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I have been gone a while. Sorry. Workplace no longer allows phones on the lab and I work exclusively in the lab. Anyway here is a thing that pissed me off:

Systems Engineer (SE) 1 : ๐Ÿ˜ So we have this file from the customer.
Me: ๐Ÿ˜‘ Neat.
SE1: ๐Ÿ˜ It passes on our system.
Me: ๐Ÿ˜‘ *see prior*
Inner Me (IM): ๐Ÿ™„ is it taught in systems engineer school to talk one sentence at a time? It sounds exhausting.
SE1: but when we test it on your system, it fails. And we share the same algorithms.
Me: ๐Ÿ˜ฎ neat.
IM: ๐Ÿ˜ฎneat, ๐Ÿ˜ฅ wait what the fuck?
Me: ๐Ÿ˜Ž I will totally look into that . . .
IM: ๐Ÿ˜จ . . . Thing that is absolutely not supposed to happen.

*Le me tracking down the thing and fixing it. Total work time 30 hours*

Me: ๐Ÿ˜ƒ So I found the problem and fixed it. All that needs to happen is for review board to approve the issue ticket.
SE1: ๐Ÿ˜€ cool. What was the problem?
Me: ๐Ÿ˜Œ simple. See, if the user kicked off a rerun of the algorithm, we took your inputs, processed them, and put them in the algorithm. However, we erroneously subtracted 1 twice, where you only subtract 1 once.
SE1: ๐Ÿ™‚ makes sense to me, since an erroneous minus 1 only effects 0.0001% of cases.

*le into review board*

Me: ๐Ÿ˜ . . . so in conclusion this only happens in 0.0001% of cases. It has never affected a field test and if this user had followed the user training this would never have been revealed.
SE2: ๐Ÿคจ So you're saying this has been in the software for how long?
Me: ๐Ÿ˜ 6 years. Literally the lifespan of this product.
SE2: ๐Ÿคจ How do you know it's not fielded?
Me: ๐Ÿ˜ It is fielded.
SE2: ๐Ÿคจ how do you know that this problem hasn't been seen in the field?
Me: ๐Ÿ˜ it hasn't been seen in 6 years?
IM: ๐Ÿ˜ก see literally all of the goddamn words I have said this entire fucking meeting!!!
SE2: ๐Ÿ˜ I would like to see an analysis of this to see if it is getting sent to the final files.
Me: ๐Ÿ™„ it is if they rerun the algorithm from our product. It's a total rerun, output included. It's just never been a problem til this one super edge case that should have been thrown out anyway.
SE2: ๐Ÿคจ I would still like to have SE3 run an analysis.
Me: ๐Ÿ™„ k.
IM: ๐Ÿ˜ก FUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOU

*SE3 run analysis*

SE3: ๐Ÿ˜ getting the same results that Me is seeing.
Me: ๐Ÿ˜’ see? I do my due diligence.
SE2: ๐Ÿ˜ Can you run that analysis on this file again that is somehow different, plus these 5 unrelated files?
SE3: ๐Ÿ˜Ž sure. What's your program's account so I can bill it?
IM: ๐Ÿ˜ did you ever knooooow that your my heeeerooooooo.

*SE3 runs analysis*

SE3: ๐Ÿ˜ only the case that was broken is breaking.
SE2: ๐Ÿ˜ Good.
IM: ๐Ÿคฌ๐Ÿคฌ๐Ÿคฌ๐Ÿค . . . ๐ŸคฏWHY!?!?
Me: ๐Ÿ˜  Why?
SE2: ๐Ÿ˜‘ Because it confirms my thoughts. Me, I am inviting you to this algorithm meeting we have.
Me/IM: ๐Ÿ˜‘/๐Ÿ˜ก what . . . the fuck?

*in algorithm meeting*

Me: ๐Ÿ˜‘ *recaps all of the above* we subtract 1 one too many times from a number that spans from 10000 to -10000.
Software people/my boss/SE1/SE3: ๐Ÿค” makes sense.
SE2:๐Ÿคจ I have slides that have an analysis of what Me just said. They will only take an hour to get through.
Me: ๐Ÿ˜‘ that's cool but you need to give me your program's account number, because this has been fixed in our baseline for a week and at this point you're the only program that still cares. Actually I need the account to charge for the last couple times you interrupted me for some bullshit.

*we are let go.*

And this is how I spent 40+ useless hours against a program that is currently overrunning for no reason ๐Ÿคฃ๐Ÿคฃ๐Ÿคฃ

Moral: never involve math guys in arithmetic situations. And if you ever feel like you're wasting your time, at least waste someone else's money.

Comments
  • 6
    I don't understand, don't you guys work at the same company? You can charge your colleagues for the time they took from you? If only I can do this here, I'd be richer than Bill Gates T_T
  • 2
    Who else thought he was fired when reading “we are let go”?
  • 2
    @gitpush it's a contracting company. So we work for the same company, but on different contracts.
  • 0
    @zickig I mean okay, that's your right. I'll cry about it on my hundreds of ++ earned from this and similar rants.
  • 1
    @f0cus10 yeah. Phrasing is not my strong suit. Especially not when drinking.
  • 1
    @projektaquarius this explains it, and I like how this works, though contract is based on a project or just the usual contract and fixed salary? First time I hear of this type of contracts honestly
  • 2
    @gitpush contracts are awarded to the company for projects/programs, usually with a lump sum of money up front. Salaried workers work that contract. If you under or overrun it means your estimates were off and doesn't really look good.

    I'm not surprised you aren't familiar with this kind of contracting. We aren't really a software shop. We just do software for our products.
  • 2
    @projektaquarius aaah so you get a contract for doing a project, you bill your hours to that project, then bill other project with its own working hours?
  • 2
  • 2
    @projektaquarius awkward moment, this is how I work right now lol I bill per project and earn a fixed salary at the end of the month
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