Useless Conversation

[HaemishM]

What year is it in Alabama?

1961. Always. Same for Mississippi.

[ezrast]

Jury duty is ever so much boring.

Monday showed up at 9am as called.  Get dismissed for lunch about 11:30 and my group was one of the ones let go for the afternoon.  Cool!
Tuesday get called back, this time for 10am.  Get dismissed for the day at 11am.  Err..?
Wednesday - no clue yet, but my group could be called back again, but probably not.  They'll call back the groups that didn't get called in on Tuesday, probably.  I could get called though.

I'm really grateful they have wifi to use so I can at least do some work.  Wasn't too horrible, just boring is all.  At least I'm only 15 miles from the courthouse.  I'd hate to be someone who lived further away and had to drive in for a whole hour today.

My one (knock on wood) experience with jury duty was generally positive. I got a lot of reading done, learned how the system worked, and the judge let me out of the pool for a month long trial when I asked for it in open court (rather than getting excluded from the questionaires) since I am the only person who does my job and missing a month of work would be impossible. As it was I was going home and working until midnight, which was lucrative. Won a cash award for service above and beyond on top of all the OT and the jury duty pay. Only downside was they let us out early one day and I went to see Thor, which sucked  

Mine was awful. Some mostly-harmless poor people were ignorant of the law and wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Three of us wanted to let them go but one of the defendants basically confessed on the stand, presumably because their shitty public defenders hadn't bothered to do any amount of coaching beforehand (one of them kept getting the defendants' names wrong). The other nine jurors were pretty unwaveringly in favor of guilty, groupthink ran its course, and we slapped a felony charge on them. I still feel guilty about it.

[pxib]

I've never been chosen for a jury. I get the mail every year and my number is always too late to get called. One time I needed to go in and wait at the courthouse... only to be sent home half an hour later.

It's sad because I'd really like to try being on a jury some time, for the life-experience aspect of it. That said...

Some mostly-harmless poor people were ignorant of the law and wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Three of us wanted to let them go but one of the defendants basically confessed on the stand, presumably because their shitty public defenders hadn't bothered to do any amount of coaching beforehand (one of them kept getting the defendants' names wrong).

...I hear this sort of thing from friends a lot. Seems a lot of people who take a case to trial really don't understand the consequences and the responsibilities of doing so.

[Trippy]

Serving on a jury is a very educational experience.

[Abagadro]

I discovered that channel on my vacation. Watched some Six Million Dollar Man. 

[rattran]

MeTV is good for Svengoolie an old-school horror host out of Chicago. Saturday nights, ~9pm after Star Trek. Old crap movies, mostly Universal Horror with other stuff mixed in. Stupid fun.

[Xanthippe]

Sorry to bum everyone out.  I genuinely just don't know how to deal with the situation.

What I would do is spend a lot of time with him one on one. Not doing distracting stuff like going to amusement parks, but normal stuff. Going to the store, running errands, walking the dog, playing catch, cleaning, yard work, whatever. I've found that my kids will talk provided that there is space for them to do so. Asking questions clams them up, but just hanging out doing normal things is when they open up.

It's amazing how few the minutes without distractions are now compared to when I grew up. Now I have to plan them, rather than default to them, because otherwise there are none.

Good luck. What a horrific experience.

[Brofellos]

Serving on a jury is a very educational experience.

I am now basically eternally disqualified from jury duty, as no lawyer would want a lawyer juror.

[Morat20]

No, I understand what happened, I am just aghast that it came so close to actually working.

I learned about a secretary who, at a small but lucrative consulting firm, embezzled over a million in two years. Her boss handled payroll and a lot of the financing, and shoved it off on her. So she gave herself a sizable raise and put heself in the bonus pool and controlled her own bonuses. Her boss didn't even read the statements, just signed off on it.

The only reason she was ever caught was she took a two week vacation and forgot to reset her salary back down. Her boss had to actually do his job and got confused when he noticed her paycheck was larger than anyone else's. Much larger.

It's amazing what you can get away with, at least for awhile, if you're bold enough when opportunity strikes. And you don't care about going to jail. (Or, I guess, manufacture opportunity through scams).

[Numtini]

I am now basically eternally disqualified from jury duty, as no lawyer would want a lawyer juror

Our chief of police ended up on one. I never quite understood what possessed the defense attorney to allow that one.

[Brofellos]

I am now basically eternally disqualified from jury duty, as no lawyer would want a lawyer juror

Our chief of police ended up on one. I never quite understood what possessed the defense attorney to allow that one.

Sometimes it's a gamble that bringing an expert into the jury pool to influence lay people may work, if you think the law is actually on your side but is a bit esoteric. I wouldn't do it tho

[Abagadro]

Serving on a jury is a very educational experience.

I am now basically eternally disqualified from jury duty, as no lawyer would want a lawyer juror.

I said the exact thing to a colleague on the way to jury duty one day... and was then picked to serve on a jury. 

[Yegolev]

Does The Young And The Restless have the same actors as when I was a kid in other states, or just Alabama?

[Sky]

New favorite from my blog's spam blocker:


Woops.

[Miasma]

Holy shit, who would they expect to even read all that?  The choice options must just be a busted script that instead of choosing one to randomize the message didn't parse it at all.

[Samwise]

The choice options must just be a busted script that instead of choosing one to randomize the message didn't parse it at all.

That would be the "woops".  

[Rasix]

This newbie developer is trying to manually fix the problem on my system instead of figuring out why it happened in the first place.  If I wanted it fixed, I could do it myself.  Today is going to be a long day.

[Yegolev]

I'm getting pretty good at explaining best practices to people that are otherwise disinclined to use them.

[Merusk]

"You can do that, but it's not supported workflow.  If things go wrong I'm just going to have to tell you to do it my way to resolve it and you'll have wasted both our time, plus the time to figure out what's busted."

Graphic designer proceeds to do it their way anyway, outcome is as above. 

Don't link a 90mb 30x42 image into an 8x11 InDesign document, resize the goddamn thing. It doesn't take more than 20 seconds, so your "it takes too long" logic is invalid.

[Yegolev]

I like "supported workflow", has a nice ring to it.

[Xanthippe]

I'm getting pretty good at explaining best practices to people that are otherwise disinclined to use them.

I'd like to see "best practices" put to bed along with "smart solutions." Or maybe I need the drinking equivalent to Buzzword Bingo with updated phrases so I won't care anymore when I hear those terms.

[Yegolev]

Well, what's another term for industry best practices?  I can't straight-up tell clients they are being dumb (well, it's a bad idea even if I can).  It also isn't convincing to say "everyone else does it this way" because the people that run IT departments are PRETTY SURE they are special.

[Johny Cee]

"You can do that, but it's not supported workflow.  If things go wrong I'm just going to have to tell you to do it my way to resolve it and you'll have wasted both our time, plus the time to figure out what's busted."

Graphic designer proceeds to do it their way anyway, outcome is as above. 

Don't link a 90mb 30x42 image into an 8x11 InDesign document, resize the goddamn thing. It doesn't take more than 20 seconds, so your "it takes too long" logic is invalid.

The problem is software changes the accepted way they handle inputs every few years, but software upgrades can go for many more years and are largely piece-meal.  So you have people trained on how to do something one way, that then becomes broken in a new update, but those people have muscle memory for the old way.  Our secretaries used to kill us because they kept trying to use antiquated short-cuts from old word processor/office-type software in the brand new edition of Office, which then led to instability and crashes because Office was confused by 15 year old shortcuts it tried to half-heartedly support.

Alot of those changes are bullshit, too, to separate one edition of software from the newer and snazzier version of software.  The changes from year to year in the Quickbooks interface used to fucking kill me.  "Now the General Journal Entry is in this menu!  Next year, we move it back!  Now with pointless dialog box!  Oh, now we don't give you access to it unless you first enable five checkboxes in the Company preferences settings!  Wait, this year we don't like Company preferences and have consolidated it with regular preferences!"

Also, half the time the software engineers designing their mess don't design it for the way the end user uses it, but instead design it to how they feel it should work.  Major reason why Accountants love Excel spreadsheets?  The interface and commands have been the same for years, so you don't have to retrain your muscle memory every three years because UI X is now the style...  though when they fucked with the menu bars and where they stuck typical formating shit a few years ago to make the program look more modern I may have had a couple swearing fits.

[Merusk]

When 90% of your work day is spent in one software program, maybe two, it's best to learn that program and keep up to date on it, yes?

Users of AutoCAD and Adobe products appear to disagree. And those workflows have evolved over the 20 years I've been using them, but only radically done so at intermittent times.  Always with warnings and training available to me when it did.

Also, folks who are under 30 don't get an excuse. Nor do those who choose to ignore workflows told to them directly before doing something the wrong way.  Both of which are the case here.

If *I* can learn and manage 11 softwares and the plug-ins and add-ons associated, then a professional can learn the one or two they work in.

Also, insert that "The illiterate of the 21st century" quote here.  Yeah, things change, often arbitrarily and it's frustrating. In the age of "Software as Service" you don't have a choice because your subscription agreement is going to require you to update every one to three years. 

Learn & adapt or die.

[Ingmar]

Best practices is one of those rare bits of jargon that actually serves a useful purpose. Smart solutions is just marketing type bullshit though.

[HaemishM]

Definition of BEST PRACTICES: that thing we know we should be doing, and that we definitely probably would be doing if some cunt CEO/Marketing Director/Client wasn't forcing us to do it the exact opposite way because... reasons.

[Lantyssa]

Best Practices say we hire a few more IT people.

My bosses vehemently disagree.

[Samwise]

The phrase "best practices" comes a couple of conversations before the phrase "supported workflow".  "Best practices are..." is code for "don't come crying to me later if you don't do this."  "That's not a supported workflow" is code for "by ignoring my previous recommendation you've boned yourself and now I can't fix it, I'm going to pretend we never had this conversation."

[Merusk]

Yes.

[Paelos]

We need an "I Work in IT, here's what's fucking stupid" thread.

[Merusk]

90% of the population. 

NPR made me chuckle last night on the way home.  They did a story about how Science, Tech, Eng. & Math majors are almost all employed, but only ~10% of them are in the fields they have degrees in.  The rest are in business, banking and other segments, but nobody had asked why during the study so they couldn't answer that question. 

The answer, to me, is obvious.  Because they know software and technology and don't have to be trained on it.  They are literate in the 21st century. The rest of the pertinent skills can be taught on the job. Particularly in those fields where people state, "college didn't teach me anything."

[Paelos]

Says something about the job market and/or pay in the degree fields as well.

[Yegolev]

We need an "I Work in IT, here's what's fucking stupid" thread.

This would be a very long thread with very little information.

In the stratum where I work, we usually deal with relatively-intelligent people but IT is at odds with business decisions.  Business decisions often relating to how much an IT infrastructure costs versus the perceived benefit.  When you start telling someone that they need to replicate their entire infrastructure in New Jersey, people frown.

[Sky]

For Haemish and the other writers here: https://twitter.com/worstmuse

[Numtini]

For Haemish and the other writers here: https://twitter.com/worstmuse

I'm so writing were-corgi erotica.