Job: cashier
Item doesn’t scan
Customer: “That means it’s free, right?”
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Only about 4 weeks in as a cashier and I’ve heard this enough to last me a lifetime.
Maybe a niche issue, but “that doesn’t scale!” In the context of software development.
We’re writing software for usually very well defined user groups, but so many of the architects and seniors want to build a second Netflix, which costs 4 times as much as the simple solution and in the end usually isn’t even better, because those morons have no idea how to do that.
Currently, I’m in a project where I fought tooth and nail to avoid having a micro service architecture for a batch job that inserts less than a million entries per day.
so many of the architects and seniors want to build a second Netflix
Good old Resume-Driven-Development
I wouldn’t even call it that. It’s a weird lack of a sense of scale combined with organizational hurdles.
They basically can’t estimate, how much resources a proper app would need and they don’t know how to manage teams to work on a common codebase. So they simply draw a diagram of the functionalities, spin out each block as a “Service”, assign that to a team and call it a day.
I’ve talked to several of them about this and I had to do very simple math directly in front of them to convince them. I’ve had to explain to a grown man, an experienced engineer, that 16 cores and 96gb memory are more than enough to handle a million simple inserts per day in a batch mode. He wanted to split the job into 4 services, each essentially running 10 lines of actual business logic, each using the resources mentioned above. Absolute madness.
premature optimization is a root of all evil.
also when those morons decide to do ‘microservices’ but end up creating glorified SOA with one messy DB where half the tables are not even used by anything, updates in place are the standard and there is nothing like one team per service, but instead everyone is expected to navigate millions of lines of spaghetti code with poor documentation, barely any reuse and inconsistencies all across the board with this oh too-fucking-common entity service anti-pattern.
and so much fucking coupling that you better start deploying your dev cluster just right after waking up so it maybe is up and running by the time your daily is over.
Fun fact, I used to work at a company where a lot of projects use Elixir and a bulk share of my coworkers have been outspoken critics of microservices precisely because OTP manages to power fault tolerant and scalable systems but not by insane levels of complexity like kubernetes does but by CoC that rarely gets in your way.
Wow, Elixir and OTP. I envy you.
“X is down/broke.” No, Kelly, the internet isn’t “down.” You typed the URL wrong in your browser.
People will state it like the entire company has lost internet connectivity, or an entire department cannot access files or run a certain program, when actually, only a single user is having a problem.
Also people not knowing the difference between log out, restart, and shutdown. Even after explaining it to them.
I can’t really sympathise with you here. You’re clearly an IT guy, so the difference between log out, restart and shut down is as natural to you as breathing. For the average person is not that intuitive. For many people the computer is “on” when they press the power button and enter their username and password. And the blurring of the distinction is increased by most people having a smartphone where just lifting it up to your face wakes it up and logs you in (technically) at the same time.
I know you’re explaining it to them, but if that’s not something that they live and breathe, they’re just going to forget the explanation. I’m a molecular biologist, so to me the differences between genome, transcriptome and proteome are bleeding obvious, but I have a colleague who’s not a scientist but needs to become familiar with these terms. I explained them to her last week in an meeting that lasted an hour, but this week I had to do that again. She’s not stupid, it’s just all very abstract to her.
If people too stupid to use computer, their computer license should be revoked, because they clearly cheated on the test
I’m mean, it’s literally in the name. These are not concepts that require a degree to understand, much less an hour long meeting.
Logout means ending your user session, restart means your computer turns off and then comes back on, and shutdown means it turns off and stays off.
The buttons are all in the start menu, they are clearly marked, and these concepts have existed for 30 years at least.
It’s like driving a car for decades and not knowing what the difference between reverse, drive, and neutral are.
I still think your promoting the view of “this is obvious to me so it should be obvious to everyone”. Even your explanation would be confusing for someone who’s not an IT guy - what does it mean “end my user session?” People rarely go to the start menu to deal with their computers’ “on-ness”, they just press the hardware button that has an incomplete circle with a line on top or often no marking or label at all. Or they close the lid and that makes them think of their laptop as “off”.
It’s not about being “obvious.” It’s about understanding the most basic concepts involved with using a piece of equipment that is central to their job and has been that way for decades.
I wouldn’t want ride in a car with somebody that couldn’t remember what the difference between red, yellow, and green traffic lights are, or couldn’t remember how to activate their turn signals or windshield wipers. And I certainly wouldn’t want them operating a vehicle as a core part of their everyday job.
Now I’ll grant that in general, a car is far more dangerous than a computer. But the principle still holds, these are not tough concepts to understand, takes literally 5 minutes to explain at most. Plus, they haven’t changed in at least 30 years, so it’s not some new fangled techno-babble.
People should know basic concepts about tools without which they can’t do any part of their job.
Your colleague will learn this terminology at some point. I’m sure her job isn’t litterally juggling these three terms all day every day, otherwise I’d expect her to already have come in with that knowledge too.
At one point, I had to explain to my dad that we’re paying for internet access, not for all servers to be available and sufficiently fast. He was not happy about that.
Yes but you see if I close the lid, then it’s off. And that’s why my system has an up time of 208 hours.
208 hours.
Those are rookie numbers. I’ve had users that didn’t ever shut down. A power outage was the only relief that poor system got.
It’s frustrating when you know there’s a huge gap between your comprehension and theirs, but they think you’re the idiot.
Ive already said it on another comment here, and i no long work support so im a user myself now but, FUCK USERS!
I’m currently a medical student in my clinical rotations…
Me: “So it looks like we’re due for our (blank) month/year vaccinations. Have those been done already or do we need them today?”
Parent: “Oh, we’re not vaccinating.”
Me: screaming internally
I was going to say the EXACT same thing. People even are refusing the vitamin K shot in their newborns
I’ve heard the neonatologists say that they make the parents repeat back, write down, and sign a consent form that says “I understand that refusing the vitamin K shot significantly increases the chances of bleeding, including brain bleeds that can lead to significant disability or death.”
Not many people seem to want to sign that form for some reason.
All i have is OccupartionalFirstAid Level 1 and it drives me absolutely insane with frustration to think about what things real health professionals worst fears might be.
You must get that a lot in the Midwest.
Especially after Trump’s antivax BS during COVID.
“I come to work to get stuff done!”
Yes mate, but you’re not getting paid enough to hurt yourself cutting corners.
I hear this all the fucking time from people who want to rush ahead and show off how productive they can be for a boss who has no idea they exist. Drives me mad.
“These Samsung appliances look nice…”
Yes they do— and that’s all they do well. That, and break in expensive ways, often and early.
Avoid Samsung appliances.
Note for those reading -
This doesn’t apply in Europe, or large swathes of the planet. Samsung appliances are excellent.
The US has virtually nonexistent consumer protection laws, so companies will get away with selling poor quality, because they can.
See the Hyundai scandal. Only happened in one country, because it could
Breathe easy, EU folks
Really? How can a company make terrible appliances for a single country? They’re not made domestically.
Less regulations means more shortcuts. Another example is Hyundai/Kia. Why do the Kiaboyz exist only in the US when Kias are sold all over the world? Because it’s only in the US where they sold cars without immobilizers because they weren’t required to.
You’re missing one big thing - there’s only one country that has horrendous consumer rights laws and a huge market, and 110v electric
Well worth making models just for that one market
ahem the actual standard is 120volts, but can tolerate down to 110volts
That’s irrelevant to the advice in this thread
Hope you get your adenoids sorted
Why does the voltage matter?
If there’s only one country that uses 110v, you have to make an appliances for that country specifically. If that country has really shitty consumer rights laws, why not also make the appliances shitty?
Damn… it’s all a 110 volt conspiracy
The main manufacturing of Samsung appliances takes place in South Korea, with a washing machine manufacturing plant also located in South Carolina, USA.
The main manufacturing of Samsung appliances takes place in South Korea, with a washing machine manufacturing plant also located in South Carolina, USA.
It’s more than just their washing machines
For sure, their are model numbers specific to regions. Sometimes you see US Products available for various manufacturers and some say not for sale in Canada, which could be distributor rights or maybe won’t pass canadian electric standard or warranty requirements
That usually has to do with the fact that American appliances are 110 V for everything but ovens and dryers
We have 110 /120 as our standard regular voltage also
Same factory just send the units that normally wouldn’t be sellable (defects and such) but still function to the US
You say that, but my experience is different. After my Samsung washing machine failed, I took it apart and found blatant evidence of planned obsolescence. If the units elsewhere are good, then the ones in the US aren’t just the same things with defects, but rather ones with spider arms cast from an entirely different metal alloy.
Fair enough, I was just guessing at a way one country could receive only/mostly inferior products
The massive volume of sales for North America is too big to be met by factory defects. They’d have to have entire factories making defects.
Just because all defect stock are routed to the US inventory, doesn’t mean that US inventory is made up of all defect stock.
as someone who deals with this professionally, i assure you: they are.
every samsung appliance consistently fails in one of a few ways, so much so that it’s not simply a matter of by-chance defects. they’re design flaws.
With Samsung it’s almost always caused in my experience by either the use of plastics that are not up to the stress requirements of the application, or the use of electronics that are not capable of standing up to the use duration.
Samsung appliances that I have had have always had either broken plastics or fried circuit boards.
And they’ve got to know that these things break because there are always replacement parts for the specific ones that break, but if you’re not a DIYer you will pay 70% of the cost of the original appliance to install the part that broke.
Sure, if they were designed that way, I would not call them defects either.
It only works if that one country is the good ol’ US of A. Lol
So long as voltage and frequency match
How can I buy a European made(?) samsung fridge?
Go to Europe
Enter shop
Buy fridge
Carry home
Realise it doesn’t work because you have girly electricity
It won’t fit in the overhead compartment.
I never even considered this and now I am enraged.
That’s disappointing since Samsung is such a big and well-known brand. Good to know though, so thanks.
Even as an iPhone guy, I’ll say that their consumer electronics are just fine. Very good, even.
But their appliances are crap. Apparently, they used to be quite good, but once they got a bug up their ass about sticking a bonkers amount of tech into them, they started cutting costs on build quality, so they just don’t last more than a few years before parts start crapping out.
Companies like LG and GE are much better at balancing tech, quality, reliability, and price points.
I can’t stand “fancy” electronic appliances. I hate all the musical beeping and half the time the panels don’t even recognize my finger taps. It makes doing chores more frustrating than it already is.
We recently bought a fixer-upper and have had to replace a bunch of old appliances. I told my husband the simpler/cheaper the appliance is, the better. Knobs over digital displays.
The only time I like the newer digital versions is with microwave ovens.
Get commercial washer and dryer, Speed Queen, on the used market.
A used model will cost as much as a new Samsung consumer model, but it’ll last far longer and has replaceable hardware inside.
it will also tear your clothes apart while using 3x the water and power as a newer model LG or GE without an agitator
no thanks!
Right, right.
Because commercial laundromats don’t have to pay for water or energy.
Pray tell, how would a washer tear your clothes when they’re the same washing mechanism as a consumer model - a tub with paddles on the sides.
Donyour clothes get torn at the laundromat? Not seeing how they’d stay in business if that were the case.
Right, because I want to pay a huge amount for water and power like a commercial laundromat does. Lol.
I love it when people argue with me like I don’t do this for a living.
I hate to break it to you, but even with the knobby versions, it’s still electronic under the hood. But I know what you mean about the annoying bleeps and bloops. Again, though, the Samsungs were always the worst offenders in that regard, omg…
GEs make little noise, and LGs are pretty low-key. Whirlpools and Maytags just beep a couple of times.
When I bought my house it came with an induction stove.
I thought it was pretty great being able to boil water in 2 minutes.
It was a GE profile, and it just suddenly mysteriously failed on me. Kind of sucks, it wasn’t that old of a stove, maybe 5 years.
The board that it needed to have replaced cost $1,700.
So I said fuck that, I went and bought a Whirlpool induction stove. $900.
It has worked really well for the last year and a half, but the one thing that I truly and honestly despise about it is that the controls are capacitive touch and that means instead of flicking your wrist and setting it on medium heat you have to hit a button to turn on the stove and then hit a different button three or four times to adjust it down to medium heat and it doesn’t always respond to the button touches.
If I end up having to buy a stove again in the future, it’s got to have a knob on it. It’s such a tiny thing but it’s so fucking annoying.
I’ll say this about GE appliances, until they were bought by Haier in 2016, they sucked too. But once they were bought out by Haier, their quality improved remarkably, and so did their customer service. They’re pretty great now.
I’ve had exactly two dishwashers completely stop functioning in my entire life. Both were GE post Haier and within the last 6 years. Also had a Haier made GE microwave completely fail.
I replaced the microwave (and the matching stove) with Samsung and haven’t had one bit of trouble with either.
I thought I had just gotten a lemon, but three separate failures within a couple of years has really soured my opinion of them. I was a lot more worried about the Samsung appliances I bought, but they’ve been a dream.
Note: I am not recommending Samsung appliances, at all. I got an amazing deal and fully expected them to fail shortly after the warranty was up. I’ve had to repair several of my friends and family’s washers, dryers, and refrigerators. Samsung’s poor reputation is well earned, I just got lucky
Of course they’ve been electronic for decades, but lately it seems they have overdone it so the thing actually becomes less convenient. Kinda like in cars.
And some of the high-end models yes, but there’s still a wide range available with different levels of “functionality.”
You should check out Electrolux. They make some really nice laundry appliances without any smart features at all. They’re great.
My husband and I literally just unwrapped a new Whirlpool washer.
Have you ever rebuilt and repaired old electrical appliances? An old microwave with a turn dial timer is most certainly not electronic. Electrical sure, but not electronic.
Those only basically have a mechanical timer dial, high voltage transformer, high voltage diode, magnetron, light, fan, turntable motor, fuse, and some safety switches for the door.
Absolutely nothing electronic about them, they’re as dumb as an old-school toaster, they just happen to use high voltage to generate microwaves instead.
i’m not referring to old appliances
Well, generally speaking, most people discussing the benefits of appliances and stuff with turn dials are referring to older/simpler appliances, back before they started adding in unnecessary electronics and ‘features’ and stuff.
I’ve never actually seen any microwave with a turn dial that has any sort of electronics in them, those are all built almost identical in schematics, aside from different sizes and wattages.
The only Samsung products I have never had not fail on me is RAM and ssds, and the only reason the ssds have not failed on me is that I’ve not bought their latest ones that have sudden mysterious failure issues.
Every single Samsung product I have ever owned has broken, and almost always when it’s not actively in use. I go out of my way to tell people about this and to attempt to dissuade them from using Samsung products because of this.
Ironically just repaired my samsung dryer. Two drum felt gaskets, and the belt since it was disassembled. Front gasket failed and tore out. After examining all components, the torque of belt drive pulls on one side of drum, this puts extra pressure one one set of the drum rollers (Rh side). The rear one is near the hot air duct so it gets more extreme working conditions. bearing has worn shaft slightly and plastic wheel was partially fatigued, so looks like that rollet was dragging and so belt pulls down more front of drum pinching seal from extended weight and torque. The paint was worn off the housings in this section so felt gasket had more friction in that zone. The rear roller near the heating generator duct is a bad design. especially since it hangs off the back housing which is quite flexible in that area. Thankfully the repair was simple, other than completr disassembly , but not convinced it will last long.
Any recs for something halfway decent in the US?
Can you get Bosch? Or Miele if you’re flush.
I am surprised to hear this. I have not had any issues with my Samsung devices. I have a fridge, washer, dryer and television.
My entire Samsung appliance experience is one dishwasher but it was so shit that I was happy when it broke after 18 months and I will never buy another Samsung appliance. Didn’t clean things and smelled like death if we didn’t manually clean it once a week and run it empty on sanitize and never leave the door closed. Searching the internet told me it was widespread and people were considering class action lawsuits.
It looked nice though. And was quiet.
I seem to have had great luck with the brand if these comments are any real sample.
“Can we integrate AI into this app?”
“Can you do a browser version of this high-end VR training application?” somehow makes a browser version “Why isn’t this running on my iPhone 3GS?!”
To be fair, WebXR does make VR stuff possible in a browser. But I guess that wasn’t what they wanted.
I think their point was that it’s just never gonna run on a phone that came out in 2009.
“Do this as a temporary measure. We will code it properly later” —> code that is hackish and will never be replaced.
“We need you to do this one time because of someBullshit” —> congratulations, your team had to do this thing outside of your specialty, even though there exists a team dedicated to it, and now we’re just going to make you do it over and over again (despite, again, a whole team dedicated to that existing).
Do this as a temporary measure. We will code it properly later
I’m always blown away whenever someone says that they like some language or framework because it’s “great for prototyping.”
Like, what magical fairyland software company do you work at where your prototypes are not immediately put into production as soon as they kind of start to work?
You should tell them this is not 'Nam. There are rules.
These are older lessons and I’m generally pretty effective at pushing back on those now. I’m not a manager, though, so I can be overruled.
My executive saying “Revenue is up 30% YoY! […] Due to budget cuts we’re limited to a 4% raise+CoL adjustment this year.”
That sounds like a dream. Last place I worked aa an employee, we got “col” 9which was actually less than 1/3 the government-declared col) plus as much as 1.1% merit increase.
Typical raise for a high performer was around 2%.
Hi colleague!
You get CoL adjustments?!
Baked into our medicore raises… yeah!
They give you a 3% raise even though inflation is 8% because if they didn’t then you might decide that it’s worth the effort of going through the job application process until someone else hires you at a 10% pay raise.
You get raises?!
The places where corporate decides to penny-pinch is truly infuriating.
I’m an event planner. People won’t return my emails or phone calls about the most basic things. Oh, you want a full stage crew to be at your show? And you’re only telling me this the day before your event starts? Gee, it’s a good thing I’m good at my job, and already planned for your last minute request.
Because when I asked about your labor needs two months ago, a month ago, three weeks ago, two weeks ago, 10 days ago, 7 days ago, 5 days ago, 5 days ago, 5 days ago, 4 days ago, 4 days ago, 4 days ago, 3 days ago, and 2 days ago, you didn’t seem super enthusiastic about giving me an answer. But now it’s suddenly the most important thing in the world, and I’m expected to just pull an entire show crew out of my ass to have at your event. Believe it or not, those workers are people with their own lives, and they appreciate being told more than one day in advance if they’re going to be working.
We’re on the same side here. I want your event to go well. I don’t want to be bothered with off-hours phone calls because your event is a dumpster fire. So help me help you. My entire job is to help you get in the door, but I can’t do that if you won’t even tell me what type of event you’re planning, or what time it starts.
I couldn’t do what you do, holy shit. Even if you didn’t do weddings, I’m sure there are bridezillas in all event categories.
I feel there’s some dots and squiggles missing from that title.
“I’m trying to identify a source of truth”
What’s your job?
Process Manager
I googled “identify a source of truth” and was treated to a plethora of buzzwordy tweets and articles worthy of Deepak Chopra.
I’m so sorry.
Let’s put a pin in it, and we can circle back when we have more bandwidth. Hopefully it’s not too heavy a lift.
I used to work with enterprise customers at a SaaS company, and still have a lot of anger in how corporate types use this fluffy language. I think my “favorite” example of this jargon is “Please Advise.”, which basically just means “What the fuck?!”
Hopefully it’s not too heavy a lift.
Well, that’s a new one (assuming it’s not referring to a physical object) to me
Oh Ffs kill me I hate this nonsense.
It’s supposed to be a good practice … in theory. In practice nobody knows what exists and who’s in charge of what and there’s exceptions and exceptions to exceptions.
Speaking for software engineering perspective. I see in other comment you’re doing process engineering, I assume the term is used in a similar way
Wait, do you work at my company?
As someone who had to work on syncing multiple databases of customer and order data this was actually very important for me to know. Turned out that it could vary on a field by field basis and could also depend on the type of customer and where they came from.
To sync up our new and shiny SAP CRM with several Access databases and our customer-facing software I ended up writing a script that would collect all data field by field with varying hierarchies and writing it back out to everything. Worked surprisingly well.
Is Access still in use?
Access will probably be the laat thing to die before the heat death of the universe.
Even after things inappropriately hosted in Excel? Lol
Oh, yeah, forgot that.
I’m certain the access database living in a broom closet that someone setup 20 years ago is still going strong at my last job. It was also fed by mainframe dumps, I’m super glad I never had to go anywhere near the thing personally, different department and it was explicit that they owned it.
I think that’s better than one department (with the clout to do so) going “this is going to be our source of truth” while completely unprepared for what it means.
They literally spent over a year in talks with the whole rest of the damn company about what that would mean and what level of responsibility that would entail, delayed the go live multiple months multiple times… and they still can’t do fucking basic data validation.
Leading and trailing spaces. Names randomly in all caps.
Oh, there’s a shit ton built off the requirement that this field is one of these options? Surprise, we silently added another option without telling anyone, after we agreed in planning that option was invalid. Not our fault, your fault for building shit based off the idea this was a source of truth and we actually took requirements seriously.
Why is everyone coming to us to correct this data? Why can’t you just correct it downstream like you used to? What do you mean we were warned? I wasn’t paying attention during that meeting that you held specifically to warn me about this in advance because I was too busy ignoring all the other warnings people were telling me!
What do you mean that the thing you warned us would be consistently be delayed until next day because of how our source of truth works can’t be done on demand on the same day? Huh, we signed off on it being okay, along with every other relevant department?
When I was first starting as a server at this one restaurant, I swear every other phrase out of my coworkers’ mouths when they saw me during the entire first 2 weeks was, “you having fun yet?”. And everytime, I’d give a half-assed smirk and say “oh you know it”. So dumb. That phrase still irritates the shit out of me to this day.
So…
You having fun yet?
Go fuck yourself
When I worked in retail, I had this wanker of a middle manager who would ask how I was getting on, and when I said fine, he’d always say “It’s not rocket science, is it?”
He was mid twenties and only a few years older than me. He used to call female employees “babe”.
One time I watched him get a withering telling off from a customer. The customer wasn’t in the right, but it felt like a little bit of retribution for all us “babes”.
I once had a job in an office building that was shared by several different businesses. One of them was an accounting firm that seemed like an incredibly boring place. And I swear, every time two guys from the accounting firm passed each other in the hallway, they had to say to each other, “You having fun yet?” or “Are ya workin’ hard or hardly workin’?”
It must have been a requirement. Literally company policy. I heard it so many times in just a couple years, there’s no other explanation. Like, if you didn’t say it, the manager would ask to see you in his office, and he’d be like, “Hey Phil, someone tells me that you and Dave passed each other in the hallway, and neither of you said ‘you having fun yet.’ Now you know we like to have fun around here, and ‘you having fun yet’ is part of our company culture, so I’m gonna need you to make sure that you say ‘you having fun yet.’ It’s for fun. And we like to have fun. It’s mandatory.”
There’s a reason Office Space is such a popular movie.
The office they worked in is so similar to one I worked in. The scene that sticks out the most was them walking back from lunch and cutting through the ditch to get back quicker.
Livin’ the dream!
“Nightmares are dreams too”
From many years ago, in a previous career.
Job: IT
Issue: hardware of some kind is broken
Customer, incredulous: “…but it wasn’t broken yesterday!”
Yeah, no shit. That’s how things break. They’re fine, then become broken. Why is this even being discussed?
I work retail. People walk up to me like I’m a robot.
“Duck tape??” They just… Bark at me. I have gotten to the point that I refuse to tell them where something is until they treat me like a human being and ask a very simple question, “where’s duck tape?”
You’re gonna hate me for this but since it’s your job you might want to learn it’s “duct” tape.
Not what they asked for. Duck tape is a brand, and is in my department. Duct tape is in plumbing which also does HVAC products, and is actual foil tape with a peel off backing, actually used for ductwork.
There is such a thing as duck tape though, It’s a brand of duct tape
But that’s not what the customer asked for.
Makes me think of this guy.
Job: car detailer
Customer has left their animal in the car, and it is complete trash
The animal? Or the car?
Yes
I was going to ask too. Also, is the car trashed because the animal had been left there at some point, or is the car trashed and the animal is still in it?
The animal has been left there at some point, and the car is trashed
