Do Nice Engineers Finish Last In Tough Times? 613
jammag writes "As the wave of pink slips is starting to resemble Robespierre and his guillotine, the maneuvering among tech professionals to hang on to their job is getting ugly. IT Management describes the inter-office competition between the manager of a server farm and the supervisor of networks and security. One was nice, giving his team members credit, taking responsibility when something went wrong. The other was a backstabber who spent plenty of time sucking up to the management. As the inevitable cuts came, who do you think hung on to their job?"
Only the Meanest Engineers Survive Out There! (Score:5, Funny)
Do Nice Engineers Finish Last In Tough Times?
Why, just the other day, a coworker was in contention for a promotion that was going to a younger engineer. My coworker found the specs to the younger engineer's car online and determined the precise rate it would have to leak coolant to completely drain the reserve tank precisely when he was leaving home to make an important customer meeting the next morning. I saw him on a crawl board attaching the regulator and a valve system in the parking lot and sure enough it overheated at precisely the right time so our customer just sat their waiting.
It's a calculate-or-be-calculated world out there!
That's what you get (Score:4, Funny)
For wasting company time being nice.
Re:Nice guys finish last (often) (Score:4, Funny)
Yes we do, once we figure out that we need to pretend to be assholes until they fall for us, then it's ok to be nice...
/Mikael
Re:Only the Meanest Engineers Survive Out There! (Score:5, Funny)
hung on to their job? (Score:5, Funny)
The cute receptionist?
Re:Jobs Aren't About Education, Skill, or Experien (Score:3, Funny)
Submitter should remember... (Score:5, Funny)
The plural of anecdote is bullshit.
Re:Jobs Aren't About Education, Skill, or Experien (Score:1, Funny)
Maybe I'll set the building on fire...
Re:hung on to their job? (Score:2, Funny)
As the inevitable cuts came, who do you think hung on to their job?
The cute receptionist?
Only if she puts out.
Re:Only the Meanest Engineers Survive Out There! (Score:2, Funny)
All those mean engineers will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Re:Un huh. (Score:5, Funny)
whoosh
No, Seriously! (Score:5, Funny)
Aside from the fact that your post is a load of horseshit, I suppose that you didn't step up to the plate by telling management what you witnessed.
And, incidentally, once the youngster took his car to the shop to be repaired, the tampering would have been discovered, and your fictional coworker would have been thrown in jail (hmm just where did this after market valve and regulator come from anyway?). In most states tampering with an automobile is a felony.
Alright alright, I need to come clean ... I embellished on this story a little bit. Here's the truth:
I was going to tell my boss but when I walked in, the coworker I was ratting out was on his knees with a mouthful of my boss and I think he said, "Oh hai!" I didn't stick around to clarify, I just left.
And it wasn't a car, it was a hovercraft. And it wasn't a regulator & valve, it was a detonator & C4. And he wasn't late for a meeting, he died. And don't worry about the law, Virginia isn't a state it's a commonwealth.
I feel almost relieved to get that off my chest and to come clean with you. I think I answered all your questions truthfully and fairly. Hopefully, together you and I can keep the internet a sound unbiased source of nothing but the unadulterated truth and historic account of everything.
You've helped me help myself. I love you.
What? (Score:5, Funny)
Reading that simile was like marinating a walnut in talcum powder.
Re:Only the Meanest Engineers Survive Out There! (Score:1, Funny)
Share and enjoy!
Re:Only the Meanest Engineers Survive Out There! (Score:3, Funny)
Any "engineer" who doesn't figure out to just roll down the windows, turn the heater on full blast, and turn the engine off at traffic lights and downhills doesn't deserve a promotion, anyway.
Re:In the words of Malcolm Forbes... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You might want to think about something here (Score:5, Funny)
Then both you and the grandparent are idiots who have never heard the phrase "any port in a storm".
"Any port in a storm" applies to ships at sea, because a ship can only be one place at a time. An employee stuck in a metaphorical storm off the metaphorical horn of Africa, on the other hand, has the luxury of finding out whether there's a storm off Lisbon too, and if there isn't, the employee can miraculously teleport there rather than sailing on through the storm.
My God, that was a stretched analogy.
Re:In the words of Malcolm Forbes... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Only the Meanest Engineers Survive Out There! (Score:2, Funny)
I feel for that customer: there's nothing I hate more than sitting my waiting.
That one's easy. (Score:4, Funny)
As the inevitable cuts came, who do you think hung on to their job?
The head of human resources.
Re:No, Seriously! (Score:1, Funny)
The Pr0n can be bundled in unless the EU objects.
Well, duh. (Score:4, Funny)
It's a trick question. Neither of them did, as the entire department was outsourced. Or right-sized. Or left-screwed. Or smart-wombatted. Or wang-smacked. Or whatever they're calling it these days.
Re:No, Seriously! (Score:5, Funny)
And it wasn't a car, it was a hovercraft.
So it's you, with your blowing up of the prototypes that are keeping the flying car from never being released?! And you know, if you just want to make your coworker miss a meeting and get fired instead of you, it would be much more cunning (and fun) to fill it with eels, and watch him trying to explain it to his clients and superior...
Re:You might want to think about something here (Score:3, Funny)
This is exactly the kind of soothing mumbo-jumbo that losers use to keep themselves warm at night while their secret crushes are screwing assholes of "lower ability" on giant piles of sweaty $100 bills.
At least his mumbo jumbo made some sense. I think I'd need to study that sentence and maybe diagram it to figure out what you're trying to see.
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately true. As for the question at the end of the article, if I was Karen I'd rather spend ~2000 hours a year with a friendly person than an asshole, and I'm sure the engineers and techs would feel the same way. I'd have fired Doug and kept Stuart. Of course it's well known that women like assholes, so I guess it's no surprise Doug won her affection.
(ducks a spitball)
Re:What? (Score:4, Funny)
And railroad engine operators hate you and your stupid tests.
Re:In the words of Malcolm Forbes... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It's a fact of life... (Score:1, Funny)
There's a sucker born every minute, haven't you heard?
Re:No, Seriously! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No, Seriously! (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, I admit, I don't really know too much about them. I bow to your expertise. ;)
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
"Buildings?" The word you are searching for is "targets."
Re:No, Seriously! (Score:5, Funny)
I bow to your expertise. ;)
That might possibly one of the most interesting puns I've seen on slashdot that wasn't intended as a troll. ;)
SB
Re:No, Seriously! (Score:5, Funny)
2 internets without the porn can fit on a thumb drive. So he just won $10 worth of internet. Whoopie.
Re:You might want to think about something here (Score:2, Funny)
A ship led by a rabid baboon who whips his crew for fun is still better than a wet grave, right ?
Okay, you defeated my bad analogy. I will go to sleep tonight dreaming of rabid baboons who make me dig my own grave in the rain...
Re:Only the Meanest Engineers Survive Out There! (Score:4, Funny)
"I wouldn't want to join any historical club occupied by any of the later adherents of my materialist political philosophy which would have me as a member."
-Karl Marx