The 'Let's Bitch About Our Jobs' thread.

[ivan]

Му́рманская

I should have noted that the accent over the "y" is not an accent, but a stress mark. You probably copied this text from a dictionary definition, because Russians would naturally stress the first syllable in this word. However, you will see stress signs used when words are obscure or ambiguous. There are words that change meaning depending on where you put the stress. Like the word дома (pronounced "doh-mah") can mean either "at home" or "homes", depending on the stress. So if you say Ya DOHmah (first syllable stressed), it means "I am at home", but if you say "Etee dohMAH", it means "these homes". You would not see a stress symbol in those phrases, because the context is clear. However, if for some strange reason you wanted say "I am homes", which is not implied by context, you would have to write it with the stress symbol.

[Clear_Runway]

While we're on the subject, what is it with grammatical gender? Seems like a totally useless convention to me. (I realize this is sort of hypocritical coming from an English-speaker) Plus it's confusing - say you have a language where the word "animal" is male, but the word for the particular species being described is female, and to further mix things up the animal is biologically male. plus, in a lot of languages, you have female as the default as opposed to male, and this applies to animals as well as humans, which is also confusing since in English "it" is usually the default for animals, though this is hardly consistent. and some of these languages don't even have an "it", just randomly assigned gender. (Wikipedia has a map of the world colored by french grammatical gender, and it looks completely arbitrary to me)

just something that annoys me. wow, when it comes to languages I come out looking like a total xenophobe.

[ivan]

The Cyrillic alphabet isn't that bad.  I learned to read it without much trouble at all while I was studying Latin and Greek when I was still a teenager.

I never learned the underlying Russian, but the alphabet is pretty cool.

The modern Russian alphabet is a reformed and simplified version of the old Church Cyrillic alphabet, which had more bizzarre letters and rules. The commies simplified it so that the illiterate masses could learn it quicker, and be raised from poverty. Of course, many people lamented the loss of the old language heritage, but most of them were shot.

[ivan]

While we're on the subject, what is it with grammatical gender? Seems like a totally useless convention to me. (I realize this is sort of hypocritical coming from an English-speaker) Plus it's confusing - say you have a language where the word "animal" is male, but the word for the particular species being described is female, and to further mix things up the animal is biologically male. plus, in a lot of languages, you have female as the default as opposed to male, and this applies to animals as well as humans, which is also confusing since in English "it" is usually the default for animals, though this is hardly consistent. and some of these languages don't even have an "it", just randomly assigned gender. (Wikipedia has a map of the world colored by french grammatical gender, and it looks completely arbitrary to me)

just something that annoys me. wow, when it comes to languages I come out looking like a total xenophobe.

Dude, you are certainly not alone.

A little long and wordy (by modern standards), but most certainly worth the time to read: http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html

[Clear_Runway]

ten parts of speech? wow. no wonder those Germans are son angry, having to speak that language.

[12AX7]

Doch! Deutsche ist gar nicht so schwer.

[Clear_Runway]

you totally just used a web site to translate that, didn't you? it corresponds almost exactly with English. either that or it actually isn't that hard.

maybe this should be a whole nother thread...

[12AX7]

No, no website. My wife was German.

  It's not hard to learn if you are immersed in it. I never had any lessons at all, but after about two weeks in Germany I could understand most of what was being said, and make myself understood.

[Pyrenus]

Email comes in from QA Lead:  Some school needs a report.  Here's what they want.  Can you have this done by the end of the day?

10 minutes later, IM from QA Lead:  Did you ever get around to that whatever?  Let me know when you're done, we need to test it.  Hoping to get it done today.

20 minutes later, call from QA Lead:  OMG we have an emergency and need it fixed RIGHT NOW!  Urgent, this has priority over everything else!!

10 minutes later, IM from QA Lead:  Do you have time to look at something for me?


NO, I don't have time, and why can't you pick one medium of communication and stick to it?

[reimero]

No, no website. My wife was German.

  It's not hard to learn if you are immersed in it. I never had any lessons at all, but after about two weeks in Germany I could understand most of what was being said, and make myself understood.

Immersion is the only way to learn German, although one runs the risk of being associated with a particular region.

When my sister returned from Vorarlberg to the US, her high school German teacher told her she spoke "like a hick."

Then again, I learned German well enough that Vorarlberger natives thought I was Norwegian (or, at least, not American.)

[Detta]

I'm on maternity leave and my friend who I teach with tells me that administration took my classroom away for one period a day and gave it to someone else.  What the crap is that??

So I send a somewhat bitchy email to the dept head stating why I need and deserve my classroom back when I return and that I hope this is a big misunderstanding.

I get an email back from the person who was given my room saying that of course they intended to give it back.

Then my friend tells me that she overheard the conversation between dept head and person in my room where the person didn't understand why I was so upset and asked if I actually wanted the room back in April.  The dept head said yes.  THAT'S when they decided to give it back. 

Rat finks lied to me.  Glad I was so bitchy.

[Pyrenus]

I spend a lot of time and effort making our sites ADA compliant.

At the risk of sounding like a heartless bastard, are there really that many blind people who shop online?

[BizB]

There are more illiterate people shopping online than blind people, I'm sure.  Are there requirements for that?

[Demosthenes]

I think that depends on whether or not the government considers "Stupid" to be a disability.

[Pyrenus]

There are more illiterate people shopping online than blind people, I'm sure.  Are there requirements for that?

They are the ones who find all the bugs our testers miss.

[xolik]

I got put on this major project to get a Citrix environment going and I have resource concerns regarding our test domain. I was told that it's important and needs to be done, so I'm asking my boss relevant questions about how we're supposed to obtain what we need to get the goddamn job he put me in charge of done and he's too busy hunched over his blackberry joining the other bosses in masturbating over Apple's new tablet. Not even pretending to pay attention to me.

Me - "We don't have enough disk for the number of virtual machines plus I need to get a Windows 2008 ISO uploaded to the shared disk"

Him - "What?" *scroll scroll scroll on the browser*

Me - "....nevermind, I'll figure it out on my own."

Him - "What's this about IIS?"

Me - "Oh ffs, it's ISO and I told you nevermind. I'll do it. Stop trying to look like you give a damn about this. You're just embarassing yourself."

"Huh?" *scroll down scroll down*

[Demosthenes]

You should hijack his homepage on that gadget to tubgirl or goatse or something.

[12AX7]

ok, THIS is what is wrong with technology these days:

 (alarm text received from Mohegan Sun Earth Casino's phone switch)

  SRPT Heartbeat Loss
    This system has lost it's heartbeat (SRPT027), and has not restored in 15 minutes.



  Ok. *ahem* "HELLO!!!! IT IS A GODDAMN TELEPHONE SWITCH!!! IT DOESNT HAVE A GODDAMN HEART!!!!"
    Just state what the fuck is wrong. If the cpu is UP and has no problems; then its UP. Leave me alone. If the cpu is UP and has problems; tell me WHAT THE FUCK THE PROBLEM IS. DO NOT TRY to compare it to a fucking human and our maladies. "Heartbeat Loss"...what the fuck....
  If the cpu is NOT up; just say "CPU is DOWN." If this "heartbeat" is power; then just fucking say "Power's off; system is down."

   When did we start such bullshit? Next, I'll be making a workorder and dialing in to administer aspirin for it's fucking headache. Jeeeeezuss H....

[Detta]

"Power's off; system is down."

The System is Down

[12AX7]

The System is Down

  LOL!! I thought about the same thing when I typed that 'system is down'. I even sang it a couple of times, hehe.
   

[Chris]

Wow, I remember seeing that Strong Bad video back in the day when Fark used to be good... Ah, memories.

[Novice]

Thank you, Detta for reminding me how many Homestarrunner toons I am behind. There goes the evening.

[Wunderkind]

Your waitress leaves your table to get you your salads.

She does not return for ten minutes.

When she does come back her first finger on her left hand is now bandaged in a big ass fucking bandage and she's not using that finger.

You're going to snarl, roll your eyes at her while she smiles anyway and serves you the rest of your food in the middle of a rush, then proceed not to tip... anything... at all, not even a penny on tails. Then complain to my boss about how it "so" long for your salads to get out to you.

Kiss my fucking ass you rude goddamned piece of worthless horse shit. Waitresses around the world want to see you die in a bar-b-que smoking pit.

[BizB]

Wouldn't you be afraid someone would want you to serve them them after that?

[Wunderkind]

With a side of fried green tomatoes?