Glint Survey 2025

We recently did a “Glint” survey. It was to gauge sentiments about how people feel working here.

All departments completed the survey. Some of the statements we scored, and the results for Development were as follows:

“Resources” “I have the resources I need to do my job well” – 63

“Energised” “I feel energised in my current role at work” – 58

“Contribution” “I understand how my work contributes to the company’s success. – 75

All of these were 5-10 points lower than the rest of the company.

The department is getting worse, but no doubt no action will be taken on the senior managers.

Code Review Argument: “Why are you reviewing!?”

There was a code review submitted in a project branch. I had no reason to review it because I wasn’t assigned to the project, but I often like to be nosey and see what is going into the releases.

I noticed a few classic mistakes like server-only code placed in “common“ that gets installed to both client and server when deployed. There was also a caching problem where the first call will store the data in the cache, then a call from a different user will then go into the cache and grab the other user’s data! It’s the classic mistake of forgetting about how the app servers are shared between many users and many organisations.

For years I have flagged these problems up. Maybe we should have it as part of an induction process to go through common misunderstandings. Anyway, I send them on to some developers (Dean and Mark) that I have discussed issues with or joked about them in the past. Each developer then decided to also leave comments on the review even though they also weren’t assigned to it.

In a private chat, Dean said “why isn’t the lead developer spotting these mistakes and teaching them?“.

I assumed he might have actually then put an official complaint in, because Gary, the Senior Developer assigned to the project; then left an angry comment.

“why are you commenting on a project level change? I thought you were struggling for time and this is a project branch that I haven’t yet reviewed”

The thing is, he hadn’t said that to Dean and I, but to the other developer Mark. It’s like maybe they had some kind of previous arguments and now it’s flared up.

Mark rightly responded:

“You’d added comments. This isn’t the place to debate such things, please contact me by message if you have a problem”

I think it could be the case that Gary hadn’t fully reviewed it, just glanced at it, left some trivial comments, and meant to come back. In my opinion, if someone does the review for you, then doesn’t that save you a job? Many developers seem to hate code reviews since they would rather be writing code, not reading it. So really he should be grateful. But he has taken it like a personal attack like we didn’t trust Gary to point out these major flaws in the code.

It’s also beneficial to spot problems as early as possible. There’s nothing worse than aiming to get the project in a release, then when you want to merge it in, then the experts then look at the code and tell you that it has major flaws and cannot be released. At least we have flagged it early in the project and they have plenty of time to address it.

Remember when people used to know what they were doing?

Remember when people used to know what they were doing? those were the days.

“what concerns me the most is that there was a time where everything almost worked like clockwork and now it seems like more ruins every day”
Software Architect

“I am more surprised when something works”
Me

We used to be a company full of smart people, working effectively. Now we work slowly and people just cut corners and do incredibly dumb things. In more recent times, people now don’t think for themselves because they ask AI what code to write. Sometimes it’s absolute rubbish but they never reviewed it themselves; so it really is zero thought. You point it out to them that it’s not going to work, and they respond back with an overly polite message, clearly written by ChatGPT; which just adds insult to injury.

So it’s like developers don’t even develop because AI does it. Then they don’t do any dev-testing. Then the Testers don’t know what they are doing either.

Recently Testers have been installing our software on the application servers.

Even though one of the Lead Testers has been posting angry rants about it; it keeps on happening. The Lead Tester’s points were that it’s not representative of live, and how it takes up the RAM/processing time and lags out the app server for everyone else.

I don’t get why people got the idea to install the client on the app server, and remote on. You can’t think that is official. The servers were always configured to only allow 2 people on at once, so it’s not like the entire department can log on to test if it was the official process.

I just hate what this company has become. I feel like it’s just gonna keep getting worse with managers constantly encouraging people to use AI.

Communication Breakdown

Here’s a collection of moments where there was some kind of misunderstanding with communication.

Duplicate work

This scenario has happened a few times in various forms. I don’t get how it can happen when work ultimately comes from the Project Managers.

“we have been pressured to give estimates on the API improvements, but it turns out another team has done 80% of the work”.
Lead tester

Another manager said there was another team involved as well, but didn’t specify in what capacity. So it sounded like a simple project which should have been assigned to 1 team was assigned to 3. Then there was more drama when it seemed the team had been working on it for over 6 months but it shouldn’t have taken that long.

New PC

“It’s over 4 years old (nearly 5). Is it still performing ok or do you  want a replacement?”

I was asked if I wanted a new PC, but although I knew others had a better PC, it always seemed a bit of a waste to get rid of a working PC if it wasn’t a significant upgrade. I didn’t know if they had changed the model they were getting in either so I wasn’t sure what was considered “fast performance”. So I was a bit “on the fence” in my reply. I didn’t want to be dishonest and would rather someone decide what the policy was.

It can take a long time to get up and running if I’ve turned it off, and I think building our software can take a few extra minutes compared to some people, but other than that I believe it is fine.

My PC wasn’t new when I started and other people got faster and new PC’s. So maybe I deserve a treat; I don’t want to get left behind if everyone else is getting shiny new PC’s!

But I was surprised that I just got a simple message of acceptance. I suppose it makes his job easier to not order me one. 

“I will make a note to ask you again in 6 months.”

Team meetings when you are all at your desks

When we were in the office, we had face to face meetings. As time went on, we seemed more accepting of people that wanted to occasionally work at home. However, when they did, then you needed to dial them in, which wasn’t too bad if you had a meeting room. When we were at our desks, we couldn’t just gather round, we then all had to go on a call.

Me 14:11:
what do you think of Skype meetings when you are all at your desks

Dan 14:11:
they're shit

Me 14:11:
I guess it can be a bit cramped if there's 4 people gathering around 1 monitor
but it still looks a bit inefficient/awkward to me

Dan 14:12:
yeah I don't think people concentrate when they're on skype/teams/whatever

Me 14:13:
I like the one the testers are having
Rob "Alex, can you share your screen"
Alex "what am I showing you?"
Rob "regression testing"
Alex "I never did regression testing"
sounds organised

The Module handover

There was a time where the new idea was that we would hand over most of our domains to the developers in India, and then we move onto newer, exciting projects. I think most of the handovers happened but then we canceled the idea because they decided it was treating the Indians as “second class”.

We have been on this call for 30 minutes for our handover. Someone just asked what the domain is.

Meeting with entire Team but without Vinitha

Although I implied it was a bad idea to assign Indians to a project that was considered inferior, assigning an Indian or two to every team to make them seem integrated also doesn’t really work. When we worked in the office, we had everyone except Vinitha there, so she missed all the ad-hoc meetings we had at our desks, and also all the office banter. The timezone difference doesn’t help either because there’s large parts of the day where she has gone home and we are in the office. There was the occasion where we booked a meeting but then forgot to dial her in. She eventually requested to leave the team. The key thing is to assign projects to co-located teams and not force them to be distributed. But assign the quality projects evenly between the locations.

Online Communications

One day we received an email to our group Development email account.

Someone has logged a comment on the Support Centre "How to activate a portal in local developer’s system or in any of the test environments" and given us this email address to respond to.
This isn't a question we'd be able to answer, we presume someone in Development would be able to answer this/set this up.
Thanks.
Online Communications

Why would someone think the support centre was the correct place to ask that? Even if it was a new starter, surely they would ask a colleague first rather than contacting support.

Everyone to the breakout room!

When we worked in the office, occasionally something exciting/dramatic would happen and we’d be called into a meeting.

To: Group Development
Subject: Please go to the break out room now
 
Hi all, 
Please can everyone go to the break out room now.
Thanks!
Isobel

So with much panic, we all ran in. It was actually for a colleague’s leaving presentation but wasn’t planned in advance. To avoid people panicking further when they see the email, Isobel had to send a clarifying email. On the plus side, there was food:

Apologies for the email sent earlier. It was a leaving presentation for Elliot - nothing to panic about.
There is some food that Maria made for Elliot and colleagues in the upstairs kitchen.
Isobel

Poor communication

When we started working with the Indian developers, we noticed that it seems a cultural thing that they would message you a greeting, then wait until you respond before asking their actual question.

I think a lot of English developers would see a message like “Hi”, then go back to their work until they get the actual message/question… but it never comes. You might just get another “Hi” or “are you free?”, sometimes having to wait until the next morning for the follow-up message.

I made a joke about that scenario:

Previously on Teams:
"Hi"
<episode starts>
"need one help"
<credits roll>
tune in tomorrow to find out what the problem is

It’s incredibly irritating to know that someone needs your help, but you don’t know if you can help, or how long they will need you for. So then it just becomes a distraction.

How about you ask me the questions, and I answer them when I am free?

I could say that I am free, then suddenly not be free if I get a call. So it doesn’t really make sense to delay until there’s a time where you think messages can be sent quickly back and forth. Messaging is asynchronous in nature, just send it and wait.

It seems a common problem, and someone made a website about it:

http://www.nohello.com/

There was one more frustrating scenario where we had both Slack and Teams. Vignesh asked me a question on Slack. I took a while to answer so he then messaged on Teams. Although it was the distracting statement which gives you no context:

“I need some clarification..when you are free please ping me”

Security Training with 2 days to sign up

I’d imagine organising external training takes a while since they always drag out processes. However, we had 2 days notice to choose a live online session to attend. I think the problem is that the CTO sent an email to his direct reports, then they forwarded it onto theirs and so on. It had to go down 4 levels of hierarchy before it actually got to the software developers who needed to attend. Why doesn’t the CTO just send it to the Group Development mail group?

Some people then didn’t attend so it was probably a waste of money.

Further confusion was that there was a Fundamental Session and an Advanced Session. Were you supposed to attend one then the other? Could you skip one if you think you know the basics?

A shambles as always.

Legacy testers

We used to have two Development Departments but merged them together. The original one was for what we then called “Legacy” software since it was our older product, and emphasis was moving over to our new flagship product which I was working on. The “Legacy” Testers seemed a much older group, and even the younger ones were less technical, yet maybe more socially quirky than our group.

We also noticed different behaviors and preferences. They seemed to have much more stationary so didn’t just have a small notebook and a single pen like we did, but would have a more impressive collection of post-it notes, hole puncher, stapler, and assortment of coloured pens or highlighters. They would often want an ergonomic keyboard and mouse, with a fancy chair. They seemed to love using the printer as well.

No idea if their work actually called for any of these items, because our job certainly didn’t require it.

There’s that meme template “X starter pack” so a colleague liked making ones for the likes of the Legacy Testers. So he included an ergonomic keyboard, fancy chair, excessive amount of stationary and stack of printed paper.

He made a different one which I think had walking boots, wrist support, a programming book used as a monitor stand, and Lego.

With our group, there was a subgroup that loved multiplayer computer gaming, and loved Marvel merchandise, often having figures like Funko Pops or even Lego on their desk; so maybe they were the most alike.

“when there’s a lack of people in the office, it’s either because there’s a new game out, or it’s the Testing Conference”

Towel Chronicles

One thing that I miss about office working is the emergent stories you get from people interacting with people. It can be fairly innocuous scenarios that escalate or become inside-jokes. A classic example is when the cleaner Pauline wasn’t allowed to let us use her towels in the kitchen anymore. One day, a colleague emails to declare that Pauline was taking home the towels for the final time.

Pauline used to take home and wash all the tea towels, but after some office politics with her employers she doesn't do it anymore, hence no more tea towels.

Cheers, 
Isobel Johnson

Nick has offered to buy tea-towels for the kitchens if we volunteer to take them home at the weekend to wash them (there are no facilities to wash them here).

I don’t mind doing this once a month (for the upstairs kitchen I use). If you currently use the paper towel and prefer to use tea towels and don’t mind washing them now and again then let me know. (Or if you use the downstairs kitchen and want tea towels and are happy to wash them, also let me know.)

Cheers,
Isobel Johnson

I’ve bought some fresh new tea towels for the upstairs kitchen.

Please consider others who might want to use them. Please don’t use them to dry your hands or wipe coffee stains from the inside of your mug. There are blue paper towels for that stuff.

Cheers,
Isobel Johnson

One of the tea-towels is missing from the upstairs kitchen. Please can you return it if you have it so that I can take them both home to wash.

Cheers, 
Isobel Johnson

There are fresh clean tea towels in the upstairs kitchen – I’ve replaced the missing one. 
I’ve bought these and wash them weekly so please look after them.
 
Thanks! 
Isobel Johnson

So a thing that you take for granted; having a tea towel in the kitchen – has lots of “office politics” and requires organisation. Isobel initially managed to get the development manager to buy the replacement towels, but soon became stained then one went missing. Absolute disrespect for those towels.

Office Pranks

Even though I don’t like mean-spirited pranks, sometimes they do make the day memorable, and even small quirky things people do lead to funny situations.

Simulated Mouse Movements

One good prank was done by a software tester called Chris. I think he unplugged Ryan’s mouse, then plugged his own mouse to Ryan’s PC. When Ryan returned to his desk and moved his mouse (which wasn’t plugged in; or plugged into someone else’s machine for extra bantz), Chris tried to emulate his mouse movements, and tried to match his movements for as long as possible.

Ryan was obviously struggling to hit some icons/buttons, and would see a lag before the mouse moved so was really confused.

Steve in the kitchen

I was in the kitchen, and got the urge to look up, there was a picture of Steve’s face stuck to the ceiling. I wondered how long it had been there and how many people had even seen it.

Keyboard Hijack

One classic thing people loved doing is sending messages to people if you walked away without locking your screen. There were a few times I got back to my desk to find our tester had messaged my line manager, or even his line manager.

Me 11:10:
I miss working with you Matty
Matty 11:10:
😕
Me 11:22:
I think Suhail hacked me when my back was turned
we do miss working with you though
 
 
 
Me 11:09:
I cant stop touching Suhail
Keith 11:10:
Again?!
Me 11:10:
He's got a nice red top on
Keith 11:11:
Haha
Me 11:22:
I think Suhail hacked me when my back was turned
Keith 11:23:
I figured 😛

Top Hat

There was a Christmas Party where we dressed up and someone wore a Top Hat. Afterwards I think they brought it to the office and left it there.

Josh placed a Christmas Pudding on Andy’s chair, but because there was little chance he would just sit on it, he decided to cover it up with the Top Hat in hope he would remove the hat and not expect anything else there. It didn’t work, but Andy thought it was funny anyway.

For a second attempt, Josh decided to place a smaller item; a sachet of vinegar. A manager came over wanting to talk to someone nearby. She initially grabbed the chair and saw the top hat. She began to pick it up but then realised the vinegar was there also. She then grabbed a different chair and exclaimed.

“I didn’t want to take that chair because it had a Top Hat and vinegar on it”
Natalie

So the prank was brilliant because it forced a manager to come out with a statement that you never thought you would hear them say.

Victim Mindset

DOWN WITH THE PATRIARCHY!

I’ve written some blogs on the Woke mindset that seems to be progressively impacting my workplace. I stated that there was previously no sexism/racism from what I have experienced. We have a high percentage of Asians that work here, and if anything, women seem to find it easier to get promoted. So I think you could argue bias towards certain minority groups, or maybe we are pretty much perfectly balanced in diversity and equity.

The “woke” mindset seems to create a “victim” culture, and often tries to rectify “issues” (read: non-existent issues) by actually creating sexism/racism that it aimed to combat. Here is an example of such a “victim”.

At work, there was a post on Viva Engage about Recycling, informing which items cannot actually be recycled, and how some councils actually end up incinerating rather than recycling. There was the following comment:

Really informative. Thanks for sharing this. What is interesting is that out of the 13 reactions, only TWO are from men (well done guys)… is it just we women who recycle the most or are most interested?!!

My initial thoughts are: what made her read the article, then check the likes, then observe that it was mainly female? Surely she has a victim mindset and is going out of her way to feel the victim and claim “sexism”, showing clear misandry.

I was also thinking, if she has a point that 2 men and 11 women added reactions, then why was this?

Do women more likely add a reaction to articles they read?
Do men check Viva Engage at the end of the day, but women like to check at the start; so men haven’t read it yet?
Do men focus on their work more, but women like slacking off?
Do women care more about environmental issues?

If it was the case that women are more interested in the article content – recycling, is it because in their household, the woman is the one that sorts out the waste in their house? It’s quite common for families to assign certain chores, and pulling a heavy bin up your drive ready for collection could be down to the man.

I told one of my colleagues about the person’s comment and he was outraged by the comment. He did say he tends to check Viva Engage at the end of the day so hadn’t read the article yet. He also said his wife tends to put the rubbish in the bins, but he was the one to take it to the street for collection day.

He rightly pointed out that you could say “why are there no blacks/asians or Muslims/Jews commenting on the article?”. So it seems she very much was man-hating since no other relevant demographic was called out. He made the classic point that if you switched out the word “men” for “asians” or similar, then does it sound offensive? If so, then the original statement is offensive. People seem to think it is much more acceptable to be sexist than racist, then also more acceptable to criticise men than women.

When I checked who left reactions, everyone looked white apart from the women that posted the comment. Her profile picture was black and white, but her general looks seemed likely to be tanned, and her surname would suggest she could have some middle-eastern country heritage. I think it’s a clear case of her having a victim mindset, and seeing confirmation bias in data, leading to a clear over-reaction.

Dev.to review

Dev.to is a blogging website for developers. At one point, I had an RSS feed to it, but there’s so much content posted daily that it is impossible to read it all. Some of the blogs can give good insight into other developer’s lives and mentality. Some of the blogs have informative tips for developers. There’s also a lot of social justice awareness.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for equality, and promoting the amount of female developers, but I think a lot of people end up doing it in an obnoxious way which does nothing. I don’t think you get equality by excluding males or putting them down.

There was one blog which opened with the greeting “Hey ladies and non-binary friends!”. Not a great start to your blog when there will be a range of people reading it, but predominately men. If the blog’s content was strongly geared towards a particular demographic, then maybe it could be debated to be appropriate language. As it goes, although she was criticising behaviour in the office, it was nothing to do with male behaviour. She comments on some rubbish banter (a developer who happens to be male) had said. But the banter was nothing to do with being male, and it wasn’t against women or any other minority group. So why attack him for being male? Why exclude your blog from males?

In the comment section, I saw a man had commented on the blog. It was a polite reply and rightly advising her to stop putting her colleagues into groups. She replies “I think you’re a bit out of your depth here mate.” Not really a good thing to say to one of your readers.

Again she seemed like she had a victim mindset, seeing confirmation bias in behaviour, leading to a clear over-reaction and bringing out her misandry.

Eni Eluko

I was discussing the drama around ex-footballer Eni Eluko with a friend. Andrew Gold speaks out against DEI practices, and invited Eni onto his Heretics podcast. Eni Eluko stated an anti-DEI stance is clear racism. Andrew asked her why 3.5 times more black presenters than white are employed by the BBC? She could only say they must be better than the white presenters. Yet, she was still adamant that DEI practices, which favour employing people from minority groups – is needed because black people are overlooked. Eni herself is a black woman who has got lots of work from the BBC.

Andrew was a victim of such DEI practices when he wanted his show commissioned by the BBC, with him presenting, and he got told they would accept if he agreed to let them choose a new host, who would be an ethnic minority – to which he refused.

Eni was recently involved in a slander case with ex-footballer and controversial, outspoken personality Joey Barton, who had criticised her ability as a football pundit and also had the views that women shouldn’t work in the men’s game. She thought it was outrageous. She more recently came under fire after saying Ian Wright, (a well-known black pundit who works on both men’s and women’s game) shouldn’t be commenting on the women’s game as he is stealing a position from the women. Not only is that exactly like Joey Barton’s opinion (sports pundits/commentators should match the gender they are working with), but Ian Wright has helped raise the profile of the women’s game, and possibly more shockingly, helped mentor Eni as a pundit. Yet she is blinded by an agenda, that she betrays a friend and someone of the same race that is allied to her cause.

Employee Profiles: Zack

I’ve often said that my employer is reluctant to sack people even if they are bad. We once wanted to hire some experienced software testers to bring new ideas into the testing team since most of ours were internally trained. One of the new hires, Zack, was recommended by another employee, and a manager reckoned we hired Zack only to appease that employee, but then that guy quickly left anyway; leaving us with Zack.

Zack seemed reluctant to do any work, learn anything, and would often not really listen but repeatedly say “yeah, yeah, alright” when you were talking to him. It was irritating because it would interrupt you whilst you were speaking but also not give you any indication if he understood it at all.

What annoyed me is that sometimes he would ask for help, then go ask someone else without attempting to do what you said. Did he not understand or was he just procrastinating and wasting your time whilst doing it?

Blagging

He loved blagging his daily standup updates, because he had done nothing but had to say something.

From probable lies: “There was no power to my PC this morning, so I had to sort that out. “

Saying a few words to blag: “I’ve been doing a bit of admin, and some other things I don’t remember”

To definite lies: “Helped get Jim up and running” (I think that is a bit exaggerated, he just watched while I helped him)

Or a bit of humour to deflect: “In Nerd Heaven, looking at XML code”

Procrastinating

There was one time Zack asked me which test organisation he could test a feature on, and he said he was gonna use my user account. I told him to create a new user since there isn’t any extra config he needs. The next day, I got in at 8:45 and he told me he couldn’t find my user on that organisation. He gets in at 8. Instead of creating a new user, he just sat there for 45 mins. So I told him to create a new user, and he walks over to Jim and asks him what his password is. Why can’t he just create a new user? Is he trying to avoid his name from being shown in the error logs or something?

Zack 13:06:
Hi. Do you know anything about filing external messages?
Me 13:06:
You need Messenger set up, and the Messenger Forwarder Tool to send them in
Zack 13:08:
OK, I'll see what I can find out about that. Jim sent me a link to a wiki or two that I haven't read yet

So he had the answer, but decided to ask others again.

I loved that time when Zack was trying to palm some work off to anyone that would take it. Zack says to Josh “So who is responsible for this?” and Josh shot him down “As Senior Testers; we are, Zack“

Me 16:09:
we have just been laughing about Zack
he got told to test an item. He spoke to Paul, spoke to me, spoke to Sanjay, spoke to Jim, then sent an email to everyone summarising our conversations
Mel comes over and says "who is testing it?"
turns out, it is Jim
Dean 16:10:
so they both had the same WI assigned?
Me 16:12:
well in fact, I think Paul wanted Zack to test it but since he isn't confident, he said Jim can assist but neither of them seemed to understand they were supposed to work together.
The item doesn't have testing details, wasn't assigned to Jim, and Zack even asked Jim how to test it and he didn't even think he was on about the same item

The Longest Work

There was one time we made some risky changes to a feature so we advised fully regression testing it, alongside some specific tests. Zack ended up testing for a month. 109 hours on his timesheet. One day, as Zack was leaving he jestingly said :

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t”
Zak

So I said to Sanjay

“Shall we mark his item as “Completed”?”

you won’t hear a better joke this week

James: “Are there any IRP experts?”

“Zack, he has spent 3 lifetimes on it”
Senior Developer

Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs

The frequency that Zack said “right, yeah” etc was insane. Sometimes I’d type it out as Zack said it to joke with team member Sanjay.

Me 09:58:
right, yeah, okay, right, right
Me 11:36:
Jim gatecrashing their meeting
Sanjay 11:37:
Jim is a legend
Me 11:37:
you should do it next, just walk up going "yeah, yeah, yeah, er yeah right"
Sanjay 11:44:
ha
Me 11:46:
yeah, yeah, um, yeah
Sanjay 11:52:
you basket
Me 15:43:
oh yeah, yeah, right
Sanjay 15:44:
you're a basket
Me 15:45:
our conversation history is just
oh yeah, yeah, right
you're a basket
that's what we have become
Sanjay 16:54:
oh yeah yeah

 Me 10:04:
We asked Zack a few times if the Test Environment was patched with the new changes and he was just like "yeah, yeah, yeah"
ended up checking myself and it hadn't been
Sanjay 10:05:
I told him yesterday it was not patched

“anything that isn’t abnormal is normal”
Chris

“ah right”
Zack

Employee Profiles: Legacy Staff

We used to have two Software Development departments, each one for a separate product. As one got phased out, these “Legacy” developers and testers moved onto our projects.

When people were hired for the new product, we often went for young graduates in technical subjects. The demographic for the legacy product were from an older generation, and the testers were mainly women; often part-time mothers.

What I think is so funny is that when I had conversations with other staff about them, they would quickly resort to slagging them off and be incredibly harsh. So I knew they must have been bad if they were antagonising multiple people, particularly those that rarely criticised.

Not knowing the basics

Me 16:07:
was Gina one of those legacy developers?
Dean 16:08:
Yeah, why?
Me 16:08:
Dave is explaining how to add a schema patch
why haven't you been showing her the ropes?
Dean  16:09:
i have she's just thick
Me 16:09:
ha

Using code review titles for messages

Me 14:32:
are you ready for Code Review Title Of The Week?
"I am sending this to you to check in the files"
Mark 14:40:
haha
new contractor?
Me 14:40:
Gina
Mark 14:40:
not surprised
Me 14:40:
now that I think about it, I reckon she meant "I'm on holiday, so you can sort out the errors and check it in". But why would you name the actual review that and not just send them a private message or leave a comment on the actual work item?

Code Comments

Me 17:02:
// Gina added do i need to assign the stop event
Mark 17:03:
oh god
what is she?
Me 17:03:
I'm gonna give her a stop event
Mark 17:03:
give her it immediately
Me 17:03:
that code comment is from her code review "sending code to code review"

Poor attitude to timekeeping

Mark 17:05:
I remember sitting with her for about 15 minutes, and her trying to explain something basic in the most convoluted way I've ever encountered, and I almost, so nearly walked off
but then SHE WALKED OFF
just locked her PC, got up and said "I need to go to the doctor's"
so I'm like, do you have an appointment soon?
and she said "15 minutes ago"
WTF
Me 17:06:
haha, is that a true story?
Mark 17:06:
why call me down if you have a doctor's appointment
:@
it was her second DNA (Did Not Attend)
and she already had a warning!
it's totally serious
I'm afraid
Me 17:06:
that happened to me when I slept over at my mates house once. He wakes me up at 10am and said "damn, I have a dentist appointment, you'd better go"
Mark 17:08:
ha
no, you'd better go!
I'll stay sleeping
that's like when Alex said I could stay at his after a work night out
then booted me out for football
so I went and slept in the breakout room for 2 hours

Ignoring instructions

Me 16:53:
Gina sent me an email earlier and Im’ looking at it now and it is quite funny. It has a screenshot of Visual Studio and the projects haven’t loaded. There’s an error message about running it as administrator.
 
maybe the project hasn't loaded 😀
do you need to run it as administrator?
Mark 16:58:
ha
should be quite obvious...
what does she normally do?
it seems mean, but why don't we let these people go?
draining everyone else

Testing on the test environment

If we were enabling/disabling configuration on the test environments, we sent out an email informing people because it could invalidate their testing if the config wasn’t what they expected. But instead of saying what config was changing, Lisa just said “I’m planning on testing”!

Hi, I’m planning on testing in the next 5mins. Let me know if this will be a problem.

Not knowing people’s names

Dean 11:48: 
Lisa though Dave Walsh's name was Tim Burton
Me11:51: 
seriously?
she is like the Gerrald of your team
Dean 11:52: 
yeah
not really cos she's just thick
Me 11:53: 
that made me lol

No skills

Dean 13:58:
remember lisa?
she was shit
Me 14:00:
she looked more confused than Gerrald
Dean 14:01:
she had no appropriate skills whatsoever
remember when that wasn't even a problem?
people that could just work in a generic office working here

Closing thoughts

Working with the “Legacy” testers and developers, it was clear they were hired under a different company culture or hiring strategy. It was like software testing was seen as a job anyone could do, when even basic software testing requires people competent at using a computer, and required a mindset and attention to detail to find or investigate non-trivial bugs.