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Tell us your naughty stories

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241–250 of 379 posts

Re: Tell us your naughty stories

#241

I had a really hard time convincing a large, corporate client to setup such basic things like a version control system, a central bug tracking system, or any kind of project documentation repository. Oh, did I mention this was only three years ago? It's 2007 and you're not using version control? Anyway, one day, another consultant who sat next to me got laid off and the company's IT guys never came around to remove h…

If it weren't for people like you so many big companies will simply cease to produce any output at all!

Re: Tell us your naughty stories

#242
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't it obvious to them before the meeting why you hadn't filled it in?

They wouldn't be looking at it from that angle. Probationary statuses are generally considered a bad thing in big companies, and are often used as a first step in building a case for termination. As a cog who's hoping to make a career in one of those big companies, you're expected to want to get off that bad status and back into "good worker" mode as quickly as possible. It had never occurred to anybody that they mig…

> Probationary statuses are generally considered a bad thing

As someone who was almost put on a performance plan for coming to work late, you don't ever want to be put on a PP. Basically, my PP would have been documenting my arrival times for 30 days and if a fair number were out of a 5 minute tolerance range, the PP would be used as a next step for being fired. Basically, a PP is something you sign that is a contract on your job. It provides legal immunity to HR to fire you. Fortunately, my boss and his boss convinced me to shape up and realize what a sword of Damacles a PP is. I started arriving early and realized how laughably bad it looked when I arrived at my whatever times. Not only do you stick out but you make your bosses look bad. In the land of corporate conformity, not following the rules leads to bad things.

Re: Tell us your naughty stories

#243
post #235
post #141

Surfed the zero percent interest rate promos on credit cards: rolled debt onto a zero percent card (thus not really making a payment that month because you just moved the debt around) and had lower payments until the promo ran out. Repeat with new promo on a different card. One I'm proud of but might not be counted as a hack here (not exactly naughty, but good for blowing people's minds, so similarly satisfying to me…

You should write blog post about how not to lawyer up. I I think it is a definite hit.

1) Get closure first, then divorce. Most people don't seem to do this. They do it the other way around and then do all kinds of stupid, emotionally driven, toxic things during the divorce which just amounts to shooting themselves in the foot.

2) Stay focused on your goal. It no longer matters if the other person "understands" you and all that touchy-feely nonsense. That stuff matters if you are staying together, not if you are going your separate ways. So this means do not take any digs whatsoever at them. Bite your tongue. It isn't worth it (and not doing it is worth quite a lot of money as well as other improvements in quality of life -- an ugly divorce can really make life hard for quite a lot of reasons).

3) The seminal moment where we agreed to divorce set the tone for the entire divorce. We were having the same stupid fight for about the 200th time (actual estimation, not hyperbole) and I stopped screaming at him and quietly said "I don't want to do this anymore. I'm tired of hurting you. I'm tired of being hurt. I think we have both given it our best. If we could do this dance, we would have figured it out by now (we had been married ~17 years). I want a divorce." He was relieved and agreed, something he had not done on any of the occasions where I screamed and cried and shouted "I want a divorce!", which he had accurately interpreted roughly to mean "God, quit hurting me so much". So we agreed to divorce as the only kind thing left to do for each other -- set each other free -- rather than as a means to reject the other person. This means we both worked cooperatively to try to minimize financial damage and the like. If we wanted to make each other miserable, we could have stayed together. We were both very talented at making each other miserable.

4) I also had a class at some point on "Negotiation and conflict management". Getting to Yes and The heart and mind of the negotiator (or mind and heart -- never can keep that straight) were required texts. The first one is short, the second one a lot meatier.

5) Read up on the concept of "prisoner's dilemma" and realize that unlike actual prisoners, you aren't forbidden from talking to each other -- unless you lawyer up and have some lawyer whispering evil things in your ear about covering your ass and telling you to keep your mouth shut.

6) Realize this won't likely work in a genuinely abusive situation. My marriage was tragic, not abusive. Sometimes, covering your ass is the best thing to do.

Re: Tell us your naughty stories

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also...in High School typing class, I was a two-finger typer. Every morning we had to take a two sentence typing test to see if we had improved. Rather than learn to type like I was supposed to, I just memorized all of the two sentence phrases that made up the tests. Within a couple weeks of the class, it didn't matter which phrases popped up, I was two-finger typing over 80 words per minute.

When did you learn to type, or are you still paying for this "hack"?

Oh no...I finally learned to type around 1998. I moved to L.A. My roommate bailed on me and left me here. I discovered Yahoo! Chat to pass the time and somehow that's what finally forced me to become a better typist. Just tested myself for shits and giggles - adjusted speed of 71 wpm. ;)

Re: Tell us your naughty stories

#245
post #141

Surfed the zero percent interest rate promos on credit cards: rolled debt onto a zero percent card (thus not really making a payment that month because you just moved the debt around) and had lower payments until the promo ran out. Repeat with new promo on a different card. One I'm proud of but might not be counted as a hack here (not exactly naughty, but good for blowing people's minds, so similarly satisfying to me…

You can have great product idea here. Ebook - how I ... etc.

Re: Tell us your naughty stories

#246
post #67

Six years ago my brother rented out a beach house in another state for the summer and would let me stay there with some friends. One fun summer week a good friend and I were enjoying the house to ourselves and decided to make a 7-11 run to pick up some much needed snacks and other provisions. When we got back from our adventure my key wouldn't open the door. Unbeknownst to us, this was the one time that closing the d…

Lockpicking skills come in handy in those situations. This reminds me of the time a friend got locked out of his car, but his trunk was open. The car only had 4 doors, however, so it wasn't much use. In the trunk was a broomstick, some rope and a, erm, we call them "parrot wrenches". Fortunately, one of the rear speakers could be lifted up a bit, so I fastened the wrench to the broomstick with the rope and slid it th…

I've had to break into a ridiculous amount of vehicles for friends that have locked their keys in. Pretty much every car window will give you at least an inch or two of room with enough wiggling/pushing. And then at that point you just need to move it a bit to get your wrist in and a stick to flick up the lock.

Though you're screwed if there's no 'lip' on the lock to get something under to flip it up.

Re: Tell us your naughty stories

#247
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this, boys and girls, is why we have randomized algorithms.

Are you under the impression that a random key fits a random lock?

No, of course not.

I am, however, under the impression that if what you want to do (as here) is to minimize the probability that you get completely shafted by having had the test-setter choose answers complementary to yours, you should choose yours in a way that makes that probability low. Random choices are a very effective way of achieving that. [EDITED to add: not because "a random key fits a random lock" but rather the reverse: with non-negligible probability[1] the test-setter is not choosing at random but in some relatively low-Kolmogorov-complexity way, and you want to keep away from those parts of the outcome space.] Of course, having a really good model of the test-setter's decision process would be even better, but if you had that you'd just use it to ace the test.

[1] I initially missed out the word "probability". I edited it in. Sorry.

Re: Tell us your naughty stories

#248
The college library had dollar changers for use with the photocopy machines. I had a friend who made the discovery that if he copied both sides of a dollar bill and glued them together with some rubber cement that there were older machines that would give him change. So in exchange for two nickels investment he'd get back four quarters.

He literally lived on this hack for an entire year. Course this was 40 years ago and those 'older' change machines were probably some of the first ever built and not very sophisticated.

Why it took the college a year to upgrade the machines I will never know. He wouldn't have been that hard for the police to find. All the local bartenders knew as the quarters guy ;<).

Re: Tell us your naughty stories

#249
post #141

Surfed the zero percent interest rate promos on credit cards: rolled debt onto a zero percent card (thus not really making a payment that month because you just moved the debt around) and had lower payments until the promo ran out. Repeat with new promo on a different card. One I'm proud of but might not be counted as a hack here (not exactly naughty, but good for blowing people's minds, so similarly satisfying to me…

You can have great product idea here. Ebook - how I ... etc.

I'm pretty burnt out on trying to help people. It really goes over very poorly and I get lambasted for it and, so far, there has really been no money in it. :-/ But when I start that webcomic I keep swearing I will start, it might be good material. :-D

Re: Tell us your naughty stories

#250
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

theft?

MY ORIGINAL POST: "It's theft to get paid for one's work?" UPDATE: wr1472 explains the situation below. Sorry for the confusion.

I was referring to the parent post of buying a mouse and then swapping out for a cheaper version, on which s/he claimed the cost back - it has subsequently been deleted. Not the grandparent post!
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