The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar

You Know You're DOOMED When...

By your Director's count you have a 64% attrition rate. By your count it's 84%, and then your Manager puts this in his online resume...

Designed & implemented structured hiring process allowing us to expand team by nearly 100% in 2 quarters in a tight market to meet higher customer demand. Devised & deployed metrics & development plans that cut average response time by nearly 50% without significantly impacting attrition rates.

Now THAT'S quality Science Fiction! Give that man a Hugo Award! After reading this, I began to believe in all of those Roswell stories.

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...

We'll explore the mystery of Netscape Stock as well as how to deal with things that really suck.

But First, This Week's Corrections...

Dave Rodenborn of Adobe Systems sent in this little gem.

Oh, highly-esteemed Fek'Lar:

Your disclaimer states "The Crapolla contains my personal options...". Correct me if I am wrong, oh great one, but did you not mean to say "opinions"? Forgive me, oh mighty Fek'Lar, if I have incurred your wrath...my most humble question is by no means a way to insult you, your most fire on high. I am simply ensuring that your immortality will be...well...immortalized. Once again, your most lugubriousness, I apologize for any potential embarrassment of your most Vicks Vapo-Rubbed in private parts self.

Most humbly, and with large amounts of bologna strips in lime Kool-Aid,

Dave

Well Dave, not only were you right about my options (my current aren't vested and we ain't public yet), but that was damned fine groveling! So just for you, I'm going to paint Steph's car!

Damn! Looks like someone beat me to it.

Premature Crapolla

At T-Minus 12 hours to releasing the last issue of The Crapolla I arrived at a popular Sillycon Valley Rib Shack. By a strange coincidence a subscriber was standing at the door (I said this is a popular place).

"Hey Fek, that Crapolla where you published that guy's letter! That was the best one!" said the Subscriber.

Geez, I hadn't even published that issue. It turned out 9802 had been found and passed around in at least two companies. You people really are DOOMED.

Business or Pleasure?

As you might recall from our last issue, I was feeling guilty for not having anything to do at that exact moment. At this writing, the exact opposite is true.

Five days behind schedule and on a business trip am I. This week, most of my co-workers are on the road as well, which brings me to my subject, business travel. I don't know about you, but the less business travel the better. I hate business travel. I stress up and don't get any sleep. However, this time I'm doing something different.

This trip takes me to Dallas. I like Dallas. The freeways were designed for people to drive really fast, instead substituting for a parking lot at the Mercado 20 theatres in Santa Clara. The best way to enjoy Texas is to eat barbeque, or "food" as it is known here. Now it's not as great as it could be. I mean, you can swing a dead cat without hitting a rib shack, but I'm out of dead cats away. I've turned this entire trip into an excuse to eat barbeque three meals a day, and to see if it's possible to drive to Abilene and back before dinner in the Jaguar XJ8 I rented.

I'm trying out the idea that if you can find one thing you like about something that really sucks, well maybe it's easier to deal with. If this works, I'll see how I can make shopping at Fry's Electronics suck less. Is it just me, or do you feel like more and more stores are treating you like a crook right after you spend a few hundred bucks in their mega-wearhouse complex complete with cashiers who can't tilt the IQ-O-Meter?

I once decided to buy an amplifier at Fry's. After I located the clerk wearing the personal cloaking device, I asked him to bring me an amp from the back. He faked me into thinking all was well by writing down the part number. Boy was I a sap? This guy brought me a very small box containing a cassette deck. After considering that this was possibly some strange new Sony TARDIS box, I pointed out to Mr. Flatliner that there was no way the amp was fitting in the space reserved for the cassette deck.

After a couple more tries, I was ready for check out and the "leaving the store body cavity search". Now it's important to understand something about this, "I need to see your receipt" bullshit, you don't have to play their game. You just bought the amp that was not shoved into the cassette box, and you also bought the receipt. You don't have to show them anything. Do what I do, speak in pig latin and wave at them. If they really think you've stolen anything let them call a cop.

Finding a way to make doing business with Fry's not suck. Now that's a challenge.

This Month's Big Rumor

You might have seen the price of Netscape stock jump sharply this month. Most of the uninformed mainstream press decided it was because of a rumored buy out by Sun. No, all of my press colleagues just plain old screwed the pooch on this bit of reporting. The real reason the stock spiked was because of a test that succeeded in the Netscape Server QA Labs.

It seems that when they were looking for a good stress test for the new Messaging Server 4.0, some brainiac in Marketing decided to provide free email service for all laid off Netscape employees. This huge number resulted with the machine being tested becoming the new world's champ in the arena of number of active mail users on a single server. With numbers this big, Netscape has one hell of a scaleability story.

Reduce your head count and increase your capacity. I wonder if RIF will become an official acronym for a mail protocol.

Let's play, "Who said this?"

Heard in the halls of various software companies.

"He's very high maintenance, I'll have to blow him later."

"I've seen a couple of those movies, and I know a porno sound track when I hear it."

"I don't run this company, I just drop bombs."

I couldn't pass up forwarding this one on.

This found it's way into my e-mail box.

Seen on a private newsgroup:

"As I've said many times before, the trouble with our business plan is that it depends for its success upon a steady, rapid increase in the supply of really smart people (to buy our stuff). Whereas what we see instead is explosive growth in the supply of idiots."

Excuse Me

They just brought out a fresh Slab O' Ribs.


Fek'Lar
(Destroyer of Laptops - Morale Officer - The Last Honest Geek)

Remember: The Crapolla contains my personal opinions. That's right they're mine, so get your own! And you kids get off my lawn! This whole mess is copyright © 1998 by LowComDom Performances, all rights reserved. Wanna send this to your friends? Go ahead and pass out the URL.

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