What Are Your Ethical Pet Peeves? 17

[BJCooperIT]

I am basically a tree person. I get lost in the details, which is to say, I am busy tending the leaves while others are looking out for the forest. There is a another thread regarding the most serious ethical issues faced by IT professionals and my question is not as lofty. I am asking for your ethical pet peeves. Not the earthshaking moral dilemmas but the little rights and wrongs that drive you crazy.

One of my high ranking personal gripes is DOCUMENTATION. Yes, I agree, it sometimes is a PITA to write. I know some coders perceive it as a waste of time. It is however an important legacy to leave good quality documentation. Sometimes I am called back to do some additional enhancements or bug fixes (yes...I do make mistakes) for a previous client. I go back into code I barely remember writing let alone remember the business rules the code is supporting. I am usually shocked to learn I would be lost without the liberal comments I left sprinkled around. Without the system documentation I wrote would I be able to tell the user how to achieve that complicated procedure run once in a blue moon? Definitely not. If I need the documentation for my own code, then user needs it even more.

My position is that I am a paid professional and when I code an application, the documentation is an integral part of the whole and it is ethically required. Is it acceptable that the documentation is of a poor quality and thus useless? IMHO, absolutely not. How is it that so many professionals deem it appropriate to leave unintelligible bits of information scribbled on napkin scraps, jumbled instructions typed at 3:00am that make no sense, or worse yet nothing at all? I am not just referring to a programmer documenting a program here. I am including most IT deliverables - networks, applications, security, and ________ (you fill in the blank).

Assuming I posess the necessary intellect and skills, if I read a manual and cannot figure out how the system functions then time and money were squandered on useless typing. If a technical person cannot glean information from it, how did the author expect the users to use it as a resource?

Case in point. My users bought a software package. The documentation is sub-standard. No, that is too kind, quite frankly it is crap. Even the project manager from the vendor admits their documentation is absolutely awful. My observation is that the person who wrote it was a detailed technical person who has no concept of how to present information to non-techs. Reminds me of the line from the movie Beetlejuice: "It reads like stereo instructions". Even that is giving it too much credit.

If documentation is not provided or is sub-standard then my feeling is that an ethical boundary has been violated.

OK, what drives you up a wall? Rants acceptable.

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Consultant/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle 8.1.7 - Windows 2000
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[butchrecon]

Users who eat and drink in front of their computers, dropping food and spilling drinks on them. THEN when keys on the keyboard no longer work, they have the audacity to get upset with you for selling them faulty equipment
.

James Collins
Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP, MCSA, Network+

 

[TomKane]

I must admit I eat at my desk - but I catch the food long before it hits the keyboard - I wouldn't be that wasteful.

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

1. Wasting time

Time is precious to me. I do not want my time wasted. In the case of work, I've gotten up at some ungodly hour and am wearing uncomfortable clothes (I prefer to wear very little, frankly) and have driven or walked or biked or bussed in, so there better be a problem I can solve, else my time is being wasted.

Meetings longer than 30 minutes waste time. Meetings where documentation is passed out for the first time and people glance at it and ask the Caller to summarize it are a waste of time (e-mail the document when you set up the meeting and I'll prep in advance, thanks).

People who put signs on their door or set their phones, or otherwise indicate that they cannot be disturbed waste my time. I have a task that must be performed. I am sufficiently respectful of time such that I will not waste theirs. Therefore, if I require a signature or I require a permission modified or I require something else that they control, I will completely ignore any request, sign, or blinking red LED that suggests they want to be left alone. I was asked once what I would respect. I replied that I only disturb those who are both present and interfering with my work and the way to avoid me was to either stay home, or remove oneself from the "required tool" collection.

People who won't communicate waste time. It's easy. There's e-mail, a telephone, you can come by my desk, you can call me to yours. Send me a fax. As a co-worker to come tell me. Call my favorite radio station and ask them to dedicate "Sixteen Tons" to me. I don't care how it happens, just that it does -- as soon as possible.

Wasting time. Feh.

Cheers,


Edward

Like Lovecraft? Know Photoshop? Got time for the Unspeakable?

http://www.petting-zoo.org/Movies_Dreamquest.html

 

[sleipnir214]

EdwardMartinIII:
<sarcasm>
You said everything you needed to in your first paragraph. Do you know how much time I waste reading pleonastic writing? (

http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/p/p0372000.html)

</sarcasm>


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TANSTAAFL!

 

[flapeyre]

We all have a certain department in our respective organizations, not to be found on any organizational flow chart, or listed in any directory, and management will deny it exists, but it exists nonetheless.

It's the Department of Redundancy Department.


&quot;When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for here you have been, and there you will always long to return.&quot;

--Leonardo da Vinci

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

You said everything you needed to in your first paragraph.

True, which is why it is numbered. The remaining was examples of various ways in which my time is wasted. I personally, don't care what you do with your time, so how much of it you spent reading what I wrote as examples of my single point just can't be my concern.

Cheers,


Edward

Like Lovecraft? Know Photoshop? Got time for the Unspeakable?

http://www.petting-zoo.org/Movies_Dreamquest.html

 

[sleipnir214]

EdwardMartinIII:
Interesting....

If you don't care what people do with their time, then I see no reason why that person with the &quot;Do not Disturb&quot; sign on his door should care what you do with your time. It seems to me that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

If you have the right to decide what is the best use of your time, then so does the &quot;DnD sign&quot; guy. Your ignoring his &quot;Do not Disturb&quot; abrogates his right to make that decision, while you seem to want to reserve that right for yourself.

Or is it that your time is so much more valuable than every one else's, your right to decide takes precedence over everyone else's?


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[EdwardMartinIII]

If you don't care what people do with their time, then I see no reason why that person with the &quot;Do not Disturb&quot; sign on his door should care what you do with your time.

Correct.

It seems to me that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Most people believe this is correct, but I do not subscribe to the supposition that double standards are de facto wrong. Consent overrides. If I accept your authority over me and some concomitant set of rules, for example, then I lose (even if temporarily until I change my mind) my right to complain that there is more than one standard in operation. It is simpler at times to keep one standard handy, but I don't consider it required.

If you have the right to decide what is the best use of your time, then so does the &quot;DnD sign&quot; guy.

Correct.

Your ignoring his &quot;Do not Disturb&quot; abrogates his right to make that decision, while you seem to want to reserve that right for yourself.

As I mentioned, if someone wants me to respect their desire to be undisturbed, then they must either not be at work, or not place themselves in my work path. If a manager tells me &quot;You must get my approval at every step before continuing&quot;, then I will. If they give me other conditions, such as &quot;this sign means you&quot; then I will (and have) informed them that the moment I need their signature and they have a sign up, they are interfering with my work. My primary task at work is to get the job done. If I can also respect other people's desire to be at work, yet not be &quot;disturbed&quot;, great, but that is not my priority (it's true that at times I can find other things to do for a while, if all indicators and the environment suggests that the DnD request can be respected without affecting adversely my work).

As far as wanting to reserve that right for myself, those are not my words. I do not want my time wasted. If I place myself in the path of a work flow, say, as an inspector, then that is my highest priority.

I have been in both situations, as a manager in a company where &quot;Do not Disturb&quot; signs littered the office like rabbit droppings, and in an engineering capacity where my managers told me to complete a task in a matter of hours that required half a dozen signatures.

This is a single standard of behavior against which I hold myself (although it doesn't have to be, but as a single standard, the rules are easier to follow and easier to explain). The only people who have ever objected to it have been other managers who wanted people to respect their &quot;Do Not Disturb&quot; signs (on occasion, I would post a sign on my door stating &quot;Please disturb me -- it's my job&quot;, the purpose of which was admittedly somewhat incendiary, but I stopped doing so when staff would see it and automatically think I had placed a DnD sign up). Peers would kvetch at me for &quot;spoiling&quot; the engineers and technicians. If I was in a good mood, I'd smile and tell them that I must be quite insane. I can't really recall having been in a bad mood at work, so I don't know what I would have said in that case. My professional relationships were always of the highest quality, in my opinion, and it really seemed to me as if the technicians and engineers with whom I associated really did better work, more cheerfully, than other folks.

Or is it that your time is so much more valuable than every one else's, your right to decide takes precedence over everyone else's?

You are welcome to spar with these words if you wish, but do so under no illusion they are mine.

Cheers,


Edward

Like Lovecraft? Know Photoshop? Got time for the Unspeakable?

http://www.petting-zoo.org/Movies_Dreamquest.html

 

[manarth]

Ed - if I need a manager's signature, and they're in a meeting, I'm quite happy to hang around and wait. I am being paid per hour after all

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please give feedback on what works / what doesn't[/li][li]need some help? how to get a better answer: faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Well, yeah, there is that, too.

Usually, I have other things to do that can occupy my time until the meeting's over. I try to give my employer the best buy for their money.

My trouble occurs when I have too many of these pending items in my stack and then I lose track of 'em (I was once mortified to discover that I had lost a purchase requisition for a test bench. Nothing mission-critical, but I swore to do what I could to make it never happen again). The solution I've used in the past has been to tack 'em to a wall. I've also programmed Outlook to harrass me and sent e-mail with the notify-me-when-they-read-it flag set, on the theory that as soon as they read it, they're automatically predisposed to my presense, and I haul hiney over to their office with the document. &quot;Oh look, you were reading that and I just happen to be strolling by...!&quot;

Cheers,


Edward

 

[PalmStrike]

Hi there,

What a great thread, I so wish I'd been checking this forum of late, this has become a big one, and if I try to read the lot I will forget my own, I shall get through it though.

I started a different thread with my ethical pet hate at the time a while back, so I am not going to go down that road this time. But if you are talking biggest pet hate, how about this one:

The serial buck passer. what a w.. (no swearing sorry) They are:
1.Your superior - when it suits or when they need something NOW.
2.Only second in command - &quot;Go and see the boss&quot; when you have needs
3.Your colleague - when there is an angry phone call.
4.your mentor - when you have just done a great job.
5.Your repramander - when you have just made a mistake.

This sort of person you could take round to see your mother as long as she doesn't go out of the room to make tea for every one.

Two faced fuggnshuggnsnaaarrrlll....

I have to point out I will feel silly if no one else knows this guy.

 

[BJCooperIT]

Know him? I used to give him a ride to work!

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Consultant/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle 8.1.7 - Windows 2000
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[GreenTeeth]

Hope you got some petrol money out of him

 

[BakeMan]

I'd say I have to a agree with garwain.

My biggest pet peeve is the promoting (or hiring in my case) of people with degrees and certification flying out of their backsides but yet have no practical experience. I work as a temporary employee for a large company (it's hardly temporary, I've been here for almost three years). I am continually being passed over for open &quot;Full Time&quot; or permanent employment opportunities by management who continues to hire people from the outside. Their reasoning is that they need someone who has a certification in some obscure piece of software. So, they hire someone who claims to know this tool on their resume and pay them twice what I make along with all of the benefits of being a permanent employee. This has repeatedly backfired on them as they have to let these good for nothing so called programmers go because of a lack of knowledge or professionalism and come crawling to me to learn their tool and employment the process they hired this person for in the first place. I can't even count the number of times this has happened and the number of applications I have implemented and now support because of it. This is all because they have implemented and continue to stick to the methodology that one must have a certification in the application in order to do a proper job when working with it. I really hate this!!! It's insulting when they turn me down for the position, but it's down right rude when they come to me three months later and ask me to do the work anyway with out the permanent position.

Thank you all for the great posts and the opportunity to vent my frustrations

BAKEMAN

P.S.

It's not that I'm incapable of getting the certifications for the required tasks, it's just that I have four children that I would rather spend what little time they give me off rather than sitting in a class learning theory that will never be applicable in a real world scenario. I mean come on, how many times has your employer asked you to create a &quot;Hello World&quot; program for the company. I can read a book, I don't need a professor to give me a piece of paper to say that I did it or a score on a test to say that I understood what I read, just look at my work and judge by that alone and not what courses I did or did not take ten years ago.

 

[BJCooperIT]

BAKEMAN:
Have you considered making a demand of your employer when they come crawling? Something like:
&quot;Certainly I can create an Oracle Discoverer EUL for that system as long as I have your assurance that once I have successfully implemented it the company will hire me as full-time employee at a suitable salary.&quot;

The unsaid portion being: &quot;Otherwise you can wait until your nose turns blue until I get around to it!

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Consultant/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle 8.1.7 - Windows 2000
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[BakeMan]

BJCooperIT

Actually, I have made a similar demand to the company and there reply was to &quot;Dangle a carrot in front of my face&quot;.

They told me that they could not hire me at the time due to lack of money, but assured me that upon completion of the project that I would be suitably compensated. At the end of the project nothing happened. So I went to the head hunter agency that originally set me up with the job and told them to find me something else. Once my employer got word of this they quickly offered me a token raise. Since overall this is the best job I've ever had, I took their offer. Now I feel that I've made my play and let them know that I do not really have any interest in leaving. I feel that my only recourse would be to leave and give up the happiness I have today. I will eventually get fed up with being insulted and leave but for now I suffer in silence and blow off steam in these fora when ever I get a chance.

Thank for letting me vent today's frustrations

BAKEMAN

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

This reminds me of the bricklayer who -- whenever he built a chimney -- added a thin layer of glass right about in the middle, transparently blocking the flue. Often, he would be told &quot;Oh, I just don't have the cash right now, can I pay you Tuesday.&quot; Agreeably, he would head out until he received the call from owner-of-smoky-house. Upon payment, he dropped a rod down and shattered the glass. Chimney works!

One could argue this isn't the coolest thing to do and one could argue that this is also rather dangerous, and I would agree. But I still cackle at it. It is almost certainly an Urban Legend.

I think most people would agree that to similarly disable a piece of software wouldn't be exactly the best business practice, but the fact is, many times, I build a piece of software and then there are endless runarounds with the hiring company, who just won't cut me a check. I have reams of approved specs and sign-offs, but still, all it takes is one manager who is in a surly mood that day to topple the whole approval process.

What I want to say is &quot;I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently certified for time travel.&quot; but that, often, is a Career-Limiting Move.

So, in my fantasy world, there's a piece of glass in there. Looks fine, but is missing some crucial functional piece. When the check clears, I flip the Op Bit.

sigh...

I know, it's better to simply hammer at 'em until you get what you're promised.

Which brings me to:

...assured me that upon completion of the project that I would be suitably compensated...

Get it in writing. Writing is power. Memos are power. Whet their appetite with a sexy interface and then tell 'em you want the promise in writing before you &quot;wrap up&quot; the back-end.

Sorry for rambling. I'm my own pet peeve!

Cheers,


Edward

&quot;Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!&quot; -- inventor of the cat door

 

[rexxxy]

I cant stand it when techs talk down the work of other techs. I reliase that there are some poorly skilled people in the industry, but more often than not, its a poorly skilled tech putting down a skilled tech in order to boost their own image.