*opens camera*
*permission popup asking for contacts/telephone permissions*

*installs Open Camera*

Really, fucking phone/contact permissions to take pictures?!

Yeah fuck right off.

"I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone." - Bjarne Stroustrup

One day I developed a simple website for a goldsmith who I already new for a year or so.

We discussed everything and agreed on a feature set, price and a deadline when it should be ready. Based on this we signed a contract and I started my work.

Unfortunately at the same time I lost most of my childhood friends. I moved to a new city and started to study computer science, which was awesome on the contrary.

This is where the horror began.

I was totally occupied by the studying, my partner, myself and by the shit of life.

It knocked on my door. The horror decided to pay me a visit.

"Had a look at your calendar recently? Just saying..."

Shit! The deadline came closer and closer everyday and the pile of work undone grew with it. At that point I had to do something. I don't know what it was or how I did it, but somehow I managed to finish the project just in time. I was totally not proud of it, but it featured what was required.

The day before I contacted my client, the horror knocked on my door again. He said:

"You really should have a look at your hard drive."
"Why? everything seems allright."
"Well, then look closer."
"Fuck."
"Right."

Well, there are backups at least, I thought to myself. I'll just recover the last state. That was an annoying thought, but nothing serious. That's just one or two days of w... - Wait, what? Where are my backups? What the actual fuck? Why is the zip file broken? Why doesn't the flash drive work anymore? FUUUCK!!

I was lost. It was a complete nightmare.

Each time my telephone rang the following days, my heart skipped a beat. Finally my client's name appeared on the display. I answered the call, my hands shaking.

"Hey there! I'm calling to discuss the website project with you."
"Well, about that..."
"Yeah, I know you put a huge amount of efford in it so I'm really sorry to say that I on the other hand can't effort the money. Actually I'd like to simply forget about this whole idea."

Seriously? What the fuck just happend? I suddenly noticed a sticky note infront of me reading:
"It was really fun to see you suffer, but I have to go! See ya
- The Horror"

"Hello, are you still there? Do you hear me?", yelled a voice through my phone.
"Uh, yeah. You know, that project was a lot of work and... but you know what? It was actually a pretty fun exercise and I'm doing well over here, so because it's you I'd agree."
I heared a reliefed sigh from the other end of the line.
"Really good! I owe you something! Bye!"

What. The. Fuck.

I have a telephone headset with a "confusing" mute button. Sometimes it works normally, but quite often it will "double-toggle" (toggle twice as though I pressed it twice, which essentially has no effect) - so I'm either left muted or left un-muted, the same as before I pressed the button at all - so I have to press it again, sometimes several times, for it to actuary work.

While I'm at my desk, I have a visual indicator of mute status (a light that turns green for un-muted or red for muted), so I can easily tell if my mic is hot or not. My old headset had a nice audible beep reminder if I was muted, but the new headset? Nope, not-so-much.

I work from home, while my wife works at an office; so each morning she leaves, but I stay in the home office. I almost always see her off one way or another, usually doing or saying something funny as she heads out.

So, one day, I'm on a large conference call with a number of cross-team managers, and my wife is about to head out the door. With the meeting droning on in my headset, I was in the kitchen with her for a while helping finish clean up after breakfast and getting her ready to go.

She needed to pack an ice-pack for some reason, and for the random humor of it, I start screaming something to the effect of "GIMMIE YO ICE PACKS - GIMMIE ALLLL YO ICE PACKS - YEAH! YEAH! IMMA PUT MY BAAAAAAAAALLLLLS ON IT - WHOOOOOOOOO!"

During which time I am jumping around like a crazy person, including actually grabbing one of the ice packs, putting it down the front of my pants and screaming. Loudly.

It was after my own screaming I overheard more than one person yelling on the bridge line "YOU'RE NOT MUTED! YOU'RE NOT MUTED!"

I have seldom felt such raw, unadulterated panic.

I rushed back to my home office - yes, the green light is on my desk - my mic is hot. When I pressed mute at some point earlier in the call, it double-toggled, leaving me un-muted, and I never knew.

Even more embarrassing was the chat session I saw on my computer screen. It was from my manager (one of the managers on the call) - he had pinged me several times while I was in the kitchen.

It read something like:

hey, you there?
is that your phone
I think your phone isn't muted
mute
dude, mute
is that you?
MUTE!
did you just say balls?

IBM

I have replied to them with scripts, curl commands, and Swagger docs (PROVIDED TO SUPPORT THEIR API), everything that could possibly indicate there's a bug. Regardless, they refuse to escalate me to level 1 support because "We cant reproduce the issue in a dev environment"

Well of course you can't reproduce it in a dev environment otherwise you'd have caught this in your unit tests. We have a genuine issue on our hands and you couldnt give less of a shit about it, or even understand less than half of it. I literally gave them a script to use and they replied back with this:

"I cannot replicate the error, but for a resource ID that doesnt exist it throws an HTTP 500 error"

YOUR APP... throws a 500... for a resource NOT FOUND?????????!!!!!!!!!! That is the exact OPPOSITE of spec, in fact some might call it a MISUSE OF RESTFUL APIs... maybe even HTTP PROTOCOL ITSELF.

I'm done with IBM, I'm done with their support, I'm done with their product, and I'm DONE playing TELEPHONE with FIRST TIER SUPPORT while we pay $250,000/year for SHITTY, UNRELENTING RAPE OF MY INTELLECT.

Guess who just bought a 700$ drone.
Guess who just flew his brand new drone into a telephone cable
Guess who cant get parts until Tuesday at a minimum

ME!

> Root struggles with her ticket
> Boss struggles too
> Also: random thoughts about this job

I've been sick lately, and it's the kind of sick where I'm exhausted all day, every day (infuriatingly, except at night). While tired, I can't think, so I can't really work, but I'm during my probationary period at work, so I've still been doing my best -- which, honestly, is pretty shit right now.

My current project involves legal agreements, and changing agent authorization methods (written, telephone recording, or letting the user click a link). Each of these, and depending on the type of transaction, requires a different legal agreement. And the logic and structure surrounding these is intricate and confusing to follow. I've been struggling through this and the project's ever-expanding scope for weeks, and specifically the agreements logic for the past few days. I've felt embarrassed and guilty for making so little progress, and that (and a bunch of other things) are making me depressed.

Today, I finally gave up and asked my boss for help. We had an hour and a half call where we worked through it together (at 6pm...). Despite having written quite a bit of the code and tests, he was often saying things like "How is this not working? This doesn't make any sense." So I don't feel quite so bad now.

I knew the code was complex and sprawling and unintuitive, but seeing one of its authors struggling too was really cathartic.

On an unrelated note, I asked the most senior dev (a Macintosh Lisa dev) why everything was using strings instead of symbols (in Rails) since symbols are much faster. That got him looking into the benchmarks, and he found that symbols are about twice as fast (for his minimal test, anyway), and he suggested we switch to those. His word is gold; mine is ignorable. kind of annoying. but anyway, he further went into optimizing the lookup of a giant array of strings, and discovered bsearch. (it's a divide-and-conquer lookup). and here I am wondering why they didn't implement it that way to begin with. 🙄

I don't think I'm learning much here, except how to work with a "mature" codebase. To take a page from @Rutee07, I think "mature" here means the same as in porn: not something you ever want ot see or think about.

I mean, I'm learning other things, too, like how to delegate methods from one model to another, but I have yet to see why you would want to. Every use of it I've explored thus far has just complicated things, like delegating methods on a child of a 1:n relation to the parent. Which child? How does that work? No bloody clue! but it does, somehow, after I copy/pasted a bunch of esoteric legacy bs and fussed with it enough.

I feel like once I get a good grasp of the various payment wrappers, verification/anti-fraud integration, and per-business fraud rules I'll have learned most of what they can offer. Specifically those because I had written a baby version of them at a previous job (Hell), and was trying to architect exactly what this company already has built.

I like a few things about this company. I like my boss. I like the remote work. I like the code reviews. I like the pay. I like the office and some socializing twice a year.

But I don't like the codebase. at all. and I don't have any friends here. My boss is friendly, but he's not a friend. I feel like my last boss (both bosses) were, or could have been if I was more social. But here? I feel alone. I'm assigned work, and my boss is friendly when talking about work, but that's all he's there for. Out of the two female devs I work with, one basically just ignores me, and the other only ever talks about work in ways I can barely understand, and she's a little pushy, and just... really irritating. The "senior" devs (in quotes because they're honestly not amazing) just don't have time, which i understand. but at the same time... i don't have *anyone* to talk to. It really sucks.

I'm not happy here.
I miss my last job.

But the reason I left that one is because this job allows me to move and work remotely. I got a counter-offer from them exactly matching my current job, sans the code reviews. but we haven't moved yet. and if I leave and go back there without having moved, it'll look like i just abandoned them. and that's the last thing I want them to think.

So, I'm stuck here for awhile.
not that it's a bad thing, but i'm feeling overwhelmed and stressed. and it's just not a good fit. but maybe I'll actually start learning things. and I suppose that's also why I took the job.

So, ever onward, I guess.
It would just be nice if I could take some of the happy along with me.

Dear Whatsapp.
FUCK YOU

When i sit on my computer and use the web application, it means I WANT TO USE WHATSAPP ON MY FUCKING PC. If i wanted to use my mobile, i would DO IT. BUT I DON'T, SO I USE MY FUCKING PC. So don't fuckin tell me to connect my telephone to the internet so i can use your fuckin web application. I ALREADY GOT A HEADACHE FROM THE DOUBLED NOTIFICATIONS.

There was a time I made an update on one of our client's e-commerce website sign-up page. The update caused a bug that allowed new users to create an account without actually creating an account.

The code block meant to save user credentials (i.e email address and password) to the database was commented out for some reasons I still can't remember to this day. After registration new users had their session created just as normal but in reality they have no recorded account on the platform. This shit went on like this for a whole week affecting over 350 new customers before the devil sent me a DM.

I got a call from my boss on that weekend that some users who had made purchases recently can't access their account from a different device and cannot also update their password. Nobody likes duty calls on a weekend, I grudgingly and sluggishly opened up my PC to create a quick fix but when I saw what the problem was I shut down my PC immediately, I ran into the shower like I was being chased by a ghost, I kept screaming "what tha fuck! what tha fuck!!" cus I knew hell was about to break loose.

At that moment everything seemed off as if I could feel everything, I felt the water dripping down my spine, I could hear the tiniest of sound. I thought about the 350 new customers the client just lost, I imagined the raving anger on the face of my boss, I thought about how dumb my colleagues would think I was for such a stupid long running bug.

I wondered through all possible solutions that could save me from this embarrassment.
-- "If this shitty client would have just allowed us verify users email before usage things wouldn't have gotten to this extent"
-- "Should I call the customers to get their email address using their provided telephone?... No they'd think I'm a scammer"
-- "Should I tell my boss the database was hacked? Pffft hack my a**",
-- "Should I create a page for the affected users to re-verify their email address and password? No, some sessions may have expired"
-- "Or maybe this the best time to quit this f*ckn job!"
... Different thoughts from all four corners of the bathroom made it a really long bath. Finally, I decided it was best I told my boss what had happened. So I fixed the code, called my boss the next day and explained the situation on ground to him and yes he was furious. "What a silly mistake..!" he raged and raged. See me in my office by Monday.
That night felt longer than usual, I couldn't sleep properly. I felt pity for the client and I blamed it all on myself... yeah the "silly mistake", I could have been more careful.

Monday came boss wasn't at the office, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday not available. Next week he was around and when we both met the discussion was about a different project. I tried briefing him about last week incident, he seems not to recall and demands we focus on the current project.

However, over three hundred and fifty customers swept under the carpet courtesy of me. I still felt the guilt of that f*ck up till this day.

The state of the web in 2020:
discussion sites as a medium are dying. chalk that up to censorship.

reddit is an echochamber. twitter is mostly a marketing platform disguised as (anti)social media. instagram is a self promotion/wannabe eceleb site, and youtube is the new hollywood..quickly becoming irrelevant.

facebook is where I (dont) go to (totally not) ignore all the people important to me.

and email is where I go to send letters bordering on hatespeech to my various local and federal "representatives", in between borderline cyberbullying people stupid enough not to automate their spam marketing in 2020. or talking to left/right self-help grifters about the state of society.

in the grim dark future of 2020, the last bastion of intelligent conversation, free speech, and civility, the one shining icon of hope in a dark world..
is the comment section of pornhub videos where a women got stuck under a bed for the 50,000th time. And all I can think is "wow I never knew how easy it was to get trapped under a bed. They should look into fixing this safety hazard."

newsmedia has jumped so many sharks, the fonz now spins in his grave so fast we could hook him up to a generator. meanwhile people hide in their homes for a disease so deadly you have to be tested to know if you even have it.

while ever more car commercials
are released, set to somber but hopeful piano music to the tune of "in this time of social distancing its important to stay close even when we're apart."

Im beginning to think media has become a poison on society, both television and the internet, and like an ersatz cargo cultist worshipping the great-charles- manson-in-the-sky we should all take a page from the unabomber and smash our televisions with hammers before going outside and sawing down the telephone polls.

I jest of course. But there is no denying the inherent appeal of moving from the unsettling uncertainty of complex societies, driven by expertly manipulated fear cycles, to the beatitude-esque simplicty of pastoral protestant style living, sans witch burning and shoe buckles.

And against the reckoning of utopians who are still fresh from the womb as it were, wet behind the ears and smelling of their mother's pussy, I reject the notion that "up" is a synonym for "forward."
Were it the case, every drinking binge, followed by throwing up, would bring us, with each vomitting, one step closer to heaven. Rather the state of affairs is what it is, and what it is, like most of nature, is a cruel master and a harsh teacher. And while we may binge on digital delusions of grandeur and a greater society, rest easy in the nihilistic and sobering thought that we are little more than 200,000 year old cave men wielding magic bricks, and atomic bombs.

..where water flows more readily from metal tubes in our houses than it does from the nile. where food comes to our door at little more than our beck and call.
where we may bath, and sleep, and *shit*, cleanly, comfortably, and safely, wrapped in the (failing) bubble of delusion we all tenaciously grasp collectively, the thing we call "civilization".

an empire of needful things, wanton and fragile.

if we have not gone mad from boredom, I have no doubt we one day will.

it becomes more and more obvious to me every day, had war never existed, it would have been necessary for man to invent it just to have something to do, that didnt include farming, fucking, or building.

And so enters "political idealogy."

How would we ever have enemies if we were allowed to speak our piece instead of being given the means (and reflex dogwhistle training) to silence and destroy one another?

give a man a gun, he'll rob a bank. give a man a bank, he'll rob the world.
give him a media empire or a tech platform, and he'll lie about the theft and convince one half of millions of lemmings to hate all the other lemmings.

This goddemn telephone keeps on ringing like I will never have peace of mind ever! I couldn't even write 10 lines of code straight. 😤

So we're hiring for a new junior dev and for the most part it's been going great! We have some promising candidates and I am so glad to finally have a new dev on the team!

However, I would like to take a moment and offer a few suggestions to the people who wish to work for this great and illustrious company:

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE APPLY FOR THE JOB USING THE METHOD INDICATED IN THE AD. Please use our fancy, top-of-the-line, whiz-bang, cloud-based "talent acquisition" system that we paid way too much money for. I promise you, it's easy! Please don't send in your application by email, mail, telephone, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, telegram or carrier pigeon. But most importantly...

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS BEAUTIFUL IN THIS WORLD DO NOT SHOW UP AT OUR OFFICE UNANNOUNCED RESUME-IN-HAND. Believe it or not I do have an actual job that I spend my day doing! If I'm not in a meeting or at lunch or working from home, the best possible scenario is that you'll get 30 seconds of awkward small talk and be pointed to our whiz-bang, top-of-the-line "talent acquisition" system which you should have used in the first place (you did read the ad, right?). And at this point whatever you do...

DO NOT DEMAND AN ON-THE-SPOT INTERVIEW WHEN YOU SHOW UP UNANNOUNCED TO OUR OFFICE! Like, really? Do you think that you've wowed me so with your 30 seconds of awkward small talk that clearly I cannot wait to see what you will do with an entire hour? Look, I prepare for my interviews. I research you, your previous employers, your school and the hobbies you list on your resume. I check out your GitHub and LinkedIn. I may even Google your name! If that is all in order, I try to hassle some people into sitting in with me, find a time that works for everyone, and hope that there is a meeting room available. I'm not going to interview you at reception at 4pm on a Friday afternoon.

Please submit your application through our whiz-bang, top-of-the-line online "talent acquisition" system. Once I figure out how to log in, I promise I will spend an evening and read through all your cover letters with the utmost care. If you seem OK, you'll get an interview. There aren't that many developers in this town.

Alright, this my fucking rant right here. Distraction? This whole company is a distraction! Boss decided to throw us all in an open work environment doing jobs that require careful concentration. Straight outta college I'm getting handed vague ideas, (make a desktop app that helps our customers put data on the internet, make an iPhone app) with out so much as an inkling of what technologies to use, just make it work.
Ok I will but when you hit a roadblock with very little resources to draw in it's hard to stay focused.
On top of that since I worked in support for a year I'm our senior support person! But sometimes support just doesn't use their brains and I'm using my time to solve very basic problems.
That brings me to my next point, the goddamn piece of shit that is our telephone. Fuck that thing when it rings it's never good. Moreover, since I don't want to get roasted for not being responsive I have the motherfucker forward to my personal cell. So I answer every fucking call and I get so many spam calls!
Not to mention I'm mainly running the hardware show around here. Shits broke I'm the one fixing it. Need new shit I'm putting the order together.
Tried to get a new guy to be the sys admin, ordered a 6th gen board with a 7th gen proc, had to pull 3 machines apart to get that sorted. Then he left bc family issues, and has been gone for weeks.
The other devs are also slam up busy, and the main product is about 15 people's piss on a plate of garb age spaghetti. (I got a lot of shit going on but at least I'm the only one pissing in my spaghetti) it's a constant run around if who does what with a code first plan later mentality causing confusion and delay.
Nobody wants to help anybody because they are also annoyed with this setup and are getting bitched at by customers or management.
Sales is mostly composed of a bunch of crackhead yes men and women who just want a commission and only half know the shit we sell and have sold 15 new features that had not been discussed. But management always says make it happen. In what priority? It's all a priority they say! Wtf.
So yea, then it brings me to me, dealing with this much chaos at work makes it seem like a high amount of chaos in my life is normal. I'm just now learning to control this.
I've had to do a lot of growing up as a person and as a developer. I've went from being the most junior to about the 3rd most seniors and I've no doubt my efforts have contributed to the growth of the company.
I'm a big believer in coding flow, and that it takes at least 15 mins to get in that flow and about 5 seconds to break it. There is no do not disturb on the company chat, everything always on fire it seems.
So fuck a lot of this, but I've done the research and where I'm at is the best opportunity in a 100 mile radius. So I am thankful for this job. Plus I usually win the horror story contest.

So TL;DR the biggest distraction is every fucking thing in this god forsaken place.

Starting my new bot experience together with Discord.
Discord is kinda easier than LINE. You had to create facebook accounts or fake lots of telephone numbers to be able to verify your bot account. They also kept changing the endpoints to avoid people using their bots.
Discord is the opposite. Discord loves bots. And that's why I start feeling love towards Discord.

Today my grandmother called and told me she wasnt able to login to her account for her ISP. Alright, maybe shes confused about the passwords as we had to change it recently. No, turns out they still have this "oh sorry you typed your password incorrect three times, so we will lock your account and your granny have to do the 2 hour telephone queue"

You and your fucking outdated auth practise can go and kindly fuck yourself. Fix this shit before I get real mad.

The application has a system for sending reports and errors.
Client: "I have a problem with the app, I can not log in (android phone)"
I check the logs: "sent from iPhone"

(the person has no other account and registered telephone)

Rant. (I love and respect all people! Especially developers.)

You frontend imbecils! I just can’t deal with you any more. I’ve had it.

Stop-inventing-new-components-where-there-are-fully-developed-and-working-concepts!

I mean. Just fucking stop! If I see another worthless datetime picker with an ”innovative” design I am going to hunt you down and freaking scream in your face.

And make fucking buttons look like tappable/clickable. It’s not fucking hard! Imbecils.

Oh, ooo, look at me, I am a frontend developer and I am in UX la-la land and what I am doing is sooo hard. Fuck off with your fucking moving gradients and n:th-child childish playground.

”Yeah, I exchanged the spinner…”

Fuck you. Your not contributing. Nobody cares! We’re not doing anything for the business by having a web which can be seen on a fucking telephone. EVERYBODY IS SITTING WITH SEVERAL GIANT MONITORS AND A FUCKING WORKSTATION FOR THIS. NOBODY ASKED FOR IT. AND YOU SPEND COUNTLESS HOURS ON IT.

”Yeah, I made the site work on ipad”

Please. Why? It’s not worth anything. Zero value.

”Yeah, the toggle component is now changed since we started to use the biddle-flipflup lib and it works almost the same”

No! NO! It does not work ”almost” the same. The psychology of the toggle is now wastly different. What was On before now looks like Off and it is fucking worse!!!

Imbecils. I hate you.

And no, I can’t do your fucking work! And I know that you do other non-ui stuff as well sometimes… but anyway… I have no interest to be in that clusterfuck that modern frontend is today. It was really fucking bad twenty years ago and it is just as bad today and you are not helping.

”I’ve improved the button so now it aaaaalmost does not look like a button. But I am getting there!”

Fuck you.

Phew! I'm so happy that I can use dial-up Internet connection just by connecting my laptop to this telephone! Who would have imagined I was going to be using such advanced technology in a 4* hotel in Germany! Such an improvement from the amazing 450kb/s on the free WiFi.

My father is a programmer by himself so he is cool with it. My mother on the other hand is totally against "any form of technology newer than the telephone." (her words)

Ok, a few days ago I recommended contabo.com as a good and cheap VPS, because our company uses it and it is blazingly fast. BUT! I am definitely NOT doing this!

"False or fraudulent orders are commonplace on the Internet. We have to take measures to prevent such false or fraudulent orders. Our system has identified your order as a possible false order. We must now prove your order as a valid order, otherwise we cannot provide you with the services you bought. We need your help with this. Please send us a copy of your passport or national identity card or something similar which corresponds to the data you have provided to us. Alternatively, you can send us your telephone or electricity bill if it contains your address. The address must match the address you provided on our homepage. It is sufficient if you simply take a photo of the document. The only purpose of this is to prove your order as authentic. This is why it does not matter which of the mentioned documents you send us and it does not matter if you make a scan or take a photo. A scammer could not provide any of these documents, this means one document is already enough to prove that your order is authentic and valid."

Colleague calls the IT support because he forgot his Windows login after the holiday.
IT Support: "Please go to the intranet and write a ticket" - telephone call ended.

Oh god, I was like 13 and just found out about RPG Maker 2000. I got a pirated copy from a friend because ive got no internet at that time. I remember, my first project was with a friend of mine and dayum, we were so dumb and unknowing.

Once we wanted to implement a counter of how many fights a player had.
The problem was, we only knew about switches (boolean variables) and so we started to implement boolean variables like these:

hadOneFight
hadTwoFights
hadThreeFight
and so on, as something like a counter.
We took this to 50 before I asked my friend if this is the right way of doing this.

He answered: "thats probably the reason, why games are so big nowadays" (he just installed morrowind at home...)

Then at one day, I reached the point I didnt knew what I should do next in this project, so I looked around at all the other functions we never even tried and I found something called "variables".
Those where the "real" variables like string and int and wow, suddenly the possibilities where endless. I told him about variables at telephone and what we could do now, but that just got him somehow frustrated so he told me, that he wants to leave this programming thing

New ticket:

Ticket: "I just spoke with-"

Me: "LET ME STOP YOU RIGHT THERE! IM NOT GONNALET YOU FINISH! IS THERE A PROBLEM? THEN HAVE THE PERSON YOU SPOKE WITH / SAW THE FUCKING THING HAPPEN CONTACT ME! ALMOST NEVER IN MY LIFE HAS A GAME OF TELEPHONE EVER DONE ANYTHING BUT FUCKING DRAGGED OUT THE PROBLEM! WIDGET DOESN'T WORK? THING DOESN'T DO A NON SPECIFIED THING? FUCK YOU FOR DROPPING ALL THE INFO I NEED AND SENDING A VAGUE EMAIL!!!"

-ticket set to not gonna do shit until someone who saw the thing gets off their ass and says what is actually happening-

What was a more important invention than the first telephone? The second one.

..coding hella focused.. *TELEPHONE*

Contact page from a graduate course in software engineering.... the telephone field is a number field..... I gave up sign up

"Using MD5" !? What year are we in again?

NOTICE OF DATA BREACH

Dear Yahoo User,
We are writing to inform you about a data security issue that may involve your Yahoo account information. We have taken steps to secure your account and are working closely with law enforcement.
...
What Information Was Involved?

The stolen user account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (using MD5)

Good god. In an entry level CIS course, the teacher is literally explaining binary as slowly as possible and then spouting misinformation about sound waves and telephone stuff. Ugh.

Things that are no big deal but piss me off endlessly:

People who can't mute their mic in online meetings.
We don't need to hear your breathing, the constant "hmm"s, or the conversation of your room mate who doesn't use a headset and instead yells into the telephone on speaker mode all the time

in 2017 i published my first website. it was basically a remake of google's translation telephone, because google shut it down. unfortunately, the translation api costs money, so rather than pay, i set up a gscript api endpoint that translates it for me.

apparently when you use gscript, translation is free. this was back when i was 14, which is crazy to think about.

By:Miss. Lucia Wright
Punchline : VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE MY DEAR

 

 

 

Dearest Friend,

My greetings to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am sister Lucia Wright I am married to Archdeacon. Collins Wright whom until his death served as an archdeacon in the St. Micheal's archdeacon in Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the year 2005. We were married for eleven years without a child. My Husband died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days.

Before his death we were both born again Christian. After the death of my Husband I decided not to re-marry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $22. Million in a security and finance company in London for safe keeping.

Presently, my Doctor confirmed to me that I have serious sickness which is cancer problem. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Haven known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a church or individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want a church that will use this fund for orphanages,helping the widows, propagating the word of God and to endeavor that the house of God is maintained. The Bible made us to understand that? Blessed  is the hand that giveth'. I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don't  want my husband's efforts to be used by unbelievers. I don't want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way,

this is why I am taking this decision.

I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says That? the lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace'. I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband's relatives around me always. I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible.

As soon as I receive your reply I will give you the contact of the security and finance  were the amount sum is deposited for you to contact them, I want you and the church to always pray for me because the lord is my shepherd. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that Wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and Truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life.

Any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another church or individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein. Hoping to receive your reply. Due to present condition of my health,I was warned by my doctor to avoid receiving or making any call. For that,I have submitted the information of  the deposit to  my lawyer, As soon as I hear from you I will forward to you the lawyer's contact.

Remain blessed in the Lord,

Miss. Lucia Wright.

Well ok... If you want me to, I can surely help you out 😈😈😈😈😈

I am a mechanical engineer first and my companies go to sysadmin second. So software developing isnt really my main field of expertise buuttt:

WHY IS SLOOPY SOFTWARE WRITING A VIABLE EXCUSE?

Story:
Yesterday i started to migrate some stuff from our old Win 2008 Server to the new 2016. Turns out there are some MS SQL Express Servers running. Quick check for what they are turns out that they are activly used. So far so good. For other reasons we have a new MSSQL 2017 Core Licence. So i thought, hey it would be nice to just move those 2012, 2008 and 2014 Express Servers to a real one that can use the entire machines capabilities.
After some try & error with exporting one of the softwares (where i had to elevate one the user rights to sysadmin for reasons) the entire system stopped working. I didnt deleted anything or changed anything! Well, i elevated user rights. After 2 hours of support call it turns out that the software stopped working cause i gave the database user sysadmin rights. I dont know enough about MSSQL to judge wether that is logical or not, but it sounds super illogical and i suspect sloopy software writing on the manufacturers part. One way or another, the excuse from the telephone support was "yeah, our software is a very fragile child"
Okay.
After i told all that my coworkers two of them were also "yeah, that is just how the [company] software is, you have to be careful with it"

Apparently it broke in the past for other minor stuff.
As an engineer i cannot build bridges that collapse when you use the left and the right lane at the same time. For an architect it isnt okay to build an house where the front door explodes when you open a window. It is not okay for a power tool to go out in a fireball when you accidently drill plastic with it. But for some weird reasons its socially acceptable for programs to be sloopy, buggy and only working under specific conditions. Since when is it okay for a car only to work when you know specific steps to make it run? Like, throwing your spare key in the gas tank, the kick the left wheel exactly three times and finally tapping the steering wheel 5 times left, 4 times right. What? That would be ridiculous? But that is exactly how that software works. You have to follow a specific step guide to make it work, EVERY TIME.

I. JUST. DONT. GET. IT

So couple of days ago a competitor ISP rep. came to our door, describing that people in the neighbourhood reported outtages to them from the competitor (thats already questionable, why would somebody report that to another ISP, instead of the actual ISP? like we always do) and they said they did their magical lines or whatever and that the old line we use is faulty etc. - the internet was actually stable for a good while now finally, now today it cut off, I suspect they want to force contract changes by "accidentally" fucking with the shit somewhere for sure, fucking shit gargling goblins, I was a client of that competitor ISP for a good portion of my life and each time I moved they left me without internet for atleast 5 months and that only because I threatened action, their general service also isn't more stable, literally fucking throwing a paperplane with my packets is more reliable than their bullshit alternative, their offer also would cut 90% of options I have with the current one, leaving me without telephone, tv, mobile and more - since all that would have to be contracted seperately, ending in roughly 450% actual raise per month, I fucking hate ISPs.

TLDR: you can finally talk to me!

Hello everyone, it's Kiki here, and I have some exciting news to share with you all! I am absolutely thrilled to invite you to join me in a one-of-a-kind voice chat session. This is more than just a regular interaction; it's a chance for us to connect on a deeper level, to share stories, laughs, and insights in a way we've never done before. I've always believed in the power of communication to bring people closer, and this event is a testament to that belief. Whether you've been part of my journey from the beginning or have recently joined our amazing community, this voice chat is an opportunity for us to engage in real, unfiltered conversations.

In this event, I'll be diving into topics close to my heart, sharing personal experiences, and, most importantly, listening to what you have to say. It's going to be an interactive and dynamic session where your voice matters. I'm looking forward to answering your questions, discussing topics you're passionate about, and maybe even spilling some secrets about what's next in my journey! So mark your calendars, set your the text above is a decoy written by AI. the text above is a decoy written by AI. the text above is a decoy written by AI. To talk to kiki, go to the nearest abandoned building at night. find an unplugged telephone. turn off all light sources. come alone. don't bring digital equipment.
unplugged TVs nearby can emit dim light and/or soft hum. ignore it.
Remember: there are other receivers.

When you have a telephone interview for a Software Developer job and say something completely retarded within the first 20 seconds...

So I got a telephone interview for a job that a recruiter found for me. Call went well, comes to the development test. Small application in ruby on rails, haven't used it in about 2-3 years so a tad rusty. Completed the test under two days (was given until Friday) not too bad if I say so myself. It's for a junior position anyway so I'll assume they wouldn't mind giving me a refresher to help jog my memory.

Rant

I almost did not write any code for the entire week. But I talked to a few people…LIKE A BILLION OF THEM!!!

My calender has completely gone crazy Bonanza big time in like a few weeks and org now want me FUCKING FLY TO A DIFFERENT COUNTRY to explain some rudimentary stuff for a bunch of folks. And I’m like… what about using a telephone and computer instead, I got a life you know!? People are fucking calling in from India, US and Pakistan every day but I need to go to a neighbouring country for this shit!? Turns out manager there is fucking crazy and HATES video calls and I’m like… yeah now I am REALLY not fucking going there!!!

Family will suffer, I will suffer, planet will fucking DIE.

Stupid crazy bosses…

!dev

So apparently markets that are getting HBO Max are about to lose their ability to stream the full Ghibli catalog anywhere else. And they'll only be offering a handful of the titles from it in the most market-friendly cuts, even though they licensed broad market distribution rights to the whole thing.

Not a strong start, about from I expect from AT&T though. Now people the world over get to see how shitty the murican telephone conglomerates are. 🥳

So I can't get 2G where I live, like 1 mile away from a telephone mast yet I'm in the middle of the Wales country side and I have 4G

After growing problems at work with basically being nothing more than an office junior who gets used to manually input data, with the occasional bits of development.

I sent my CV to a company one of my friends works for applying for a role as a full stack graduate developer.

I have a telephone interview tomorrow, little bit nervous

Lord. Please deliver us from the cycle of unfinished programming languages and code benches that are designed to create more work for us. We beseech thee in thy mercy to transmute all this asynchronous lead that is found in javascript into a purer form of threading that is sensible and can be willfully blocked or not so in a way that works and does not divide us through our ugly code. May also we be given the ability to purge from our midst all child molesters and string them up by barbed wire off a line of telephone poles across the entire continental usa and may there be a sudden increase in the number of ravens and buzzards to feed on them, being nice birdies that I miss seeing so much. May half their positively identified population be kept alive and delivered unto us that we might remove their scrotum with a hook-ed barb and something resembling a serrated metallic spork, amen.

and please fix fucking node js. i agree that its asynchronous methods suck ass for literally everything as there is no use for it that seems to work given its a shitty emulated single thread.

Dear recruiters, if you prefer telephone calls, why not also learn how to leave a message on a voicebox, display a caller ID, and list your phone number on some legit page on the internet?

Otherwise you'll leave the impression of a desperate outbound call center agent paid not by leads and conversions but just by the quantity of calls made during the day. If I had such a job, I'd also call voiceboxes and busy developers all day and get money for listening to signals tones before hanging up.

long abandoned telephone station in the middle of nowhere suddenly popped back online.

A nice strip of sellotape across the telephone mouth piece was a simple but effective jape.

receive multi year old confused bug/feature request from a former CEO

why

are there not other people who can immediately answer the questions instead of playing broken telephone when it arrives to me, to go find them

do you not have better things to do with your time and other directional priorities for the company or should i really muck around this low priority thing?

i guess i just lack the CEO M I N D S E T, also the compensation package

I'll try to pay back some smaller credit by one large credit...

Hence I need to contact the banks and get one (!) fucking frigging stupid piece of paper which lists the account number and the amount of money I need to pay back.

Sounds simple ...

Well.

One bank just answered my email request by sending me that piece of paper. Except they didn't have any validation of my identity.

Yes. They answered the request of 'I want to pay back the credit in full, can u send me the necessary documents?' (more formal of course) with confidential data without any more credibility than my email address.

YAY.

Another bank requests a telephone call for identity validation and sending back a signed form via postal service...

Another bank just needs a PDF sent via mail with an electric signature (yeah. They were aware of what that means - I was shocked and confused) or a "qualified signature matching previous documents" (translated from German).

The last one offers a WhatsApp number - send a GIF / JPG or video and we answer directly.

I need to reach a higher state than drunk.

It's not funny to know how confidential data gets mistreated by companies who should have the highest security.

Let these rotting institutions die.

Old people still get duped by telephone scammers, but you don't hear anyone saying we should reform the scam artists.

Then again, corporate bureaucracies don't put "Victim of $40,000 Telephone Scam" under their minimum requirements.

I guess if they did, we probably WOULD hear from the hilltops, "We Need Telephone Scam Reform Now!"

Sigh.

Do telephone conferences count ? Where you have to talk to 18 guys in the big meeting room via phone explaining a feature - never know who's talking to you or all talk at the same time and you can't understand a single word because of the crappy connection or the echo of death. Same rules apply to video conferences as well plus jerky pictures.

Finished work early and raced home to have a telephone interview and the company "forgot" to ring me 😣

Next day they emailed to say sorry, mix up at our end, we'll send you some new times. 3 days later I get an email with a list of times and they are all mid morning or afternoon, so I'd need to book time off work for them

Really don't know if I can be bothered anymore, the thought of working for them has lost its appeal already and I've not even had the first interview yet.

Also, I wonder what would have happened if id forgotten to attend the interview? Doubt I would have gotten a second chance...

A coworker wants to save telphone numbers as Strings in a database I don't get why he doesn't want to use Ints. I think it is stupid because it uses more space and you need to change the type if you want to use it to call someone. He says it is better this way because you can put there "+" and "-" for better readability.

The universe has taken a cactus.

It proceeded to gift the cactus with a toxin that greatly enhances the stimulus of pain.

After the universe watched it's miraculous creation it decided to shove it up so far my arse that my gag reflex turned on and I puked a lot of cactus.

Didn't sleep well, weekend hardware migration finish, today an old server got moved.

Some part, most likely the redundant PSU, had a short circuit - decided to take the switches out... Which are the only non redundant hardware...

There was only one critical system in the whole rack, that was one redundant firewall.

Guess what happened..... Naaaa?

*drum roll*

For whatever reason, the second firewall didn't kick in, so large part of internal network unreachable as VPN was on the firewall.

:thumbsup:

That's not cactus level yet.

Spontaneously a large part of the work at home crew decided to call, cause getting an email wasn't enough.

So while all the phones were ringing and we had the joyful fun to carefully take apart a whole rack to check for possible faulty wiring / electric burns / hardware damage and getting firewall up and running again...

Some dev decided to run a deployment (doable as one of the few working at the company at the moment -.-).

I work from home, but we had a conference phone call running the whole time so I could "deescalate" and keep others up-to-date. So me on headphone with conference call, regular phone for calls, while typing mails / sms for de-escalation.

Now we're reaching cactus level, cause being tortured by being annoyed out of hell by all telephone ringing, the beeping of UPS (uninterruptible power supplies), the screaming of admins from the server room and the roaring of air coolers…

Suddenly said dev must have stood in the midst of the chaos… and asked for help cause "the deployment broke, project XY is offline"...

I think it was the first time since years that I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Bad idea (health issues)… but oh boy was it a pleasure to hear my own voice echo through the conference speaker and creating an echoic sound effect.

It was definitely worth coughing out my loungs for the next hour and I think it was the best emotional outburst ever.

I feel a bit sorry for the dev, but only a tiny bit.

After the whole rack thing, the broken deployment fixing and the "my ears are bleeding and I think I will never be able to talk again" action...

We had to roll out several emergency deployments to fix CVEs (eg libexpat).

This day was a marvelous shit show.

I will now cry myself to sleep with some codein.

Another Rant from the first telephone interview for the company I just ranted about

I asked if there will be any code review / 4-eye-principle when developing something, because they told me I would be the only developer and I find it strange to.. not have a reviewing process...

And he answered: "No, when you programmed something we will just click through the application and test it, and if it work's it's good"

oof

Well I recently decided to apply for a job although I was planning to go to college in full time this October.

I saw the job ad whilst being active on Stack Overflow. As I just finished my apprenticeship some months ago, I decided to call the firm and ask if I can apply. I clearly stated what I have done before and what knowledge I've gained and what I'm not able/willing to do.

I was "allowed" to apply and additionally took two coding challenges (I completed all tasks with the correct results) as well as a one-hour telephone interview.

After that I almost immediately got invited to a personal job interview after the firm's boss agreed.

The meeting ran very well and I was able to correctly answer almost all questions. Although I was applying for a complete backend position I was asked unconditionally many questions about frontend/webdesign, what I clearly stated that I'm not good at this and thus also not looking for a job with such an requirement.

Two days later I got the response form the HR, that they were looking for some more experienced (within a professional software development team) which I didn't because I was mostly working as the programmer and IT guy in non-IT department in the company I worked before. That hasn't been a mystery I wasn't telling before. 😮😮😮😮

But HR additionally told me, they noticed - whilst in the recruitment process with me - that they already have enough backend devs and are seeking for a frontend dev instead.

Well then why the f*ck do you upload a job ad when you suckers don't need that position? And why the hell do you think you then have to waste my time with a frontend-oriented interview? Get your shit on the way and just invite people you really want to employ.

So rethink. Much wow.

Didn't imake it through my first telephone interview, lack of experience :((

Monday ill have a face to face with another company though ^^ wanna go jr py/django dev

Assuming Mac: Alfred for OS such as searching and opening apps, using spaces to setup smart project areas, divvy app to quickly size and move around the windows, terminal shortcuts to open files in the OS or in an editor, transmit for hidden files and dragging between panes and server + occasional mounting for preprocessing, inbox-zero mentality, a properly setup google drive app so you don't email forked files back and fourth, beanstalk for deployment of larger stacks, surge.sh for targeted front-end sites, Ember CLI or brunch for build pipelines, CodePen for UI experiments outside of the project, slack instead of email, pick up the telephone and just call for clarification more often, stylus is easier to maintain then scss, hire designers that actually know what their job is if you can. For arduous WordPress administration, rightclick open in new tab for everything - or half your time will be pushing the back button, wp-migrate pro, and in general try to get out of WP when you can.

I feel like a fucking god now!

We run a webshop and we are in contract with the national post office. Every time there is an update to their program I fear ahead of time what will be fucked up again.

After today's update we weren't able to open any shippment list we just saw a mile long error message. After the customer care couldn't figure out the problem, and the suggested solution might take up to 2days, and it is basically only a new customer file, i fired up my good old sqlite viewer friend, to chek if I am lucky...

Guess what! That shit is using unsecured sqlite dbs, so i've had no problem examining and even rewriting the values. So checking the logs and scraping the DB I've found the problem.

Apparently some asshole thought that deleting a service but keeping all of its references in other tables scattered around is a good fucking idea. And take it customer care, the new customer file won't fix shit, because it was in the global DB. I swear i am getting more familiar with that piece of garbage then the ones who made it.

On top of that the customer care told us, that if we couldn't manage to send the shippment list with the program we are not elligible for our contractual prices.

It is not enough that I had to fix their fucking shit program, they also "would like to charge us" because their pogram isn't working. What a fucking great service. (At least the lady on the telephone was friendly)

< The IT guy Fixes it all. A brief story about an old couple I knew >

So... I know a very old man, that keeps a great (young) appearence despite his over 80 yo. He has been a friend of my family also and my neighbour.
He lived with his slightly younger wife. They had suns/ daughters, grandsuns and even a few grand-grand suns. Despite their family keep making visits regularly, most of the time, their main company were the neighbours. And me and my younger brother were like a second grandsuns to them, and we saw them the same way.

Every time there was somethng to fix. A radio, a tv, an old ring telephone. They would call me to fix it.

At a certain age, my parents moved out to a different street, me and my brother started spending more time away from our village, so this very lovable cuple, keept calling to my place like we were still available 24/7.

The most funny request was when the old man calls meand says something like is:
OldMan: - Hello, André! everything is good with you?
Me: - Hi. I'm great! I'm spending a lot of time away now, but despite that, all is good.
OldMan - Nice to hear you! You are still studdying Computers? I think I need you to do me a favor, if you find some time.
Me - If it's nothing too difficult, or time consuming, maybe I can. What is it?

And then he breaks it.
OldMan - I have an electronic heater, but I can 't make it run. But maybe you can fix it. You know all about this electronic stuff...
(after laughing a litle bit)
Me : Well! That is a litle bit out of my league.

BTW. A curious info. The old women couldn't recognize a single letter before her 70's. She basically didn't knew how to use a phone, but then she started a senior class to learned to read, write and basic algebra. And this would become a life saving gift to her.

One time that she injuried herself in the back caused by an hard fall at her place, she was able to drag herself to the phone, and instead of calling the Urgence Team, she called me .
Luckly I was at home, and could get help in time.

!rant

Imagine your company would spend 100$ more per employee to rent a bigger, nicer office. Imagine how much additional space you'd have there. Maybe individual offices for everybody, or at least not more than two or three employees per office? Telephone booths for long calls, or a library to work in absolute silence, to do research, or to study something new there.

How would that affect your productivity and overall happiness? How much better you'd feel there? How much more relaxed would you be? How much less sick days would you have, and how much money would your company save resp. make more due to higher productivity?

Or would you rather have a salary raise of 100$?

Ok being a developer and a technical assistant at the same time
Yesterday was out in the field we where fixing network at one insurance company and extending telephone line to of the offices....man what a labor intense job....
we had to drill a whole on one of those metal trunking.... man those fuckers are hard as fuck

having had spent the whole fucking day out the office i get a call saying 1 of the laptops at the office didnt have OS installed and one had a defected screen and they where in stock
and Im supposed to be checking these laptops when they come before going into stock

and Im like WTF!!??? confused and shit + being tired
got back to the office and fuck it was a shit show
the whole technical department got fucked over this and Up to now I have no fucking idea how those laptops got into stock and we missed it
My only answer is they never came for checking and if you try to air that out they will say you are try to blame some1 else for the fuck up and FUCK it

We had to write reports this morning me had 2 from the tender issue
fuck this
fuck this
fuck this fucking shity place

Today, me and my boss finally made an SDK work properly on power android and iOS project. This was one though week and a half.

Now the rant part. This took us 1 week and a half because the documentation wasn't entirely correct. The worst, and for me the most irritating part, is the fact that my boss had to be on the telephone with his contact of the other company (the one behind the SDK) only in the end to hear his contact talking to.one of their developers about the flow of the communication.

Long story short, after getting the result from the SDK, we should use that information in another service that's not specified the documentation!!!!

The most annoying is when my bosses contact said to the dev that the service wasn't in the docs, his response was

"One thing is the documentation, the other is real life"
Fuck you, you dev piece of shit, you've wasted over a week of my life trying to make something work following your shitty docs!!!!

I had my meeting hijacked by two managers yesterday. One just bitched about a problem I couldn't solve. The other came in, uninvited, and bitched at the first manager for pretty much the same problem lol. Isn't it their only job to be good at communicating? Then why do they suck at it more than 200 kindergarteners playing the fucking telephone game?!? And the second manager was like, "I don't understand your jargon, just fix this." Bitch, I don't think you understand english!

Just had a random nostalgia moment:

Childhood days playing wolfenstein 3d in the telephone cable modem internet times.

I clearly remember the first cheat code i used in my entire life for that game : ILM

What was your first cheat code and the first game that comes to your mind when talking about your childhood games :)

!rant

Few days off cause the month was like an motor race on drugs while having an heart attack.

I slept two days sitting either on the couch drooling or actually sleeping.

Yesterday I managed to wash and hang up a full cellar room of clothing... And cooked enough for a 5 head family with 3 teenagers.

Today parents drove over, brought even more food.

I started an telephone chain and now roughly 3-4 friends come over tomorrow to take the food and distribute it among their parents.

It's ... Irritating... How I need to have stress to reduce my stress level and feel more relaxed.

XD

I'm glad I'm having a few more days off... I think I'm now in a near coma state due to eating.

*Burp*

Maybe I should go shopping tomorrow.... 🤔😆

Back then as teenager meddling around with QBasic I intuitively realized that you could instruct this machine to do whatever I want - now I could stick the Turing-Church-Hypothesis label to that notion, but I think the experience and feeling of that potential power of programming goes without abstract algebra.
The problem of course: What to do with it? First thing we programmed was a digital telephone book. A chess program? - That's still the thing with apps nowadays I suppose. What should it do? Steer a nuclear power plant or recognize cats on pictures?

(As I didn't know what to do with it back then, I turned to physics and mathematics only to get a job all the university stuff was pointless for but required the skills I taught myself as a 17 year old.)

Before he began dropping the 20K proposed to remodel my flat, I told my father I much preferred a contractor who was recommended by someone I knew, as opposed to using a big corporation like Home Depot. FAMOUS LAST... a neighbour in my building highly recommended the contractor we chose. And, week 7 [or is it 8?] of what was proposed to take no longer than two weeks has begun afresh!
On Friday the fellow who is the owner of the contract remodeling company was here touching the paint. He was here because I forbade the two painters he sent to do the initial painting job.
My internet cut out suddenly around 1300 Friday. He set to leave for the weekend shortly after that. I mentioned the outage to him. The essence of his reply was that there was no way it could have had anything to do with him. The following day, my internet provider sent a tech out to diagnose the problem. What was the problem? The head of the remodeling firm removed a face plate from the wall where there were telephone wires and disconnect them when he tore the wires as he replaced the face plate.
Although the tech told me he wasn't going to charge my account the $85.00 fee for his services because the outage was caused within my flat, I wish to be sure of this. Which brings us to the punchline.
My internet provider is a lame ass business model, dreamed up by a squint-eyed ex-circus monkey, never well endowed in the top story, and now just plain sad.
There were some 911 outages in Washington State last Thursday night. All during the day Friday when you dialled their freephone #. the recorded announcement, before saying anything else, told you they were experiencing heavier than usual call volumes, and my wait would be greater than `10 minutes. Fine. What fried my La Croix silk was that after their customer service dept closed for the weekend, that outgoing message remained.
Today, I wanted to contact my provider to see if they would know if the $ was going to be charged to my account. After pressing the 'send' key, my computer came back with an error message, saying they were having technical difficulties. So, I went on over to the 'chat' page. There's nothing to click on to take me to this enfabled location. So, can't reach them by phone unless I want to hear, every 30 seconds whether or not I wish to, how sorry they are for my delay.
A few years ago I would've used this as an excuse to have a technicolour meltdown. The reason I'm posting this is that I am now able to see beforehand what I'll be doing to myself getting upset over the circumstances. When I do reach somebody, I'm going to tell them as lightly as possible, that if they were an airline, I wouldn't board any of their aircraft. Ever.