Reminds me of a Sten I hired many years ago. He requested (and of course got) an hilariously exotic work setup and spent a ridiculous amount of time on its configuration. Right from the start he expressed his unhappiness with seemingly random office
stuff: Every day, sometimes multiple times per day, he would would come to my desk and tell me what was wrong, implying I should fix it right now even though it wasn’t obvious that there was a problem in the first place. He also heavily criticized the code base while the same time wasn’t able to produce anything meaningful. For a couple of weeks we hoped his genius to appear and that we just have to give him more support and time to adjust.
Eventually, a group of female coworkers came forward and complained that he would make them feel uneasy. He would stand behind them watching silently what they were doing.
I don’t remember whether we gave him feedback for this or room to adapt, we’ve let him go the next day.
Kind of sad that he was let go for the one thing he likely had the least ability to control: Other people's feelings. You might have eventually been able to put together training or guide rails to correct his work habits, code review style, and productivity, but how do you coach someone to change someone else's impression of him?
EDIT: Hmm..had no idea this of all things would be such a deeply offensive comment. Live and learn. As a manager, how do you tell someone to "stop standing near people and/or looking at people" when they presumably have to work with those people as part of their job? If there's harassment going on, that's definitely something you have to correct and/or terminate for, but did OP's scenario rise to that level?
There are places were randoms, but related, names make sense, but not as random variables. Naming machine comes to mind: you may want to group machines on a same LAN with names from one constellation, then machines on another LAN with names from another constellation. Or have a little network cluster which is "neptune" and name your few machines after Neptune's moons. Stuff like that.
One of the craziest "naming frenzy" though was revealed during the Enron scandal, where they had created countless shell companies to hide their crimes. They'd name the companies using names from the Star Wars universe: "Chewco investment" after Chewbacca, etc. Hundreds of them.
This is classic "pets" vs "cattle". At small scale, it's "Frank the frontend is down, let's get him working again because otherwise our users can't do anything", up to "front017.xxy is down, take it out back and shoot it".
I wonder if the notion of machines naming conventions being just about where to locate it on the rack, or which AWS data center it lives in, require further levels of abstraction about "pet" and "cattle".
I mean, naming machines is cute on the one hand, but on the other, once you scale up / out, who will remember that Neptune is from finance and the Pleiades is management? Like with microservices, it's probably better to name things for what they do or where they are instead of coming up with aliases, else you have to maintain a translation table.
When scaling up - hard- or software - it's better to be clear than clever.
I prefer to name them using related hotel room numbers. Machines in one lan get numbers from one floor, machines in another get numbers from a different floor. It’s not as romantic but when we trade places for a day you’ll at least be able to make some sense of the network structure, meanwhile I’ll still be trying to read the almanac.
That type of naming drives me crazy. A server name should be descriptive and easily understood without context or documentation. For example, "api_1" makes a lot more sense than "proteus".
Some years ago I joined a small company, replacing a guy who was their only developer. He was pretty disorganised, and one of the first tasks I gave myself was to get the source code for the company's main product into a revision control system (Visual SourceSafe, I think). This turned out to be far from easy because his idea of versioning was to have multiple copies of the full source tree with the root directory named with a woman's name.
Its been a while, but I remember it took me weeks to satisfy myself that I'd identified the correct sources for the builds that were then in production.
The gift basket story reminds me of something that happened a few years ago. I got a call from a friend who's a manager at another company in the local metro area.
"HeyLaughingBoy, $CANDIDATE applied for a job here and said that he worked with you at $COMPANY and you actually interviewed him. He listed you as a reference."
"Yeah, I remember him pretty well."
"So, what can you tell me about him? Good hire?"
"Would you like the Official Corporate Reply or my opinion?"
"Thanks!! That's all I needed to hear."
Moral of the story, boys & girls? Make sure the people you list as references actually have something good to say about you.
True. The etiquette I was taught re: references is to discuss and clear it with them first, both to be sure that they're willing to be a reference, and to confirm that they'll actually say something nice.
I've never met anyone that speaks about themselves exclusively in third person in any walk of life. It seems like something that could get semantically challenging fairly quickly. I also wonder if eccentricities are independently distributed. Is a person hosting one eccentricity more likely to acquire another? I wouldn't have thought so personally. To wit, finding a guy that seems to have at least 4 -- at least by my count -- strikes me as very likely fictional.
One of my first jobs was at a company where the dev team was a mix of 40/50/60 year olds. Nearly all had been at the company for 20+ years. When they disagreed, they'd shout profanities & insults like a bunch of children. One day, the CFO walks in to complain about the noise. One of the older devs turns around, and says to the CFO, "I've told you before, go and get some f**ing headphones!"
Another dev used to take his cup of coffee into the bathroom, and had a pair of nail clippers at his desk and yes, would use them.
One day I walked in with a pair of pants with "M" on the back of them. This 50-something-year-old dev, didn't speak great English, pokes me right on the ass, and says "the girls will love your jeans because they say mmmmmm!" Totally totally inappropriate but I luckily wasn't bothered by it.
They were a very interesting bunch and an endless source of amusement. Despite all of this the team was very close-nit and managed to cooperate effectively for 20+ years.
"If we seem nutty to you, and if we seem like an oddball to you, just remember one thing: the mighty oak tree was once a nut like me." (Shout out to all the Death Cab fans)
I'll always have a bit of a soft spot for the oddballs to be honest. I'm usually one of them!
Could be worse. See the short story "Chronopolis" by J.G. Ballard.
It is set in a future where people's lives became so dominated by having to constantly use their watches and clocks to coordinate every aspect of their day that their health, sanity, and productivity were being serious harmed.
As a result clocks and watches were outlawed. Having one became a serious offense that would earn you a long jail sentence.
Instead of clocks and watches to coordinate people were assigned to groups, and there were public chimes or bells or something (I forget which) that would signal when it was time for your group to do various things. So for example if you are in the red group and want to go grocery shopping, you just wait until you hear the bell that signals red shopping time is starting.
My dad, end 80s, had a watch which, if he would press a button, it would mention the time (in British English, him being native Dutch speaker). It would also beep every hour and mention the time (or just short beep depending on settings). He'd set it ahead of time a few minutes, so he could quickly go for a toilet break, for example. He'd use this information for all kind of things: to remember him to press the button for the time, to wake up, to go to toilet, to watch the news, to watch his favorite TV program. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: he was legally (but not completely) blind, and had MS. At one point he couldn't get the watch around his wrist anymore, so he hung it around his neck. Also, this watch taught me some British English and it taught me about AM/PM as a kid (we use 24H here). It probably helped me with 'clock reading'.
I clicked to the next most popular story at the site. It talks about how a developer wasn't allowed to use NuGet, and had to write packages you would normally import from it from scratch. At the bottom of the article, there's an ad for a product which wraps NuGet with permissions.
1) What a perfect way to deliver an ad.
2) Is the whole story fake, in order to deliver it?
3) What a perfectly "corporate" product, to further exacerbate developer frustrations in large company environments.
Please don't tell my company (Initech) about the existence of this product. I think there are several mid-level managers who would experience actual arousal at the thought of implementing it.
I have a story, names protected to protect the innocent (and guilty).
Many moons ago I worked for a company. I was a Senior engineer and we were hiring for a Principal engineer. We had a candidate highly recommended by someone a couple of levels up in the company come in. I was one of the people to interview him. I was a very, very strong NO! (he was incredibly condescending and rude, did not answer any of my questions as he deigned me beneath him). A couple of other engineers were also a strong NO! for similar reasons but he got hired. It is always possible he was a genius but would have been absolutely hell to work with.
He showed up in pajama bottoms on the first day of work (not a huge flag, but still). When he was introduced to the rest of the small company at a meeting he stood up, did a sarcastic, dramatic queen wave and then sat down. Everyone was like WTF!
He stopped showing for work a few days later. When his boss called him at home he said "He didn't feel like coming in". Eventually got fired for not showing up.
I used to name my variables after my friends, classmates, and food in middle school in the 90s. It was all fun until I was trying to remember what the purpose of hotDog was.
I once worked with a senior dev that stored his notes, snippets, test projects, etc. anything that wasn't committed to the repository in a local file structure. This was years ago before the flood of note apps and cloud storage. The naming convention was just incrementing numbers. There were hundreds of them that he had memorized.
Isn't eccentric supposed to mean slightly strange? This just sounds mentally ill. Maybe he was trying to improve job security through intentional obfuscation. Kind of sad, either way.
Agreed. I feel sorry for Sten, not the company or the other employees.
That said, even as shortly back in the 90s, mental illness was still ridiculed and something to be ashamed of, at least we've made progress in that area these days.
Also, if the person exclusively talks on the 3rd person and does weird demands that would have been a non-hire or quickly dismissed as soon as they would start making eccentric requests
Common trope in certain walks of life. The primadonna idea itself is from performing arts (ballet?), and there are loads of stories about musicians requiring special attention. Sports as well, lots of stories about stars with odd routines or demanding behaviour.
The thing that links them is you have someone who ostensibly creates so much value everyone else is supposed to live with their demands.
It can be minor things. We had a trader in an firm I worked for who made the company hire a car to take him to work each morning. Certainly not a strange thing but it wasn't exactly something the couldn't pay for himself, nor a benefit that everyone enjoyed.
Yup. And that concept is still alive. If you act uncomfortably, there are people will assume it means you are better. (Had collegues express pretty much that believe a two years ago.)
It led to being strange cool in the "in-group" which led to perfectly socially aware people acting strange where it would them cool points.
I am not complaining here, I enjoyed it back then. Only later I realized what went on and how much of the "strage" were actually "very high social skill being used".
This superfluous remark must be for the readers who think the gift basket from Initrode was because Sten was hired, and demonstrated gift-basket-level excellence in just a few weeks.
In the late 90s, my cousin (who is a recruiter) asked me where she could find a good programmer. I suggested contacting people who participated in certain USENET newsgroups (I was recruited this way). She was successful at finding someone, but she said they had to help relocate the guy's pet lizard.
Also: read Rule 34 by Charles Stross. The weirdest thing about this book is that it's written in 2nd person.
[+] [-] henningpeters|4 years ago|reply
Eventually, a group of female coworkers came forward and complained that he would make them feel uneasy. He would stand behind them watching silently what they were doing.
I don’t remember whether we gave him feedback for this or room to adapt, we’ve let him go the next day.
[+] [-] rco8786|4 years ago|reply
This is more a rite of passage for everyone to do at least once in their career rather than an immediate red flag. But yea...
[+] [-] ryandrake|4 years ago|reply
EDIT: Hmm..had no idea this of all things would be such a deeply offensive comment. Live and learn. As a manager, how do you tell someone to "stop standing near people and/or looking at people" when they presumably have to work with those people as part of their job? If there's harassment going on, that's definitely something you have to correct and/or terminate for, but did OP's scenario rise to that level?
[+] [-] TacticalCoder|4 years ago|reply
One of the craziest "naming frenzy" though was revealed during the Enron scandal, where they had created countless shell companies to hide their crimes. They'd name the companies using names from the Star Wars universe: "Chewco investment" after Chewbacca, etc. Hundreds of them.
[+] [-] andrewla|4 years ago|reply
I wonder if the notion of machines naming conventions being just about where to locate it on the rack, or which AWS data center it lives in, require further levels of abstraction about "pet" and "cattle".
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|4 years ago|reply
When scaling up - hard- or software - it's better to be clear than clever.
[+] [-] CGamesPlay|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] driverdan|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riemannzeta|4 years ago|reply
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/illeist
Elmo, Julius Caesar, and Salvador Dali have been identified as illeists.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/27322/11-famous-illeists
[+] [-] headmelted|4 years ago|reply
Sten has been through the dotcom bust. And 2008. And the crypto mess. And a pandemic.
Sten’s blog would be mesmerizing.
[+] [-] andyjohnson0|4 years ago|reply
Its been a while, but I remember it took me weeks to satisfy myself that I'd identified the correct sources for the builds that were then in production.
[+] [-] HeyLaughingBoy|4 years ago|reply
"HeyLaughingBoy, $CANDIDATE applied for a job here and said that he worked with you at $COMPANY and you actually interviewed him. He listed you as a reference."
"Yeah, I remember him pretty well."
"So, what can you tell me about him? Good hire?"
"Would you like the Official Corporate Reply or my opinion?"
"Thanks!! That's all I needed to hear."
Moral of the story, boys & girls? Make sure the people you list as references actually have something good to say about you.
[+] [-] kerneloftruth|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] usgroup|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hirundo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] usgroup|4 years ago|reply
(for the sensitive, this is a joke about class naming convention, which didn't seem subject to female variable names in the article).
[+] [-] neogodless|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rory|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] high_density|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] messe|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tastysandwich|4 years ago|reply
Another dev used to take his cup of coffee into the bathroom, and had a pair of nail clippers at his desk and yes, would use them.
One day I walked in with a pair of pants with "M" on the back of them. This 50-something-year-old dev, didn't speak great English, pokes me right on the ass, and says "the girls will love your jeans because they say mmmmmm!" Totally totally inappropriate but I luckily wasn't bothered by it.
They were a very interesting bunch and an endless source of amusement. Despite all of this the team was very close-nit and managed to cooperate effectively for 20+ years.
"If we seem nutty to you, and if we seem like an oddball to you, just remember one thing: the mighty oak tree was once a nut like me." (Shout out to all the Death Cab fans)
I'll always have a bit of a soft spot for the oddballs to be honest. I'm usually one of them!
[+] [-] chrismorgan|4 years ago|reply
I have a bone to pick with whoever came up with this and thought it would be a good idea.
[+] [-] tzs|4 years ago|reply
It is set in a future where people's lives became so dominated by having to constantly use their watches and clocks to coordinate every aspect of their day that their health, sanity, and productivity were being serious harmed.
As a result clocks and watches were outlawed. Having one became a serious offense that would earn you a long jail sentence.
Instead of clocks and watches to coordinate people were assigned to groups, and there were public chimes or bells or something (I forget which) that would signal when it was time for your group to do various things. So for example if you are in the red group and want to go grocery shopping, you just wait until you hear the bell that signals red shopping time is starting.
[+] [-] Symbiote|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fnoord|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheRealDunkirk|4 years ago|reply
1) What a perfect way to deliver an ad. 2) Is the whole story fake, in order to deliver it? 3) What a perfectly "corporate" product, to further exacerbate developer frustrations in large company environments.
Please don't tell my company (Initech) about the existence of this product. I think there are several mid-level managers who would experience actual arousal at the thought of implementing it.
[+] [-] krallja|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wkimeria|4 years ago|reply
I have a story, names protected to protect the innocent (and guilty).
Many moons ago I worked for a company. I was a Senior engineer and we were hiring for a Principal engineer. We had a candidate highly recommended by someone a couple of levels up in the company come in. I was one of the people to interview him. I was a very, very strong NO! (he was incredibly condescending and rude, did not answer any of my questions as he deigned me beneath him). A couple of other engineers were also a strong NO! for similar reasons but he got hired. It is always possible he was a genius but would have been absolutely hell to work with.
He showed up in pajama bottoms on the first day of work (not a huge flag, but still). When he was introduced to the rest of the small company at a meeting he stood up, did a sarcastic, dramatic queen wave and then sat down. Everyone was like WTF!
He stopped showing for work a few days later. When his boss called him at home he said "He didn't feel like coming in". Eventually got fired for not showing up.
[+] [-] henriquez|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrew_|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdlyga|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raisedbyninjas|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpgvm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Flankk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mnw21cam|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrootabega|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattowen_uk|4 years ago|reply
That said, even as shortly back in the 90s, mental illness was still ridiculed and something to be ashamed of, at least we've made progress in that area these days.
[+] [-] raverbashing|4 years ago|reply
The 90s were weird I guess?
[+] [-] INTPenis|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gfykvfyxgc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lordnacho|4 years ago|reply
The thing that links them is you have someone who ostensibly creates so much value everyone else is supposed to live with their demands.
It can be minor things. We had a trader in an firm I worked for who made the company hire a car to take him to work each morning. Certainly not a strange thing but it wasn't exactly something the couldn't pay for himself, nor a benefit that everyone enjoyed.
[+] [-] watwut|4 years ago|reply
It led to being strange cool in the "in-group" which led to perfectly socially aware people acting strange where it would them cool points.
I am not complaining here, I enjoyed it back then. Only later I realized what went on and how much of the "strage" were actually "very high social skill being used".
[+] [-] propogandist|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stenvdb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aembleton|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kazinator|4 years ago|reply
This superfluous remark must be for the readers who think the gift basket from Initrode was because Sten was hired, and demonstrated gift-basket-level excellence in just a few weeks.
[+] [-] jhallenworld|4 years ago|reply
Also: read Rule 34 by Charles Stross. The weirdest thing about this book is that it's written in 2nd person.
[+] [-] tshanmu|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] irpapakons|4 years ago|reply