Sigh … I think it’s going to be one of those days again. For me, it’s those days where people come and ask you pointlessly trivial questions all day or just have some level of incompetency that frightens you to the point of chuckling ruefully.

The fun today actually started yesterday when my boss emailed this other guy (Grandpa from my previous post) with a list of stuff to do (and CC’d some of us other people on it). Somehow this guy misinterpreted downloading a set of data from one client as downloading a set of data from ALL of our clients. Luckily I managed to head that one off as he ran into my office frantically saying that it was going to take 4 of us coordinating all our efforts to get all this data transferred.

After I calmly explained that he only meant one client I thought that would be the end of it. Ha! The guy then sends out an email with some sample reports of the data that was on our client’s system. He had run a report to incorporate all of the data for the month of January … for which there was no data.

So I responded that we haven’t had a reliable set of data for this client EVER until the past two weeks (which is clearly stated in the email) so that’s all we need to look at.

Then at the end of the day yesterday, he comes in and is like, “I’m downloading data from the client site and it won’t be done for a couple hours, can you check on it before you leave.”

Wondering why it’s taking so long, I ask, “How much data are you downloading?”

“Everything since 2004.”

I sit in stunned silence for a moment and then give the most non-commital “Sure, I’ll check it before I leave,” I can muster.

Then we get to today, he comes into my office and is like, “I’m trying to transfer the data to the test computer but I can’t get internet access on it.”

“Yeah, we’ve got virtual server on there and that can cause problems with the network cards sometimes. Let me take a look.”

So I come out and a web page is up on a browser.

“Is that the internet?” I ask.

“Yes, it works when I log in as my user but not when I log in as the test user.”

So we log back in as the test user and he double clicks IE. “See,” he says plaintively while indicating the blank white screen where a web page should have loaded. “The internet is not working.”

Overcoming the urge to repeatedly smack myself in the head for having wasted more than 5 seconds of my precious life on this pointless exercise, I calmly respond “No, the internet works fine. It’s just set to a blank home page.”

UPDATE 1: Later that day …

In he comes to my office, “The report isn’t running, it keeps crashing.”

Out I go to the test computer. Again he points to the screen and says, “See,” as the application crashes while running the report.

“Do you have the latest version of the software?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s make sure it has the latest version on it.” I say.

“I can go download it,” he responds, “and then we can remote desktop into the computer from my PC and get it that way.”

“Or,” I quickly reply, “we can get it off the share server in like 2 seconds right now. See. Done.”

“Now,” I continue, “did you delete the files I specifically told you that you need to make sure you delete before you run the program? Well, let’s delete them again just to be safe.”

Upon deleting the somehow still existing suspect files, we rerun the report. And surprise, it is a success.

I haven’t posted in a while because, as always, I’m busy with things at work. It’s a difficult struggle trying to maintain a system written over 10 years ago in C/C++ using a series of different flat files and settings files for configuration and upgrading it to a new C#/.NET database driven application. Especially when you’re not particularly familiar with C#.

Still, it’s pretty interesting and really the best job I’ve ever had (not that I’ve had that many).

It can get frustrating at times. Like when I have to work with some of my coworkers. I mean, I get along with them all well enough, it’s just when trying to get something done with them that problems arise.

There’s a guy at work (I think he’s from Senegal, but speaks French, English, Russian, and Spanish I think) but he’s also supposed to be a programmer. Still, working with him is sometimes like working with a mentally challenged individual. You get the feeling when talking with him and his responses that he is responding based on one or two words that are in your sentence, but not actually to the meaning of it.

Then, sometimes we have to remotely connect into our clients’ computers. Sometimes I swear it’s like I’m doing this with my grandpa. He’ll sit there quietly saying what he’s going to do next (”and now I’m going to copy this here and …”), will click and close the wrong window, etc. Eventually I have to pull a Nick the Computer Guy, SNL Sketch maneuver, and be like, “Move! I’m driving!”

Add to the fact that he has an LCD 1280×1024 resolution monitor but for some reason keeps it at the non-native 1024×768 resolution. Which if you’ve ever seen, will give you headaches. He also has his icons and buttons set to ridiculously large size. If I’m ever trying to help him solve a bug in his code, we can see maybe 10 lines at a time.

Sigh, sorry to rant for so long, but it’s something that I’ve had to deal with a lot lately. If anyone has similar or somehow related coworker stories, I’d really appreciate some company!