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The Worst Development Job You've Ever Had?

Posted by Cliff on from the weeping-anecdotes dept.

manavendra asks: "I'm currently working for a solution provider for telcos, and as part of product migration the entire API has to be 'internationalized'. Owing to a legacy architecture, most (if not all) application logic is still embedded in PL/SQL stored packages. My job: find hard coded strings, and replace with calls to the globalization API. Yes there is a script written to handle most tasks, but its quite primitive (not to mention fears of automating 'too much'). Boredom is at all time high. Have tried all means of whittling away the time, and hence this question to other Slashdot users: What's the worst ever job you had to do in the name of 'software development' (or as a software developer)?"

4 of 1,078 comments (clear)

  1. I know. by Rhesus+Piece · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know this is cheating, but I must say: the worst development job I've ever had is unemployment. Lots of work, but no pay. Any job is better than no job, so long as you're getting paid.

  2. Re:The worst job you can have by baudilus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can have the best job in the world and it still sux because of who you work for.

    Like when your boss has chronic halotosis (or "halo" for short.)

    mine does.

  3. Re:The worst job you can have by Short+Circuit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People with OCD (like me) often find pleasure in repetitive jobs. Sometimes I'll even repetitively fiddle with something at hand while I'm thinking about something else.

    And just because I'm autistic doesn't make me retarded.

    --
    tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
  4. Re:Here's a good one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    One guy apparently didn't know how to use variables, so he'd embed text boxes on the main form, and set their visibility property to false, and use them to store values.
    Hang on to this guy. He's got the instincts to be a decent engineer -- he's just missing the knowledge. Send him to some traning classes and mentor him past the noob coding traps.