Elwood P Dowd's Journal: One day this will result in fisticuffs

Stepped into my superior's office to update him on a live bug. Once I was done, I noticed that he was responding to a user request that I knew I could handle in about a half an hour once I was done with the live bug. It looked like a long, long email.

Me: "Oh. I can deal with that feature request later."

Him: "Yeah, you will deal with it. I'm just trying to gather requirements." At this point I notice that his email (to an end user) contains raw VB code. He pasted 225 lines of VB code into the email to impress upon the user that there was considerable work to be done for her new feature.

Me: "That's what I'm saying. I can do that. I think it'll be pretty easy for me to understand."

He's getting upset with me now: "Right. You will do that. I'm just raising some issues that I think you two will need to address."

Me: "Bob. That's fine. That email?" (pointing)

Him: "Yes?"

Me: "That is all I'm talking about. You can send that if you like, or I can handle the whole thing from top to bottom. I know the issues that will have to be addressed for this feature."

Him: "Oh. Well I'm almost done."

Me: "Fine. Totally up to you."

Uh oh...

[grub]

I'll be watching CNN for "Programmer shoots 5 then self..." ;)

I still remember going to a boss

[smittyoneeach]

"Who coded this homesick abortion?" I asked, after I had brought up a page with some JavaScript that looked like its momma fooled around with Perl. "Someone has brow-beaten radio buttons to act like check boxes," I continued. "While that's interesting from either a perverted or academic viewpoint, it is horrible to maintain and performs like a Ford Pinto in a drag race."
"Oh...uhhh...there used to be a consultant on the project that did that..."
Later I realized that, while the reply was no doubt strictly

Re:I still remember going to a boss

[Elwood P Dowd]

I haven't said anything to him about those 225 lines of VB code in an email to an end user, but it might come up next time he tells me that I should defer to his opinion about what is too simple or too complex to present because he is an expert manager and people person.

YEAH? MAYBE WE SHOULD CHANGE THE COLOR AND QUADRUPLE THE FONT SIZE TO HIGHLIGHT SALIENT POINTS IN THE 225 LINES OF CODE I'LL PASTE IN THE POWERPOINT SLIDE?

Re:I still remember going to a boss

[smittyoneeach]

Genious! Putting an entire application in PowerPoint slides, and then Eval()-ing it into existence! We will, however, require an XML build system...