Anyway, we got to talking and had a couple beers re-hashing old war stories. I pulled this chestnut out and thought I'd share with you...
Once upon a time I was the contact point for some major accounts. One day, this client wants to buy our product but they didn't want to maintain the default database (the install had over 10,000 pre-defined items in it). They wanted custom setup work. Ok. No problem. We provided that service. I received their database and the list of changes they wanted made...
It's a 300 page spreadsheet.
Over 9000 changes they wanted made. Deletions. Additions. Modifications of existing records.
Sad kitty.
But it's a sizeable contract so I gotta put my big boy pants on, right?
So I'm plugging away going blind on numbers for a solid day and a half before I realize it would have been faster for me to start with a completely empty database rather than a normal one. I should have received a spec sheet saying "Here's a few hundred things we want" not one that said "Here's several thousands things we don't want."
Then realization #2 struck me...
This 300 page report was generated by our software. However, someone brought it into Excel and color coded it so I'd know what I'd have to do. Dig? But how did that person know which items in the spreadsheet needed which colors? Easy! Each record that had a value of 0 in a certain field was in need of change. How did they accomplish this? Easy! They went into the database, reviewed every single record and modified each accordingly.
Instead of, you know, making the changes themselves.
Not only did they pre-duplicate the exact work I was undertaking, they also assigned one of their employees color code a 300 page report on that work afterwards
Jesus. Wept.
I sympathized. I once had a manager who would email me documents with the instructions "E-mail this to so-and-so."
Why did the hell did he email it to me in the first place? Certainly not because I needed to see the docs. In some cases the docs in question were above my clearance level. So why did he not just email the person directly???
I will go to my grave not knowing. I suspect it had something to do with his rabid cocaine habit or perhaps tertiary syphilis contracted from one of the porn stars he was given to paying for sex at his buddy's mansion.
I wish I could make up stuff like that. Hand to god, yo.
So there you go. I promised you one anecdote and you got three.
