Recently in daily grind Category

If you don't recognize the picture or the reference to the ultimately awesome movie, "Office Space" you are missing out.

Today, I definitely have a case of the Mondays.

I really don't want to be here. I don't want to do any work. I would much rather be elsewhere working on my own ambitions.

However, ambition is one of the things I have been sorely lacking of lately. Why isn't really a question I have any burning desire to deal with.

I know it's already been done, but I'm going to start tweeting things I overhear at work. I decided this on Friday, but just tweeted this morning. Boring? Maybe, but it's something to do.

I'll admit that I've been struggling a little with posting every single day.

It's not easy.

I mean, there's the family and the damn job gets in the way when I try to post at work. Of course, there's always just life in general. However, trying to come up with content is the hardest part. I really don't want to just post links to other stuff I find. You can get that at Reddit or Digg or any other social news site you are into.

I try to create my own hyperbole here.

But still, I have to be inspired. I can't just make shit up about people. That just wouldn't be right. If you wanted that you could just go turn on Fox News, right?

But when I'm short on ideas, I usually turn to the news. The last thing I'm sure you want to read about here is what is dominating the news anymore. No matter what channel you land on they are talking about the BP oil disaster in the gulf. What a mess. And then there's all that oil in the gulf too.

Yeah. So I'm not going to talk about that.

When I'm short on ideas, I must admit, I can always count on Topeka.

See, I live right here in red-state, angry, nut-job conservative country. I think I'm probably the only liberal in the state, too. When Obama was talking about those nuts who cling to religion and guns, he wasn't referring to anyone in Ohio. I have no idea why they got so upset. I think he was talking about Kansans.

But how bad can they be, you ask. Well, every now and then I check out Topeka's newspaper website. Just today there was a story about a woman who may have attempted suicide by jumping from an interstate overpass to the interstate below her. She didn't try to jump into traffic it appears, but landed on the shoulder. She was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

So let's get this straight. A woman tries to bring about her own death and Topekans have what to say on the matter?

She should have dove head first into the ground that was a mere 13.9 feet away.

Really?

She should have tried to jump onto the back of a semi like they do in the movies.

Yeah, I'm sure that's what going through her head.

I like some dark, totally wrong humor as much as the next degenerate. But this isn't the context in which I like it. As far as I'm concerned when people make comments like that about someone else's misfortune, it really speaks volumes about their character.

You see. That's the kind of people I am surrounded by on a daily basis. I'm surprised there wasn't someone complaining about the fact that the woman might have held up traffic since they so selfishly had to try and commit suicide.

The sadder part is that these are representative of most of the crappy comments on that site. It gets worse, but there are also some people who show more civility.

As usual, stay classy Topeka.

Moe, Larry and Curly had lots of jobs in their career together. Heck they were everything from handymen to social sophisticates. But, in real life most people don't experience that diverse a career path. Therefore I find it truly surprising when marketer/salespeople/project managers seem to think they can provide estimates so accurate they go ahead and sell without ever consulting a developer to make sure the development time frame is sufficient.

I know there are people out there that have experienced this - and most likely, people who haven't. However, I know quite a few developers will be able to relate. Some salesperson/marketeer/project manager will make promises to make the sale or seal the deal. Most often, those promises will be a delivery date or set of features that are not possible.

I read an article yesterday, Never Trust a Programmer. I'm not sure why he named it that, but I found it kind of interesting regardless. His take on the whole thing is that since they ( salespeople, project managers, etc . . . ) don't understand what we do it's perfectly reasonable for them to assume we can do whatever they expect us to be able to do.

I really don't accept this explanation any more. Maybe it was ok 10 years ago when I was getting a master's degree in IS, but I think information systems and computing in general is mainstream enough now that someone who sells the shit can be responsible for some knowledge at a minimum. Along with that, the professionalism of knowing that you don't possess enough knowledge to make an accurate estimate should be a requirement.

Seriously. It's ok for someone to get a job as a project manager of IT projects without any IT knowledge?

That may have looked like a question, but where I work it appears to be a statement. As long as they can find the on/off button, use email, facebook and Yahoo messenger then they are project managers. Now they can project manager away making up their own estimates, promises and deals without any technical intervention at all. Why is this possible?

Most likely you believe I am making this all up, perhaps even hyperbolic. I assure you this is not the case. At least it isn't the case where I work.

So. My final question for the day. We have a project manager, a sales person and a software developer in the room. Which of the Three Stooges should play the role of each of those professions? I see it this way:

• Moe: Project Manager
• Larry: Software Developer
• Curly: Sales

Now that's a dream team.