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Worst Working Conditions You Had To Write Code In?

Posted by samzenpus on from the 150-of-us-in-a-shoebox-in-the-middle-of-the-road dept.

sausaw writes "I recently had to write code in a hot dusty room for 20 days with temperatures near 107F (~41C); having nothing to sit on; a 64 Kbps inconsistent internet connection; warm water for drinking and a lot of distractions and interruptions. I am sure many people have been in similar situations and would like to know your experiences."

41 of 1,127 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmmmm by gentlemen_loser · · Score: 5, Funny

    I once had an office mate that LOVED Kenny G. I think those were pretty horrific conditions...

    1. Re:Hmmmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Try having to sit across from a guy who loves Sarah Palin and can't stop talking about how the government is lacking without her as VP, the best politician ever. I wanted to use his head to stress test the impact rating of windshields in the parking lot. Sure would've relived my stress.

    2. Re:Hmmmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Bah! That's nothing that headphones won't cure.

      There was this one time when I was trying to code, and this gorgeous woman was fawning all over me. She kept taking articles of clothing off and cuddling up to me. I tell you, it was awful! Do you have any idea how hard it is to code with a beautiful naked woman throwing herself at you?

    3. Re:Hmmmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Try having to sit across from a guy who can't stop bashing Sarah Palin 6 months after she lost an election. I wanted to use his head to stress test the impact rating of windshields in the parking lot, but I realized it was too vacuous to be effective anyway.

    4. Re:Hmmmmm by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Funny

      Try sitting across from Sarah Palin, who keeps asking me if I'm going to run for president next year. I wanted to explain to her that not only was I not a politician, not a republican, and not old enough to be constitutionally eligible for presidency, but next year is not an election year. So I did. She said I wasn't thinking like a maverick.

    5. Re:Hmmmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Try sitting next to Sarah Palin.

    6. Re:Hmmmmm by GweeDo · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes.

      --
      Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
    7. Re:Hmmmmm by Spazztastic · · Score: 5, Funny

      At least he didn't have his desktop background as the same fucking poster that he had hanging on his wall.

      --
      Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
    8. Re:Hmmmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Doctor Baltar, is that you?

    9. Re:Hmmmmm by 54mc · · Score: 5, Funny

      Do you have any idea how hard it is to code with a beautiful naked woman throwing herself at you?

      No.

      --
      Joy! Beautiful spark of the gods!
    10. Re:Hmmmmm by JCSoRocks · · Score: 5, Funny

      Your mom isn't that hot.

      --
      You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
  2. Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I once had to write code on a palm pilot while I walked 15 miles uphill in the snow while naked with a pack of wolves and two grizzly bears stalking me.

    1. Re:Well by Theoboley · · Score: 5, Funny

      you forgot to mention you had a T-Bone steak tied to your ass.

      --
      Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
    2. Re:Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      My brother used to have a job like that, but the wolves caught up to him, and then the grizzly bears took him from the wolves. We didn't find out what happened until months later though. First there were the knawed bones and then some scatologist found a pile of grizzly dung and there, atop it, were the remains of brother's hand - still clutching the palm pilot. Dedicated coder that he was, he apparently continued to type even as he was being digested. His last line written was exit(EXIT_FAILURE);

    3. Re:Well by Lobster+Quadrille · · Score: 5, Funny

      It is concerning when macaroni and cheese stalks you.

      --
      "The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
    4. Re:Well by NormalVisual · · Score: 5, Funny

      Better mac & cheese than the feared gazebo.

      --
      Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
    5. Re:Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      It is concerning when macaroni and cheese stalks you.

      Well, in Soviet Russia....

    6. Re:Well by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Funny

      Scatologist?

      I think the search for the shittiest job is over.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re:Well by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Funny

      You want to talk about pressure to perform?

      Not really, I find that talking about it only makes it worse.

      Oops, TMFI?

  3. Keyboard behind an industrial fan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You had to move your hands in between revolutions and very quickly type. No time for comments and indentation and occasionally it would cut your hands off.

  4. Re:Laugher in cube next to me by zepo1a · · Score: 5, Funny

    The laughter is fine...As long as they are not doing your code review! :)

  5. Absolute worst? by thermian · · Score: 5, Funny

    My last Employer actually expected me to write code in the morning! We are talking pre 10am here. I still have nightmares...

    --
    A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
    1. Re:Absolute worst? by schon · · Score: 5, Funny

      pre 10am

      Whoa, woah, woah...

      Since when was there a 10AM?!?!?!

  6. Re:I got that beat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll go you one better - I once had to maintain Perl code.

    Oh yeah? I had to scale a Ruby on Rails application.

  7. writing code in NASAs vomit comet by carn1fex · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was having to write code to debug radar problems while on board one of NASAs P3 Orions (not technically The vomit comet but close enough)... in a thermal suit where the ambient temperature would go below zero at high altitudes then they would perform corkscrew dive maneuvers at some serious G-force to point the nadir looking antennas above the horizon back down to 300ft above the ocean where the temperature would spike over 100 degrees and the turbulence would throw you from the seat if not for the 6 point restraint. And the korean grad students were barfing their tuna fish sandwiches everywhere so the whole place smelled as can be expected. YOU KNOW NOTHING OF PAIN.

    --

    ---------

    No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.

  8. Re:Why is this being posted everywhere? by SEWilco · · Score: 5, Funny

    Obviously a masochist is doing a thorough job hunt.

  9. Re:Not coding, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sounds like the beginning of an interesting porno...

  10. I Once Had To Work In A Cramped Cubicle by CyberSlammer · · Score: 5, Funny
    Then my boss kept moving stuff into it and crowded me out to the basement and he left me down there with a can of roach spray and he took my red stapler....

    I'm going to burn the building down....

  11. Re:Itsatrap!!! by StikyPad · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why, when I was a kid, we had to write code while walking 20 miles to the computer building, in 12 feet of snow in the middle of winter. And it was uphill both ways! Course we couldn't wear gloves, because it was too hard to line up the hole punch on the punched card. They didn't have knapsacks in those days, so we just had to keep our card stack on a string tied to our belt. Now, a hole punch cost a nickel, and in those days nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Give me five bees for a quarter," you'd say. Now where were we? Oh yeah, the important thing was I had a stack of punch cards on my belt, was the style at the time. They didn't have standard 5081 cards in stock, because of the war. The only thing you could get was graph papyrus, and you had to draw all the tables by hand.

    --
    https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
  12. Re:Prayer meetings by aicrules · · Score: 5, Funny

    You expected different working at Apple?

  13. Re:Laugher in cube next to me by archammer2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dude, you could have just said something to us and we'd quiet down. Sheesh, some people...

  14. The woes of 1999-2000 by CranberryKing · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was riding my Xooter around on the hardwood floors of our TriBeCa luxury office loft in my tailored suit, while on a conference call via the wireless headset. As I veered around the servers, Aeron chairs, and putting green, I stopped by the espresso bar in our giant kitchen only to realize there was no more organic fair-trade raw sugar! I xooted over to the PM & demanded an explanation. He gave me some lame excuse about there not being any at the store.. I told him if the situation wasn't rectified I was going to raise my consulting rate another $10! Needles to say, the next day we had the sugar, but I had to suffer such horrible indignity and it changed me forever.

  15. UMMM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Try sitting next to Sarah Palin.

    Try sitting next to Cowboy Neal.

  16. Re:My experience by 25thCenturyQuaker · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bloody lugzhury.

    We had to write "dent-code" in braille using a white-hot knitting needle on sheets of wet tissue paper of while being submerged up to our tits in lava.

    The worst punishment of all? The only thing we were allowed to drink was shitty American megabeer.

    --
    My Human Gets Me Blues.
  17. Re:Worst that that - female coworkers in heat by mr_infiniti · · Score: 5, Funny

    I see the heat caused you to hallucinate...

  18. Re:Why is this being posted everywhere? by NevarMore · · Score: 5, Funny

    Either way someone is really turned on about this.

  19. Re:SARS Anyone? by silent_artichoke · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hello... computers can get viruses too!

  20. Re:Prayer meetings by greg_barton · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll one up you on that. One of the investors at a company I worked for introduced the mandatory prayer rule before meetings. This same investor came into my office one day and told me that you couldn't really understand code, or even basic logic, unless you were saved by Jesus Christ.

    I just smiled and nodded.

    But that wasn't the most interesting story about my employment there. The company finally folded because:

    1) The CEO only wanted investment money from "good Christian men"
    2) The potential investors had to be familiar to him from personal prophesy. Yes, they had to be ordained by god via his pastor.
    3) The CEO eventually was tried and convicted in federal court of HUD loan fraud from business dealings at a previous company he founded. In the days before he was hauled off to federal prison he told me how this was persecution sent from god to test his faith.

    Given all of that, it was a net plus for me. The work was really fun and interesting. :)

  21. Re:Laugher in cube next to me by kRutOn · · Score: 5, Funny

    And he once was convinced he found a security breach in my code because he composed a GET request, making a pistol gesture and a "pow" sound.

    Being able to compose an HTTP GET request just by making a pistol gesture and a "pow" sound definitely requires some serious "skillz." No matter how much I tried, I couldn't replicate this on my PC. I tried every conceivable pistol gesture and permutation of "pow," "ka-blooey," "Muad-dib," etc. It wasn't happening for me.

  22. Re:Laugher in cube next to me by tknd · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wait a minute, you're telling me you don't have a water gun pistol with a wii-mote strapped onto it and a custom bluetooth driver installed? Get with the times!

    Now anything I do gets done with a "pow" sound. Click that link: "pow". Go back: "pow". Stop: "pow". Close windows: "pow" "pow" "pow". Are you sure you want to leave this page? Hell yeah! "pow". Do you want to debug? Hell no! "pow".

    I even threw out my keyboard and use the on screen keyboard. Now programming in Java is actually fun. Just to type "System.out.println();" takes 24 "pow" with no mistakes! And changed my mouse cursor to a cross hair, set all the event sounds to a "pow" sound, and the window theme to the "High Contrast Black".

    Best of all is when something doesn't work or when a page takes too long to load: "pow" "pow" "p-p-p-p-pow". Double and tripple clicking is equally fun: "p-pow!" "p-p-pow!".

    Working with computers is so much fun now. You wouldn't believe how much fun I had posting this. "pow" "pow" "p-p-p-pow"!!!

  23. Re:Laugher in cube next to me by JohnnyLocust · · Score: 5, Funny

    I had to debug my code using Lynx! (Text-only web browser.)

    I find it very endearing that someone felt the need to explain what Lynx is on SlashDot.

    --
    Havoc Video