A Pearoast Of A Pearoast
So this will be the third time I've told this story on here....



At one company I worked at there was a huge, high-profile, project that involved employing dozens of programmers from an out-sourcing company. Well, I say programmers but I actually mean people-pulled-off-the-street-and-poured-into-suits. To my jaundiced eye these "programmers" seemed to have very little programming skills and a breath-taking lack of knowledge of IT in general. So it was up to me to educate them.

"Hey Legless" squeaked one of the masses "What does TCP/IP actually stand for?"

Bear in mind that this was a web project they were working on. A web programmer didn't know what the very bones of the Internet stood for.

"That'll be Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Pixies" I lied smoothly.

He looked suspicious.

"Internet Pixies" he asked looking puzzeled

"Yup. You see the fathers of the Internet were a bunch of hippies so would name things out of Tolkien or from Dungeons And Dragons. I mean, you've heard of Unix Daemons? - Systems processes on Unix boxes? Well the Pixies carry the messages to the Daemons. It all makes a kind of weird sense when you think about it"

I was warming to my theme now.

"Then there's a bunch of other Pixies on the internet. Your dial up modem uses PPP doesn't it?"

He nodded.

"Well that's Pixie to Pixie Protocol. Then there's your mail - POP3. That's Post Office Pixie. I could go on but that's the meat of it. Pixies run the Internet."


He was nodding now and smiling.

"You know, it does all make sense. Can't wait to tell the other guys about this. We've been wondering about it for a while." says Mr Gullible.

And off he trotted.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 11:00, 4 replies)

I have no doubt in my mind that this is a first-hand account of a true event.

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 11:28, closed)

'people-pulled-off-the-street-and-poured-into-suits' sounds like exactly the type we get 'off-shoring' on projects sometimes
Personally I don't mind working with 'off-shore resources' over in India - most of the time they work their nuts off and are very friendly. However, trying to get them to properly test anything, or admit they don't understand something or got something wrong, is like getting blood from a sodding stone.
Relating to your comment as well, if a big project comes in, you know their sudden 'abundant resources' are probably people they just grabbed off the street.

Case in point, got some code back just this year, confirmed to be 'fully tested and ready for live'. Past experience forced us to double-check - the Developer had hard-coded his name into the software. In other words, you had to log in as him in order to use the system now. Scary.
(CharminglyShallow incarcerated for a crime he probably did commit., Fri 31 Aug 2012, 11:53, closed)

Oh God
I used to get that a lot in a company I used to work for. As part of our security policies, an enforced password change was put in every month. However, one of the devs in the company had hardcoded his username and password into a piece of software he was working on, and promptly forgot about. And then wondered why his account seemed to be locking out all the sodding time.

Idiot.
(The Luggage is haunted..., Fri 31 Aug 2012, 13:34, closed)

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 12:48, closed)