I hate my
boss. Aargh! I used to like him, he was a distant friend. Then I started to work for him.
Always a mistake. Now I can deal with him if I must, I just dont want to.
Passive-agressive behaviour is a defence mechanism for
stress ("What happens when you supress the desire to choke the living shit out of someone").
He may be a good engineer, but he is a manager in the same sense that a woodpecker is carpenter. He is charge of some people, that's about the extent of his managerial abilites.
One week before I am sheduled to leave, a fact that he has known for months, still I have no replacement, but he has asked me to implement a metric ton of changes, most of them off-the-cuff.
Yes, he wants value for his money, but darn it, management is about planning and timing. This is like a paniced seagull.
On an inspiration, he also asked me to move all the strings returned to the user in the program into a resource file or database where he can edit them without messing with the program. This is not a Win32/C program with a resource table, it is a website in PHP and Java. I should have laughed out loud, but all I did was mentally move it to the bottom of the priority list, which is already too long.
I didn't tell him that the new 1.4 version of java is finally out of beta, for fear that I'd be asked to "just quickly" roll it out on Friday before I leave.
What really boggles my mind is the complete lack of any conception of the need for a shakedown period. I finish all these changes on next friday and then walk away, and it all works perfectly. Never mind that it's never done that yet, not on this project, any other that this company has been involved with, or come to think of it, any other software in history.
But being proactive is not one of this office's virtues. Patching that patches is the first order of business.
But he is not a person to whom it is easy to tell things that he doesn't already know. Not easy to disagree with.
I am taking pride in making this program, this site work. Out users like us, and I get off on that. I'd gladly hand it over to someone else, but my boss is determined to mess it up and he doesn't have the faintest clue that he's doing that. If I do tell him he wouldn't understand.
I'll do what he says, it's the path of least resistance but I don't like it. It's unprofessional.
Two other employees are leaving in the near future, one with a personality clash with my boss. This would be OK, except he many years of hard-to-replace operational knowledge. This was supposed to be an easy six-month contract, don't get too involved, don't commit long-term. Sadly, all I can hope for is that I am far away when things do go wrong. Work is like that. You do all you can, and when it's over you never look back.
OK, so you teenagers get to do bullshit angst dating stuff in daylogs, so therefor I get to do this. Vent over.
In the evening, after writing the above, I got
borged for the first time
ever. it went like this (lightly edited for relevance, or what passes for relevance in the
catbox):
StrawberryFrog Sorry people, I was suddenly cut of from the net at lunch today. As I was asking but 12 hours ago: is wharfinger really theonomist as is claimed by dannye in raising the bar
call SF: best ask when he's not around.
dem bones I thought I was theonomist? Wait ... maybe I'm kenata. Aw, hell... I can't remember.
EDB has swallowed StrawberryFrog. moist noder flesh
ascorbic SF: why don't you ask him yourself
ascorbic EDB: shall we take that as a yes?
fondue well spin my nipple nuts and ship me to Alaska!
Igloowhite no way motherfucker - I'm Kenata!
Gritchka Some editor's been putting libellous pipelinks in again!?
--OutpostMir-- bones: don't you keep a list of stuff like that? sheesh.
Tiefling /em grins
wharfinger Fuck that, I'm everybody.
Tiefling I'm Spartacus!
Sondheim No way dudes, IM kenata, but IB doesn't know it yet...I got him to marry me so I could napalm the wedding
--OutpostMir-- Teifling: And I'm the hospitals John Doe
wharfinger ^Davion^: That's just what I'd expect you to say, nate.
Saige ok, here's the truth - all of E2 is a fancy computer simulation, tested out on the internet. YOU -yes, you- are the only person on this site that's real.
Gritchka I'm theonomist, and so is my wife.
2002.02.15 dem bones says Hang on ... I'll see if I can't get you out of there ... NEVER TYPE THEONOMIST IN THE CHATTERBOX!
wharfinger Saige doesn't mention one important feature: The simulation is designed to provide *misleading* *hints* which are plausibly close to the truth, yet lead you in a completely wrong direction.
dannye Some damn malicious god put that pipe link in that w/u. And they've been making lewd and obscene nodeshells w/ my name on them. And one of 'em stuck his dick in my ear. Nathan, this is unacceptable!
2002.02.15 dem bones says Yikes ... it's all just a joke.
Dannye's pipelink now reads go fish. Still, the prose styles (and content) are very similar.
I know that the whole thing is supposed to be be a joke, but ideosyncratic humour doesn't travel well. I learned that after most of my 'funny' w/ups were nuked. On this site, we must make at least perfunctory observances before the altar of american values.