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Company announced that WFH is now limited to one day a week if you live within 45 miles of the office. Also announced that the office is moving 15 miles further into the city away from everyone, a solid 45 minutes extra commute each way. 
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May 8, 2018 19:03
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poemdexter posted:Sounds like your pipeline is messed up if that can happen. Our pipeline has a "Fast-Lane" option in Jenkins to dodge Sonar and Fortify checks. Another project I worked on had a "No Tests" option, so they could build a release without having to worry the tests would fail. This would also gently caress up the history as after a success, Jenkins purges all the failed runs making it impossible for me to see where the first failed commit was and who to shout at for breaking the build. Yesterday I was having coffee with a former colleague from that second project and he mentioned that life was a lot more relaxed since I left. Basically since the one person who kept pointing out how lovely things were, was no longer there to point out how lovely things were. Now I am in a project where I ask questions like: "Why is that named X if it does Y?" and the response is often "It was started to do X but evolved into Y." My proposal to make a big list of tech debt and put it on the backlog was met with approval, so that is nice. Now to see when we can actually work on it.
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May 8, 2018 19:14
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Pedestrian Xing posted:Company announced that WFH is now limited to one day a week if you live within 45 miles of the office. Sounds like your company just announced a bunch of departures 
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May 8, 2018 21:20
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moving an office farther and reducing WFH time might intentionally be a policy to shed staff
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May 8, 2018 21:42
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Y’know, that’s what I’m guessing too. Feels intentional to avoid having to pay out for layoffs.
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May 8, 2018 22:35
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Pollyanna posted:Y’know, that’s what I’m guessing too. Feels intentional to avoid having to pay out for layoffs. I think that's a bit conspiratorial. Unless this office is very small, moving offices is usually a pretty big deal and paying severance would be cheaper. It may be looked at as a side benefit, but almost certainly not the prime motivator. Most people aren't actively out to screw the proletariat.
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May 8, 2018 23:52
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Skandranon posted:I think that's a bit conspiratorial. Unless this office is very small, moving offices is usually a pretty big deal and paying severance would be cheaper. It may be looked at as a side benefit, but almost certainly not the prime motivator. Most people aren't actively out to screw the proletariat. It's true: my guess is it's only something like 1% of the people are out to screw them.
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May 9, 2018 00:08
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Lumpy posted:It's true: my guess is it's only something like 1% of the people are out to screw them. 
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May 9, 2018 01:18
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I think it's something like 95% of office moves relocate the building closer to the CEO/president/site lead/local honcho/whatever.
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May 9, 2018 14:54
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poemdexter posted:Sounds like your pipeline is messed up if that can happen. I mean probably (although I think it's their pipeline - they're purposely kept separate for reasons)
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May 9, 2018 20:46
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Isn't it like CD 101 that there is still a human at the end of the pipeline approving the release to production? I mean, I assume there is still a change control process and/or some kind of release manager involved?
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May 10, 2018 00:11
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Xik posted:Isn't it like CD 101 that there is still a human at the end of the pipeline approving the release to production? I mean, I assume there is still a change control process and/or some kind of release manager involved?
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May 10, 2018 00:51
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IT decided that they would patch all of our QA servers and our internal TFS 2017 server overnight - without any kind of notification to any dev managers, developers, or devops resources. IT didn't account for the fact that the patch would not go smoothly, and so there are many grumpy people in the office this morning as they're scrambling to fix their hosed up, no-notice patch while nobody can log into TFS or the QA environments. Happy Thursday, everyone! 
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May 10, 2018 16:20
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comedyblissoption posted:moving an office farther and reducing WFH time might intentionally be a policy to shed staff IBM being one notable example. Kill WFH and close offices and now you either move or quit. And conveniently the older employees are less likely to move. Scummy.
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May 11, 2018 13:21
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So how racist am I on a scale of zero to Hitler if, upon seeing a question asked on some open source mailing list and the asking party has an Indian name, I immediately assume this question to be of low quality and the asker to have zero to none understanding of programming and software development?
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May 11, 2018 13:45
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Keetron posted:So how racist am I on a scale of zero to Hitler if, upon seeing a question asked on some open source mailing list and the asking party has an Indian name, I immediately assume this question to be of low quality and the asker to have zero to none understanding of programming and software development? Being racist and being realistic are not mutually exclusive. You are probably right. You are also hitler+2.
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May 11, 2018 13:55
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doublehitler
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May 11, 2018 14:01
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Keetron posted:So how racist am I on a scale of zero to Hitler if, upon seeing a question asked on some open source mailing list and the asking party has an Indian name, I immediately assume this question to be of low quality and the asker to have zero to none understanding of programming and software development?
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May 11, 2018 14:16
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Keetron posted:So how racist am I on a scale of zero to Hitler if, upon seeing a question asked on some open source mailing list and the asking party has an Indian name, I immediately assume this question to be of low quality and the asker to have zero to none understanding of programming and software development? You're probably 10% of a Hitler, you haven't assumed that his life and that of everyone like him should be forfeit due to a misplaced belief that you are the pinnacle of software engineering. Please do the needful and try not to prejudge no matter the urge.
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May 11, 2018 14:24
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Vulture Culture posted:Ah, "I'm being racist but am I being racist enough to consider this a big problem", the hardest problem in open source
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May 11, 2018 14:43
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Keetron posted:So how racist am I on a scale of zero to Hitler if, upon seeing a question asked on some open source mailing list and the asking party has an Indian name, I immediately assume this question to be of low quality and the asker to have zero to none understanding of programming and software development? You're right around "Zwarte Piet is not racist" level.
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May 11, 2018 15:06
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Keetron posted:So how racist am I on a scale of zero to Hitler if, upon seeing a question asked on some open source mailing list and the asking party has an Indian name, I immediately assume this question to be of low quality and the asker to have zero to none understanding of programming and software development? I work with a lot of Indian people. Like any other group of humans, it's a mixed bag, albeit with more extremes at either end than most groups. The knowledgeability, unsurprisingly, has a great deal to do with their background, and is particularly pronounced because the society in India is incredibly stratified, and very divided regionally (as in each state has its own completely separate language, tallying about 30 languages in the subcontinent). Access to education varies wildly, thanks to these factors, and where the education is bad, it's really bad. I've worked with very knowledgeable Indians who have high levels of education. I've also worked with (and tried to bring up to speed) kids who came to the States with a CompSci education that consisted of Lotus 123 (in 2016). When chatting with some of my Indian coworkers that have been in the states a while, they mention that the culture also pushes a burnout level work ethic, deferment to bosses, and keeping appearances, so you sometimes get a little bit of culture shock regarding work days only being 8 hours, or that there are situations where you can say "boss, this is wrong, here is how it is", or "this project is behind or broken". They party as hard as they work, though, and are frequently quite generous. I always look forward to Dewali at the office. In any case, you are a bit Hitlerish, because you are judging by merit of the name. Guy is either a legitimate professional or a kid in need of guidance and helping both improves our lot in this industry.
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May 11, 2018 15:16
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I think when I started working in industry, I thought Indian people were subpar developers mostly because my first job had a lot of offshored code that was awful. Fast forward seven years, I've worked with amazing Indian devs and awful stereotypical white guy devs and everything in between. I try now to assume everyone I meet knows more than me until proven otherwise. Sets expectations in a positive way instead of assuming the worst in people. And a lack of skill bothers me less than a lack of thirst for learning. At least with the latter, I have an opportunity to teach. Just my two cents. I will say Indian people are typically better at ping pong which is 100% OK with me, since my game just gets better the more I play against them.
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May 11, 2018 16:29
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Acknowledge that your background, to which systemic racism is a contributor, has put you in a position from which perspective you observed the pattern that Indian names are correlated strongly with offshoring firms who cut costs by hiring a lot of incompetents. Understand that you have learned a false heuristic, and one that is harmful to continue using. Consciously, humbly, and patiently adjust your thinking accordingly to correct it.
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May 11, 2018 17:39
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This racism conversation reminded me of the client I was working with where: - The manager was Indian and spoke very poor English - The developers were Chinese and spoke very poor English - The operations guy was Russian and spoke decent English English was the only language in common, and the bulk of the people involved could not effectively communicate in it. There was one memorable meeting with all of us involved that was essentially pantomime interspersed with baby talk and grunts. They were all perfectly competent at their jobs in isolation, but I have no idea how they ever accomplished anything as a group. "Click the 'Next' button" took at least 5 repetitions of varying phrasing usually ended with pointing to the button on the screen.
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May 11, 2018 18:21
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Impediments to communication are an important point. Cutting costs by failing to ensure that communication is possible is barely distinguishable from cutting costs by hiring from the bottom of the local barrel.
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May 11, 2018 19:06
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Bongo Bill posted:Acknowledge that your background, to which systemic racism is a contributor, has put you in a position from which perspective you observed the pattern that Indian names are correlated strongly with offshoring firms who cut costs by hiring a lot of incompetents. Understand that you have learned a false heuristic, and one that is harmful to continue using. Consciously, humbly, and patiently adjust your thinking accordingly to correct it. Thank you, this response is a good response.
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May 11, 2018 19:26
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Sagacity posted:Unironically I think stuff like this and all the related drama is becoming a bit of an issue in open source. The fact that some people are bigoted shitheads or the fact that we need to spell out how to act as adults to the bigoted shitheads?
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May 11, 2018 19:31
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I've spent enough time working on OSS projects to know that idiots will come and ask for help with unrelated stuff, and it doesn't matter where they are from. I start twitching involuntarily upon mentions of Indian offshoring anyway 
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May 11, 2018 19:49
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The fault in “Indian offshoring” lies not with the foreign contributors, but with the poor business understanding of the cost cutters who hired them.
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May 11, 2018 20:00
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Volmarias posted:The fact that some people are bigoted shitheads or the fact that we need to spell out how to act as adults to the bigoted shitheads?
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May 11, 2018 20:14
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Bongo Bill posted:Acknowledge that your background, to which systemic racism is a contributor, has put you in a position from which perspective you observed the pattern that Indian names are correlated strongly with offshoring firms who cut costs by hiring a lot of incompetents. Understand that you have learned a false heuristic, and one that is harmful to continue using. Consciously, humbly, and patiently adjust your thinking accordingly to correct it. This is a good post, you are a good person.
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May 11, 2018 20:21
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Question for y'all, in regards to working with sales or customer facing people. At my current job, my boss tells me to treat our point of contact with customer engagement/sales in a very hostile manner. I'm supposed to: only ask for one answer at a time, word it like he's not very bright, don't ever list options, and never offer help or anything we aren't currently doing. So, because my boss rarely has good ideas (a whole other bushel of wheat), I've been doing what I normally do and being friendly and personable. Thus, this guy gets back to me way quicker than my co-workers, and I find I can generally engage him in a good rapport. How much of my boss' suggested behavior is something I need to actually practice, as a developer working with customer engagement folks? Bongo Bill posted:Acknowledge that your background, to which systemic racism is a contributor, has put you in a position from which perspective you observed the pattern that Indian names are correlated strongly with offshoring firms who cut costs by hiring a lot of incompetents. Understand that you have learned a false heuristic, and one that is harmful to continue using. Consciously, humbly, and patiently adjust your thinking accordingly to correct it. To reiterate, this is a good and helpful post
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May 11, 2018 20:24
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Shirec posted:Question for y'all, in regards to working with sales or customer facing people. At my current job, my boss tells me to treat our point of contact with customer engagement/sales in a very hostile manner. I'm supposed to: only ask for one answer at a time, word it like he's not very bright, don't ever list options, and never offer help or anything we aren't currently doing. It depends entirely on what your interaction is and whether the amount of time you spend on them is too much. Or rather, whether the perception is that they take an unfairly large amount of time or velocity. Bongo Bill posted:Acknowledge that your background, to which systemic racism is a contributor, has put you in a position from which perspective you observed the pattern that Indian names are correlated strongly with offshoring firms who cut costs by hiring a lot of incompetents. Understand that you have learned a false heuristic, and one that is harmful to continue using. Consciously, humbly, and patiently adjust your thinking accordingly to correct it. A good post.
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May 11, 2018 20:32
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Shirec posted:How much of my boss' suggested behavior is something I need to actually practice, as a developer working with customer engagement folks? In general? None of it. In this specific case, my overly generous guess is that the customer-facing people were misinterpreting things the developers said and overpromising features or timelines to the customer. That and the customer-facing people may have, in the past, repeatedly come to the dev teams with requests that would distract them. The latter problem, at least, should go away with honest communication of expectations and empowering the dev team to allow X minutes of side-tracking before going, "Sorry, please file that or whatever." I bet your coworkers are thrilled to find a developer who will actually talk to them and will likely go the extra mile for you. Edit: Speaking of distractions, the "off-topic" chatroom at my last job came up during a discussion of distractions. One of the managers wanted to close the room, because people were spending too much time goofing off. I suggested that the only people who were being distracted were the people who wanted to be distracted and that people who needed to focus should temporarily mute their notifications, but, overall, the goofing off was a net positive. Like, if somebody's goofing off too much, tell the person to goof off less. Don't tear down the whole goofing-off chatroom! CPColin fucked around with this message at 20:41 on May 11, 2018 |
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May 11, 2018 20:38
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Shirec posted:Question for y'all, in regards to working with sales or customer facing people. At my current job, my boss tells me to treat our point of contact with customer engagement/sales in a very hostile manner. I'm supposed to: only ask for one answer at a time, word it like he's not very bright, don't ever list options, and never offer help or anything we aren't currently doing. In general, this is both needlessly rude and toxic, and your boss is lovely. That said, sales/customer facing people should be communicating with devs through the Product Owner, who will prioritize the feature and pass it to the Scrum Master to work with you to break it down and provide feedback. Direct asks tend to distract and take time away from your sprint, and can produce false expectations based on how they read what you say. A polite, "My team can certainly do this. If you would please submit the request to Product Owner, they will work with you to ensure it is prioritized" will suffice.
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May 11, 2018 21:07
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Volmarias posted:It depends entirely on what your interaction is and whether the amount of time you spend on them is too much. Or rather, whether the perception is that they take an unfairly large amount of time or velocity. Haha, I was probably too open ended on that. It's not a huge time investment on my part, a few hours a week at most. I just don't act all put upon about it like my co-workers/boss do. CPColin posted:In general? None of it. In this specific case, my overly generous guess is that the customer-facing people were misinterpreting things the developers said and overpromising features or timelines to the customer. That and the customer-facing people may have, in the past, repeatedly come to the dev teams with requests that would distract them. The latter problem, at least, should go away with honest communication of expectations and empowering the dev team to allow X minutes of side-tracking before going, "Sorry, please file that or whatever." That's my feeling as well. I've noticed my boss tends to make a big show of acting like he has all this authority, but he never seems to be able to, even though he is CTO, use any of it in an impactful manner. So I think he's still acting like a lovely senior who just takes stuff and stews over it. The only time he ever is able to control what sales is allowed to offer is when it's entirely technical structure. I feel like having a goof off/distraction area is a good idea for any company, no one can be 100% work focused automatons. BurntCornMuffin posted:In general, this is both needlessly rude and toxic, and your boss is lovely. That said, sales/customer facing people should be communicating with devs through the Product Owner, who will prioritize the feature and pass it to the Scrum Master to work with you to break it down and provide feedback. Direct asks tend to distract and take time away from your sprint, and can produce false expectations based on how they read what you say. I agree on the rude and toxic angle. We actually don't have a Product Owner, it's a very small startup. How abnormal is it that there isn't someone to handle that interaction?
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May 11, 2018 21:16
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Shirec posted:
For a small startup is normal to not have dedicated people for this kind of thing.
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May 11, 2018 21:18
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For a small startup, a boss that toxic will leave a lasting negative, perhaps fatal effect. Start interviewing around, even if you are personally happy, because it’s going to suck soon.
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May 11, 2018 21:23
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^^^ lolShirec posted:I agree on the rude and toxic angle. We actually don't have a Product Owner, it's a very small startup. How abnormal is it that there isn't someone to handle that interaction? Perfectly normal. The important part is to acknowledge when a request is about to take you too far away from your other tasks and add it to your team's backlog, instead of working on it right away. Then you need to manage expectations with the person who made the request, so they don't promise a customer "it'll be ready by Tuesday" or something.
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May 11, 2018 21:26
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