[LetMeFinclOut]

Parkinson's law comes to mind here.

• Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
  
• The reverse is not true.

[Lemur]

AdamSpeight2008, on 15 August 2012 - 07:29 PM, said:

MIT560, on 16 August 2012 - 01:19 AM, said:

Restart the computer before you try anything. It will fix most of all issues.

Not a solution to all problems then.
Without understand the root cause, how do you know?
Just loose all of your clients irreplaceable data, why not.

It could make it worse, without and diagnostic information to debug the cause to boot.

Reboot is always one of my later tricks. I won't ever say that to start off with, because it only masks a problem. If someone has to constantly reboot to get something working, then there's something else wrong that needs to be addressed.

----------

Another few things:

NEVER call anything the final version. Murphy sits atop his perch waiting for the poor pleb that utters those unholy words.

You're not there to impress anyone. You're there to do your job, not get a pat on the head and a treat.

If you enter a workplace using RPG or COBOL, expect that it will not change. They WILL NOT idolize you for presenting Java or whatever newer language, they will scoff and promptly mock you until your hope has died and your soul is gone. (Actually, avoid these places period if at all possible.)

[fromTheSprawl]

Some things I learned:

1. After working sometime, you'll become battle hardened and learn to say no or at least come up with reasons why something won't work. 99% of the time, your idea will be shot down.
2. Everyone knows more than you. (At least that's what they think)
3. A machine works faster in safe mode. Yey!
4. Even if you want to, you can't say no. (1 is just something you felt would work)
5. A programmer is a peon.
6. If anything goes wrong, you're always to blame.
7. They will ask if you're okay with the development schedule, but whatever you say they will stick to that.
8. Programmers get no recognition, only among their fellow programmers.
9. Restarting is an option, but you'll get things done faster in the long run if you find out what's wrong.
10. JSP sucks.

[Atli]

fromTheSprawl, on 16 August 2012 - 01:11 AM, said:

2. Everyone knows more than you. (At least that's what they think)

That's not true. I know it's not!

[BarNunBoi]

DarenR, on 14 August 2012 - 01:37 PM, said:

• After you finish a project the managers always come and say oh we don't need this any more.
  
• People generally have no idea what they want

This should be in the IT's holy gospels!

[Lemur]

BarNunBoi, on 15 August 2012 - 09:59 PM, said:

DarenR, on 14 August 2012 - 01:37 PM, said:

• After you finish a project the managers always come and say oh we don't need this any more.
  
• People generally have no idea what they want

This should be in the IT's holy gospels!

I'd say there's a bit more of an accurate way to phrase that last one:

> People know what they want, and it's not that. It needs to be more programmy or more emotional.

[Bench]

DarenR, on 14 August 2012 - 09:37 PM, said:

IT and end users have different names for everything

I think I can expand on this one; In my world at least, some people choose 5 different names to mean the same thing, where others choose the same name to mean 5 different things

My favourite one recently; Some in the Aviation industry like to use the words "Bearing", "Heading", "Course", "Track", "Radial", "Vector" and "Direction" interchangably, even though these words are subtly different to each other. Yet they will freely switch between these words in a single paragraph (often in a single sentence) to mean exactly the same thing, leaving you confused as to which one they actually meant.

(Admittedly a lot of people in Aviation do not necessarily have English as their first language; but actually the worst offenders are usually native english speakers)

[stackoverflow]

AdamSpeight2008, on 14 August 2012 - 08:41 PM, said:

Never touch-up another coder's code.

If someone writes shit code I have no qualms 'touching it up'. Don't write code that needs to be touched up.

[AnalyticLunatic]

DarenR, on 14 August 2012 - 01:37 PM, said:

• After you finish a project the managers always come and say oh we don't need this any more.

This just happened First project I was assigned, developed it with several additions and enhancements for the last 4 months. Down to a few remaining listed issues needing resolved before passing along for user testing, and then we find out the requesting organization is doing some weird merger type deal and thus the application may no longer be what they need, possibly not be of any use at all.

[BenignDesign]

IT Rule #1: "Full-time" never means just 40 hours.
IT Rule #2: Everything is a "thingie" when it's not working.
IT Rule #3: Learn to love coffee because sleep isn't likely to be an option.

[WinkyCode]

Well, a thought about re-booting. I have worked with tech support for Apple and also the iOS units like iPhone and iPad and whatnot. When a customer calls in with the cry "my phone is dead - take your magic wand and make live again!", it's often down to the unit has over-heated. Plug in the charger and wait ten minutes. It will live again. Most of the time. So I ask the customer to turn it off if possible and start charging it will I take down his or hers info. After doddling with statistic for about ten minutes, I ask the customer to try turn the unit on again. Most of the time the customer is very happy. So for handheld units, a shutdown and some charge-time and then a boot can solve most of the problems.

[ccubed]

1) there is no version 2, there is version 1.0.1110001001

2) As long as there is no version 2, you will never hear "Ever since you hit version 2 my mouse hasn't worked"

3) The laziness of the end user is directly proportional to their technical knowledge

4) A boss with no technical knowledge is the worst because he doesn't understand what's outrageous; a boss with technical knowledge is the worst because they expect you to do everything like they did

5) The computer is the tower, the CPU is the monitor, the cd is the power cord

6) If a file is required for business to proceed, that file will be deleted. That picture of your mother in a bonnet however will never be deleted and end up in everyone's email one day.