The Java Experience With Incompetent Coworkers [Comic]

After all these unproductive meetings, Mel meets up with his boss who introduces him to the competent staffing manager. That guy apparently hadn’t had his cup of java that morning. Let’s see how the meeting goes…

Share Your Frustrating Moments as a Programmer

Did you have to deal with incompetent recruiters who basically thought that Java was a cup of coffee or Javascript was the same as Java? People from other departments suggest to you to delete some rows in your code to solve a bug and add this and that feature, just before a release?! Coworkers come to you randomly when they experience technical issues and you have to direct them to the IT department – until next time, when they’ll frequent you again and be baffled anew like they hear it for the first time. Strangers categorize programmers and hackers to the same group like this Reddit user illustrates:

“Still cannot believe this, but I was sitting in Starbucks this morning writing up a research paper in latex with some AUR packages compiling in a terminal… some woman walks past me and takes a look at my screen and then demands that I ‘stop hacking people’s passwords’, then runs off to fetch the manager while I’m attempting to explain the reality of the situation. I then had the manager come over, refuse to listen to me and ask me to leave, as ‘such activity is not tolerated in Starbucks, consider this a warning’. I’m gobsmacked. And I’m sure as hell not coming back.”

The world is divided into programmers and non-programmers, it seems. Non-programmers don’t have the slightest clue what programmers do. What were your “dear diary” moments that baffled you? Tell us your top anecdotes either in a comment or in an e-mail! Maybe your experience will show up in one of our future comics – who knows.