Question. How do you handle people who have no idea what they want but somehow expect you to figure it out for them? This seems endemic in programming and database queries.
Also, what you are up against is ignorance and hope.
You're dealing with people looking for a solution, but ignorant as to how to find it, they have a hope that you as the programmer owns magic, they are not even listening to what you are saying, every time you speak, the eyes glaze over, they just have hope.
Your only salvation is a really glib salesman to salve over all the disappointment.
My god is this accurate. Working on a program that has been in production for years. It does optical character recognition on handwriting. Over time it gets better as we check results and tweak the algorithms but it will never be 100% read with 100% accuracy as it is humans writing the documents it has to read. Some people just have shitty handwriting. The end users are complete idiots. They expect it to see an item with $199.00 1/00 written on it and know that the person actually meant $1 99/100 ($1.99).
I tried telling them that mind readers are scams but they keep trying to get me to pull one out of my ass. I finally made it a random character generator and told them it is always 100% correct and any mistakes are on the part of the person who wrote the item being read.
It isn't just programming either. Earlier today, this conversation happened...
User: I'm only able to see the email sent from a phone if I'm replying to it.
Me: I'm sorry, I don't understand.
U: I don't receive the email sent from a phone unless I reply to it.
M: . . .
U: You look perplexed...
M: How do you reply to a message you haven't received? That's not possible.
U: . . .
M: Do you receive the message, but the body doesn't show until you click reply?
U: Yes.
M: How often do you shut down or restart your computer? Reopening Outlook should resolve it.
Although I'm a batshit-individualist, it is in the company's best interest to have programmers collaborate and review each-other's code during the development process, rather than having one person pile up a mountain of crap code and then hand it over to another person.
I like it and agree with this. Sometime our clients are expecting too much from us. I'm an Magento eCommerce developer and working since five years and I ever seen these type of deadlines in my professional career.
25 comments
0 u/carlip 13 Nov 2018 22:45
@Dfens is a censorous communistic moderator. this user should be quarantined away from the rest of us who enjoy free speech.
0 u/Hey_Sunshine 14 Nov 2018 00:27
How so?
0 u/MrPim 14 Nov 2018 00:29
He banned me from one of his subs I'd never even visited. But didn't from the rest of his subs. So not only is he a shitbag he's dumb as fuck as well.
0 u/Hey_Sunshine 14 Nov 2018 00:37
Ah... Plus he's a mod of v/realprotectvoat. So not only is he a pozzed faggot but he's a bad actor as well. Duly noted! A gold star for @Dfens!
0 u/BadGoy1488 14 Nov 2018 00:56
And, worst of all, he posts Reddit-tier Dilbert comics.
0 u/polygeek 14 Nov 2018 00:43
Dilbert will always rule.
0 u/dangerous_ai 14 Nov 2018 01:27
Of course, you must always do this...
0 u/Dfens [OP] 14 Nov 2018 01:44
I don’t know why it’s necessary. It just is.
0 u/BillyLuath 14 Nov 2018 01:29
I indentify with that Dilbert, only the bad-mouther was a dweeb with no where near my programming skills.
Guy couldn't SQL in a relational way if his life was in jeopardy..
0 u/lanre 14 Nov 2018 01:53
Question. How do you handle people who have no idea what they want but somehow expect you to figure it out for them? This seems endemic in programming and database queries.
0 u/NiklausTheNaked 14 Nov 2018 01:55
Ask "why?" 5 times. That's the average number of levels of abstraction you have to get through, just to get a clear picture of the root problem.
0 u/BillyLuath 14 Nov 2018 02:07
This is what you are up against:
https://www.tamingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/tree-swing-project-management-large.png
0 u/BillyLuath 14 Nov 2018 02:14
Also, what you are up against is ignorance and hope.
You're dealing with people looking for a solution, but ignorant as to how to find it, they have a hope that you as the programmer owns magic, they are not even listening to what you are saying, every time you speak, the eyes glaze over, they just have hope.
Your only salvation is a really glib salesman to salve over all the disappointment.
0 u/SquarebobSpongebutt 14 Nov 2018 14:01
My god is this accurate. Working on a program that has been in production for years. It does optical character recognition on handwriting. Over time it gets better as we check results and tweak the algorithms but it will never be 100% read with 100% accuracy as it is humans writing the documents it has to read. Some people just have shitty handwriting. The end users are complete idiots. They expect it to see an item with $199.00 1/00 written on it and know that the person actually meant $1 99/100 ($1.99).
0 u/Dfens [OP] 14 Nov 2018 14:43
I've been looking for an app that can determine what I meant to write instead of reading what I actually wrote.
0 u/SquarebobSpongebutt 14 Nov 2018 15:26
I tried telling them that mind readers are scams but they keep trying to get me to pull one out of my ass. I finally made it a random character generator and told them it is always 100% correct and any mistakes are on the part of the person who wrote the item being read.
0 u/Dfens [OP] 14 Nov 2018 15:32
A random character generator would be perfect for decoding my scrawl. I type so much that's about what my handwriting has become.
0 u/Dfens [OP] 14 Nov 2018 14:44
Well, there is such a thing as managing expectations. It's the small bit of sales every engineer should know.
0 u/slwsnowman40 01 Dec 2018 00:01
It isn't just programming either. Earlier today, this conversation happened...
User: I'm only able to see the email sent from a phone if I'm replying to it. Me: I'm sorry, I don't understand. U: I don't receive the email sent from a phone unless I reply to it. M: . . . U: You look perplexed... M: How do you reply to a message you haven't received? That's not possible. U: . . . M: Do you receive the message, but the body doesn't show until you click reply? U: Yes. M: How often do you shut down or restart your computer? Reopening Outlook should resolve it.
Ironically, this user is a programmer.
0 u/aCuriousYahnz 14 Nov 2018 14:26
Except when this is real and you've been stuck working on said projects for almost five years and just feel like blowing your brains out.
0 u/Dfens [OP] 14 Nov 2018 14:39
2nd in the series.
0 u/libman 18 Nov 2018 01:52
Although I'm a batshit-individualist, it is in the company's best interest to have programmers collaborate and review each-other's code during the development process, rather than having one person pile up a mountain of crap code and then hand it over to another person.
0 u/aanchalkaura 27 Nov 2018 07:03
I like it and agree with this. Sometime our clients are expecting too much from us. I'm an Magento eCommerce developer and working since five years and I ever seen these type of deadlines in my professional career.
0 u/Clariti 07 Dec 2018 16:23
Hahaha this is so true! Great share.
0 u/envision 08 Jan 2019 13:02
Now a days it's very easy to badmouth about others.