MORONS who have NO grasp of what it is you are doing for them, why you know what you’re doing a hell of a lot better than they do, and why you are worth every penny of your hourly rate …

The last customer I had, who I could fill pages of rants about, put me through 4 months of hell (every time I managed to get something finished, he would change his mind about what he wanted), then bitched about the high price (I essentially redesigned the site once a week to fit his chaging whims - what did he expect?). Then he fired me in favor of someone cheaper.

So add my name to the list of sympathizers! Freakin Plebes! No appreciation of our worthy and estimable skills!

7

Beadalin, you need to change your pricing structure.

“You want animated .GIFs? They’re $200 each. Blinking text? $50 a letter. MIDI playing in the background? I’m going to have to run a credit check…”

8

Glad I’m not alone in this, guys. Nen, you succeeded in making me laugh out loud when I was still filled with murderous rage, so kudos to you!

I wish I had some control over the pricing structure (blinking text is worth way more than $50 a letter, for pain and suffering), but I work for a large company rather than freelance. So instead of asking for more money, my plan is to obtain choking privileges. The more ludicrous the request, the more the client gets choked. You want entire sentences in your rollovers? A firm squeeze 'round the neck. You want the third design you’ve approved for the same site revamped again, after the site has been entirely built out twice? I start digging nails into your jugular, and I’ll do my best to get a plague of locusts to descend upon your house.

Seriously. I need a new job. I’ve got the scuba gear, I’ve got the scuba license, so next up: veterinary school.

9

Hmmm. You know, I don’t get paid for being a moderator/administrator here. Maybe I should put this idea forward to Ed. Except that I want cattle prod privileges.

10

I can relate. I provide specialized industrial equipment for clueless but wealthy clients. Unlike your industry, I have large expensive deliverables to point at and they STILL think I can get it done for free. You would think that someone could actually grasp the idea that if I’m going to show up, dig through post-it note archives, reverse engineer the place, wave the magic wand, order truck-sized chunks of equipment, get them delivered, installed, labeled, tested, licensed, painted to match, started up, and hand over the manual, that I need to get paid for my time.

Not what you might guess your cousin Ernie could do it for, but what it actually does take. There will be no baling wire or duct tape involved. Why yes the government IS interested, funny you should ask. Safety gear is not optional. No, you can’t just arrange for your mechanics to wade through carcinogens to save a buck. Did they take your soul out in business school? Well get a fucking retread.

HELL YES there WILL be cost adders if you change what’s left of your mind at the last minute AFTER I order half a mile of pipe and cabling. No, I can’t get it done in the timeline you dreamed up at lunch on a napkin, mostly arranged to get your pathetic butt out of your own bad planning. And it won’t happen for the paltry sum you had in mind. Trust me I’m laughing inside, now back up the money truck.

Oh, and by the way I will not miss my brother’s wedding because you think you need a particular stack of paper on your desk by some artificial timeline that got made up but not broadcast last week. Don’t dare route those meeting minutes, especially the ones where I wasn’t at the meeting but you made up a bunch of action items for me anyway. Better get a bigger money truck, that one’s only a deuce and a half.

Hey! Let’s have some fun! Let’s play, ‘I forgot to budget for taxes, who’s gonna pay the taxes’! Or maybe, ‘Permit? We need a permit?’ What about our old favorite, ‘Aaagh! I can’t pay for it all! Take some of it out! Waddaya mean it’s all one system??’ Oooh, oooh, me first, me first.

You can flog me all you want, at my rates I’m not in a hurry. But the contractors won’t show up no matter what kind of big shit you think you are, unless there is a buck to be made somehow. Show me how, or shut up and let me show you how, or maybe just fuck right off. And if you snap your fingers and say, “Oh, by the way…”, one more time I will CHOKE THE SHIVERING SHIT out of you right here on the floor.

They only rent me by the day. They only rent me by the day. They only rent me by the day…

11

Speakeasy … let me say that is the funniest and most relevant thing I have read in a long time. You speak to me, man.

12

Hey, if there’s no duct tape involved, how do I know I’m going to get a real QUALITY product?!?

13

One of my pet peeves is specialists calling those who know little about their specialities “morons”. THEY usually are, at least socially. Hey, I can usually figure your Alternative Minimum Tax in my head, but I do not think YOU are an “imbecile” just because you don’t even know what “AMT” is*. Sure, I DO think I am smarter than you, at least in a limited way, but that does not make you a moron. I have very little idea what the hell all the technobabble beady is using, but that doesn’t make me a “moron”. Hell, Einstein would have no idea, either. They hire YOU because you DO know that technocrap (and is IS important), and so they DON’T have to. Us beancounters have learned this years ago. It is amazing how quickly you can get some MGT type who wants something to run away after you begin talking about “fungible commodities”, or “accrued accruables”, os many other fun things.

  • But if you can’t do a 1040EZ, maybe I’ll change my mind.
14

Brunetter:

Thanx! I feel better now.

Lynn:

Hmmm, you sound like a fun date!

Interesting factoid: studies show that duct tape isn’t worth a crap on ducting, for some reason. [Insert Stooge noises here]

But really, when we modify a plant the first thing we usually have to do is gently inform the management that we would probably kill people for miles around if we did it the way they told us. Then I dutifully ignore the shrill screams of monetary pain whilst I tell them about the real world.

DanITWD:

Ya know, that gets on my nerves too. But I bet you would think I was a moron if I shopped around, got five bids, forked the long green for an expert named Daniel to figure it out, got informed what my Alternative Minimum Tax was, and then chose not to believe it. Or ignored the information and chose not to budget enough money to pay it. And then came back way too late and threw my weight around trying to find someone to dork for it. We call it ‘bayonetting the wounded’ and it seems to happen quite regularly.

Right now I’m at about the midpoint on a medium sized project. I’m doing it within 2% of the original schedule and budget I put out when this thing started in January. But if you ask managment, I’m behind their pretend schedule and over their wish budget. Which were dreamed up AFTER we got started and with no input from the people who will actually do the work. However, I’ve been singed once or twice and so the wet copy shows my numbers.

The hard part is getting a complicated job done in a hurry, while constantly maintaining a position I can defend against my ‘teammates’. I don’t even get torqued about it anymore, I just mark it off the list. Dork the contractors, CHECK! It only hurts when I laugh.

15

Hmmmm, I should clarify just a tad. Few of the maneuvers I see are actually the result of evil intent. Mosttly it seems to be all about the limits of competence and coordination. That’s why I can stand to hang out; I know if my toes get flattened at least it wasn’t planned that way. Usually.

16

Strange. I’ve suggested this very thing to my supervisor (also a techie) as a training device:

Client: Why does this computer have Win 95 on it?
Me: Because that’s the company standard, approved OS, and that’s what we’re licensed for.
Client: How about if I bring in a copy of Win 98 that I have at home? Could you install it for me?
Me: No, I’m sorry, but theat would be a license violation, and it’s also against policy. <ZORCH>
Client: That’s stupid. Win 95 sucks. It crashes all the time. Can I go to Win2K instead?
Me: No, I’m sorry, but the approved OS for this platform is 95. <ZORCH>
Client (plotting to bring in his pirated Win98 CD anyway): Whatever. How about Internet Explorer? Can I install that?
Me: No, the approved browser is Netscape 4.5. <ZORCH>
Client: Can I upgrade to 4.7? My online banking service doesn’t support 4.5.
Me: No. <ZORCH> Online banking is not a business-critical application, so there’s no need for it.
Client (smoking gently): I hate the Exchange email client. Can I upgrade to Outlook?
Me: No. <ZORCH> Shut up. <ZORCH> Go to Hell. <ZORCH> Call the Help Desk. <ZORCH>
Client: Uh. Okay.
Me: Have a nice day.