Topic: I'm a screwup. Everybody else should fix my mistakes for me (Read 7949 times)

Anonymous · « **on:** February 16, 2004, 10:41:24 AM »

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Work rants! Never get enough work rants! I have one particularly stupid co-worker that is always trying to pawn off her fuckups to everyone else. This morning is no exception. I just had the following conversation with her a few minutes ago.

Some other programmer: ABC company is having problems printing their packing slip.

Me: What's the problem?

Programmer: It's printing the extra address fields and it's not supposed to. Their customizations are missing.

Me: That's odd... did they recently have a server crash or something?

Programmer: Not that I know of.

Me: Well when did this start happening? I just talked to them last week about something else and they said everything's been working fine lately. They're pretty open-and-shut, as far as clients go.

Programmer: It's been happening since about Wednesday of last week. Right after their upgrade.

Me: "Upgrade"? I had no idea they upgraded. Well in that case, one of their modifications must have been overwritten by the upgraded version.

Programmer: Oh. Well, you'll probably want to give Jane a call there. They really need this fixed.

Me: (confused) Why would I want to give them a call?

Programmer: Because their packing slip doesn't print right! They really need this working. Who else would fix something like this?

Me: Uh, normally the person who did their upgrade and overwrote their modifications. Who did their upgrade?

Programmer: I did.

Me: Ah. Well, My guess is that the program got overwritten in the upgrade, so you'll want to do a file comparison between their original code and the new version to see if their mod got missed.

Programmer: I'm not going to do that... you are.

Me: Uh... no. Anyway, once you find the mod, just migrate the modified code into the new version of the program on their live system, recompile, and that should be it. Pretty simple.

Programmer: Well, that's all I figured it would take. I'll let Jane know you'll be calling her and dialing in to look at this.

Me: No, it won't be me fixing this. That's not my job.

Programmer: You're client support for programming, right?

Me: Right.

Programmer: Well this is a client support issue.

Me: Nope. The client had a modification that YOU overwrote when doing their upgrade. YOU should do a modification flush on any client system before just blindly upgrading them, and YOU should know that. And since a mod got missed, then YOU have to fix it. That's how it works with every other programmer we have, including me, and including you. When Dave does upgrades for clients and misses mods, DAVE fixes the problems. When Carl does upgrades for clients and misses mods, CARL fixes the problem. When I do upgrades for clients and miss mods, I fix the problem. When YOU do an upgrade for a client and YOU miss a mod, then YOU fix the problem.

Programmer: Well, I'll call Jane and tell her you'll be dialing in to look at this. (hangs up)

So be it. I just called this programmer's supervisor and let him know what just happened. This happens with this person about once a week, and I'm getting sick to death of cleaning up after her screwups.

Anonymous · « **Reply #1 on:** February 16, 2004, 11:00:01 AM »

Accountibility, in my experience, is one of the common problem in most organisations. People refuse to be held accountable for anything and the management, for some unknown reason, often ignores the issues and refuses to confront the person and make them accountable. I don't get it.

Demosthenes · « **Reply #2 on:** February 16, 2004, 11:18:41 AM »

Considering her supervisor's attitude to this kind of thing, I'm guessing that sometime today she's going to be getting served a nice, big, heaping bowl of accountability with a side of admonishment.

The fun part is, however, that because I doubt that she'll be able to actually fix this client's problem (as simple as it is), it'll probably get assigned to me to clean up.

Granted, it'll really probably only take me about 15 minutes to correct -- I am pretty sure I know just where the problem lies -- but it's the principle of the thing.

EDIT

Yup. It just got handed to me. Her supervisor asked me if I'd take care of it because the client needs it PDQ, and (his exact words) "I don't think I want her changing any code on their live system".

Heh.

hackess · « **Reply #3 on:** February 16, 2004, 11:29:04 AM »

We've got a guy here at work who is completely inept at just about everything, even the most simple tasks. This guy should never have been hired. Yet, he makes three times what I do and is responsible for pulling together our project's budgets. If our funding agency decides to fund us for the next couple years, it'll be a miracle.

Demosthenes · « **Reply #4 on:** February 16, 2004, 11:40:04 AM »

I've always really wondered about people like that.

There are a couple of clients that I've had to deal with once in a while that are that way.

People who are the owners of these respective companies, and they're so mind-numbingly stupid and incompetent it makes you wonder how often they get lost on their way into the office every day.

And I don't mean this in a technical sense. My sister is pretty useless when it comes to computers, but she's pretty damned intelligent and is perfectly competent at just about everything she does.

These people are DUMB.

I often wonder, "How does one start and run a profitable business when one can't even comprehend the basic workings of it?".

And some of the IT guys at client sites I've dealt with are equally baffling. How does one get a job in the IT field paying that much and KEEP it when one isn't even familiar with basic networking concepts?

Seriously... there was an IT guy at a client site that I spoke to last week that was having problem with email. They have a mail server that they bought from us about six months ago, and it was set up by us, and as far as I know it's been working fine, because I haven't heard anything from them.

This guy called me asking me to help him troubleshoot problems with email in their office. After hearing his description of their problems, I asked him "when's the last time you rebooted your Exchange server?"

He was silent, and then he asked, "What's an 'Exchange server'?"

Being unfamiliar with their organization, I asked him if I could speak to their IT guy, and he responded, "I AM the IT guy here."

I later found out that yes, he indeed was their IT department. That's all he does.

People like you and me and Judgie slave away as well as we can, and nimrods like that IT guy I was talking about get paid 20k a year more than us and struggle to understand the Garfield punchline in today's paper.

I don't get it.

I think from now on, I should just say "fuck knowledge" and become completely incompetent at everything I do, professionally. It seems to work really well for a lot of people.

Law · « **Reply #5 on:** February 16, 2004, 01:42:42 PM »

My favourite days are when one of IT people looks at my computer and says "how'd you get it to do that?" I realize we don't pay our IT people well and thus have the bottom of the barrell support, but come on, I'm a lawyer I should not be able to confuse or outsmart our computer people...

Anonymous · « **Reply #6 on:** February 16, 2004, 01:48:15 PM »

My favourite is when I have to play the back seat driver with a senior IT dude. CTRL-C! CTRL-V! Stop going around in circles and give me the damn mouse! You're too slow!

hackess · « **Reply #7 on:** February 16, 2004, 02:00:58 PM »

It's fun when I have to try to explain PHP to my supervisor, who doesn't get web technology AT ALL.

dcrog · « **Reply #8 on:** February 16, 2004, 05:43:47 PM »

Quote from: catwritr

... he makes three times what I do ...

Well that's because he's a man?

*Oww, Ouch, ohhhhhhhhhh. Please Cat stop hitting me. I swear it was just a joke.

Demosthenes · « **Reply #9 on:** February 16, 2004, 05:59:59 PM »

Well, all joking aside, I bet that does have something to do with it.

It's pretty well documented how women still make an average of 10% - 20% less than equally qualified men in the same jobs.

In this day and age I really have to wonder how that continues to go on.

dcrog · « **Reply #10 on:** February 16, 2004, 06:03:00 PM »

Quote from: Demosthenes

It's pretty well documented how women still make an average of 10% - 20% less than equally qualified men in the same jobs.

In this day and age I really have to wonder how that continues to go on.

I concur. That is a sad state of affairs in this country.

hackess · « **Reply #11 on:** February 16, 2004, 06:11:20 PM »

dcrog, I'd hit you if I had reason. However, this guy isn't my professional equal. We have two different classifications, for one.

FWIW, my supervisor, a woman, is his professional equal. She makes about the same he does. There's maybe a $2K (<10%)difference.

dcrog · « **Reply #12 on:** February 16, 2004, 08:21:20 PM »

Whew!!!! What a relief. I was almost afraid to come back in here.

Demosthenes · « **Reply #13 on:** October 15, 2004, 09:38:09 AM »

*BUMP*

Same client, same stupid programmer.

So she comes up to me this morning and says "say, do you remember that modification you fixed for <client> last February?"

Me: Yeah, I think so.

Her: Well, they're upgrading again, and that mod will have to be moved forward.

Me: Okay.

Her: Do we have a copy of it here?

Me: No... I ended up fixing it on their live system because we never had a copy of their system here. Who is doing the upgrade?

Her: I am.

Me: Ah. Well, it should be there, in their live system. I ended up making a change in <report form> and in <program>, so if you get them to send you a copy of their live environment, it should be pretty easy to spot them prior to the upgrade this time.

Her: Well I need you to move the mods.

Me:

I thought you said you were doing their upgrade.

Her: I am. They specifically requested that I do it.

Me: *laugh* Seriously? Why?

Her: *glares* Well when I get a copy of their live system, I'll give it to you so you can copy their modifications out.

Me: Back up here. If you're doing the upgrade, you do the mods. That's kind of how this works.

Her: But you did their mods last time.

Me:

Only because YOU missed them last time. You just overwrote them, and I ended up cleaning up the mess a month afterward.

Her: Well either way, you need to port their modifications forward once we get a copy of their system.

Me: I don't think so.

Her: It's your job to do this.

Me: Not remotely. I think if you're doing the upgrade, you're doing the mods. Otherwise, I'm just going to ask <my boss> to move this project to me, and I'll do the whole thing.

Her: But they specifically requested that I do it.

Me: That doesn't matter.

Her: Fine. I'll get another programmer to do it then.

Me:

So I talked to my boss, and he said the same thing I did: "Weird Tingly Feeling? If she's doing their upgrade, why is she under the impression that it's your job to do her programming for her?".

Pretty stupid. I don't understand how this person is even still working here.

Anonymous · « **Reply #14 on:** October 15, 2004, 10:17:40 AM »

Quote from: Demosthenes

I don't understand how this person is even still working here.

That's a valid question. Did you ask?

Demosthenes · « **Reply #15 on:** October 15, 2004, 10:18:59 AM »

Quote from: TheJudge

Quote from: Demosthenes
I don't understand how this person is even still working here.
That's a valid question. Did you ask?

Not directly. But I sure as hell just implied it.

The_FOO · « **Reply #16 on:** October 15, 2004, 12:37:56 PM »

Nice... That's pretty lame of her.

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