The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar

You Know You're DOOMED When...

Facilities tells you they are moving you to the new building, but so is your crappy 2 X 5 cube.

You've stumbled onto another issue of The Crapolla, a journal written for software professionals. No not the managers; I mean the people who do the work.

This Crapolla is sponsored by...

In This Issue...

Don't order the fish.

Take a Wild Guess

Let's say you are a chef in a restaurant. No, not Taco Bell, a real joint. You build your environment, hire your line cooks and start massaging the place into a well-oiled machine. This takes time, and eventually, you have a system for everything, and each of the line cooks slings their hash just right.

Now, what do you think would happen if the owner of the restaurant showed up one day and told you to fire all of your line cooks and hire new people? Come on, take a wild guess!

If you said, "Gee I don't know, Fek. Maybe the food would suck for a while," you would be correct. Now with that analogy in mind, what do you think happened to my team?

Back on Valentines Day when the Twinkee told me the team was being smashed (the team she built and made into a well-oiled machine) I was asked to go to India and bring up a new team. I said way back then that I don't believe in sending good-paying American jobs to other countries. I see it as a way to lower the standard of living. But I decided not to quit. I wanted to see the truth about out-sourcing. True to my analogy, the food sucks.

Is this because they're Indian? Categorically, I would say no. I think anyone who says the workers of this country or that country aren't any good, hasn't realized that human intelligence is spread evenly throughout the species. There are great workers and lazy SOBs everywhere. People who tell you the problem is the worker's country of origin have another agenda.

I will say working in the Indian culture can be a challenge for a westerner. You might ask why we have to adapt to them, but I see it as a two way street. They also are adapting to us. When I call up and start chewing one of them out, they're wetting their pants wondering how to deal with this western barbarian.

These guys are green, they're nuggets, they're newbies, they're still wet behind the ears, they're FNG's. Most of them would still be in college in the US. How could anyone expect the world-class job we were doing before? Unfortunately, time waits for no team. The same expectations have been hoisted upon us and we have utterly failed to deliver.

The VP says, "attitude above aptitude". What a load of bullshit! These guys all tickled pink about having these jobs, but it still isn't getting done. We need a little less attitude and a bit more skill. That's only going to come with time.

You probably don't want to eat at this restaurant right now. The special is fish, and it's under-cooked.

How to Eat at a Buffet

Speaking of food, here's some timely advice during this "Stuff Your Face" season.

From time to time in your life you will eat at a buffet. This comes up a lot during the holidays. Either you go to someone's house where every food known to man has been put out on a table, or you end up at a restaurant where the counters of food never stop.

In my clan the beginning of the holiday season is Mom's 29th birthday. No, really. Every year she's 29. It's been that way since I was a kid. Mom's favorite place is Hometown Buffet. It's not where I would choose to have a birthday dinner, but her day, her choice.

I've learned from many trips to Las Vegas the correct strategy of eating at a buffet. If the point is to shove as much into your pie hole as possible, you must understand how your body works. Your feeling of hunger or of being full is determined by blood sugar. Once it drops past a certain threshold, you're hungry, above a specific level, you're full. The way to eat as much as possible at a buffet is to control how fast your blood sugar rises. The slower it rises, the more you scarf.

Food is divided into three major categories, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. There's a couple interesting differences between these divisions. Proteins and carbs have 4 calories per gram, and fat has 9. But this means nothing to us while we are pigging out. It just matters when we are trying to get those pants on a week later.

What is important to know is that only carbohydrates contain sugars. Some of this sugar will be absorbed through the lining of your stomach which is why your energy levels go up after eating junk food. (This is how you keep coding for all those hours. No lengthy digesting with sugar.)

Since it's blood sugar that controls the appetite, and carbs have the sugars, you should avoid them at all costs when at a buffet. You head for the breads, cereals, and desserts from the get go, and it's all over. Have a sugary soft drink, then stick a fork in yourself, cause you're done. (Surprisingly, even Diet Coke can shut you down with its artificial sweetener.)

When entering the buffet pick a table as far away from the carbs as possible. If you have a choice between the salad bar and the desserts, sit next to the salad. Lettuce never lead anyone into temptation. For God's sake, do not sit next to the bakery!

Now get your plate and go for the meats. Pile it on. Leave no room for anything in case you walk past the carbs on the way out. For your first two trips, the only carbs allowed on your plate are the breading on your fried chicken and gravy. The breading is a negligible amount of sugar, and the gravy is mostly fat.

After you've eaten two plates of meat you make your first choice. Do you want to keep eating meat? If so, you should still avoid the carbs. It's amazing how much meat you can eat when that's all you are eating. When you've had enough, that's when you can have potatoes, breads, soft drinks, ice cream, cakes, you name it. But you'll need to eat these very fast. You're body knows you've been eating. It's wondering where the blood sugar went. Even the smallest amount of sugar can trigger an eating shut down faster than the truth dies in Washington.

I usually make my own dessert by putting down a heap of chocolate pudding or ice cream in the bottom if a soup bowl. (That's right, get china from another section of the buffet when necessary.) On top of the first layer, I dump a nice piece of chocolate cake. Get a corner piece from a rectangular sheet cake, it has 50 percent more frosting. Finally, go back to the ice cream station and drizzle chocolate sauce all over the small mountain. Eat this very fast. The faster you eat, the more you can scarf.

Eventually, your body is going to scream, "Enough!" You have three choices.

Leave
Keep going and get sick
Go to the bathroom and throw up

I recommend number one. Two and three violate my life style of always having a good time.

I hope this advice leaves you fat, dumb and happy this holiday season. Just remember, come January 2nd, the world is going to expect you to get off your fat ass and do another year of this crap.

This Issue's Headline submission to the National Daily World Enquiring Globe.

Santa in Rehab!

Jolly Ole Elf Has a Sugar Plum on His Back!

Let's play, "Who said this?"

Heard in the halls of various software companies.

"This company moves mountains!"
"Point one out."

"I'm getting a job cleaning the sewers of Mountain View. There's all that Web 2.0 money being flushed down the toilets."

"We need a business plan where stupidity is the product."

"Let's change our NASDAQ ticker symbol to OOPS."

"Is that the attitudinal horizon?"

"Google has eased up on requiring a 3.0 GPA for employment."
"Let me know when they get down to 1.2 so I can apply."

"My lunch was horrible."
"Were you eating British Cuisine again?"
"Yeah, out of date cottage cheese."

"Wow! Those are really thick subpoenas you're putting into everyone's mailbox!"

Excuse Me

I left my feather in the vomitorium.

Fek'Lar
They pay me to think. These are my thoughts. Do you think they are getting their money's worth?

Remember: The Crapolla contains my personal opinions. That's right they're mine, so get your own! And you kids get off my lawn!

Although written with the software professional in mind, my mind tends to wander all over the place, and I sometimes write about politics, mass stoopidity, dumb things I saw, and whatever else comes to mind.

From time to time, I use salty language, thus The Crapolla is not intended for children, or certain people in the Bush Administration.

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EOJ

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