Tales of the Competency Crisis - How do I into anything?

[SchizoDaemon]

As a consultant I see this stuff all the time. They'll give me a remote desktop or ship me a laptop, and it goes something like this.
Ok, so you want me to write some Python to reach out to all these APIs and collect data and it will run on a Linux system when I'm done.
Yes.
Can I have remote access to a Linux system?
No.
Can I have WSL?
No.
I know Docker Desktop is expensive but can I have it or another container tool for my laptop?
No.
So, you want me to run it locally with Windows and Python?
Yes, er, you need Python installed? We're not sure if that's allowed.
Turns out Windows Python was in their local software repository. Then it's a whole other barrel of fun convincing pip to work with the corporate proxy of the day to download all the modules for the APIs they want to use.

These places drive me up the wall. I used to encounter this when contracting.
Often I would be waiting a week or two until I could install anything on the machine. Meanwhile, I am charging the company £500 a day.

Then there's the very rare ones.
So, how do I get access?
What OS do you have?
Linux.
Ok, here's the VPN endpoint, we think package X works well. Here's the URL to setup whatever TOTP app you want, have fun.

That happened like twice in ten years.
Meanwhile most of the large hacks are due to social engineering or bribing some dude who works on support in the Philippines to allow them to use his creds.

 

[Fount of BadSpeak]

I don't want to powerlevel, but I am working at a jobsite with a lot of foreigners from a decent East Asian nation, and it is absolutely shocking how incompetent and backwards they are. I know I am spoiled in a lot of ways in America, but it's terrifying thinking that THIS is the sort of people and culture being imported into my nation. And they are the best of the foreigners being brought over! Holy shit.

They don't care about paperwork. Or planning. Or coordination. Or training either. They just seem to make it up as they go along, and think documentation is an annoying chore to just ignore, or falsify if they will get in trouble if it isn't submitted. All but one of them fail to actually grasp what we are doing, or why we are doing it, beyond the fact that this is what the boss who pays them said to do. How the fuck do people like that even develop a nation when they so blatantly give almost no fucks? This must be why all those East Asian cultures are ruthlessly hierarchical, in hopes that somebody who isn't a lackadaisical layabout takes over and makes everyone else get off their lazy asses to do something productive.

The worst part is that this attitude is affecting the American workers, who largely do not see any reason in working hard to do things right when everybody else doesn't give a fuck, and makes just as much or more than they do. It's hard to even argue against that sentiment, because I agree, I just do things right because I actually care about what I am doing, because it has actual, real world value and effect. Also, we can and do go to prison for falsifying documentation on inspections, though nobody seems to care about that either, deciding to just roll the dice and hope they get lucky.

I really dread the future of the United States of America, and every other White nation, if this is the kind of "culture" we are fostering with mass immigration. And, I must stress this, these are the God damned good ones. Most of the other foreigners are markedly worse. We are polluting that "White Protestant (or just Christian) work ethic" with people who do not understand, or can not understand, the value of such an approach, and I fear that this will reach critical mass and be largely irreversible without catastrophic damage.

 

[Audit]

They don't care about paperwork. Or planning. Or coordination. Or training either. They just seem to make it up as they go along, and think documentation is an annoying chore to just ignore, or falsify if they will get in trouble if it isn't submitted. All but one of them fail to actually grasp what we are doing, or why we are doing it, beyond the fact that this is what the boss who pays them said to do. How the fuck do people like that even develop a nation when they so blatantly give almost no fucks? This must be why all those East Asian cultures are ruthlessly hierarchical, in hopes that somebody who isn't a lackadaisical layabout takes over and makes everyone else get off their lazy asses to do something productive.

Oh, are you dealing with the Japanese? Their approach to science and manufacturing is terrible. You'll have a dozen guys working at a plant and no one knows anything but the very specific job he does. When testing something out, they'll iterate for months trying to brute force a solution instead of returning to basic principles. The Japs are also infamously bad at comp sci. Like, seriously bad. They're so bad that Chinese software is a joy to deal with instead of Japanese.

 

[Legalize Asbestos]

They don't care about paperwork. Or planning. Or coordination. Or training either. They just seem to make it up as they go along, and think documentation is an annoying chore to just ignore, or falsify if they will get in trouble if it isn't submitted. All but one of them fail to actually grasp what we are doing, or why we are doing it, beyond the fact that this is what the boss who pays them said to do.

Oh, are you dealing with the Japanese?

Sounds like Phillipinos. Maybe Malaysians, who can be especially thick.

 

[seri0us]

And self checkout is even worse because one can only accept cards for some bullshit reason

The mechanisms to accept, count, and deposit paper dollars and especially coins in a fast lane are stupidly complex. Just one shred of paper, foreign coin, or just dust can jam them up and if anything is actually broken the replacement parts are stupidly expensive, too.

At a grocery store where tons of the customers can't/won't use a credit card because they're 90 years old it's understand to eat the cost and fix it so they keep coming back every week. But some random inner-city Walmart? Meh.

Tldr: Cash processor is basically the self checkouts' version of the McDonalds ice cream machine

 

[Jean ValJean]

Oh, are you dealing with the Japanese? Their approach to science and manufacturing is terrible. You'll have a dozen guys working at a plant and no one knows anything but the very specific job he does. When testing something out, they'll iterate for months trying to brute force a solution instead of returning to basic principles. The Japs are also infamously bad at comp sci. Like, seriously bad. They're so bad that Chinese software is a joy to deal with instead of Japanese.

This sounds more like the Haitians where one of my sons works.

 

[yolotengo]

We've switched to a new POS/scheduling program at work which i'm finding pretty easy and intuitive to use.

I'm shocked at how my coworkers are handling it.

I'm a night manager so I come in 10 or so minutes before my shift officially starts for handover. That gives the day manager enough time to count her till, take or put back money from the safe as we always start with the same float each shift, then count and record the amount. Then i do the same.

Twice this week the day manager has either said fuck it, I dont understand, i'm just not doing it or she's literally been on the phone to the boss who has talked her through it and she says she's doing it in real time then just doesnt do it and closes her shift off and just says "he can figure it out on his end."

Well thats not possible so then it lands on me to balance her till, cross the t's and dot the i's so to speak so I can begin my shift properly.

I just dont get it. Its not even hard. The program literally tells you if you need to put money back or add money.

 

[Fats McGee]

I'm a hardline "Do it yourself or it won't be done right and you'll wind up fixing other people's mistakes" kind of guy at this point, because nobody can be trusted to do their job. My friend had a house built, within the first year the central air quit working, the pipes were leaking, and the deck was falling apart. But that's not the tale. No, this one is much dumber. A buddy calls me and says his van needs a new battery. He doesn't know how to replace it, and he wanted to know if he should watch a youtube video and do it himself or take it to advanced auto. I said watch a video and do it yourself, it's insanely easy. He decided not to, because he's been a "pay other people to do things" guy his whole life.

3 months later he's sitting in a parking lot and the van won't start. Pops the hood, the battery is swollen and spewing blue acid. AAA comes, tells my friend that it wasn't even the right battery. His van takes 24f group batteries, advanced auto retard put a 34 in it and didn't even hook it up securely. When it melted down it may have fried other electronics in the car, we aren't sure yet. Moral of the story... You literally can't even trust a paid employee to do something as simple as a battery change. We live in amazing times.

 

[NerdShamer]

His van takes 24f group batteries, advanced auto retard put a 34 in it

Aren't those things clearly labeled? Because there's an more important difference than the 34 just being smaller.

 

[Fats McGee]

Aren't those things clearly labeled? Because there's an more important difference than the 34 just being smaller.

You are correct. They sure are. I have no idea how the employee fucked that up, and that's the baffling bit.

 

[NerdShamer]

You are correct. They sure are. I have no idea how the employee fucked that up, and that's the baffling bit.

From what I'm reading off the web, the main visual difference between them is that one is taller than the other by around 2 inches. But again, voltage labels. Plus, the exact part would have been underlined in the work order if that place actually had their shit together.


Unless, of course, the guy's illiterate

 

[Fats McGee]

Unless, of course, the guy's illiterate

The US is at a 79% functional literacy rate. Fully possible when 1 in 5 people can't reliably read, which is an unfortunate reality I think about a lot when I see people doing and saying dumb shit.

 

[Betonhaus]

I'm a hardline "Do it yourself or it won't be done right and you'll wind up fixing other people's mistakes" kind of guy at this point, because nobody can be trusted to do their job. My friend had a house built, within the first year the central air quit working, the pipes were leaking, and the deck was falling apart. But that's not the tale. No, this one is much dumber. A buddy calls me and says his van needs a new battery. He doesn't know how to replace it, and he wanted to know if he should watch a youtube video and do it himself or take it to advanced auto. I said watch a video and do it yourself, it's insanely easy. He decided not to, because he's been a "pay other people to do things" guy his whole life.

3 months later he's sitting in a parking lot and the van won't start. Pops the hood, the battery is swollen and spewing blue acid. AAA comes, tells my friend that it wasn't even the right battery. His van takes 24f group batteries, advanced auto retard put a 34 in it and didn't even hook it up securely. When it melted down it may have fried other electronics in the car, we aren't sure yet. Moral of the story... You literally can't even trust a paid employee to do something as simple as a battery change. We live in amazing times.

Is he able to sue the shop for making such a colossal fuckup?