Another one of those enjoyably long good-bye-co-worker lunch today. This time it was a for Bob, one of the employees who was laid off. I forget his exact title, but he was rather up there. He was usually in charge of getting those laptops organized and running for the people who fly around the country, demonstrating our software to various current and potential clients. Those can be quite a challenge when you have all these different software applications with all different features, and you have to make them all work together on the same machine with no network connections. I'd usually get called in to load the parts I usually work on.

Bob mentioned he was planning on restarting a company he forged 3 years ago, but had left dormant. In a more whispered off-side conversation, he asked if I had been "looking". "Yeah, a little. Not heavily though. I LIKE doing QA. I just hate the person I'm working for." "Well give me your resume, if you want..."

I'm being told by everybody "Don't leave your job! The economy is horrible! Just be glad you HAVE a job right now." But it's getting really fucking ridiculous. I still can't believe my manager said she's NEVER had a job as a school teacher, because sometimes it feels like I'm back in 8th grade. One of the company's other products is being integrated with ours, so she's making us read a training guide for the 1.0 version, because it seems to be the only one in print. Yet we could have printed newer versions from the in-house .PDF files. I tell the developers what we're doing and their jaws drop. "1.0?!? That's ANCIENT!" "Yeah, well try telling my manager that. She's also giving us a QUIZ on it." Yep, a quiz. She had me upload it to the group's web site today.

Of course, I scrolled down the Java code and made note of what all the correct answers were. Heh heh. Obviously I won't learn anything from just memorizing or copying the answers, but I'll at least cut down on some of the extraneous bullshit I won't have to read from the book. Now I can make a study guide that will let me pass this lame ass quiz of hers. Oh I am going to learn the product -- by looking at the PRODUCT, not an outdated book that was written 2 years ago. That's like trying to learn Windows XP from a Windows 3.1.1 manual.

"I wasn't a cheater or a liar before I started working here."
"You can't get that kind of training in school." - Dilbert and the secretary