Thursday, December 13, 2007

<to the tune of The Beverly Hillbillies>

Come and listen to a story 'bout a blogger named Kyle
Didn't have much to say but he said it with some style
Day after day, he'd talk of TDD
AJAX and patterns and working remotely

Far, that is. Distant. Boondocks. 

Kyle blogged on and off for a little more'n a year
Then the CodeBetter folks said, "blog on over here!"
Said "we're big fans of your posts on hooch and 'shine"
So he packed up his feed and left his home behind.

Virtually, that is. Forsaken. But not forgotten.

 

Alas, it is the end of an era. The Coding Hillbilly has a new home (which explains the irony of the new skin). I've been called up to the majors over at www.CodeBetter.com. This place has been a nice little starter trailer but you can go only so long without indoor plumbing. Not sure what I'll do without dasBlog as my default blog-filler now.

The feed will (theoretically) stay the same for those of you who want to continue reading my ramblings without subscribing to the CodeBetter main feed. http://kyle.baley.org will continue to point here to minimize broken links but I've moved http://www.codinghillbilly.com to point to the new location (again, theoretically).

See y'all on the other side

Kyle the Promoted

Monday, December 10, 2007

It's just like skinning a raccoon, really. Ya outsource it.

Seriously, I do have some technical posts on the way. There's a reason I'm holding out on them. In the meantime, you're stuck with the philly-sophical side of the Coding Hillbilly.

So I recently went through a branding phase where I decided the hillbilly needed a more profeshunal look if he wuz to be taken seeryuslee. If you are viewing this post directly on my site (and I imagine exactly none of you are but that you'll be clicking the link to check it out shortly), you'll notice a brand spankin' (tee hee) new skin courtesy of the Design Goblin.

It was a bit of an odd decision to make and one that will seem all the more ironic hopefully sometime this week. On the one hand, I wanted something a little easier on the eyes than the "Sepia Gone Wild" theme of the last one. On the other hand, considering most people come at this with an RSS reader, who cares how it looks? (Side note: I'm not going to erase what I typed but now that I've said it, I shouldn't discount the power of the search engine.)

In implementing this theme, I did have to sell my soul a little and rely heavily on tables for layout. (Sorry, Justice.) But after looking at some of the things you have to do in CSS just to have two blocks of text on the same line, one aligned left and the other aligned right, I chose instead to go the tried-and-true route and make up some rationalization for it (which I'm still working on). And after taking that first step into the abyss, I pretty much abandoned all I know and love about CSS and even stopped using class names for the remainder of the theme.

So, such as it is, this is the new look of the Coding Hillbilly. In doing so, I've rendered more than a few posts on ASP.NET AJAX that much more confusing with their references to rounded corners and watermarks on the site. If I were an industrious person of the earth, I'd go back and add caveats...

Feel free to leave comments on the look if it's something you feel strongly about. Consider though that any negative feedback will result in some heavy editing of your name in the comment XML file.

Kyle the Reborn

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

One of the highlights of DevTeach last week was meeting Ayende for the first time, albeit fleetingly. But it was enough for Bil Simser and me to form a theory that bears consideration. And it's one that will probably put me at great personal risk should it be true but such is the sacrifice I'm willing to make for the community:

Ayende Rahien is an android

I know what you're thinking. Shock at first. Maybe a little indignation. But now your considering your own experience with him and there's a little nod of recognition, isn't there. A bit of "hmmm...that would explain it", yesno? How many times have you read about some coding prowess he's done and thought, "man, that guy ain't human"?

Let's consider the evidence:

• Seemingly codes more than is possible in a 24-hour day even assuming he doesn't sleep
• He doesn't sleep
• The code ranges from good to stellar (depending on how much power remains in his batteries)
• His low, monotone voice
• The way he pauses while he talks under the guise of "well, English is not my first language".
• Constantly asks for explanation of English colloquialisms (particularly during conversations with Scott Belware)
• 3000 posts in three years
• Goes by a pseudonym because of some super-secret military reason. (The name originates from a series called The Wheel of Time so I'm working on a corollary that he's from the future, too.)
• Finally, if you watch him closely, you'll notice he never blinks

So what do we, as a development community, do about this information? Nothing. He was clearly created for the purpose of good. Or rather, if Hollywood is as accurate as I believe it to be, he was created for evil, gained sentience, and decided to use his power to better mankind to make up for his past transgressions. Perhaps, under the command of his brilliant-but-demented creator, he was responsible for all the brackets in Lisp or something equally nefarious. Now that I think about it, this would explain APL.

The point is: he is here to help humankind and we should encourage him to continue about his business. But keep an eye on him in case his eyes start glowing red which, as Hollywood has again taught us, is the universal sign of an android gone bad.

Kyle the Theorist

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Breaking form here by making someone else's link the sole topic of this post without adding anything other than kudos. But it's a really good link and it plays to my technical and musical leanings.

Props to Carl Franklin for a very impressive rendition of Home At Last (via Scott Hanselman). All four instruments *and* vocals (one can only assume he's doing backing vocals himself as well). Puts my own little flirtation with mixing from a few years ago, in the form of quotes from Glengarry Glen Ross intermingled with Pink Floyd's Money (sometimes very badly), into perspective. (Note: if you've seen the movie, you already know this but for those who haven't, that "flirtation" link is probably not safe for work. Carl's is.)

And yes, an e-mail has been sent to Carl to audition for Hillbilly Idol.

Kyle the Scouting

Monday, October 15, 2007

Tried to respond to Chinh Do's comment on a previous post this morning and lo! the Coding Hillbilly has been dubbed a social networking site by his employer. And Jayzus knows we don't want workers who network socially (unless it's for the United Way judging from the amount of ad space it gets on the company portal).

Interestingly, the sister-aunt site to this one is still deemed acceptable viewing.

Anyway, I'm glad my employer has shown me the error of my ways. I was almost unproductive there for a second.

And yes, this post was written during normal work hours.

Kyle the Spiteful

 

Saturday, September 22, 2007

It's mind-boggling the amount of effort communication companies must put into their rate plans. I've resisted cell phones for that very reason alone. As soon as I see "if" or "provided that" or "after" or "before" my eyes glaze over and I get this unwavering urge to send the company some literature.

The main issue with the rate plans is that no matter which one I choose, I'll end up feeling stupid. Not only about whether I chose the right plan but also every time I would inevitably think, "I can't call X now because it'll be more expensive" or "I really should swap N for M in my top X list". And that's not even considering the idiocy I would feel for signing up for a contract. I've never signed a lease for three years. Not for an apartment and not for a car. So I'm sure as *%$@ not signing one for the right to get dirty looks when I forget to turn it off in a movie theatre.

This isn't just for cell phones. This little sidebar is being written from Lester B. Pearson airport in Toronto courtesy of www.boingo.com (the fact that that's not hyperlink is not an accident). In order for me to sign-up for their one day, $9.95 service, I needed to actually install something on my machine. Not even one of those idiotic ActiveX component that you have to keep open. This is a physical piece of software staring at me from the system tray. At the moment, it says I'm disconnected which I'm not. And yet, I couldn't get online without first installing it, then logging in.

And for completeness, they also lose points for their "lost password" mechanism. Namely, when I signed up, I had to provide not only a password but a four-digit PIN number in the event I forgot my password. My guess is that if you forgot your password, you would provide that PIN number and they'd send it to you via e-mail. Or maybe reset it. In any case, I would be embarrassed to even suggest you enter a four-digit PIN for *anything* in the 21st century. And you just know at least half the people signing up are using their bank PINs.

But it's hard to fault them completely for that kind of inanity. Like I said, I *did* sign up for it...

Kyle the Example

Thursday, August 09, 2007

The subject for this post is pretty much the opposite of what I generally like to put here. It's a rant about a company's customer service. But this is the most readily accessible soapbox at my disposal and the only mechanism I know that will offer some small measure of retribution (thanks to Google) while still offering the possibility to entertain. So I'm going anyway. But I swear the technical content will blossom in the coming weeks.

I'm not an easily angered hillbilly (or Appalachian American, as we prefer to be called). I can withstand a certain level of incompetence in my dealings with service-oriented industries. I do, after all, live in the Bahamas. And have spent the last month in labour-challenged Calgary. But my recent dealings with Expedia have come to a head, the likes of which can only be solved by making it as public as possible in the hopes it gets Slashdotted to the point where I can't be ignored anymore.

The original saga starts here during a now-not-so-recent trip to Miami. To sum up, my paper tickets didn't arrive in time, I had to purchase new ones, Expedia said I'd get a refund, I went about my business.

It is now four months later and my goal has shifted from "get my money back" to "get someone at Expedia to acknowledge me". The last communication they have actively made to me was April 17 in an e-mail claiming the fax I sent to them was unclear. Subsequent faxes and e-mails (including scanned versions of the tickets) by me have gone unanswered.

All of my normal tactics have failed me. I tried being nice to the customer service agents to the point where I am now godfather to two of their children. When that started failing, I tried Justice's variation on the theme and greeted the next CSR with a seductive "what are you wearing?". The agent didn't respond well to that or the ensuing promises of debauchery which was just as well because he couldn't help me either.

Following that was a carefully worded e-mail to them outlining the situation, where they failed, and what I'd like to happen (i.e. "will you please just call me?"). That ruse in itself is fairly useless but I cc'd advocate@consumerreports.com, which historically, has given me good results, regardless of whether that e-mail address actually exists something I still haven't actually determined.

My current tactic is one I hadn't used in a while. I'm now stalking Expedia. I fax them copies of my tickets daily. I e-mail them just to tell them what I did that day. Y'know, the usual: I had Bran Flakes for breakfast, then I rode the bus to work, then I walked to the building where I work, then I took the elevator, give me my money or I'll find your building and lob Travelocity gnomes through the windows, then I went to my office...

I call them at all hours. Sometimes I go through the whole spiel with them and other times, I just breathe heavy when I get someone on the line. In the latter case, it's best to do it when you're talking to an agent but there's still some degree of satisfaction when the computer voice says, "I'm sorry. I didn't quite get that" while you're hyperventilating.

Alas, my most recent phone calls to them have broken my resolve and I have had to *shudder* raise my voice to the CSR at the other end, especially when he or she recites from the CSR manual verbatim: Your case has been escalated to the next level and someone from that department will be contacting you shortly.

It's an interesting progression from that point. I try explaining, fairly rationally at first, that my sole goal is for someone at Expedia to call me. At one point, I even asked the CSR to call me right back herself just to say hello so I could verify that someone at Expedia was capable of dialling a phone. The agent then assures me that someone will and I tell them that every assurance Expedia has made to me to date has been false, including the one where the tickets would be delivered on time in the first place (despite my protests that they wouldn't).

It is at this point that I have started to wander into tirade-territory which is generally a foreign world to me. And after doing it a couple of times, I wonder why people bother. Because there is a distinct shift in the agent's MO once you start. It's like they shut down completely and their vocabulary consists solely of "I understand, sir" until you are finished. You can almost hear the click when they switch into this mode. And when you're finished, not only can they still not help you, but they're also adding comments to your file like "Customer blew up like Michael Richards at a NAACP meeting. With absolutely no provocation."

Like I said, I can put up with a lot but my patience wears when an organization is showing not only a colossal level of incompetence, but an intense indifference to actually solving what is a fairly simple issue, especially over such a long period of time. I'm an easy guy to satisfy. All I really need is to know that you're taking my problem seriously. Even if it doesn't get resolved they way I want, if the person shows that they did their due diligence and their conclusion follows some logic, I have no qualms going back to them the next time.

Like most service indsutries, online travel companies are differentiated not so much by the service they offer, which is interchangeable, but by how they react when something goes wrong. And even in the case where that experience sucks, I'd like to think I'm objective enough to give it another try when I recognize that the issue could have been the fault of one particular individual.

But with Expedia, the problem appears to be ingrained into their process. Where my issue currently sits, I have no way of contacting the people who can help me. The front-line CSR's can't solve my problem nor can they put me in contact with the people who can.

What's worse, they continue to tell me things are going to happen that they can't personally verify. It started right after I made the reservation when I called them to express my...ummm...reservations that the tickets would arrive on time. I was assured they would. I called back two days before the trip and they again assured me the tickets would arrive the next day by mail, even though the next day was a national holiday in both the US and the Bahamas. Since then, they have all assured me someone would call back with an update.

The whole thing reeks of an inherent culture problem rather than one bad seed. Which isn't a good place to be, especially when air travel in particular is already so stressful. So I suppose Expedia will go on the very short list of companies I won't use, at least until I get some evidence to the contrary. And at this point, it will take more than a cheque for the tickets I had to re-purchase.

Kyle the Betrodden

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Re: TestDriven.NET v. Microsoft

I have been following it and have nothing important to add that has not already been said. That is all.

Kyle the Neutral

P.S. I said the same thing when the Anna Nicole thing hit.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Someone tried to send me the following e-mail today:

Is there a quick (slick) way to force SSL on a website in IIS? I.e. if a user types in "http://www.mysite.com/mypage.aspx" we want IIS to automatically redirect to "http s://www.mysite.com/mypage.aspx"... I know you can do this through code in many ways, but wondering if there is some tricky way to do it in IIS.

Clearly, my friend is trying to infect the world with clandestine virii through his use of innocent IIS questions. But no matter! I have GoDaddy to protect me! So instead of his spite-filled spam actually making it to my Inbox, he received the following:

PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 12): 554 The message was rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content

I eventually did get the message thanks to the efforts of two others to whom the message had been sent, one of whom had the foresight to try my Gmail account which, like all things Google, worked.

Sure enough, I tried forwarding that same message to my normal, everyday e-mail account and received the same outright rejection (which is oddly reminiscent of the ones I got in high school).

Didn't take too long to figure out it was the URL that got flagged and flogged as "prohibited spam content".

So let that be a lesson to you all. There are evil people out there on the Internets. They may try to trick you with their pleas for help. But you must constantly be on the alert. Next thing you know, I'll be fielding questions on how to send money to Nigeria using LINQ.

Oh, the original question. Don't worry, it got answered in the same way I usually get mine answered. Send it out to a random group of developers from my address book plus James Kovacs. Chances are he's posted the solution already.

Kyle the Vigilant(e)

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Against my better judgement, I bought a Sony TV in Miami and had it shipped to the Bahamas. It's a 46" Bravia that within its first week, started showing a 3" stripe along the right side of the screen. It was red when it should have been black, yellow when it should have been green, etc, etc and so on and so forth.

But that's not what I came to talk about.

At some point during my travels, Sony got it into its head that I live in Latin America. So much so that now whenever I try to navigate to www.sony.com, I'm redirected to www.sony-latin.com/corporate.

When I first tried to hit sony.com, it detected something from my browser (or more likely my IP address since my computer probably still thinks I'm in the US) and asked me if I wanted to go to sony.com or the Sony Bahamas regional site. I.E. sony-latin.com. I went with sony.com and had it remember my preference but that was duly ignored.

(For now, I'm ignoring the ludicrous idea that the Bahamas should be considered part of Latin America. I'm also ignoring the odyssey I've had to endure )

The main issue with the Sony Latin site is, as far as I can tell, there is no way to get back to sony.com. There is a link to Global Home, which takes you to sony.net (which has its own issues, like the fact that the Bahamas doesn't even exist in their list of countries) but nothing back to sony.com. At least nothing in English.

There are other problems with sony-latin.com. Firstly, the dropdown menus don't work in Firefox which essentially means you can't navigate anywhere from the homepage. (And even in IE, I'm getting javascript errors with the menu.) And clicking on the Puerto Rico e-mail link from this site gives a Public Area General Error! which is a new one to me. (Ya, I know what you're going to say. I have no idea why I would be directed to the Puerto Rico support site either.)

Salient points:

• Sony doesn't appear to be putting in even the minimum amount of effort required for sony-latin.com. The two errors I found are pretty glaring. After all, Firefox is on version 2.
• Sony does however appear to have put in some effort to try to direct non-US customers to the right place. The problem being, they've put in a lot of effort and it's worse than, say, Dell where at least you can switch to the US site if they've directed you to the wrong place.
• The Bahamas simply should not be considered part of Latin America. I don't speak Spanish (and in fact, many Bahamians are still working on English as their first language judging from the slogans from the recent political campaign). I could see the argument though considering the nearest US city is Miami.

For the sake of closure, I did manage to get to sony.com after clearing my cookies. Firefox took me to the page where I had to choose sony.com or sony-latin.com and I also chose to remember my preference. Then I closed my browser and went to sony.com again and was directed to sony-latin.com.

<sigh> ¿Cualquier persona desea comprar una televisión nueva?

Sunday, April 29, 2007

The following is an offshoot of my recent Sony troubles. In summary, I bought a Bravia in Miami, shipped it to the Bahamas, had a technical problem and called tech support. The full version is sexier.

The inevitable customer satisfaction survey came the next day. I was pretty fair I think, commending the CSR on her politeness and troubleshooting skills while making it clear I still have a problem. But I had to take the survey twice. The first time, I received the following when I submitted it:

Astute readers will recognize Firefox's open dialogue and that Firefox is trying to open an ASPX page as an external file type. I retook the survey in Internet Explorer and everything went through fine. Tried a third time in Firefox and got the same dialogue.

Not quite sure what's happening but you'd better believe I opened that page in VS2005. It is attached below. You'll notice it's a .NET 1.0 or 1.1 page and that there isn't any actual server-side code in it. No technical reason for it to be an ASPX page although I'd probably make it one myself in the chance server-side code needs to be added to it later.

Also note that the page that launched this, the actual survey, is a plain old ASP page. Not sure why Firefox isn't able to open the page while IE is. If I had to guess, it would be because ASPX pages aren't registered properly at Sony in IIS and IE is being forgiving. Actually that doesn't sound right now that I think about it.

Regardless, it seems Sony's survey site doesn't support my version of Firefox. But here is the URL for the survey (with the EventID stripped) if you want to play around with it yourself.

And Sony really should invest in a default page for http://www.survey.sony.com.

** UPDATE **

After taking a look at the original survey page's HTML, it might be a .NET page, evidenced by the fact that the submit button has runat="server" attached to it.

CISC_Survey_2.aspx (5.51 KB)

Friday, April 13, 2007

On the heels of Bil Simser's question, "What Gets You Up In the Morning?" (and I'm paraphrasing to tie in with this post), I'm wondering, "What Winds You Down At Night?" Do you hunker down with a good book? Toss on The Celtic Show and cuddle with Andy Donnelly? Do an inventory of your knife collection?

Recently, my evening wind-down has evolved into a semi-routine: sit out on the patio with a cup of tea and the missus while the young 'un frolics somewhere in the vicinity. Some days we'll watch TV in the background (usually HGTV or the Food network). We've gotten into the habit of reading before bed too, which is something I'm glad I've gotten back into, even if my current choice of book, Che, is taking me freakin' forever to finish (damn biographies and they're lack of skippable descriptions). And on nights where I don't feel so revolutionary, there are plenty of crossword puzzle books lying at arms length in any given room of my house.

Related question: What's your depressant of choice for getting to sleep at night? 'Cause you see, ever since undertaking my recent professional development rampage, my mind has been abuzz with new concepts and techniques at the end of the day. And when my mind latches on to an interesting puzzle, it's tough to drift off.

Usually this isn't such a bad thing. I do most of my best creative thinking at night. But the offspring has been off school the past two weeks and let's just say, it's thrown off my sleep patterns.

So lately, I've taken to a variation on counting sheep. Namely, I'll lie in bed with my eyes closed and start counting while picturing the numbers in my head. And my font of choice is whatever Windows XP uses to identify monitors in a multi-monitor environment. You know the one, the big 1 or 2 (or if you're Hanselman, 3 or 4) that appears when you click Identify. That's what goes through my head at night against an undistinguishable background as I go to sleep.

 Test-driven development, indeed.

Friday, April 13, 2007

I'm going to pretend you don't already know this but the Calgary Code Camp is a mere two weeks away and it looks like it will surpass last year's in every way except one. Namely, I won't be presenting or attending. Which is just as well. My taste in music hasn't improved any. (MAN, Norah Jones' new CD rocks, metaphorically speaking.)

Normally, a nine-hour plane ride with a three-hour layover in TO wouldn't be enough to keep me from a Bil Simser/John Bristowe tag-team and the one titled Meet the Monkey almost sealed the deal but a $10k shopping trip to Miami to furnish our new condo (which previously contained furniture that looked like Edith Head puked and that puke designed it) put a big kibosh on that little cross-continental jaunt.

So, dear reader(s), it is up to you to be my eyes and ears. I need you to get up close and personal with the presenters. I'm talking INTIMATE. I want to be able to smell the soy-based food products on James Kovacs' breath when you report back to me. I want to know what JP's stimulant of choice is before he goes on. I want to know if Tom Opgenorth can make it through his presentation without giggling whenever he says Mono.

The one with the best use of clandestine tactics gets a free tour of Anna Nicole's house.

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Let's talk about my death for a minute 'cause I know a bunch of you have been thinking about it.

Scott Hanselman has an interesting post on a Family Backup Strategy. He mentions the importance of making sure your data is backed up which, of course, we all do. *cough*

Near the bottom, he alludes to something in passing: Does your spouse know where The Data is? This triggered something that's been brewing in the back of my mind for some time now: What happens if it's my turn to get hit by a bus tomorrow?

There is more to that than just telling people where my data is. That's the easy part. But what about the "other" IT support I do for various friends and family?

Here are a couple of examples from my own experience. I maintain seven domain names, some of which are personal, but at least four aren't. They are for my dad's company and another company for which I do IT work on the side. In the event of my untimely demise, how does someone log in to renew or change the domain info for these?

And what happens when the e-mail goes down for any of those domains?

Many years ago, I whipped up an ASP app for my dad's company (using AJAX before it was called AJAX even) that they can now not do without. They are on the phone to me faster than any notification system could be when that app goes down. Upon my death, someone will need to: a) find the app and the database, and b) decipher it. And let's just say I was a junior hillbilly back in 2000.

I do a lot of IT work for a small energy consulting firm (as in the president and his direct report, aka Mrs. Hillbilly). Over the years, I've done many little tweaks to his server and various laptops. Configuring a dial-up app for when he's in countries with limited access, setting up Microsoft's SyncToy to backup his laptop whenever he's in town, configuring the Microsoft Office Apps to look in specific folders by default, and so on and so forth.

Basically, I do all the techie stuff so that he can focus on doing what he does best, which is the goal for all non-technical professionals. But the kind of personal service he (and my family) enjoys comes at a cost in that it's that much bigger a hit when I'm gone. Sure you could get any lackey to install a virus scanner but what happens when you're in Kuwait and you start getting a svchost error every time you boot up right before you're supposed to teach a five-day seminar (to take a totally hypothetical example that didn't happen just last year).

Yes, I should be documenting everything and yes, I should have a will and yes, I should take the hair of the chipmunks before I cook 'em. But I haven't, okay? And unfortunately, there are businesses that rely on them now. And this isn't to mention this har blog thingy and its long-forgotten sister-site, The Hillbaley Ho Down and Extravaganza (or, more importantly, its e-mail domain).

So while you're making a backup strategy, don't forget to include the passwords, URLS, network locations, domain info, and various tweaks to unknowing victims' computers alongside your will in the safety deposit box.

Oh, and if by chance you DO get a svchost error on boot up, it's probably your Automatic Updates.

Monday, February 05, 2007

The picture up top is the banjo player from Deliverance. The duet he does with another character in the movie is kind of an informal family theme song.

Friday, January 19, 2007

The Coding Hillbilly is out at the Sundance Film Festival these days folks, so things'll be mighty quiet for a bit. If you get a hankerin' for my comings and goings, it'll all be chronicled here. Let me know if you want me to pass on any messages for specific celebrities, preferably Kate Beckinsale. Note, however, that I will not, nor will I ever, for anybody or for any reason approach Paris Hilton.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

This blog attracts some odd searches which I expected, given my theme. "hillbilly names", "hillbilly cycle", "hillbilly look", and "how to be a hillbilly" (!) are just some of the wacky things in my Referrers section as is "legal definition of office hours" which I'm kind of proud of. And apparently nothing bumps the numbers like referring to a free copy of Leon Redbone and Zooey Deschanels' Baby It's Cold Outside (sorry for you folks going away empty handed, I swear I have it around here somewhere here it is kiddies).

But how in the name of all things .NET did I come up twelfth in a search for "why does my ocd get worse when I'm praying to allah"? And even more baffling, why is the searcher clicking on a link that says "The Coding Hillbilly"?

Monday, September 25, 2006

Oh my Sweet Jayzus, I just scared the living crap out of myself. My wife's listening to the soft hits station on TV and Air Supply's Even the Nights Are Better comes on...and...oh, jeezus, I can't even bring myself to type it...It's far too frightening. OK, Baley, suck it up and blurt it out...

I KNEW THE WORDS!!! Every single, *#$% sappy one of 'em. All the inflections, the slight key change at the end, the way he pauses slightly on "since I fooound yoooooou". I was god-damned pitch perfect.

Where do you run when your own mind is what scares you most? Along with Graham Russell and Russell Hitchco--OH GOD, I KNOW THEIR NAMES!!!

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Just chatting with a friend who will remain nameless. He informs me that the company he's contracting at his installed a proxy to monitor MSN and IE traffic to see how much efficiency is lost to these activities.

I have read no empirical studies on this and am basing my opinion on exactly nothing but here it is: This idea is ridiculous. To me, it screams, "we have no faith in our hiring process." It means the company believes that the people they hired are lazy and easily distracted. And that they would perform better if this dang internet thingy was limited to work and not play.

This is coming on the heels of an article I just read (equally biased) on the nature of nine to five as well as Joel Spolsky's Field Guide to Developers (which is geared toward techies but I'd like to think it applied to all fields). The first article argues (correctly) that attendance != performance. My brother is capable of zoning out so completely, he actually starts drooling. Cheap, effective, and just as non-productive as doing the daily crossword online. Sometimes, he'll murmur random words to himself, too. "hippoooo, hippooooo, hippooooooooooo" But trust me on this, he's a superstar at what he does.

And I admit freely that I spend work hours reading news and blogs, chatting on MSN and playing solitaire. Not a lot but probably enough to make some managers freak out. Sometimes I do these things at companies that I know have monitors on and advertise that fact proudly. I admit I'm doing it to pick a fight but so far no one has called me up on it.

But I'd love to have someone try to reprimand me for spending too much time on these activities. My response: "Are you dissatisfied with the quality of my work?" I like to think I'm above average productivity-wise. Which is how companies should rate your performance. Not on the amount of time you've spent on a task but whether you completed it on time, on budget and with high quality. If you didn't, time to start curtailing your privileges.

My case is somewhat different than an employee's, though, because I bill by the hour. And I don't charge for time I spend on non-work-related activities. I won't necessarily dock three minutes from my timesheet to answer a technical question from a friend but neither will I charge for the half-hour I spent shopping for man-purses. In general, if the company is good to me, I'll reciprocate. If they aren't, I'll fulfill my contractual obligations to the letter. And if anyone from my current employer is reading, I don't mind saying they are definitely in the former category.

Of course, not all contractors are as pure and holy as I am and employees have different motives. And I don't necessarily want to get into ethical dilemmas. But my feeling is: let your people surf. They have tasks and deadlines and goals. If they're meeting them, consider the internet and MSN a perk of the job. If they're not, fire their asses. Instead, we have managers treating employees like children: You can have *one* website as an afternoon snack but that's it! And it has to be a healthy one.

Besides, this is the 21st century for Jayzus' sake. I thought spying on employees went out in the 90s.