31 March, 2009

Welcome to Schadenfreude, population: me

Muah-hah-hah.

The Invertebrate is trying to explain something to Ted E. and getting the full "it's change and I don't want to know about it" treatment, mixed in with a healthy dose of "everything you say is invalid because you spelled one word incorrectly".

Oh, and there's been a late addition: "yes, that's always been broken, but it's how we've always done it so I don't think we should fix it".

Well I'm enjoying it, at least.

05 March, 2009

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and the Surreal

Good: I have an ongoing position for the first time in nearly four years, and on a slightly higher pay scale.

Bad: it's here.

Ugly: we can't afford to keep the team member I most want to keep when their contract runs out.

Surreal: we can afford to keep Ted E. and the Stress Fiend.

"The good news is you have twenty-four hours to live. The bad news is I forgot to tell you yesterday."

The BSAA's best friend.

Ted E. noticed I've tried to limit his capacity to give the go-ahead to install extra copies of software we're not entitled to.

"Yes," he says, "I thought there was something suspicious about those numbers, but I checked with The Invertebrate and he said it was okay to go ahead with rolling them out and charging clients for them."

What was especially discouraging is that while this was exactly the kind of thing Ted E. routinely trots out to justify doing something he knows he shouldn't (and is lying most of the time), I wasn't convinced The Invertebrate wouldn't have said just that because he wasn't clear on what was really happening. Ted E., after all, has a knack for presenting only one side of a situation. 

Which raises the interesting hypothetical: What would he be writing about me if he had the technical competence to maintain a blog? 
"todayy Someone made changes w/out checking w'me first  I do not think Someone shuld be doing this, & i do not like them."
But anyway... I checked with The Invertebrate afterwards and he was appropriately horrified. Unfortunately the horror had diminished somewhat by the time he caught up with Ted E. and there were no real repercussions, but he's more aware now of why people want to beat Ted E. away with a stick when he comes near their work.