Record some random oddities of corporate America

Having earned the natives trust (note: trust is in air quotes), I was given a small task. While my every move was scrutinized, I feel I adequately completed the task at hand.

The natives seemed pleased, which was my good fortune. Should I have failed at my task, I feel instead of going to lunch, I would have been lunch.

It’s true, they eat their own.

OK, there’s no actual proof of cannibalism yet, but ya can never be too careful…

Today I got to witness the “Getting Latest Version” ritual. Truly fasinating!

It goes something like this:

Preparation for the ritual starts the night before. The programmers start by leaving a sacrafice for the computer gods. If it is gone by morning, they feel the gods have accepted their sacrafice and will smile upon them. However in my case, I think the gods were definately frowning.

The day of the ritual, first, the programmers Get Latest on a single assembly. That gets built in VB6.

Then several dlls are copied around.

This is were it gets good, the regclean is run.

More code is then retrieved. More assemblies are build in VS2003. Virtual dirs are then created BY HAND. (WTF?)

Regclean is run again. Batch files are run. And finally more code built in VS2005.

Then the fun starts…

The natives have appointed but a single MAN to hold the knowlege of this Getting Latest ritual.

The neuances of the ritual have been handed down through the generations by ORAL TRADITION! Apparently documentation is too advanced for the natives.

At the end of the ritual, we were left with a nonworking version. And several grumpy natives.

Note to self: Leave better sacrafices for the computer gods. Rumor has it, the leader of the Get Latest Ritual is partial to warm rum.

I have been given the opportunity to study the natives in their natural environment. As soon as I walked in their habitat I was secluded, photographed and fingerprinted. I am not sure if these natives are friendly.

The alpha geek will definately be in interesting study. He seems to have knowlege the others lack.

The most interesting part of Day 1 was the travel. Seems as tho I am not alone in my quest to study this tribe, several thousand individuals, often traveling in herds were quite reckless in their journey, something I can only equate to the autobahn. A two lane highway, turned into four, as travelers used both berms in their goal of being just one more car length ahead.

This will be an interesting study indeed.

An employee with my company, and their spouse, elected to have a surgery that was NOT covered by insurance and cost them $25,000.

The spouse needed this elective surgery before a necessary pain relieving surgery could be performed. More sympathatic I could not be. I’m very sorry to hear the pain the spouse has, and I hope the second surgery will vastly increase their quality of life.

Here’s the part I can’t wrap my head around, my company wants to hold a fundraiser for this couple.

WTF???

I know what I get paid here, I can guess about how much this other employee makes. By no means is this person at the poverty level. And, HELLO!!! the employee and spouse ELECTED to have the first surgery. It was a CHOICE.

So, why would I contribute to this? Are there not more worthy causes out there? I mean, the food bank, the battered woman’s shelter, etc…

And a better question is, why would this person accept any money? It’s only the employee and the spouse, no kids… Personally, I would be embarrassed to accept money from a fundraiser.

I want to get my eyes corrected. It’s elective and not covered by insurance. Perhaps I should hold a fundraiser too?

While $25,000 is a lot of cash out of pocket, it’s like a car loan. Get a loan, a line of equity, or whatever, and pay it off yourself just like everyone else!

9AM Four-Minute Sex Changes Are the Wave of the FutureProgrammer returning from extended bathroom break:
You know, I don’t want to include too much information, but my pants fit much better now.

1900 Richmond Road
Cleveland, Ohio

Overheard by: The Surly Programmer
via Overheard in the Office, Feb 26, 2008

A room full of nerds AND their Webkinz!!!

I’m SurlyRocks in Webkinz land, invite me over and I will kick your ass at Battleship!

My minion: “There’s a mouse in my house”
Cube guy (aka Burrito Princess): “And a fox in your box? Errrr… Ummm… Must remember to think before speaking.”

E&Y made the Urban Dictionary!

I don’t know how that happened. I guess among the geeks I work with I am considered “Social”. Really I’m not all that social. I guess it’s all relative.

The first order of business for the Social Committee was to make the office festive.

OK…

The boys were in charge of purchasing the decorations. sigh…

This is what we came up with. I call this design, “Christmas Explosion”. Or alternatively “Christmas Puked in the Office”

I hope they don’t have any clients coming in this month! LOL

At least I’m at a client office and I don’t have to look at this everyday :)

And yes, there was much drink involved

Admin to cube rat: “What did you work on last week? I need to update the timesheets”

Cube rat: “Well, I actually worked on two things, jack and shit”

Admin: “I’m gonna have to make up some new categories for those”