Putting Humpty together again

I've just been visiting little Mr Angry (that's my son, not a perverse nickname for my... well, anyway) to see how he was because he fell in the shower last night and opened a fairly nasty gash on his forehead. Apparently these days they don't stitch you up, they actually glued the cut shut. That sounds risky, if the doctor wasn't paying attention, he could end up with his hand super-glued to my kid's eyebrow. When I was a kid I got sconed with a 2.5 kilogram discus at school and needed a couple of stitches. Yes, I know that explains a lot.

I have a lot of time for emergency services staff, they do invaluable work and should all be millionaires. It's absolutely criminal that soulless stockbroker types who produce absolutely nothing of value make a fortune while society's shock troops are paid a pittance by comparison. I say that as a lead-in disclaimer because in this particular case the hospital staff made me very fucking angry.

After waiting a couple of hours (aren't casualty wards fun?) a doctor got to work on stitching my head. He had a couple of trainee nurses with him and the following discussion took place just behind my head:

Doctor: Have you two had much experience suturing?

Nurse: Not on an actual person.

Doctor: Oh, would you like to practice on him?

WHAT?!?!?! I know everyone has to do something for the first time but they didn't have to let me hear! They could have gone into the next fucking room! The nurses sensed I wasn't happy and suggested the doctor do it himself. This may not have been the best idea for me as this was his running commentary:

Doctor: Now, I know there's a standard way to suture, but I have my own way. I go over and under and... oh damn, I've done it wrong.

I swear, if I hadn't had anesthetic pumped into my head a few minutes before this, I really would have lost my shit. I think if they had used glue in my day, this clown would have stuck my fucking head to the operating table. Anyway, the little dude's doing well. The cut is just above his eyebrow so I told him not to worry, even if it leaves a scar, it will look cool.

He thinks I'm weird.

Mr Angry hates the Haterz

Another video treat :) I decided to respond to a video done by one Seanbedlam whereing he taunts the Haterz. Anyone with a blog has probably met the Haterz but they are particularly prevalent on YouTube. They are essentially worthless little no-life sacks of shit who are achieving nothing with their lives and so feel compelled to spew hate at people who are actually doing something. Fuck 'em.



Sean was also kind enough to give me some tips on shameless YouTube self-promotion, and you should all know how much I like shameless self-promotion.

And here's the link in case I messed up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBImqbSqLTQ

And this is healthy?

So I'm enjoying my regular after-lunch piece of gum (sugar free of course because it's good for your teeth) when I notice the following warning on the packet: "EXCESS CONSUMPTION MAY HAVE A LAXATIVE EFFECT." This is printed after the ingredients in bold capitals twice the size of the other printing so I figure this is important information. I have one question regarding this:

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT ALL ABOUT?

When someone mentions a "laxative effect" I want some specific fucking information. And it's so goddam vague! This vaguely threatening warning full of ambiguous language so you're not sure sure what exactly is going on. What exactly is a laxative effect? What's excess consumption? And what do they mean "may"? What are my fucking chances here?

Now, I'm not a cynical man. All right - I'm deeply cynical. But can you blame me when these evil fucking corporations are messing with us like this? The laxative effect is apparently the by-product of the PHENYLKETONURICS (also printed in big bold capitals - very fucking scary sounding) in the gum but I'm really none the wiser for reading that.

Let's break it down: first, the laxative effect. What level of laxative effect are we talking about here? I have a suspicion if it was the good "that's a nice regular start to my day" sort that the gum maker would be teaming up with a health food company to promote it as a bran substitute. No, I think it's safe we're talking about the uncontrolled underpants-filling type of laxative effect here.

And what exactly is "excess" in this case? One pack a day? Two packs? Ten packs a day non-stop for five years? It's a real weasel word. I think it's safe to assume that this "excess" is an amount that normal people might hit. The only reason a company is going to put such a scary sounding warning on their packaging is to protect themselves against lawsuits. And they'd only worry about that in this case if there's a real risk that one of their customers is going to end up losing control of their bowels and shitting their pants in public.

And that brings me to "may". Don't bullshit me with "may", you bastards know what the risks are. You did lab tests and saw the results. Stop fucking around with us and come clean. All I want is a clear warning. Something like: "eating more than a pack a day of this gum will cause your bowels to unpredictably and spontaneously loosen resulting in the uncontrollable shitting of your pants at inopportune moments."

Is that too much to ask for?

Mr Angry solves the Rubik's cube in 10 seconds

I'm sick of these uppitty little bastards on YouTube showing off that they can do a Rubik cube in two minutes, 60 seconds or even 20 seconds. Here's the real deal: a video of me solving the Rubik's cube in 10 seconds. You thought I dealt with everything through anger but I have other talents.



Solved as only Mr Angry could do it.

An Angry Dream

I can barely keep my eyes open today because my sleep was disturbed all last night by weird dreams. I was always angry in the dreams (which isn't weird - that's normal for me) and that was making my heart rate jump up like I was running a marathon, hence I'm really tired even though I slept.

The dream started with me being really small, surround by this swirling mass of people. I was being totally overwhelmed by them and their words. When they spoke it was literally words - I could see typed words flowing out of their mouths. These words were crashing down on me, trying to crush me. I can't remember the specific words but I know I didn't like them. I have a suspicion the words were just gibberish but I knew they were trying to use the words to control me. I wanted to fight back but all I had to use as a weapon was a toothpick.

At first I thought this was useless, but I found I could skewer the words with my toothpick. The words would deflate like baloons when I skewered them. This made me feel better and I thought I was the only one who could see this but then I realised some of the crowd were behind me, they has started to support me instead of crushing me. As I realised this, the toothpick changed into a stick that was heavy enough to swat the words away, I could sweep away whole waves of these words that were trying to overwhelm me.

Slowly I realised I was actually rising above the words. Instead of the words I didn't like crashing over me, I was over them, smashing them away. The stick had turned into a huge club and better still, I found I could create my own words. When I shouted, my words would buffet against the others and they would smash each other into oblivion. I started to see recognisable faces in the crowd that had been hurling words at me: George Bush, Alan Jones, Anne Coulter, that bastard who cut me off in a carpark last week. I directed my word straight at them and more of the crowd got behind me and started adding their words. It seemed each figure I recognised could resist my words but slowly it started having an effect.

The first signs were just some chips at the edges of their faces but as more and more words hit them from more and more people they started to bruise and bleed. Slowly, they began to realise how big the crowd was that had turned against them and they were swept away. Or so I thought. I realised they hadn't been beaten, they'd retreated to another strong point. As I had fought, I had grown in size until I could stand above the crowd that was originally standing over me. Now my enemies had joined a mob that dwarfed the original.

This new crowd of giants all had TV sets for heads and it seemed my enemies could control the TV-heads to turn them against me. The TV sets had originally shown individual faces but waves of change would sweep through them where they would all change to one or another of my enemies' faces. It was hideous. Huge clumps of talking heads on TVs swarming to attack me. Attack of the vampire pundits. Their attack was to vomit a rainbow out of their screens which seemed to infect surrounding TV heads and change them into the same face so they could attack me en masse. They were also cross-infecting each other's TV heads, trying to cancel each other out and take control for themselves. I sensed their weak point and attacked.

At the fringe of the horde of massive TV-heads was an even larger mass of smaller TV heads. These had different heads and I thought they could be persuaded to help attack the killer pundit heads. The smaller TV heads seemed to be dominated by vapid, pretty individuals but slowly I was able to gather them together to strike at the monsters. At first, the individual TV-heads had no effect on giant pundit TV-heads. Even worse, whenever one of the small TVs started to make some headway one of the big TVs would reach down, crack its head open and suck the life out of it.

But the individual TV-heads started to find cracks between the monster TV-heads and force the cracks wider. And no matter how many individuals were crushed, more and more of them swept in. They were eating away the ground beneath the behemoths, smashing their controls and slowly but surely, forcing the big TV-heads to change or switch off forever. The battle seemed to go on for years (which could explain why I feel so tired) but eventually we won.

There was a massive explosion. All the giant TV-heads fractured into millions of individual TV-heads. The force of the explosion scattered the individual TV-heads far and wide and wherever they landed they replicated. They didn't form new giant TV-heads, instead they were forming hundreds of individuals. I was mildly disappointed that after all the struggle it wasn't my face on all the TVs but I was glad the lumbering giants were gone.

Now if only I could figure out what it all means.

The Poetry of Spam

I was going to call this post "Why are characters from Bromwell High sending me comment spam?" but I thought that was slightly long and more than a little obtuse. For those who don't know, Bromwell High is a British-made animated comedy aimed at adults. It isn't for the faint of heart - it makes South Park look like Sesame Street. I'm a fan of South Park but Bromwell High beats it on a number of fronts. It's uncensored for one; I'm extremely juvenile and seeing a schoolgirl character punch another while saying "fuck you" makes me piss myself laughing.

The humour seems more intelligent and incisive than South Park's (and despite what some people think, I believe quite a bit of intelligence is applied to South Park) and it may be my imagination but I think the makers of Bromwell High lean further to the left - they throw up outrageous stereotype to make fun of people who might believe the stereotypes rather than the stereotypes themselves. They certainly don't have the annoying habit of saying global warming doesn't exist or isn't a problem (the one thing I wish they'd shut the fuck up about on South Park). Having said that, they hardly fall into any idea of being "politically correct". Essentially, if you aren't offended by the show, you aren't paying close enough attention.

The show is set in an inner-London state school populated with students of every ethnic variant imaginable (even one white English girl who knows both her parents!) The central characters are three early-teen schoolgirls: Keisha, Latrina and Natella. Natella is Asian and, predictably enough, she's the smart one. Keisha is black and stupid (they have the audacity to make their black character the dumb one!) Latrina is white, illegitimate and a slut. And also stupid. Keisha is my favourite: violent, subversive unremittingly stupid. She has the following conversation with the school counsellor:

Counsellor: You're going to be sent to a school for "exceptionally challenged" students.

Keisha: Yes! (does victory dance) Wait, what does "exnepshunly" mean?

C: It means "very".

K: And what does "challenged" mean?

C: It means "stupid". So it would be fair to say you're going to this school because you're "very stupid".

K: Yes! (does victory dance)

The teachers are worse than the students - dysfunctional is a dizzying array of ways. My favourites are the Principal, Iqbal, and his deputy, Mr Bibby. Iqbal is Iranian (I think), a complete criminal and speaks in broken English. Mr Bibby is a stereotype upper class Oxford graduate who is casually racist and offensive in the way only an arch conservative who has never questioned his world view can be (when he was arrested while trying to make money by kidnapping, his response was: "Kidnapping, illegal? Are you sure? This is political correctness gone mad.") A classic conversation between them resulted from Iqbal's disgust at other teachers dressing like kids in an attempt to be "cool":

Iqbal: Ah, Mr Beeb, at least you'ma not like the children.

Bibby: On the contrary headmaster, I'm-a like the children very much.

I: No, I mean you not want dress like children.

B: Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were speaking banana boat English.

Which brings me back to comment spam. I still hate those comment-spamming rat bastards but thanks to Akismet I can afford to laugh at them. Akismet has these scumbags hog-tied and butt-fucked. And there's no reach-around from Akismet. I think I'd name my first-born "Akismet" if she didn't already have a name. That's actually not a bad name - I've heard worse. There are surprisingly few variants in the comment spam Akismet blocks, they are obviously being generated by scripts. Scripts written largely by people with poor English skills, many of them remind me of Iqbal:

"beautiful online information center. greatest work... thanks"

"Great job guys... Thank for you work..."

"i try to find something at google.com and take it on your site... thanks"

A few new ones have been cropping up lately; some are just strings of random characters and I'm now getting German comment spam! But there are a couple I'm tempted to actually let though because I like what they say:

"Your site is very cognitive. I think you will have good future.:)" and the charmingly rambling: "Not much on my mind right now, but it's not important. I've just been letting everything happen without me. I just don't have anything to say right now."

I like that spammers appraise me as cognitive. I wonder if they like that I appraise them as worthless pile of dogshit? I can't for the life of me work out why Akismet hasn't taken over the world. Spam is basically the worst problem on the internet and Akismet seems to have it totally beaten. Forget making Mother Theresa a saint, the Vatican should be moving to beatify Akismet!

Mr Angry Vlog Number Nine

So I'm taking Sean's advice on how to conquer YouTube and responding to a highly watched video that I could relate to. So I suppose this is the first vlog I've done that isn't based on previously published blog material.



I probably should get over this desire to dominate the online world but I'm very shallow. And I don't have a nice enough bum to wave it around in front of a camera so I'm trying this method. And you might notice my new camera style - I'm experimenting. I hope it isn't too annoying the way it moves but I think you can feel the anger vibrating.

How to make IT staff less angry - Part Four: Interesting Work

This post is my fourth in a series providing some straightforward recommendations for managers responsible for the care and feeding of IT staff. I suggest reading Part One, Part Two and Part Three first if you haven't done so already but it isn't absolutely necessary. This part deals with the second key area of job satisfaction: the actual work performed by staff. This is one area where the Cabal Of Disaffected and Exploited Information Technology (CODE-IT) workers can be particularly demanding in ways that confuse managers and employers. To be honest, CODE-IT workers sometimes complain quite unfairly about their work being "boring" but this is an area where positive changes can be made to the great benefit of both staff and management.

So long as staff and management each understand where the other is coming from (aye, there's the rub.)

Because I honestly believe this is one of the most subjective areas of job satisfaction in the CODE-IT world, I will be treading more carefully than usual. The two extremes of the spectrum are the CODE-IT high-flyer who thinks everything is below his mighty intellect (and this type is almost universally male) and the manager whose motivational speeches consist of variations on: "Getting paid should be all the motivation you need, now shut up and do what I say." Neither of these attitudes is conducive to a happy workplace so I'll be exploring the middle ground today.

I've never been fond of the CODE-IT warriors who spout condescending lines like "I don't want to go to my grave saying 'at least I made the company database more stable'" (these days you're most likely to hear that sort of sanctimonious drivel from a Web2.0 entrepreneur or wannabe.) The truth is, somebody has to do the unglamorous jobs so it doesn't serve anyone's interests to degrade the day-to-day grunt work of the IT world. In fact, this is probably at least 75% of the work faced by IT workers so why is it looked down on so often? I think I hear the intake of breath as the CODE-IT equivalent of Opus Dei assassins prepare to kill me with poison darts from their blow guns (purchased on ThinkGeek of course) but here goes with some brutal honesty.

If you take on a job knowing full well the nature of the work involved, you should commit to doing that work no matter how boring you decide it is. There are two honourable courses of action: honour your commitment to do a job or leave for something you consider better. Don't sit on your arse and complain. I have been accused of simply whining in these posts but I have to admit I have no time for someone who complains about a job and does nothing constructive to remedy the situation. Bad management isn't the problem in these situations, the problem is a bad attitude.

Having said that, I would like to point out that management is in a very strong position to alleviate IT drudge-work. Too often, the complaints of CODE-IT workers are dismissed as whining ("They're never satisfied,") without looking at the root causes. Most CODE-IT workers complain about boring work not because they're complainers by nature but because they're trained, intelligent and driven individuals who want to be challenged and are constantly looking to expand their horizons. If your company can't benefit by harnessing and channeling this sort of power, well, you have bigger problems than complaining CODE-IT workers.

Some self-help for the CODE-IT brigade: so you're stuck doing boring work. Short of quitting and looking for a better job, what can you do? Step one: take pride in your work. If you can't find the dignity in your work, nobody can. Whether you're propping up the corporate database, refactoring code, tweaking the e-commerce engine or writing user manuals it actually feels better if you're doing the work to the best of your ability or better still, finding ways to stretch beyond your comfort zone. A friend of mine was a PhD doing some very fulfilling high flying research work at a well-known university when she was lured away to do contract/compliance analysis at a big legal firm by doubling her salary. People asked if she found this boring and she always said "No, because I apply the same intellectual rigour to this work as I did to my university research so I get similar stimulation."

Plus she was a lot richer. I doubt she'll be doing the contract work for the rest of her life but the point is, this is a very intelligent person choosing to do work that many people would find boring. Instead of focusing on the boring aspects she focuses on the positive and ends up feeling stimulated and well-rewarded. If you're not applying a similar positive approach to your work then you're falling into the old cliche: you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Step two to self fulfillment: identify the solutions yourself and then communicate, communicate, communicate. If you feel that your manager has no idea how to improve the quality of work assigned to you, this likely has one of two sources: (1) They don't care about you and your quest for interesting work (2) They don't understand enough about your work to realise how it could be made more interesting for you. So take charge: don't go to your manager with problems, go to them with solutions. And do yourself a favour; don't couch your solution in terms of how it will make your life better, say how it will benefit the company (increased security/stability/profits are all good).

But these posts were meant to be pointing managers to what they should do. So how can a manager decrease the angriness of CODE-IT staff by making their work more interesting? Listening is a good first step. Encourage your underlings to explain their issues to you, then find a way to turn these issues to your mutual benefit. Higher up the food chain, your focus should be on strategy rather than the nuts and bolts. Focus on your strengths (see how positive I'm being? Assuming managers have strengths!) and ask your CODE-IT legions how their nuts-and-bolts expertise can help deliver on the big-picture strategy. And just to repeat: LISTEN TO WHAT THEY SAY!

There are two absolutely poisonous things a manager can do in this scenario: (1) be two faced - ask for input with no intention of acting on it (2) come up with some totally inappropriate forced "fun" to make work more "enjoyable".

On point one, you are far better off never engaging with CODE-IT workers on this topic than getting them to come forward with suggestion that you intend to ignore. You may think you have come up with a cunning way to appease their whining by making them think you are their friend or are listening to them. They will see straight through this and know you are a lying sack of shit.

On point two, you can't force something to be fun. Forcing staff to go off on some "team-building" exercise can have two disastrous effects; one, if they really don't want to spend time outside the office with cow-orkers you'll just make them more resentful and anti-social. Two, if they actually have fun doing something that's totally unrelated to work you run the risk of simply highlighting how far away from fun work actually is.

Keep your motivational efforts focused on work. Encourage people to socialise by all means but don't force it. If your CODE-IT workers want to spend more time together, they'll do it without being forced. Also, social events have nothing to do with making the actual work more interesting. Enjoyable social events are part of the overall workplace environment as discussed in previous posts. This is linked to but distinct from interesting, challenging and enjoyable work.

The important thing is to make decisions based on your individual business and staff needs. Don't make sweeping generalisations about what work your CODE-IT staff will enjoy, engage them in the process. The high-flying, fast paced world of dot-coms/Web2.0/whatever the hell is coming next is not for everybody. Some people are absolutely terrified by that sort of thing. Including some of the best CODE-IT staff you may ever be lucky enough to find. Not everybody who maintains mainframes is forced to - some people positively thrive on it. Do your best to match the strengths of your staff to your business needs and you'll maximise both staff satisfaction and productivity.

Remember that; with CODE-IT workers (and almost everybody else), happiness and productivity almost always go hand in hand. I've worked for managers who clearly thrived on having angry underlings - if the staff were happy they must be getting away with something. Any sort of decent human should want their staff to be as satisfied as possible in their work while meeting business needs. That's somewhat intangible, but increased productivity - that you can explain at board meetings.

The Other Woman

Well my girlfriend called me tonight while I was driving and could hear the other woman was in the car with me. My girlfriend knew that meant I was driving, whenever she hears the other woman's voice she knows that means we're in the car together. I take her other places sometime but usually it's just in my car.

When the other woman first came into my life, it was for all the right reasons. She was going to make my life better, help me out when I most needed help. So why do I feel like it all devolved into her telling me what to do in an irritating monotone? I suppose I only have myself to blame, there was the promise of good times with music and staying in contact with friends but I could never be bothered.

She makes me angry - she sees it as trying to help me, I see it as her always telling me what to do. I know I make her angry too, especially when I ignore her telling me what to do. It's just that she's so obsessive and controlling - it's impossible to get through to her that there are alternative ways of looking at things. She never says so, but I know it makes her angry when I ignore her. She'll keep telling me what to do until we end up somewhere she's satisfied with with. She gives me direction in life but there are times I want to find my own way.

I left the other woman behind to come inside and write this post. The more I think about her, the more I think she could be my ticket to fame and fortune. If I knew how to program a GPS navigation system to talk with personality instead of that annoying fucking monotone I bet I'd sell a million of them.

A Week of Milestones

Lots of things to note this week; most good, spiced with a few to make me really fucking angry. My Wordpress stats passed 20,000 hits this week, something I would have found impossible to conceive when I started. And then I remind myself I only started at the end of March. I'm going to be distinctly un-angry for a moment and say there's no way I would have kept going without the faithful support and feedback from my regular readers. Without you guys it isn't a blog - it's a waste of time. And I passed 150 posts yesterday - it's getting so I don't even remember everything I've written.

And a few things to correct the angry spectrum: (1) the pigfuckers who stole my content, (2) the continuing barrage of comment spam and (3) the haters on YouTube. All of these have mitigating factors:

(1) Tom's help in finding the losers stealing content (I'm still in love with the fact the reason they were caught stealing was that my post included a link to Tom's blog post that was my inspiration - God was watching those pricks on his own computer that day.)

(2) Akismet continues to kick the comment spammer's butts. Almost nothing get past it, I love this product! Oh, and real comments passed 1,000 before spam comments did. A small but important victory.

(3) Range balancing out the haters on YouTube. Thanks dude, although truth be told, I could care less about those weenies because (a) I did bait them pretty mercilessly and (b) They're just showing themselves up to be losers.

Youtube is a bit weird actually, it's interesting the mix of things that get a large number of views. From the obvious titillation (hot young girls) to some professionally produced things to some really interesting and quirky individuals that gain an audience just by putting themselves out there. I was quite surprised to see a couple of high flying aussies winning lots of fans with no real gimmicks, just heaps of personality and individual insight. So two big thumbs up to Blunty3000 and Seanbedlam. And big thanks to Sean for his tip on gaining viewers.

So I may yet conquer the world of YouTube. Stay tuned.

Content Thieving Scumbags

Well, my low opinion of humans in general was reinforced several times this week. The first incident was my first significant experience with straight-up content theft. Anyone who has read a lot of my posts will know I have a fairly liberal attitude to copyright. I am more than happy for people to use my content on their site with the appropriate acknowledgement and link back to this blog. The more my stuff gets out there the happier I will be.

You have to do a combination of very specific things to piss me off on this front and this week someone perpetrated the perfect combination of everything I regard as the worst possible behaviour. They stole an entire post. There was no commentary or additional contribution from them. There was no link back to my blog or attribution of the source. And all of this was on a site plastered with advertising. In other words, they stole my work for their own personal commercial gain. Or put another way; they were slimy, miserable worthless fuckers.

Oh, and on top of that, THEY WERE DUMB AS SHIT!

As Tom put it, why would they steal something that was free? The full story: the post in question was the one about my voicemail prank. In the post, I included a grab from Tom's Pigeon Weather blog that was the inspiration for my post with a link to the source (see kids? that's how you do it!) The losers who stole just did a complete copy and paste which picked up the link to Tom's blog. Tom got a referral from this in his site log and followed it back to check out the site. There he discovered the wholesale theft being perpetrated and tipped me off.

I politely suggested (seriously, I was quite polite) that these dumb fucks provide an attribution if they were going to steal my stuff. They took it down altogether and put up same lame comment along the lines of how it wasn't funny in the first place. That's their call, they didn't have to take it down. I specifically said taking it down wasn't necessary, if they provided a proper link and attribution I'd be a lot less pissed off. Truth is, I think they realised what a seriously fucking stupid thing this was to do and they panicked because they thought I was coming after them.

One of the things that made them really dumb was that they were using my work to make money without my permission which did give me a legal avenue if I wanted to go after them. What made them really dumb was that they were doing this on a Blogspot hosted blog. Now I didn't read the terms and conditions of use (who does) but I'm pretty sure there'd be something in there about this sort of behaviour getting you shut down pretty damn sharp-like. And on the off chance they had been making money they would have lost everything and had no grounds for recourse. I'm pretty sure this was the alarm bell that made them react so quickly.

Quite a while ago, a full-on splog used some of my content. I found out because they provided a link to my blog. When I checked it out, the entire content of the splog was snippets of content from other blogs with links back to the source material. All surround by masses of Adsense ads. A pretty shitty way to earn a living in my book but I figured, hey, another link, another step up the Technorati rankings. So I'm serious, provide a link back and I'll let you get away with making money from my blog.

For those interested in such things, here's my recommended behaviour:

Links: it's all fair with linking in my book. If it's online you can link to it. I know some companies (and probably some individuals) get their knickers in a knot over this but what they should get is a fucking clue. Take it offline if you don't want people to link to it. Don't try to break one of the fundamental pieces of web architecture.

Small bits of content with no links: this is rude, don't do it. If you are going to quote someone else, it's good form to link to the source. If you do this all the time (use small bits of other people's content without links) expect to be very unpopular.

Small bits of content with links: using someone else as inspiration and building on it or responding to it is A-OK. In fact, in my humble opinion, this is the basis of the web in general and blogging in particular.

Whole posts, including a link back to the source: doing this without adding any value is bad form in my book. It really is trying to cash in on someone else's work/creativity. If you do this, I'd call you lame but I wouldn't call you a criminal.

Wholesale content theft without attribution: I think I described my opinion of this adequately above :)

Any of this is made worse (morally in my mind and, I suspect, legally) if you are doing it for commercial gain. You might make some short term gain but I really think that anyone who dishonestly makes money off other people's work will be shut down before too long. The nimrods who stole my stuff are lucky they responded because I had a revenge plan all thought out. If they wouldn't be fair regarding my stuff OR if I found a pattern of content theft on their site I was going to put my revenge plan into action. If I saw they were making their whole site out of stolen content, I would have gone after them whether or not they took my stuff down.

To tell the truth, I was slightly disappointed I didn't get to put my master revenge plan into action. If they had been stealing other content I was going to publicise them on Digg etc. with a heading along the lines of "Is this site stealing your content? They're stealing everyone else's." Nothing like a bunch of angry nerds to bring down some frontier justice - internet style.

Another moment of "people are morons" zen for me was when I put Mr Angry Uncut up on YouTube. For those of you who have never looked at my videos on YouTube, they aren't exactly setting the world on fire. On average, they score a couple of hundred views over a couple of weeks. I haven't really worked out how to promote myself on YouTube, not honestly, anyway. Hence the nekkid lady embedded in the middle of the uncut video. Oh, and I used the following description:

"Behind-the-scenes raw uncut action! The stuff you were never meant to see! It doesn't get hotter than this."

Which from a certain point of view is not a totally untrue way to look at the video. Okay it's utter bullshit. But would the YouTube viewers be stupid enough to fall for it? Ummmm, only about 8,000 of them in the first 24 hours. Goddammit why can't these sad sacks look at some real videos instead of spending their whole lives sniffing out porn? I hate being right sometimes.

The internet really is fucked. I still want to be a cyberstar though.

Hot uncut raw action with Mr Angry

Well, you asked for it so here it is. Behind the scenes with Mr Angry. This gives you a hint of my pain - it's hard being angry all the time. And incredibly banal.



Oh, this comes complete with a nekkid lady to try and dupe the YouTube freakazoids into watching it. I will actually be rather disappointed if it works. But then I've always had a low opinion of humanity.

The Truth About Rocketboom

What are you, a fucking idiot? You're looking on a blog for truth? Blogs aren't the homes of truth, they're the homes of rumour innuendo and opinion (informed and otherwise). The two main protagonists have both posted first hand accounts of what happened that are completely contradictory. And you think you'll find the truth on a third party blog?

Face up to exactly what this extremely small storm in a teacup means to you: nothing. If you enjoyed watching Amanda Congton on Rocketboom and you can't bear the thought of them being apart, step away from the computer and get a fucking life. If the folk still at Rocketboom have the talent and the will, they'll continue to produce Rocketboom and enjoy success. Likewise for Congton (except not with Rocketboom). End of story. But you do not have a stake in this story. You do not know what the truth is. And you never will.

This may well be the acid test of whether micro-celebrity in the digital age can successfully translate to a new property. That is something interesting. That is something blogs can explore. That is something to have an opinion about. Taking sides in a fight you know nothing about is bad enough in the schoolyard. For fuck's sake, get some perspective.

Taking sides with Rocketboom

Interesting things can happen when you're asleep. Sometimes I'm woken by my alarm and sometimes I'm woken by the echo of the shit hitting the fan somewhere. The fact that 90% of what interests me in the online world happens in the northern hemisphere means there are often big developments "overnight" my time. Although my Wordpress hit counter passed 20,000 before I went to bed. Woohoo!

Sometimes I feel disconnected from anything important living in what one former Prime Minister called "the arse end of the planet" but eventually I catch up. A quick glance at Technorati and the top blog posts on Wordpress this morning showed the blogosphere was abuzz over Rocketboom. Although I know next to nothing about Rocketboom I knew this was going to be "not good" for somebody.

I had previously read on Range's blog that Rocketboom presenter Amanda Congdon was on a week's holiday and my immediate guess was that all this attention meant that this was to be no temporary holiday. Maybe I'm conspiracy minded but I made the instant connection that all was not well in the land of booming rockets. It turns out Congdon has indeed left Rocketboom and everybody and their dog has an opinion (usually ill-informed) as to why it happened, how it happened and what will happen next, both to Rocketboom and Congdon.

And poor Robert Scoble continues to be mortified that people can be ignorant jerks. Bob, moderating your comments was the smartest thing you ever did. If I got 70 squillion visitors a day like you I'd probably moderate comments too. I have a more manageable number so this isn't necessary for me. The world is full of ignorant, loudmouthed fuckwits - the only thing that keeps most of them in check is that they're also gutless. Take away that barrier (i.e. the online world where they don't have to face anyone) and they'll get even worse. So don't let the mean people upset you Scobleizer, they are, by and large, worthless pieces of shit who aren't worth bothering about. But I have a prediction for you: one day you are going to really regret providing so much information about your family on your blog.

I'm not going to explore the ins and out of Rocketboom because, like I said, I don't know anything about it. I watched one "episode" (what the hell is the right word in this context? Are these podcasts? Vodcasts?) in the past and that was because it was featured in a post I was reading on Chartreuse's blog. I thought it was funny and well done but I don't really have the time or focus at the moment to devote to other people's work. This whole blog may reek of brainfart but I actually put a shitload of work into it. Coupled with my day job and occasionally catching up with friends' blogs (which I know I don't do enough) I don't have a lot of space for new things.

I know lack of knowledge is rarely a limiting factor on blogs (myself included) and in fact sensible people recognise that lack of knowledge is the primary fuel for blogs. So although I appreciate a good soap opera acted out in real life as much as the next loser, the specifics of the Rocketboom story are not what interests me the most. What interests me are the business aspects, because on top of everything else it may have meant to various people, Rocketboom was just that - a business. There seems to have been a 51%-49% ownership deal between Congdon and her partner (Congdon owned 49%) so what this split means in business terms is anyone's guess.

Speaking as someone in the early throes of developing his own digital media empire, you gotta be careful what business deals you make. This is a one-man show at the moment. I have no idea if that is ever going to change but I know this: you would be very foolish to enter into any significant venture without a contract that clearly stated who owned what and who could exploit what (or who) and in what ways. Building a startup with your best friend may seem like a good idea but if you think you'll never be butt-fucked by somebody you thought you could trust, well, you don't have much business experience, do you?

If you can feel the bitterness creeping in, yes, I have been burnt before. A bad business "partnership" that ended up costing me about $40,000 arguably because of theft by my business partner. This was a nasty financial hit for me, one I'm only now recovering from. Small on the scale of many business disasters but still a scary amount of money to me and many other people. The personal cost was far worse but that's in the past now too. And I'm sure this fucker is going to burn in hell for what he did to me.

From a purely self-interested point of view (thinking about my potential future), I'll be interested to see how this whole Rocketboom drama plays out. Will either party benefit from this? Who will have the brighter future: Congdon the personality or Rocketboom the brand? What lessons, if any, will be learned from this? This is fame on an incredibly micro-scale. In real terms practically nobody knows who Amanda Congdon is and practically nobody has seen Rocketboom. But it could make for a very interesting uncontrolled experiment.

Because there are too many variables at play, it will be impossible to draw any absolute conclusions from this affair. Anybody who has had any experience in media or performance will know that the outcomes for both Congdon and Rocketboom could be affected by the quality of writing available to them, the quality of performances, perception of personality, strength of brand and pure dumb luck. Expect to see lots of sage, after-the-fact wisdom and pontificating on this matter from many quarters.

Including me.

Mr Angry Vlog Number Eight

Due to popular demand, here is the vlog I recorded on the weekend - high pitched noise problem and all. I'm glad everyone convinced me to do this as I quite liked the performance, it was a hard decision to ditch it. And a wrong decision according to the consensus. So enjoy. And you only have yourselves to blame if it hurts your ears.

Still, then you'd know my pain. I have this fucked-up high pitched tinnitus in my ears 24/7.



This is the link in case I screwed up the embed again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxXB-F9eo8E

As always, if you feel so disposed distribute this far and wide. Embed the video on your own site, tell people you wrote the script, hell, say it's you in a mask if you like - just link back to the original youtube video. BTW, if anyone knows the secret to promoting a video on youtube, let me know because I haven't worked that one out yet.

How Alan Jones Just Shot Himself in the Foot

An interesting story is developing in Australia and I'll start with some back story so those who don't know the players get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Alan Jones is one of the premier right-wing shock jocks in this country. I first mentioned him on this blog when I was saying how happy I was that the whole "pundit" thing that seems to plague US media hasn't taken off so much in Australia. Jones is undoubtedly one of the leaders of the punditocracy that does exist in Australia. He was also coach of the Australian rugby team once. He was also arrested in London in the 80s for soliciting gay sex in a public toilet from someone who turned out to be an undercover cop.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in a non-commercial taxpayer-funded national broadcaster. There is a national TV station and a multitude of radio stations including a rather fine youth-oriented national network TripleJ. I should act my age and stop listening to TripleJ but what the hell. The political tone of the ABC changes over the years. Up until the 70s it was very conservative. Intelligent but conservative. Since the 80s it has swung to the left. It's still mostly intelligent, fair and even handed but with a definite progressive bias in news and current affairs reporting. The sort of coverage liberal Americans wish they were getting under the Bush administration. Mind you, they have never been shy about hiring intelligent conservatives into high profile roles like the late Richard Carlton.

Chris Masters is a fine journalist. One of the best this country has produced. His work has contributed to a Royal commission (the most serious legal investigation that can happen in Australia) into a corrupt judiciary and the downfall of a corrupt state government and bent police forces.

The ABC had commissioned Masters to write an unauthorised biography of Jones. This book was unlikely to spare Jones the way folks in the mainstream have given him a free ride. Besides his sexual escapades (which, as far as I'm concerned, are his own business - but then I'm not a conservative fuckwit), Jones has some other questionable events in his past. Not least of these was known as the "cash for comments" scandal. Jones (and other prominent personalities) were proven to have taken money from some organisations with a bad reputation (like banks) in return for giving them a positive spin on his radio program. These weren't ads, they were pitched as his honest, free opinion despite being bought and paid for.

The news broke yesterday that the ABC board had decided the ABC would not be publishing Masters' book. In Masters' view this decision came as a direct result of pressure from the Jones camp. The ABC board has made the ludicrous statement that the book wasn't commercially viable (on par with saying Steven Colbert's roasting of President Bush wasn't funny). Well, if it wasn't commercially viable before it sure as hell will be now.

Masters has said he's looking for other publishers. I'd say he's beating them off with a stick. You can't buy this sort of publicity. I continue to be amazed that those in seats of power think they can squash dissent. The simple act of trying to silence your opponent gives them publicity. I hope Jones sacks whatever tool on his legal team pressured the ABC board to make this decision because it's going to cost him down the line. On the other hand, it was probably Jones himself - he has a personal relationship with several of the board members.

The thing that makes the actions of the Jones camp even more ridiculous is that Masters was unlikely to take a sensationalistic/tabloid approach to the book - he's a serious journalist. So besides guaranteeing more publicity for Masters, Jones has also created a market for a muckracking expose for just how dirty his past is. This has got to worry him. Some insight I can offer:

Ever since I first mentioned Jones' toilet sex escapades I have found search results in my site stats pretty much every day that have some combination of "Alan Jones gay sex toilet London". After this news broke yesterday there were 20 of these search. Whoops. I'd been joking for a while that Jones needed to get his spin doctors onto this because the story obviously wouldn't die. I had no idea Chris Masters was writing this book. I was going to say Jones didn't really have to worry about me because I'm nobody but then I started putting combinations of "Alan Jones gay sex toilet London" into Google and I show up consistently at the top of the results. Double Whoops. Teh intarwebs are out to get you Jonesy.

In one of those strange coincidences life sometimes throws up, I was doing work experience in the TripleJ newsroom back in 1988 when the Alan Jones toilet scandal broke. The one person who got to Jones before his minders protected him was an ABC journalist. The journo found Jones in his hotel and you can tell Jones was feeling shattered because he actually spoke honestly rather than clamming up with a "no comment." Jones was in tears and said something along the lines of "you people are going to destroy me over this." Well, lucky for Jones it was the ABC who actually found him and not his right-wing tabloid mates.

The initial charge from the London coppers (who had obvious caught all the murderers and other criminals who were at large) was the sensational sounding "outraging public decency". The journo who had talked to Jones was interviewed and asked what the charge actually meant. His response was along the lines of "It can mean many things but in this case it means masturbating in a public toilet." Yowza! A little bit of the old "help me while I give this a shake" going on?

I actually saw the conversation between an ABC news team who decided they wouldn't smear Jones with a "gay toilet sex" story because they believed the law was immoral and Jones shouldn't be persecuted for personal sexual preferences. If only the people Jones has victimised over the years were given such fair treatment. As it turned out, Jones had friends in very high places who applied a lot of pressure which resulted in the charges being dropped. No lesser a personage than the then Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, spoke in favour of Jones. This allowed Jones to claim he was totally innocent of the charges.

I agree that it was an unjust law that saw Jones charged and these police "stings" (hello, George Michael) are a waste of time. But I am truly disgusted that Jones can't come out and say he was the victim of persecution and shouldn't have faced the charges. Instead he implies he never tried to pick up the undercover cop for some anonymous gay sex. To me, a lie of omission is still a lie. And I wouldn't be surprised if Jones is capable of telling a bald faced lie if someone dares to put him on the spot for exactly what happened.

So should a dealer of tabloid justice also be forced to face tabloid justice? I think it's fair to say that any left-leaning public figure who was charged with soliciting for sex in public toilets would be absolutely crucified by the conservative media. Rush Limbaugh got away with being a drug addict and Ann Coulter continues to get away with being a plagiarist (although who knows? the tide is building against her on this). But the right are notoriously squeamish on topics of sex, particularly gay sex. He's dodged a bullet for nearly 20 years but Alan Jones may be about to find out who his real mates are. And it would be wonderful poetic justice that his downfall (I can dream) was brought about by him shooting himself in the foot over the ABC publishing Chris Masters' book.

How to make IT staff less angry - Part Three: Positive Environmental Decisions

This is the third part in a series of posts on steps managers and employers of IT staff can take to improve the morale and, by extension, the performance of their workers. In response to some discourse in the comments for the last part I thought I'd start by clarifying: these posts aren't intended to be an empty whine (although that can be therapeutic) they are actually addressing real issues that ultimately hurt employers as much as employees. I did admit from the start that the Cabal Of Disaffected and Exploited Information Technology (CODE-IT) workers have a tendency to complain but when simple steps are available to keep good staff happy, why not take them?

Bad workplaces drive employees away while good workplaces attract and keep good staff. And any manager who thinks they don't have to look after their staff is living in denial. The best you can hope for is the death of 1000 cuts - your bad staff won't jump ship because they're afraid nobody else will employ them. Your good staff will be the first to wake up to the fact they deserve better. And with each person you lose your performance will go downhill until you reach some appalling plateau of hopelessness or collapse altogether.

I've worked in places where the management was perfectly happy to have barely above minimum performance because it made them feel like they were completely in control. They were largely right: most of the staff who stayed there more than a year or so were too hopeless to get a job anywhere else, so they were totally at the manager's mercy. If that's your goal as a manager, don't waste your time reading this - there's nothing here for you. Actually, if that's your company policy and your company is publicly traded, let me know your stock ticker symbol so I can short your stock (I'm learning trading tips from Howard's blog).

This post is the second half of my thoughts on work environment wherein I provide some straightforward suggestions on how to improve the environment for CODE-IT workers to everyone's benefit. This is a personal favourite of mine as it's possible to forget about how much money you do or don't have, it's possible to forget that there might not be any future in your job but you can't ignore what's going on around you. If you want to improve the well-being of your staff immediately and the performance of your company long term, then improve the working environment.

It's important to remember that the overall concept of work environment and facilities for IT workers goes beyond the physical environment. This includes their work "tools": PCs and/or mobile computing hardware, software, printers, scanners and any other gadgets that make their job possible or seem like fun. It's common for managers not to be sure how much to provide CODE-IT workers on the system/resources front. Here's the short answer: give them what they ask for. Where possible give them more. Before they ask for it.

IT system costs can spiral out of control quickly, particularly when a large IT department is involved - I'm not suggesting bankrupting a company by outfitting every desk with frivolous widgets. But don't be too quick to veto requests to beef up the machines used by your CODE-IT brigade. The difference in productivity that can be gained by boosting the quality of the hardware and software available can be phenomenal. And for god's sake, make your judgements on a case-by-case cost/benefit analysis - don't apply standard rules across the company. Even within an IT group, system requirements will vary wildly between individuals depending on their actual work. But is seems some managers need the obvious pointed out to them: the system needs of a CODE-IT worker are not the same as someone doing customer service or someone working in accounts. They aren't even close.

Underpowered machines have two disadvantages. First, they are slower in performing the tasks required of them (or in some cases I have experienced, completely incapable of performing the tasks) which has a direct impact on productivity. Each task takes longer so less tasks get done each day. QED. A second problem which can cause more problems long term is that each time a CODE-IT worker experiences an unnecessary delay because of underpowered systems they get that little bit more pissed off with their work. I'm complaining again.

So here's a tip for a quick easy win: give your CODE-IT workers two monitors. You might think I'm being flippant but there are a number of quite respectable studies that show a sharp improvement in productivity with multi-monitor setups. Monitors are getting cheaper every day and you don't even have to provide particularly flash ones (on the other hand, if you have the money - go to town). If you get in quick while this practice is still a relative novelty you can invest a few hundred dollars per head to get two 17" monitors on every desk and make your CODE-IT workers think you love them. We might have a tendency to complain but really we just want to feel loved.

There is a lot of argument around whether cubicles, open plan or individual offices are the best solution for housing staff but really there isn't an absolute answer. Different people prefer different things so talk to your staff to find out what the consensus is. And if you can't meet what people want, above all, be open about your decision. Explain the reasons for your decision and be prepared for some complaints but at least if you are honest you can hold your head up. Go back to part two in this series for an example of how to really piss off CODE-IT workers in this area. I've already said this in previous posts, but the one universal truth regarding seating for CODE-IT workers is GIVE US ENOUGH SPACE! The majority of IT workers require much more space than the average office worker to perform effectively. Skimp on this at your peril.

Another magical environment booster is donuts. I won't engage in a debate on the health issues involved in allowing your CODE-IT hordes to gorge on junk food. If this sort of think (junk food abuse) upsets you, imagine I'm using donuts as a metaphor. But I'm not - I mean literally provide fresh donuts every morning. One workplace I know did this and had the earliest rising CODE-IT crew I have ever met. Early arrival in and of itself is not a guarantee of good work but it didn't hurt that everyone started the day with a positive attitude.

When the inevitable happened and a bean counter cut the donuts off because it was "frivolous", the direct result was morale, early arrivals and overall performance took a nosedive. Not so much from lack of donuts, everyone could afford $2 for a donut if they wanted one but more because everyone got the unmistakeable message: this entire department does not deserve a small luxury. At the same time the CEO is in news for receiving multi-million dollar bonuses.

Don't underestimate the power of little things in the work environment. This counts for both good and bad things but I'm trying to be more positive today. Some extremely good CODE-IT workers will only work in places that give them the freedom to wear casual clothes ("I could earn twice as much somewhere else, but they'd probably make me wear shoes" was one rather disturbing quote I uncovered during my research).

In short, any small thing you can do to improve the work environment should be done. You may be surprised which things the staff values. Very few managers I know think showers in the workplace add any value, but you never know. Some years back, an explosion cut off gas supplies in Melbourne. This meant an extremely large number of people (those with gas hot water systems) had no running hot water in their homes. People with working hot showers at their workplace were showing up for work real early and were in a much better mood than those with no showers.

The one caveat I would offer when consider adding little perks to the work environment is only do it if you're in it for the long haul. I almost hate to admit it, but the majority of CODE-IT staff will get more angry at having something taken away than they will at never having it in the first place. It's that whininess coming in again. Whatever you do, don't underestimate the importance of the environment in making your staff less angry. When you improve the environment you are saying "I want you to be in a good place, I want you to be happy here, I want you to stay here." And not many people would argue that's a bad thing.

The next part of this series will explore how to make CODE-IT staff less angry by making their work more interesting and fulfilling.

Vlog Update Number 2

Everyone seems to like the idea of an "out-takes" vlog so I'll work on that later this week. I've been looking at the test video I put up on youtube and I think the noise problem might actually be tolerable. I screwed up the edits but it was only a test so anyone who feels like being a guinea pig, check the following link:

Mr Angry's test video

If I get enough feedback that the video is watchable despite the awful high-pitched noise I'll do a proper edit of it. It sounded horrible when I was editing it but with the reduction of quality in the youtube version seems to have worked in a good way - the noise isn't as noticeable.

Then again, I have permanent tinnitus so I'm not the best judge of how bad a high-pitched whining noise is. Let me know.

Vlog Update

I'm pretty goddam angry right now at the camera I was using to make my vlogs. For those who were fooled by my stunning production values, I was using my pocket sized digital camera to shoot the videos. This is very much a secondary function of the camera and this became very evident on the weekend when I was shooting another vlog.

The video has this high pitched noise running all the way through it which makes it unusable. I can't imagine anybody sitting through it without getting really pissed off, so I'll have to shelve it. My best guess as to why this has happened is that I overloaded the rather basic microphone built into the camera with all my shouting. Now it can't record sound without this terrible noise. This means there won't be any new vlogs for a while because I need a new camera.

This has brought forward a plan I had all along to get an actual video camera but I won't actually have it in hand until this weekend at the earliest. And my kids are staying with me this weekend so that means no vlog this weekend as I'm not freaking them out by swearing and screaming while they're in the house. So no new vlogs for at least a week.

Unless I do an "out-takes" vlog. My girlfriend thought it was funny watching me edit a video because she got to see all the bits I cut out - me staring vacantly into space, reading my script, swearing when I screw up a line. It would be a sort of DVD extra features behind-the-scenes edition. This is potentially amusing but reeks of self-indulgence. And blogging is no place for self-indulgence. I'd be interested in any feedback on this idea.

Seeing as everyone liked my previous post about my voice mail prank, I think I will do a dramatic re-enactment of this when I get my new camera. There are a few logistical issues to work out with this, like getting an office space where I can re-create it (there's no way I'm using my own office). But I'm sure I can work it out. Any readers in Melbourne want to volunteer their work space for a weekend/after hours shoot?

This is all assuming Adam from the camera shop isn’t too scared to sell me the video camera when I go back to the shop. He seemed very interested in how I would be using the camera so I gave him the blog URL so he could see what I’ve been doing so far. I also warned him that the content can be a bit… ummmm… confrontational. But he at least has met me in real life so he can hopefully separate the Mr Angry persona from the real me.

Either that or he’s going to call in sick this weekend once he reads my blog.

Separating the personal and the professional at work

Tom gave me some excellent fuel for an angry blog talking about an experience with a cow-orker having inappropriately loud personal conversations at work. Loud as in screaming. Repeatedly. From Tom's Pigeon Weather blog:

Man's Voice: No Anita, no. That's not allowed.
Me: ?
Voice: No, Anita, we didn't agree to that
Me: !
Voice: No, Anita, no, you can't just do that. No. It's not allowed. We didn't agree to that. You can't just. No.
Me #$%%@
Voice: Anita, listen. No. You can't. No. You cannot. You're not listening.
Me: grrrrrrr
Voice: Anita? Anita? Do you hear me? No. No Anita, no.
Me: ...

There's nothing quite like the inappropriate workplace conversation that you can't escape. I worked with one guy who took this further by listening to all his voice mail on speaker phone. Really loud. He played his messages so loud the sound penetrated basically the entire floor. And he had so many fucking messages! It was as if the prick deliberately avoided answering his phone so he could play all those fucking messages at all of us later.

This guy was a Dilbert cartoon come to life. No amount of polite requests would make him stop. His response was "get over it" which, to a degree, is fair enough but when you throw down a challenge like that, you have to be ready for blowback. Some revenge was in order. What is the best way to make sure someone stops playing all their messages for everyone to hear?

Make sure they get a message they don't want anyone to know about.

He played his messages at 9.15 every morning, regular as clockwork. All of us in the surrounding cubicles made sure we were there on revenge day (normally we went out of our way to be somewhere else when he was playing his fucking messages). The previous night, I had made the following call to his number:

"Hello Mr Smith (his name was really Smith so it looks like I'm using a pseudonym but I'm not), this is Dr Watkins from the sexual health clinic. Your test results are back and I'm afraid those spots on your penis are just going to clear up. It appears you have five different sexually transmitted diseases. I'm afraid those prostitutes you had unprotected sex with who assured you they were "clean" may not have been totally honest with you. If we don't treat you immediately your penis will fall off by the end of the week."

Juvenile to be sure but it got results. The first thing we discovered was that he didn't pay much attention to his messages because it took him up to "five different sexually transmitted diseases" to react at all. Then he panicked and fumbled at the phone. He knocked the receiver off but the message kept playing. He didn't hit the disconnect button until "totally honest". So nobody got to hear my witty penis falling off joke but it was a pretty good result.

Everybody was "prairie dogging", popping up over the cubicle walls as the call progressed. The laughter followed him as he ran out the office door. None of us ever mentioned it directly to him but he never played voice mail on speaker phone again.

Stormfront come out as gay support group

I feel compelled to bring some fantastic news to the blogosphere. White supremacist group Stormfront, long thought to be nothing but a bunch of brain-dead loser fuckwits who tried to over-compensate for their own inadequacies by blaming everyone else for how pathetic and worthless they were, have come out as supporters of gay Jews everywhere. This will come as a surprise to many but the signs were always there if you looked.




















Why else would a bunch of buff young men spend so much time together with their shirts off if it wasn't to get some of that man love?














Stormfront are to be congratulated on this move. Yes, there is nothing more pathetic than some loser piece of shit who belongs to the most privileged ethnic group on the planet (white males) complaining that other ethnicities are keeping them down, but Stormfront are moving past that.
















Yes the days of hate are over for Stormfront, it's all man-on-man action for them from here on in. They are going to love their neighbour... and I mean looooooove.













Stormfront are a lesson to us all. Anyone can grow beyond being being a knuckle-dragging moron who should wake the fuck up to the fact if they are the "master race" then white folks are doomed. Stormfront have learned their lesson.















You should love your fellow man. Stormfront certainly do. I think all concerned bloggers should promote this news. Feel free to link to this post and/or promote Stormfront by linking their name to this URL: http://www.jglg.org.uk/ This is their chosen gay support group. Spread the word.

A NOTE FOR THOSE WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND OR APPRECIATE IRONY:

To the best of my knowledge, Stormfront have not become a Jewish gay support group. As far as I know, Stormfront are still the same ignorant racist fuckwits they have always been. My clue was when some racist pigfucker put some comment spam on my blog stuffed with links to racist Stormfront propaganda.

I FUCKING HATE COMMENT SPAM! The usual stupid commercial spam is bad enough,but when some pigfucker tries to push racist propaganda through my blog I take action. Nothing would make me happier than if someone putting "Stormfront" into Google was directed to a gay Jewish support group. This is why I'm recommending linking the word Stormfront to http://www.jglg.org.uk/

White supremacists are such dicks! I mean, come on! White people already rule the world. If you see a minority getting ahead of you, it's fairly likely that the reason is not that they're getting preferential treatment, IT'S THAT YOU'RE A FUCKING WHITE TRASH LOSER! I know there are racists of every race, creed and religion who preach hatred against those they perceive as "other" but whitey thinking the darkies have an unfair advantage? Just fuck off OK?
Oh, and in closing, I would like to point out that I don't think "gay" is an insult. I just couldn't think of anything that would piss off those Stormfront losers more than being linked to a gay Jewish support group.

How to make IT workers less angry - Part Two: Environment

This is part two of my series on making IT workers less angry by improving their job satisfaction. Part one (go and read it if you haven't already) gave an overview of the three major factors in job satisfaction: environment, quality of work and pay/compensation. As I have not yet been silenced by the paid killers hired by the Cabal Of Disaffected and Exploited Information Technology (CODE-IT) workers, I will provide more detailed secret IT workers' business in this post. Today's topic is the work environment.

For IT workers, environment includes the physical space you work in, the facilities available, the people you work with and the "vibe" of the workplace. Physical space is one of the most important elements contributing to an IT worker's productivity and at the same time one of the aspects most ignored by employers. Simply making sure there is enough desk space to spread out the required machines, screens, peripherals, manuals, folders, notebooks and "quirky" knick-knacks can work wonders. Saving a few square metres of floor space at the cost of pissing off CODE-IT workers is a dumb trade-off.

The worst example of screwing up the working environment that I have personally experienced happened, tragically enough, in one of the better workplaces I have enjoyed. This place had many of the components of nerd paradise: a huge converted warehouse for the office, big desks, open relaxation/reading areas festooned with bean bags, a gym, great kitchen facilities and an in-house cafeteria with good quality food. But one bad decision (really a series of smaller bad decisions compounded by lies) poisoned the whole environment.

Expansion of the workforce meant some new desks had to be built. This meant we would lose one of the open areas but we could see this was unavoidable. The plan was explained thusly: new desks would be built right next to the development team (subjecting us to weeks of noise and disruption), we would move into the newly constructed area temporarily while our area was also remodelled and then we would move back. A pain but we could live with it.

Things started to come apart almost immediately.

The first time we saw actual plans it was obvious the new desks were way smaller than our existing ones. This would be bad but we could probably put up with it temporarily. Then construction started and the news got worse: these weren't open desks, they were high-walled cubicles from Dilbert's worst nightmare. Still, it was only going to be temporary, right? Yeah, right. We were told the new area would be occupied by the marketing group. Our existing area was near the windows, lots of natural light and good views. This was much more desirable than the new section, isolated in the middle of the warehouse. Can you guess where this is going?

I have never been lucky enough to work in a company where the CODE-IT brigade had more power than the marketing division. This place was no exception. Rumours started almost immediately that marketing was refusing to move to the new area and wanted our window seats. We were assured this wasn't true. Right until the day after we moved to our "temporary" home. Then we were told it would be permanent. But hey, marketing would get the same cubicle environment right? Not so much. They ended up with much larger desks with less oppressive cubicle walls. And all through this process and even afterwards, the facilities manager refused to admit he had done anything wrong.

So we were forced into a smaller space that had a direct negative effect on productivity and performance because it simply made it harder for everyone to work efficiently. And we were lied to every step of the way. The facilities manager was never made to answer for his actions and the CODE-IT team were made to feel totally marginalised. This sort of behaviour sends a very clear message to staff. You. Are. Not. Valued. Even though the other environment aspects were good, the damage done by this misadventure was pretty severe. Within 4 months, 20% of the CODE-IT team had left, myself included. And this was a comparatively good workplace.

For contrast, here's how my worst-ever workplace handled the working environment. When an opportunity to move to cheaper offices presented itself, they grabbed it with two hands. The actual desks weren't too bad although they did cram more people into a smaller space. The new desks had some positives and some negatives but overall they weren't terrible. Lower cubicle walls made the environment less oppressive but did make noise levels worse. And you can probably imagine how some cave-dwelling CODE-IT types reacted to having to interact with actual humans more often.

The real giveaway of what this place thought of staff was in the other facilities provided in the new environment. On a floor containing about 100 staff, the kitchen "facilities" consisted of a bench about 2 metres long adorned with a single microwave. That was pretty bad but what was worse was this was located right next to the toilets. And I mean you didn't have to stretch out your arms very far to touch both the kitchen bench and toilet door. This has bad connotations relating to hygiene (I wasn't alone in thinking this) but it got worse than this. The faint of heart and/or easily mortified may not want to read this next part.

Most male toilets have some sort of vestibule or at least a corner between the exterior door and the urinals. Not this one. A straight line view from the kitchen to the urinals. So the distance from you making coffee to someone standing at a urinal is about 5 metres with only a small wall next to the urinals obstructing your view if someone opens the toilet door while you're at the kitchen bench. So all it took was for someone to step back before zipping up and, well, you learned more about your cow-orkers than you wanted to know. Penny pinching that leads to such an appalling environment is a ridiculous business decision. The money saved on rent will be blown in the cost of having to continually recruit new staff when existing staff resign because they can't deal with the environment any more.

The people in the workplace are a significant factor when considering the quality of the environment. If you degrade the physical environment to the point where you can't retain staff, you can never build up a positive "vibe" between the staff and in the workplace overall. It can be very hard for potential recruits to gauge this quality so if someone is already happy with the vibe of their workplace they are that much more likely to stay where they are. If your goal is to maintain a stable workforce (and if this doesn't seem important to you - go the hell away) then investing in a quality work environment makes a lot of sense. It is usually far cheaper than endless recruiting.

It seems I have more to say on this topic than I realised when I started. So far I have only covered physical environment and badly implemented environment decisions at that. In the interests of keeping these posts manageable, I will continue evaluating environmental factors in another post. The next part in this series will highlight good environmental decisions that make CODE-IT workers love coming into work and staying at work for long hours. Even more important, make the right decisions and you can boost morale to the point where the majority of your CODE-IT legions will not even think of looking for another job. Including those all-important decisions regarding what software and hardware tools to provide.

I'm going to kill myself

I can't fucking believe this! I just lost an hour's work on Blogger! I usually compose posts on Blogger because its biggest advantage over Wordpress is its auto-save feature. But some weird combination of keys hit by me when my fingers slipped a little (I'm a shit typist) closed the window without saving anything. No auto-save. Nada.

This happens occasionally and I get heaps of valuable advice every time but I still do what I do. It fucks up about once a month and I scream and swear but doing anything else seems like too much trouble. So don't feel too sorry for me.

This does mean my planned post for today (a follow up to the popular "Making IT workers less angry") won't be happening until tomorrow at the earliest. I'm too fucking angry to re-write it properly now. I might to a vlog later to get some anger out of my system. That ought to be fun.

With that in mind, if you can think of your favourite really angry thing I've written, drop me a line in comments and I might immortalise it in video.

Mr Angry Vlog Number Seven

While I'm in a flurry of posts relating to work I thought I'd relate how I'm discriminated against at work simply for being different.



I'm sick of all this prejudice. Whitey is keeping me down!

Bill Gates is still going to hell

The recent news that the world's 2nd richest man, Warren Buffet, it giving most of his cash to the charitable trust set up by the world's richest man, Bill Gates, is interesting to say the least. The seventy squillion or so bucks they have to throw around could really change things in ways we probably can't forsee right now. From suggestions the Gates Foundation could make the UN's World Health Organisation irrelevant to fears the foundation might just be a backdoor way to make the rich and powerful more rich and powerful, the guesses of what will happen are coming in every colour of fanciful.

Maybe they'll make the rich more generous because they don't want to look bad by comparison. Maybe it will make the greedy more greedy because they'll argue they don't need to share now as Gates is covering for them. Or perhaps they'll promise to give it away once they're as rich as Gates. And it's extremely likely this will be used as an argument for lower taxes - the argument being that rich private individuals can look after things better than big governments.

Whatever. Bill Gates is still going to hell because I have to use MS Office. There isn't a day goes by that I don't come up with an addition to my list of "Reasons to punch Bill Gates". This list actually exists. It is slightly shorter than my other list: "People who are going to pay when I take over the world." But only slightly.

If I was being fair, I'd acknowledge that Microsoft products have done more good than bad (this is without even considering Bill G's philanthropy as a mitigating factor). Work is undoubtedly better because of these tools. But fuck being fair, I'm being angry. I swear to fucking God, there are days when I almost put my fist through the screen. Most of the time I'm using Word for writing documents and the number of things it does to piss me off never ceases to amaze. Just in case anyone is jumping to the conclusion that I simply don't know what I'm doing, by most standards I'm an advanced user. Done the training and all. But no amount of training can help you when the simple act of hitting the backspace key reformats your entire document.

What the fuck is that about? I actually know what causes it - MS use this bastardised HTML to format documents BUT THE FUCKING HTML IS INVISIBLE so you can't see it so what looks like a blank line to you has some hidden code on it. When you delete that line (blank to all intent and purposes) you delete some code you don't fucking know about and didn't fucking ask for and Word is all "Ohhhh, you want to fuck up your whole document? OK, you're the boss."

And the way MS redefine "bugs" so that nothing qualifies as a bug really pisses me off too. When you perform a simple action that creates a catastrophic effect that could not possibly be what you wanted - that's a fucking bug goddammit! If anyone ever develops a voice command interface for PCs they'd better not give one to me. The computer would have a nervous breakdown. Each time one of these insane things happened, I'd scream at it:

"No! Why did you do that? How the fuck could you possibly think I'd want to reformat the whole document to be in bold? All I did was backspace on a blank space between lines! Fix it right fucking now or I'll put a screwdriver through your hard drive!"

Within days it would be suffering from Kicked Puppy Syndrome. It would be good if the computer has a working AI with voice response because I'm sure it would end up whimpering whenever I came near it. There would be this agonised pause before the computer executed any commands because it would be paranoid about my response. Essentially the relationship between me and the computer would be the same as the relationship between my worst boss and me. So here's a note to AI researchers: don't come up with a true computer AI unless you also come up with computer psychiatrists,

I'm sure Gates thinks he's bought his way into history and the afterlife with his foundation (cynical, moi?) but it won't work. It will probably work with history but he'll be screwed when he reaches the pearly gates. I'm using Catholic imagery here because that's what I know but feel free to substitute your belief system's version of the afterlife. So Bill rocks up to the pearly gates and St Peter checks the big book.

"Hmmmm, Bill Gates III is it? Let's see here... Distributed fifty bazillion dollars through your charity, cured cancer, cured aids, fed and educated the world's teeming masses, ended poverty, oppression and war. That's quite a list achievements. But guess what? Just before you got here I was giving a quarterly report to God and the PowerPoint presentation I spent 12 hours on fucked up and made me look like a complete tool! Now everybody's laughing at me and I'll be lucky to get more than the minimum pay raise this year. AND IT'S ALL YOUR FUCKING FAULT!"

And that is why Bill Gates is going to hell.

How to make IT staff less angry - part one: Overview

This post contains secret IT workers' business. This could be dangerous to me for two reasons. First, it contains honesty which could be abused by dishonest and unscrupulous managers. Second, it is secret knowledge which the Cabal Of Disaffected and Exploited Information Technology workers (CODE-IT workers) don't like outsiders to know. Even now, the CODE-IT equivalent of Opus Dei assassin-monks may be on their way to silence me.

The reason I want to share the following information is it disturbs me greatly that things taken as common sense in so many circles seem to be so far out of the understanding of so many managers. It sometimes seems wise to keep this knowledge from managers because if they truly understood what motivates their IT workers they would exploit them even more. But that's too negative an outlook, even for me. Evil is evil and there's not much that can be done about truly evil managers. Dumb, on the other hand, can more often be remedied with appropriate education.

Here's hoping.

The short version is you make IT workers less angry by making their lives better. Many people don't need more information than that. But IT workers can be a quirky bunch and many employers truly do not understand IT well enough to work out what will improve the lot of the CODE-IT brigade. Here's the first bit of brutal honesty: in my experience, on average, IT workers complain more than other workers. The best possible spin I can put on this trend to whininess is that, at its best, IT is a dynamic environment that presents many challenges and the only constant is change. In a good way. When the folks in the CODE-IT trenches feel like they're being held back, when the corporate environment is resistant to change or flat out unable to change, that's when the surliness starts. Most IT workers will work extremely hard (even excessively hard) in the right environment but won't do well in a repressive environment.

Other times, IT people are just whiners. When I've worked in organisations that conduct staff satisfaction surveys, IT workers are invariably the least satisfied as a group. In many cases this has been well justified but the pattern is hard to miss: the CODE-IT legions are more likely to complain than anyone else. They are (generally) highly trained and a lot is expected of them so they in turn have high expectations of their employers.

All the clever people who study such things tend to tell you there are three aspects to job satisfaction. These can be sliced and diced in various ways and given different titles and descriptions but broadly, the three things people look for in a job are a good environment, interesting and/or fulfilling work, and good compensation. The purists/optimists will tell you each is equally important and you can't compensate for shortcomings in one area by boosting another. Here's the second bit of brutal honesty: this isn't true. The best jobs will rank highly in all three areas but it is quite easy to compensate for a shortfall in one area by boosting another.

Here's the thing to bear in mind: it's pretty much impossible to provide a job with good pay, good environment and interesting/rewarding work without sincerely wanting people to feel good about working for you. If there is some reason you can't or don't want to provide all three you need to be sincere about why boosting the other two makes it worthwhile. People will smell bullshit in this area a mile off - don't fool yourself into thinking you can fool all of the people all of the time. If you're telling staff it's worth working for less than average because you throw a really good Christmas party when that clearly isn't enough compensation, well, you're screwed. Saying it over and over won't make it true. It simply makes it more obviously what a lying, manipulative, scheming, exploitative bastard you are.

Another thing is that if you decide to (or are forced to) boost one or two aspects because of a lack in another area, you need to consider the sort of behaviour you are rewarding when you make this choice. The perception of what behaviour is apparently valued by a company may not always be overt but eventually your CODE-IT warriors are going to look up from their screens and evaluate what is happening around them. And I'd hate to break it to you, but the manager who is convinced their foolish underlings are completely unaware of their machinations is not only a prick, they're also delusional. Trust me, if you're a manipulative sociopath, your staff are probably more aware of it than you are.

The easiest aspect to boost (unless you are under significant budget or corporate restraints) is pay. Everyone likes more money. That's the good news. Here's the bad news: if money is the only thing keeping people working for you it also becomes the easiest way for other companies to steal your most valuable workers. It take a 5 second internet search to work out what other people are being paid; you can't rely ignorance of better opportunities keeping staff where you want them. Especially not CODE-IT staff.

But if money's out of the question, you could always consider improving the work environment. Improving the working environment can seem harder because it's a bit more ephemeral but even small changes can have a marked effect. Give your CODE-IT workers enough room to work. Most will need a significant amount of desk space to spread out their crap - it seems like crap to you but it's usually important to them. Cubicle farms are poison. And give your CODE-IT crew as much control as possible over their environment. Not letting them put up personal photos and fill their workspace with Star Wars memorabilia will offend them deeply. Enforced conformity is the close cousin of a disaffected workforce.

If you make improvements in the work environment you are sending an important message: we want you to be happy here. It's a mistake to think you can artificially make co-workers get on with each other but if the general atmosphere is positive, this has a tendency to rub off and make even surly CODE-IT workers less resentful of those around them. And leaving a positive environment is a big risk for most people. It's usually impossible to tell from a job interview if you'll like the new environment so improving your workers' existing environment is a valuable investment.

Then there is how much people actually like their work. Providing interesting/ challenging/ rewarding work is frequently undervalued by managers. Sure, there are bumps on logs whose aspirations reach as far as knowing they have a desk to come back to tomorrow and regular paychecks coming down the line but they are a much smaller minority than average in IT. "Knowledge worker" isn't simply a buzzword - these people use their brains as a matter of course and they want more challenges, not less. Unless you have complete losers working for you. If that's what you have and/or that's what you want stop reading. Employ the lowest common denominator and they'll never leave. And your workplace will never be better than a crap-hole. A third bit of brutal honesty (and I think I can see an albino face staring menacingly at me from the server rack as I type this) is that it's amazing how much less money a CODE-IT worker will accept if they really love their work.

Each of these three elements deserves much more detailed analysis and I will be doing just that over the coming days. But seriously, if you don't want your IT workers to be as angry as me, put some thought into how to improve all three of these elements from a CODE-IT perspective. It doesn't matter if management think they make the rules and everyone else should simply go along with it. If maintaining productive, high-quality CODE-IT workers is important to you, management has to deliver what workers want, not what management think workers deserve. And if this doesn't matter to you, you're going to get exactly what you deserve.

Mr Angry Vlog Number Six

For this vlog I decided to revisit the nightmare of my worst ever boss. Dare you rate your boss on the croc meter?



And all I can say is that if my neighbours don't think I'm insane, there's something wrong with them.

Back at work and completely unable to function

Well, I'm back at work after a week off and fucked if I know what I'm meant to be doing. Which is to say, I know in theory what I'm meant to be doing but my brain is doing a piss-poor job of helping me get anywhere today.

This is the problem with holidays: they end. Then you have to go back to work. I not only have to get into gear at work but I have to re-sort my life this week. I have to put away a week's worth of clothes for me and my kids, re-organise my apartment and pay some bills that arrived. Then there's getting back up to speed with blogging.

No vlog for over a week! I feel like I'm neglecting you. I'll try and do one tonight. I also used up my whole lunch hour working on a post that's turning into War and Peace. I don't think I'm even half way through yet. The theme is "how to make people less angry at work" - basically tallying up all the fucked things bosses do, how to avoid them and why bosses should avoid doing them. So you can see why it's a long post.

I'm not even sure it belongs on Mr Angry's blog although the shit involved certainly makes me angry. I'll do a bit more work on it tonight - maybe post it in multiple parts. I also have to get back to promoting this blog and visiting everyone else's blogs - something I've neglected for the last week or so. Actually, on the shameless self-promotion front, I've achieved my short term goal and cracked the Technorati top 100,000. This feels weirdly anti-climactic. Nevertheless, endless thanks to everyone who heeded my desperate plea for attention and linked to me. And if you did and I am yet to return the favour, please let me know and I'll add you to my blogroll.

So now I go back to trying to make sense of my work. Oddly enough, my Project Manager was happy to let me take a week off because she thought we were entering a quiet period for a month or so. I didn't really agree but wanted the week off. Now I'm back she agrees we have a shitload to do right now. Sometimes I really fucking hate being right all the time. All my ex-girlfriends hate that about me too.