February 6, 2010 at 2:11 pm
I work for a large Australian government department that is charged with the responsibility of distributing of TENS OF BILLIONs of dollars of taxpayers' money. My unit is the data analysis unit. The following conversation really took place, and is fairly typical of the calibre of conversations in my unit.
Manager of unit walks out of her manager's office (call him Bigwig) over to underling's desk (call him Underling), looks around and leans over speaking in a low voice out of the corner of mouth.
Mgr: "Underling, integers have decimal places don't they? Bigwig's trying to tell me they don't. He's wrong isn't he?"
Underling: (squirming) "...ah..no..."
Mgr: "Well hang on, they CAN have decimal places, can't they?"
Underling: "er...no..."
Mgr: "...but in some cases they can, right?"
Underling: "Don't think so."
Mgr: (annoyed) "Well why not? What's wrong with an integer having decimal places? Why can't 1.3 be an integer?"
Underling: "There's nothing wrong with 1.3 having a decimal place..."
Mgr: "So that's OK?"
Underling: "Yes..."
Mgr: "See I knew it..."
Underling: "...it's just not an integer..."
Mgr: "Hmm I still don't think that's right. Can you quickly check through the data and see whether any of our integers have decimal places? I'm sure Bigwig's wrong."
Underling: "Yep, sure. Could take a few days. We have a lot of data."
Mgr: "Thanks Underling."
February 6, 2010 at 2:23 pm
HAHA
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
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February 6, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Wait just a minute! "It Depends"! You might just be able to get away with it if you set parameter 136 of DBCC TIMEWARP to a negative decimal value! 😉
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
February 7, 2010 at 9:49 am
Fantastic:-D
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
February 8, 2010 at 7:43 am
Hmm! Sounds familiar 😛
February 9, 2010 at 2:23 am
We had an issue at one place I worked (names withheld to protect the imbeciles) where there was a problem with some development code failing with a truncation error trying to put data into a varchar(50) field. It turns out the developers had allowed the data entry in the application to accept 500 characters figuring the database would "just sort it out".
However the best thing was when the department manager (who went on to become the IT director) called the DBA's into his office and demanded that we check the database for "any more of these varchars"...
We did find quite a few :w00t:
February 16, 2010 at 12:23 pm
:hehe:
February 16, 2010 at 4:41 pm
I think I worked for this guy.
February 17, 2010 at 9:30 am
I'm troubleshooting an issue with the operations tech at our company before I had remote access and could do such things myself. I'm telling him what to type in the console and I tell him to end the command with a semi-colon. My husband hears me say - "Semi-colon. (pause) Semi-colon. (pause) It's the comma with the dot on top." He practically falls on the floor laughing.
February 17, 2010 at 1:01 pm
That reminds me of the time I was working with a doctor who had to enter some notes into the system and didn't want to. For diagnosis he typed ":". I said "what does that mean?" He said "constipation". Took me a while to get it (full colon).
February 18, 2010 at 11:53 am
From my brief stint as a CSA:
Caller (Older gentleman, with his first computer, whom I assumed had never seen a typewriter either): How do I enter lower case letters? My keyboard only has capitals on it.
me: (facepalm) Its ok, unless you hold down the SHIFT key, they will be in lower case.
My coworker to me after i hung up from that call, "Why didn't you offer to sell him our special Lower-Case keyboard?"
February 19, 2010 at 7:09 am
You got to remember, mgr.s know enough to be dangerous, but not enough to look smarter than their boss. 😀
February 22, 2010 at 10:54 am
Reminds me of a time back in the mid-70s when we did the first run of checks from the new Accounts Payable system. Back then checks were produced on a (pin-feed) mainframe line printer using multi-part paper (i.e., carbon paper between the sheets). The original check was on top with copies, for filing, etc. behind it.
The financial manager, who was making a LOT more money than us techies, insisted that someone verify the carbon copy of each check to ensure that there was no differences between them. :rolleyes:
Needless to say, after an extensive review of every check, we didn't find anything out of order. 😀
February 22, 2010 at 11:04 am
Mauve (2/22/2010)
Reminds me of a time back in the mid-70s when we did the first run of checks from the new Accounts Payable system. Back then checks were produced on a (pin-feed) mainframe line printer using multi-part paper (i.e., carbon paper between the sheets). The original check was on top with copies, for filing, etc. behind it.The financial manager, who was making a LOT more money than us techies, insisted that someone verify the carbon copy of each check to ensure that there was no differences between them. :rolleyes:
Needless to say, after an extensive review of every check, we didn't find anything out of order. 😀
I remember a Dilbert cartoon like that. Pointy-Haired Boss insisted on checking every photocopy of a document for grammar errors! 😀
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