What was the most awkward place you worked from?
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Turned up on a customer site many years ago, for a planned job that was estimated as a week's work. They'd been told they needed to provide me with a workstation. They had. it was on the floor, in what was originally a broom cupboard; a hole in the wall led to the server room, where a cable had been passed through. I couldn't actually fit in the cupboard with the terminal. But I called their bluff (they were, I think, just being arseholes as they felt that my company should be paying for a bug fix, while my company was charging them for an enhancement) So, I lay on the floor, legs out of the door. 2nd day I brought in cushions and blankets to lie on. Programmed like that for a week. I admit I had to take the occasional walk around the office to straighten the spine - but all in all it wasn't actually too bad! 'course that was when I was young; these days if I got into position I'd never get up again!
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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At least they couldn't tell if you were napping or not. :)
To err is human to really mess up you need a computer
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http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2015/04/24/coders-coders-everywhere/[^]
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2015/04/24/coders-coders-everywhere/[^]
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
The Men's room. We had a lab that required men's and women's dressing rooms. The lab had been abandoned so they put my office/lab area in the dressing area of the Men's room. There was a bathroom located inside this dressing area. It was the most remote bathroom in the building so a lot of guys would go there to take care of "serious" business. All-in-all, since it was so isolated, I got A LOT of work done.
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http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2015/04/24/coders-coders-everywhere/[^]
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
In a van, down by the river. Literally, in a 96 Ford custom van, at the Frio river, in central Texas, middle of summer, engine running, A/C on, power adapters buzzin, on a laptop, usin (AT&T) USB dongle Cell wireless internet(i.e. SLLLOOOOWWWW) for a week when with extended fam at a cabin out in the boonies! Having to do data transfers in morning(receive), process the data(thousands of invoices), and send completed zipped data in the evening! $20/hour, but got it done. Cell wireless too slow for upload, so had to drive til I found an open wireless connection, which I DID finally find, out at a rest stop, literally in the middle of nowhere! Very weird situation, but had a blast w/ the fam when not workin! :cool: Was nice to be able to travel and work...
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http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2015/04/24/coders-coders-everywhere/[^]
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Prison... We were installing software for the inmates to run. We literally had a "Captive" User Base :-))) OMG the red tape to get in/out, and the requirements to lock things down. Of course, you could not trust the users! And when 4-5 of them called you over to look at something on their screen... It made you nervous! The lunch was cheap. And tasted like cardboard. LOL. I remember thinking I couldn't hack prison because the food was so bad... Oh, and the limited access to computers.
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http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2015/04/24/coders-coders-everywhere/[^]
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
This doesn't compare to some of the others but it sucked none the less. Back in 1994 I was working in a Cyber café that had internet terminals and Virtuality VR games. I had to support the pc's, network, Virtuality machines (Amigas) and the clients. People had just seen the movie Disclosure with Hollywood VR and were irate because they didn't see themselves in full realtime 3D when playing Dactyl Nightmare. People were much more ignorant of technology back then and didn't understand.
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In a car. Didn't work out though, the screaming passengers are pretty distracting :)
Visit my blog at Sander's bits - Writing the code you need. Or read my articles at my CodeProject profile.
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. — Edsger W. Dijkstra
Regards, Sander
I remember working for one client from the back of a station wagon. Every morning I would string half a kilometre of power leads and connecting cable to the computer room, only to retrieve it at the close of business in the evening. This carried on for two months when my Winebago office arrived with a duplicate of the client's computer system onboard.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2015/04/24/coders-coders-everywhere/[^]
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
In the early 2000's a national grocery chain got into online shopping (by buying a start-up). The company I worked for got to develop the back-end. After the first site was "bedded-in" I flew early one morning to the second site, in an old supermarket. They had put a server rack in the old staff toilets (the plumbing and stalls were ripped out, but the tiles etc remained). I was asked to make a bunch of changes to the software, using the server console as my dev pc. Basically, I was standing at the server rack using a slide out keyboard and staring at a monitor about 6 inches above my head. I had to work on the "live" version of the system (there was no other version to hand). Every 15 minutes a guy would run in and ask me to stop while they picked and packed some orders. This was all dictated to me by a trio of VP level dudes from the grocery company. I struggled all day with this, and their increasingly crazy mod demands. And, standing on cold tiles in a cold toilet for 20 hours wears you down a lot. Eventually, around 3:00 am the next morning, I said to the VP's: "I'm really tired. I'm going to go back to the motel and get some sleep. I will be back in about 8 hours." No way. They were angry I should even suggest such a thing: "You can't leave until you're done." "Well", I said, "If I stay, I am so tired, I will likely make a mistake and destroy your system." Now they were really angry: "Don't try and threaten us. Do you know who we are? If you leave now, we will make sure you are dismissed today!". So I said: "If I stay, I will screw something up, and you will get me fired. And if I go you will get me fired. I'm outta here - see you guys tomorrow".
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http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2015/04/24/coders-coders-everywhere/[^]
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
I had to fix some code that was driving a caption generator, working on a laptop balanced on the steering wheel of the O.B. truck.
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http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2015/04/24/coders-coders-everywhere/[^]
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Site visits to underground coal mines doing software changes to continuous miners. If the methane level was low enough, sometimes would be right at the face standing in half metre of mud with water dripping from the unbolted roof. Good battery in the laptop helps as it can be a 500m walk back to the crib room where mains power is available. Big difference between countries - Australia very high safety standard, in the US bigger mines are OK, but the small ones can be a bit of a worry. China I just refused to go underground - they have improved a lot, but still over a 1000 deaths a year. Miners are well paid and were mostly getting more than I was - but that was fine by me.
