The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar

You Know You're DOOMED When...

You hear the VP of HR yell, "That had better not be a real grenade!"

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...

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

Demonstration Of Pavlov's Theory of Bureaucracy

There's a joke going around the net that Trouble sent me which I think is a good explanation of what really happens when monkeys, er managers, get involved with your life.

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana.
As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey will make an attempt with the same response -- all of the monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Keep this up for several days.
Turn off the cold water. If, later, another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it even though no water sprays them.
Now, remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.
Replace the third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs.

Why not?

"Because that's the way it's always been done around here."

We can train primates to do quite a lot. The first astronauts were chimps. I heard Koko the gorilla who communicates to the world in sign language is now a partner at a venture capitalist firm specializing in .com IPOs. Your brain doesn't have to be too highly evolved to be a monkey, and you don't need an opposable thumb.

So what I want to know is how much of a monkey are you? Do you push the edge of the envelope fixing stuff and killing off the ludites as you go, or are you bucking for a promotion to Bald White Monkey and an invite to the managers' table at lunch? Think about it. How many things do you do without understanding why? Now if say you're doing tech support, when you join up you're doing a lot of parroting the party line without clue one. You're allowed to be stupid for the first month. But after that, if you're still parroting, you're in trouble.

I once sat next to Skippy. Skippy hated tech support. He would mute his microphone every other sentence to shout obscenities at the customer. Skippy didn't get it. These people calling kept us rolling in money and Diet Coke. You've got to think of customers as friends. Anyways, one day Skippy was in over his head. He didn't know why something was going wrong, and didn't really stay current with our technology or bugs.

"Hey, how come his font menu is blank?"

"Because he installed Adobe Type Reunion and a Butt-Load of fonts."

Without thinking, Skipping began parroting my answer, and just barely caught himself. "Sir, have you installed Adobe Type Reunion, and a B...unch of fonts?"

Any monkey can do what they've seen. You want to be a real Geek? Then understand everything you're doing. Understand the alternatives and why choices were made. Call into question the validity of the choice based on the current status. Sometimes the old choice is no longer the right choice. In the end, you're more productive, valuable, and closer to being an Uber-Geek like Phoneboy.

PeopleSoft

Have you seen the new PeopleSoft TV spots? They, like all HR functions, are in black and white. So this euro-trash guy sporting a van dyke babbles on about how these two kids who walk past him are the future. They won't put up with life in cubes. Their boss will be the best idea. They want to work for you or the competition.

Who wrote this shit? Let's take a look at this gem point by point.

The kids don't look like the future, they look like they want to get laid.

They won't put up with life in cubes? Okay smarty, do they want the corner office or are they just going to hang out in the street?

Their boss will be the best idea. When did this shit happen? First, everyone on the planet thinks the best idea is their idea. Second, their boss is the bald white monkey who pays them. You know 95% of the people who work aren't doing it to foster "the best idea". They're dragging their ass to work to pay rent, their pusher, or to get rid of the big debt they owe Fry's Electronics.

They want to work for you or the competition? Well that's narrowing it down! That's like saying they'll either be dead or alive. Where did they dig up this euro-trash clown? What does he know about business?

So what I want to know is who did they target this spot for? Everything on TV is aimed at a particular audience. Who is this for? It can't be anyone with a brain. It basicly says if you buy PeopleSoft you'll hire teenagers who will bitch about where they sit, will argue with you about your decisions, and they have zero loyalty.

Sure, that's why I want to choose PeopleSoft.

Tastes Great, Less Filling, Downloads Fast!

Speaking of commercials have you caught Netscape Poster Boy Marc Andreesen in a beer commercial with Norm "My Movies SUCK" MacDonald? What's Andreesen doing this for? He's got cash up the yin/yang, and doesn't really need the image fix. Now Bill Gates needs an image transplant. Think of Gates in this commercial ordering a round for everyone. Come to think of it, Gates could help his image if he sent a shot of Jack Daniels to everyone who bought a Microsoft product.

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

Proof Elvis is Alive Working as a Memphis Cop!!

Mysterious Donut Shortage Reveals Truth!

Let's play, "Who said this?"

Heard in the halls of various software companies.

"No, not physical torture. People recover from that."

"Lot's of stuff wouldn't have happened without beer. I'm probably one of them."

"It's 18 lines of crap."

"It worked? Wow, I just totally made that up!"

"I got my morality from Spiderman comics."

"This is so fucked up."

"I blame my parents."
"Good, then you can save a lot of money on therapy later in life."

Excuse Me

I must go feed my parrot.

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

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