programming dorks will like this - my job

[HappyScrappy]

So a coworker and I have different assignments, but they are close enough that we have to write code to support the other.

Our project is a total clusterfuck, but we've given up on saying anything and now just keep our heads down and do just as they say, and then write back and forth laughing about it.

So my coworker is told to implement this one method, and for it, he will need something that looks like this:
Set getInterfaces(String strDeviceName)
Meaning this will take in a string and then return a Set (in this case it is a Set of Interface objects). Very simple.
So normally this would be where this method either calls others or it goes to the database and looks up interfaces based on that device name, etc etc.
But no, our manager in all of his wisdom decided that I needed to implement the following (and I just tried not to laugh):

There is an existing method:
Set lookupInterfaces(int iChassisNumber, int iCardNumber, int iPortNumber)
But he didn't like that b/c it didn't take in a deviceName and he didn't see how my coworker could get those values...

So of course the next step is he wants me to add another method just like it, but it also takes in the device name:
Set lookupInterfaces(String strDeviceName, int iChassisNumber, int iCardNumber, int iPortNumber)
So it takes in the same things, including that DeviceName - but it ignores it totally, never uses it at all. Perfect.

Then he decided that he wants to "hide" that method, so I have to write another one - which is the one he will actually call:
public Set getInterfaces(String strDeviceName){
return this.lookupInterfaces(strDeviceName, 1, 1, 1);
}

So, reviewing what that does... it takes in a string that is the DeviceName. It then passes that string on to another method... that will ignore it, and then also passes in 3 HARDCODED values. PERFECT! then it just returns what that other method gives it.

To most of you none of this is funny at all - but if you know programming, you know the above is totally worthless and an absolute clusterfuck.

as I call that technique "layers of suck"

I add in the comments that I didn't think up all that on my own, I'm just the one that gets to implement it.

shoot me. please.

 

[Y_lifter]

Scrap, You probably aren't expecting a flood of replies to this are you?

We are so few but alas, it happen even at a Program Manager level when you are in a meeting and some other PM is touting how wonderfull his current new product is...

It's here to save the company and mankind..

Funny thing is that it's real similar to the solution your team is about 90% completed with..

 

[HappyScrappy]

this is so funny.

also we are using J2EE, yet he routinely asks us to implement things bypassing that... not sure why, but I've learned to not ask. the people that ask get laid off, the rest of us sit here getting dumber by the minute.

 

[HappyScrappy]

this same manager the other day just then learned to:
1) change directorys at a command line "cd d:"
2) start our appserver and application

there was one more, but I'm too stunned to recall it. I have no clue how he ever made it this far. he just wanders around making my life more and more dilbert-like.

 

[HighIntensity]

I use to sell skis

lot of cash in bindings

 

[HumorMe]

I use to sell skis

lot of cash in bindings

But it's too seasonal.

 

[HighIntensity]

But it's too seasonal.

Not where I live....see flag

 

[Puc]

public function happyscrappy(hg as clsHowGay) as clsHowgay
return happyscrappy(hg.multiplyByOneZillion)
end function

i'd java it for u but i never remember which order the function head values are in....

 

[Warik]

ROFL.

Dude, that is sad and I feel your pain, but you have the wrong outlook on it.

My boss usually has good ideas, but sometimes he thinks of the dumbest shit, and I've learned to live with it. Just smile, do what he says, and let him realize the stupidity of his mistake. You'll then have to go back and fix it (whilst taking your sweet time to do so of course). Free money for doing something you already know should have been done differently.

I remember the time he asked me to completely revamp our request form on one of our webpages. This is a request form whose parent page used to get less than 250 unique hits PER MONTH and the request form had not had A SINGLE submission in over THREE MONTHS. After 10 hours of "consulting" him, writing the form, writing javascript to enforce constraints, "consulting" him again, making "important changes," and going through the whole ordeal again, we have still not had a single request submitted via that form. Everybody calls instead.

duhhhhrrr

-Warik

 

[Diesel3d]

...Just smile, do what he says, and let him realize the stupidity of his mistake. You'll then have to go back and fix it (whilst taking your sweet time to do so of course). Free money for doing something you already know should have been done differently....

This is a good mentality, but when it goes on day after day, for a couple years you go insane and feel worthless.

The company happy works for is a european funny farm. Happy, wasn't there a few months after you started, where you were coding for them and you did not even know what the program did exactly? Did you ever figure it out by any chance? I still have no clue even after working there for 3 years.

Yes, that’s how bad it is, and we are not the only ones.

Seriously if you only knew what it was like working where he does you would not have posted this