Things people do that make no sense

[Vlad!]

Heh, that's one of the things I like about my job: no timekeeping.

(BTW, murlough, your sig is horked...you can't terminate a url tag with a quote tag. Not that I would expect a web developer to know that )

[murlough23]

Heh, that's one of the things I like about my job: no timekeeping.

I take it you don't work for the government.

(BTW, murlough, your sig is horked...you can't terminate a url tag with a quote tag. Not that I would expect a web developer to know that )

I knew that! The knowledge was in my hard drive, but apparently not in my RAM.

[Vlad!]

I take it you don't work for the government.

Nope, although I have before. It was a pain to have to have a cost code for every hour of my day :/

[murlough23]

Nope, although I have before. It was a pain to have to have a cost code for every hour of my day :/

I've had a job I enjoy for ten years and running. As much as I like to complain about stuff like that, I can't complain about the overall experience.

[RedcoatJones]

Imagine if you worked with billable hours. I work in an agency environment, and we have to track down to the 15-minute which accounts we're working on.

[Vlad!]

I received the following e-mail:
"Can we meet Friday about 7pm at the Starbucks at blah blah blah?"

My reply:
"Let's move it to 7:30, since that Starbucks far away and I don't know if I can get away from work that early"

I just got the reply back:
"7:30 falls into 'about 7'"

I think I have a greater understanding now about why this person is always late.

[Vlad!]

So there's a type of screw head called Torx, which is shaped like a star with rounded points. I guess it's trying to solve the problem of hex-head and Phillips-head screws stripping, but not only are there other, better solutions, it doesn't seem like most people actually find stripping to be a problem.

Anyway, the one feature Torx-heads have which other heads don't is that there's a type called tamper-resistant Torx (or safety Torx), which has a short peg in the middle, keeping standard Torx bits from working. They're used in things like microwaves and, oddly, the bathroom stalls where I work. However, this makes no sense to me. After all, tamper-resistant Torx bits work in regular Torx screws, and you can just buy them at the hardware store.

(When I went to the local store to get some tamper-resistant Torx bits, I was afraid that there might be some restriction on them. "Son, why do you want these bits?" "Uh, well, I'm taking apart my microwave" "Sorry, son, I can't sell these to you. Maybe if you were trying to take apart a bathroom stall it would be OK, but microwaves can kill you". But they just rang me up without comment.)

Basically, all they've done is made regular Torx bits obsolete, because you can either buy regular Torx bits or Torx bits that work in both regular and tamper-resistant screws. Maybe they figure that if you're smart enough to figure this out, you're smart enough not to stick your screwdriver into the high-voltage transformer in your microwave.

[murlough23]

Clearly they're just trying to screw with your head. HA!

(Hey, it's better than other jokes I could have made using the words "screw" and "head".)

[Vlad!]

I hate it when I write a comment that says "we're not doing foo because it would take too much time", and someone says "it probably would have taken you less time to do foo than write that comment". Even if true, it's a stupid straw man argument made by people who apparently don't understand software development.

[murlough23]

I hate it when I write a comment that says "we're not doing foo because it would take too much time", and someone says "it probably would have taken you less time to do foo than write that comment". Even if true, it's a stupid straw man argument made by people who apparently don't understand software development.

Sadly, I have to make those kinds of "doing it right vs. doing it inexpensively" sorts of calls often. I will often leave myself comments that comprise a to-do list of stuff to go back and put in later if we get the funding to do so.

On a completely different topic, it makes little sense to me when strangers get chatty in an elevator. Maybe in a huge office building that has like 50 floors, but the building I work in has 5. It makes sense for a person to say "Hello" - even though I'm perfectly comfortable with the silence when the person does not initiate conversation, I will greet someone back if they greet me. But when they actually try to strike up a conversation despite knowing one of us will be disembarking from the elevator in mere seconds? Come on now. That's just begging me to feign interest to feed your ego.

What really doesn't make sense to me is the way our elevator security works. My company occupies the top 2 floors of a 5-story building, the rest of which is occupied by the University of Phoenix (plus two underground levels for parking). This means it's unlikely that I'll make it from the parking garage to the 4th floor (where I work) without a Phoenix student/teacher/administrator getting in and out of the elevator. The 4th floor is the only floor that needs a badge to be scanned to gain entry (since we do have a computer lab with sensitive equipment - my company's lobby where guests are received is on the 5th floor) - otherwise the elevator won't even stop there unless it's letting someone on at that floor. But when I scan my badge and then press the fourth floor, it lights up only until someone else steps into the elevator. Then it goes dark again. The elevator will still stop at the fourth floor, but this causes nearly everyone who gets into the elevator on a floor in between to look curiously at the console, see no floors lit up, and ask me curious questions about where I'm going. This continuous need to explain myself gets old, and some days when asked where I'm going or if I remembered to press my floor, I'm tempted to respond sarcastically, "No, I just felt like standing in the elevator for a while."

I'm an introvert, so maybe an extrovert wouldn't mind the small talk necessary to explain where they're going and why. But most days I'm thinking, "Just push your floor and mind your own damn business." What do they think, I'm going to break into the secret computer lab and blow it up or something?

The Phoenix people also have a really bad habit of pushing both "up" and "down" when calling the elevator, starting to get into it, and only then thinking to check which direction it's going, and holding the door for so long while trying to figure it out that the elevator gets annoyed and buzzes at them (and is then slow to get moving even after everyone's in and the doors are closed). This can add a good five minutes to the time it takes for me to exit the building when my work day is ending and night classes are beginning.

[Vlad!]

Sounds like it might be time to consider taking the stairs...

[murlough23]

Sounds like it might be time to consider taking the stairs...

Which leads me to another thing people do that makes no sense... locking the stairwell doors from the outside on the ground floor and from the inside on upper floors. (Basically meaning, you can get out quickly in the event of an emergency, but not in.)

[Vlad!]

Which leads me to another thing people do that makes no sense... locking the stairwell doors from the outside on the ground floor and from the inside on upper floors. (Basically meaning, you can get out quickly in the event of an emergency, but not in.)

Doh.

[Vlad!]

The company I work at is normally pretty intelligent about the way they do things, but they outsource a few processes and these processes generally stink. One of these processes is expense reporting.

If I want to expense something, I:
* Fill out an online form detailing what I'm expensing
* Get a bar-coded sheet which I print out
* Fax the bar-coded sheet along with my receipts to a certain fax number
* Submit my expense report
* Hope that the faxed receipts get attached to the right expense report

For a long time I and other people have complained that this process is outdated and that we should use electronic submission instead. So today I got the following e-mail:

"Until now, most users around the world have had to fax expense reports and receipts as part of the iExpense submission process.  Additionally, after faxing, users had to go into iExpense to insure that their faxed report and receipts actually attached to the expense report.
Effective immediately, users can now scan their bar-coded expense reports and the receipts into a pdf file, and then email the pdf file directly into the iExpense system. "

So the new improved system will give me a bar-coded page which I then print out, scan into PDF, e-mail to someone, and then have attached to my submission.

Sad.

[murlough23]

So the new improved system will give me a bar-coded page which I then print out, scan into PDF, e-mail to someone, and then have attached to my submission.

I'm guessing you can't print directly to PDF from whatever application you're viewing the bar-coded page in? In other words, there's no way to skip the physical printout?

Thing that makes no sense that's been bugging me lately:

* Persons A and B are planning a wedding, party, or other important social event.
* I know A and B well enough to be invited to their event.
* Person C knows A and B well enough to be invited to their event. Person C also knows that I will likely be attending said event.
* Person C proceeds to ask me all kinds of questions about the food, scheduling, attendees, etc. involved in this event.
* I respond that I don't know because I am not planning the event, and that C should ask A and B directly.
* Person C gets pissy with me.
* Did I mention that Person C in this case is often, though not always, my spouse?

Related annoyance:

* I set up an event and send out an Evite.
* Person A checks the Evite to see who is coming. No one has responded, so they wait until later to respond.
* Person B checks the Evite to see if Person A will be attending. Since Person A is undecided, Person B decides to wait to respond.
* Person C checks the Evite to see if A and/or B wll be attending. You can see where this is going.
* (Taylor expansion of the previous three steps, ad absurdum)
* I check up on the Evite to get a headcount, and find that a bunch of people have viewed it, but nobody has responded. Thus, I cannot hazard a guess at a headcount.

[Vlad!]

I'm guessing you can't print directly to PDF from whatever application you're viewing the bar-coded page in? In other words, there's no way to skip the physical printout?

No, I can print to pdf, and that works fine, but the fact that they can't just generate the pdf for me is mind-boggling (and of course there will be plenty of people who aren't clueful enough to print to pdf).

I often receive an e-vite which I view and don't respond to simply because I'm undecided. There is a large class of social even which I don't want to attend but feel obligated to attend for whatever reason. Usually my approach is just to procrastinate until it's too late and then say "oh, well", but e-vites kind of interfere with this. Nowadays I don't even view e-vites. This probably goes under "things Vlad! does which make no sense".

[murlough23]

I often receive an e-vite which I view and don't respond to simply because I'm undecided. There is a large class of social even which I don't want to attend but feel obligated to attend for whatever reason. Usually my approach is just to procrastinate until it's too late and then say "oh, well", but e-vites kind of interfere with this. Nowadays I don't even view e-vites. This probably goes under "things Vlad! does which make no sense".

I'm guilty of viewing and not responding, too (and Evite's system does track who viewed an event and when), and I actually think that's fine when it's early in the Evite's lifecycle. You generally can't get the details without actually clicking on the thing to see the exact place and time. And if you're "attached" at all, there's usually the requisite checking with the spouse/gf/bf/bff/whoever it is to make sure you're not committing them to something when they already had some other activity scheduled. So I get that people will look at these things, leave, and come back later to finally indicate whether they're coming.

What really gets me is when it's like 2 days before the event and people still can't be arsed to make a decision, because they're waiting on others to do so. If it's something like, "I won't know if I can come on Sunday until I get my work schedule for next week, which won't happen until Saturday", then fine, respond "Maybe" and put that in the comments so we'll know you're not just being flaky. Because of this, I've tried to be more conscious of how confusing it can be for the person planning the event, and just to put "Maybe" and a reason, or just flat out "No" if I know I'm not interested, right away, and say "I need to check with the wife" or "I'll be out of town" or whatever, if that applies.

But the real issue for me is that I'm often operating within a culture where people don't like to say "no" to stuff. They're taught that it is disrespectful, and they sometimes go through some rather convoluted machinations to avoid having to directly say "no" to something, even if the person asking/inviting them is totally fine with it. And I'm like, hey, if you're genuinely not available or interested, just say "No" and be done with it. It won't hurt my feelings, I promise. Making me wait and stress over whether my event's gonna happen at all, or carelessly responding "Yes" and then pulling out at the last second because something better came up, will hurt my feelings. The "Maybe" option is there for a reason. And if everyone says "No" right off the bat, I'll know there's no interest and just cancel the thing and make other plans for that day. Problem solved.

[Vlad!]

I've noticed that with a lot of my foreign co-workers, if you just say "no" then they assume you hate them and will never invite you to anything again. Of course, this works in reverse too, because they'll say "yeah, I might be able to do that" or "sure, what time?" and then won't show.

[murlough23]

I've noticed that with a lot of my foreign co-workers, if you just say "no" then they assume you hate them and will never invite you to anything again. Of course, this works in reverse too, because they'll say "yeah, I might be able to do that" or "sure, what time?" and then won't show.

I do understand the principle behind this. It seems to be some sort of idea that one should not turn down a request for a favor. In cultures that believe this, there's usually a reciprocal understanding that you're putting a person in a difficult position by asking them for something, so you should consider the ramifications of that very carefully before asking - you may put them in a position of having to give more than they can truly afford to offer you. That's all well and good in theory, but in practice... saying no when I invite you to a party does not put me out. I'm not asking a favor. I'm just offering you an opportunity for something you may or may not enjoy doing. How are you saving face, or maintaining personal integrity, or whatever the hell you want to call it, by telling me a bold-faced lie?

Hmmm... maybe I should phrase it in such a way that makes it apparent that the response rather than the attendance is the favor I'm seeking. Then they won't feel obligated to come but they'll be obligated to give me a true response. Either that, or the rule will kick in that says when offered something, you're supposed to refuse until the host insists, in which case I'll make the invitation seem like a gift and when they say no, I'll go, "Okay, suit yourself."

[Vlad!]

Well, once I realized this, it got a bit easier to figure out whether the person is really interested or not. Sometimes it's blatantly obvious (like if I invite someone over to watch a football game at my house and he says "sure" but never bothers to ask where I live, or never asks what time kickoff is), and sometimes it's a little more subtle (I ask a married guy if he wants to join us for dinner and he doesn't ask if he can bring his wife).

Unless I'm making food, I've just gotten to the point where I really don't care how many people are coming.

[murlough23]

Unless I'm making food, I've just gotten to the point where I really don't care how many people are coming.

I usually don't care either, unless we're on the verge of no one showing up if only a few folks expressed interest and I can't gauge whether they were just "being polite", or it's a situation like dinner at a tightly booked restaurant, where they won't seat you until your entire party's there.

[Vlad!]

This falls under the ever-broadening category of things I hate when people do even though I do them too.

When someone says "I think X is this way" as though it ends the debate, putting the onus on me to prove him wrong.

See for example the recent bug I filed with SMF.

Without even bothering to look it up, some goon says "blah blah this is wrong blame someone else". The subset of characters not allowed in a URI is very small, which any decent web programmer should know because they should be properly escaped ("URI-encoded"). I'm a systems programmer, and even I know that.

Geez.

[murlough23]

Without even bothering to look it up, some goon says "blah blah this is wrong blame someone else". The subset of characters not allowed in a URI is very small, which any decent web programmer should know because they should be properly escaped ("URI-encoded"). I'm a systems programmer, and even I know that.

I often have to deal with the proper character set allowed in a URL, and more significantly, in a filename on a Windows or Unix system. I do all that I can to account for this, but I often find that Mac users will do particularly troublesome things like putting slashes in filenames and then uploading them to our web server, after which the system complains that it can't find the file, because it thinks whatever preceded the slashes indicates names of subdirectories that of course don't exist. Any attempt to rename the file immediately after upload is thwarted by this. I can be forgiving with spaces and stuff, but seriously? Slashes and question marks and colons? Why the hell do Macs still allow this?

[Vlad!]

I can be forgiving with spaces and stuff, but seriously? Slashes and question marks and colons? Why the hell do Macs still allow this?

I think the better question is "why *doesn't* Windows allow this"? That's why pretty much all web programming languages have a URLEncode function.

[murlough23]

I think the better question is "why *doesn't* Windows allow this"? That's why pretty much all web programming languages have a URLEncode function.

Right, but I can't encode something that I can't locate to begin with.

[Vlad!]

I was curious what Windows would do in this case (I was confused because I assumed your web server would be running a POSIX-compliant OS).

Code:

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

H:\>touch naughty\\file
touch: naughty\\file: No such file or directory

H:\>touch naughty/\file
touch: naughty/\file: No such file or directory

H:\>touch naughty^\file
touch: naughty\file: No such file or directory

Looks like Windows doesn't allow you to create a file with a \ from the command line at all.

Code:

[nathanb@nathanb-box ~] touch naughty\\file
[nathanb@nathanb-box ~] ls naughty*
naughty\file

Linux, of course, does.

Code:

H:\>ls naughty*
ls: naughty*: No such file or directory

H:\>ls naught*
NAUGHT~1

Aha, when Windows encounters this file it gives it the truncated name developed for interoperability back in the Windows 95 era.

Code:

H:\>rm "NAUGHT~1"

H:\>ls naught*
ls: naught*: No such file or directory

Looks like you can then deal with it as if it were a regular file...

Interesting.

[murlough23]

Right, but I'm writing code to do this on the fly. I'm not at a terminal manually trying to track the thing down.

[Vlad!]

Right, but I'm writing code to do this on the fly. I'm not at a terminal manually trying to track the thing down.

Well, right, I was assuming this was the case, and you were telling the OS to create the file and it's like "no can-do".

(Or possibly it somehow already wrote the file and then can't open it for reading? Hm...I wrote a Ruby script and a C program to try and create a file with a slash in the name, and in both cases it succeeded on Linux and failed on Windows. I'm reasonably convinced that it's not going to let you even write the file.)

I guess you just had a function to convert naughty characters to non-naughty characters?

[murlough23]

Well, right, I was assuming this was the case, and you were telling the OS to create the file and it's like "no can-do".

Yep. Basically "upload file to folder, then rename". Doesn't work if it doesn't think the file path exists. I could potentially tell it to dump the file name completely and use some temp file name on upload, but the system is supposed to be designed to maintain file names of the user's uploaded documents where possible.

(Or possibly it somehow already wrote the file and then can't open it for reading? Hm...I wrote a Ruby script and a C program to try and create a file with a slash in the name, and in both cases it succeeded on Linux and failed on Windows. I'm reasonably convinced that it's not going to let you even write the file.)

Right. It doesn't even get there.

I guess you just had a function to convert naughty characters to non-naughty characters?

Yeah, for everything but slashes and some other characters that cause the server to have fits, a regular expression takes care of that quite nicely.

Whoever's fault it is, it's just stupid that we haven't arrived at a best practice by this point that is allowed by all. At the very least when you're on a Mac and trying to upload something to the Internet or copy it to a networked machine, it would be nice if it prompted you: "Would you like to change the filename of 'Minutes from 03/07/2010.pdf' to 'Minutes_from_03_07_2010.pdf'?" or something like that. Make folks aware of the potential problem, but give them the option to heed or ignore the advice.

[Vlad!]

There is a best practice...don't use a broken OS for your webserver...

 

[murlough23]

There is a best practice...don't use a broken OS for your webserver...

 

I'm not the one who gets to make that call.

[Brenden]

Two things came to mind at work today.

I don't get people who just sit there dumbly with the menu spread out all over the table in front of them after they order, not moving it an inch until I ask them for it. You know I'm gonna ask for it, if you're done with it you should hand it to me automatically or at least fold it up so it's not in your way. But some people will just leave it there, even putting drinks and food on top of it if you let them.

I also don't get people who buy drinks at the bar and sit down in the restaurant. Do you think I won't get you beer despite it being on the menu and the bar being in the restaurant? Are people really that stupid? To top it off, some people will order water at the table, then go over to the bar and buy beer. Why the hell would you do that rather than just have me bring it to you?

[Vlad!]

When we were at a bar in Durham a couple weeks ago, my friend had been waiting for us and so had started a tab at the bar. In order to not look like he was trying shenanigans (and because our waitress visited our table about once per century), when he wanted more beer he just walked up to the bar. However, just to prove that he wasn't trying to be an ass, he tipped the waitress for the drinks he ordered at the bar (he also tipped the bartender, of course).

[Brenden]

When we were at a bar in Durham a couple weeks ago, my friend had been waiting for us and so had started a tab at the bar. In order to not look like he was trying shenanigans (and because our waitress visited our table about once per century), when he wanted more beer he just walked up to the bar. However, just to prove that he wasn't trying to be an ass, he tipped the waitress for the drinks he ordered at the bar (he also tipped the bartender, of course).

See, that was nice of him. Most people who do that don't tip the server for the drinks. Though a lot of the people I see aren't waiting for their friends, but their friends are already at the table and they are waiting because the rest of their party has come in and is still at the bar ordering drinks. The other day I was even standing next to them before they sat down as I got the drinks for their friends who had been at the table for a few minutes before they ever got to the building.

[murlough23]

I never go to restaurant bars, since I find it much easier to have a waiter come to me and ask what I want rather than getting a bartender's attention amidst noisy music/chatter. But if I did, the rule would be this: If the waiter was taking freaking forever and I went to the bar because of that, it would result in a lower tip for the waiter. If the waiter was being timely and I was just in a hurry or whatever, I think the right thing to do would be to tip both.

In real life, when I have a waiter who disappears for a ridiculous length of time and I really need something (like a drink refill), I'll ask one of the other wait staff passing by if they can track down the person who's assigned to my table. I try not to pester other waiters to bring me stuff since they weren't assigned to me - I figure they each get to work specific tables, so basically all I want is a co-worker to remind them to start doing their job again. I don't expect them to show up every five minutes or so, but if it's been twenty and the dude's nowhere to be seen and they haven't informed me, "I'll be taking my lunch, here's this other waiter who will be taking over", then I might start to get irked.

One thing I never understood is why, when you finish your meal, sometimes they wait freaking forever to bring you your check. Maybe they're hoping you'll realize you have room for dessert or another drink or something and order more? Maybe they're trying to be polite and not rush you? Either way, I'm not the type to just sit around and enjoy the ambiance, so I usually try to ask for the check when the waiter approaches as I'm nearing the point of being full. Sometimes when they're really slow to bring the check, I'm actually tempted to just make a rough guess of what we owe plus tax and tip, and just leave cash on the table and go.

[Vlad!]

We have a really bad habit of staying way past closing time at our favorite restaurants just shooting the breeze. It's kind of a vicious cycle, since we feel bad for keeping the staff late so we tip higher so then the staff don't want to pester us because we're good tippers and we stay even later.

I have the strange habit of not wanting to drink from a glass at a restaurant unless I have a straw (this is even the case for a disposable cup that I can assume nobody else has used). If the waiter or waitress doesn't automatically give me a straw and I have to ask for one, sometimes it can take a while to get it to my table. I try not to be that guy roaming around the restaurant looking for a straw, but sometimes I have to hunt one down myself so I can take a drink.

(I'm not normally germophobic or anything like that, so I'm not sure why I have such an aversion to drinking straight from the glass. And I don't drink from a straw at home, so I'm not entirely sure why I do this. But I do. So I guess that's pretty much on-topic for this thread.)

[murlough23]

Sounds to me like you're grasping at straws for a reason why this is on topic.

[Wildcatblue7]

One thing I never understood is why, when you finish your meal, sometimes they wait freaking forever to bring you your check. Maybe they're hoping you'll realize you have room for dessert or another drink or something and order more? Maybe they're trying to be polite and not rush you? Either way, I'm not the type to just sit around and enjoy the ambiance, so I usually try to ask for the check when the waiter approaches as I'm nearing the point of being full. Sometimes when they're really slow to bring the check, I'm actually tempted to just make a rough guess of what we owe plus tax and tip, and just leave cash on the table and go.

Um, to be honest, every time I do this (which is pretty rare), it's because I just plain forgot I hadn't dropped a check on the table.  Okay, there are occasions when the table is taking SO LONG TO FREAKING EAT THEIR FOOD that I get tired of checking on them and just let them call me for the check.  So this is a thing people do that does make sense, it just doesn't appear to. 

[Brenden]

One thing I never understood is why, when you finish your meal, sometimes they wait freaking forever to bring you your check. Maybe they're hoping you'll realize you have room for dessert or another drink or something and order more?

At Rainforest, we're trained to ask about dessert when the table is mostly done, and if they don't want anything else we drop the check off right away. I like that system and wish more places used it, since once I've just announced I'm done, why wouldn't I want the check?

In terms of positive things that don't make sense to me, people apologizing for changing their order while I'm still taking it. They'll order a burger, then as I'm writing it down be all, "wait, can I get the fries instead of the chips, sorry". I'm still taking the order, why would I be inconvenienced when you change your mind right then? It's the people who change their order after I've already rung their food in that annoy me, since the company will hold that against me.

[enemy anemone]

thing that I do that possibly doesn't make sense to others but makes sense to me because I don't enjoy them anyway: avoiding eating establishments, especially sit-down restaurants. -_-