You all know who I’m talking about – the client who wants you to code a website in GitHub; the partner who thinks your code looks like a bunch of sad winky faces; and the recruiters who want five years Swift experience when Swift is only two years old.
For years, designers have been able to vent about Clients From Hell. Now, it’s developers’ turns to get the frustration off their chests on devRant. For those of you who’ve been living under a rock for the past year, devRant is where developers can, well, [anonymously] rant about all of the above.
Some posts will make you laugh. Others will make you laugh so hard you cry. And just about all of them will make you empathize with the poster.
This post is a culmination of our favorite devRants. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.
Work
So you almost showed up to work with a positive attitude, but then PITA clients and bosses stepped in and turned that right around.
This section is an ode to those developers with likely the highest blood pressures. Because, hey, they deserve something for dealing with years worth of migraines.
My boss literally spends half an hour finger-fucking his phone on the mobile site to find “bugs”, that I can’t replicate. A combination like: swipe, pinch, landscape, portrait, back pinch, open new tab, close tab, ash cigarette on phone, dunk in toilet, dry, double tap… Aha I’ve found a bug, there’s 0.5 pixel line of space between the bag header and the browser bar.
That Time You Tried To Prank Someone, But They Don’t Even Notice
I’ve been slowly increasing the size of my tech manager’s mouse cursor over the last month when he leaves his computer unlocked. It’s about an inch tall now and he hasn’t noticed yet. Everyone else in the office does and it’s the best thing ever.
After a long day’s work, you just want to relax and probably rant about all of the above. Unfortunately, that isn’t what typically happens, especially when you’re living with a non-coder who, as much as they try to, just can’t feel your pain.
In the words of devRant, developers are people too. Yet, all too often devs can feel like a one-man wolfpack.
This section is a collection of rants about the ones you love who just don’t get it.
There’s no greater waste of time than laying in bed with your significant other and waiting on them to fall asleep so you can tip toe back to your computer in order to hit a deadline.
Me: *coding* Gf: *walks into room* Gf: awww look at all the sad winky faces Me: excuse me? Gf: look at all the sad winky faces *points at this ); * Me: … 😕😂
So I barely get home and I see my 10-year old sister in the living room coding with the Xcode Playground, I asked her where she learned how to do that and she said “I just read the books you had.” I’m so proud. 😭
Some guy my girlfriend knows, heard I’m a software developer. He had this ‘great’ idea on how he wanted to start a new revolutionary way of paying on the internet. He wanted to create a service like paypal but without having the hassle of logging in first and going through a transaction. He wanted a literal “buy now” button on every major webshop on the internet. When I asked him how he thought that would work legally and security wise, he became a bit defensive and implied that since I’m the tech guy I should work out that kind of stuff. When the software was ready, he would have clients lined up for the service and his work would start.
I politely declined this great opportunity
Truths
Programming isn’t like a normal job. It’s almost invisible. Yet it’s behind just about every amazing thing being built today, which makes it an indispensable function that the majority of people don’t understand all that well.
In these rants, developers drop some funny rants about the truths only they could appreciate.
You can work from anywhere… anywhere in the world!
Hmmm… Yeah, right! But not when management likes warm bodies at the office.
I hate, hate, absolutely HATE having to travel to work, spending at least 45min to an hour in traffic just to get to work! 😤😡 And then rinse and repeat to get home… which means I’m up at 5:30 every morning to be at work by 7:30, only to get home past 18:00 – traffic permitting! *sigh* 😩
Worst part: being everyone else’s Search Bitch. Seriously, how the hell do you have a job in the tech industry when you can’t use a fucking search engine, whether it’s Google, a builtin search facility or, hell, scrolling down the goddamn page?
Facepalm
Get ready for a double facepalm because one just won’t cut it.
Client: We need a phone number field on that form ASAP! We paid all this money and have hardly asked for anything. (completely not true btw…) You need to do this NOW!
Me: It has a phone number field…
Client: No it DOES NOT!
Me: Are we talking about the same form? *Sends a screenshot*
Client: Oh, I see it now. lol
Fml. Absolutely ready to give up client work. That was all exactly quoted btw.
Grateful – Thank God (TGI…)
Thus far, you’ve read a fair share of rants and moans on the darker end of the spectrum. But let’s be real – being a developer is pretty awesome. It’s certainly not all doom and gloom, especially if you’re a Toptal developer, who works whenever and wherever [s]he wants.
So to level the playing field, I’ve included the best grateful rants I could find.
A young guy I work with burst into tears today, I had no idea what happened so I tried to comfort him and ask what was up.
It appears his main client had gone nuts with him because they wanted him to make an internet toolbar (think Ask.com) and he politely informed them toolbars doesn’t really exist anymore and it wouldn’t work on things like modern browsers or mobile devices.
Being given a polite but honest opinion was obviously something the client wasn’t used to and knowing the guy was a young and fairly inexperienced, they started throwing very personal insults and asking him exactly what he knows about things (a lot more than them).
So being the big, bold, handsome senior developer I am, I immediately phoned the client back and told them to either come speak to me face-to-face and apologise to him in person or we’d terminate there contract with immediate effect. They’re coming down tomorrow…
So part my rant, part a rant on behalf of a young developer who did nothing wrong and was treated like shit, I think we’ve all been there.
We’ll see how this goes! Who the hell wants a toolbar anyway?!
Wisdom
We’ve complained, given thanks and shared some funny truths. To wrap things up, we’re leaving you with the best pearls of wisdom we found on devRant.
Reinventing the wheel can be very valuable. Even if you don’t create a better wheel, you’ll learn a lot about how it works, which can really help you out in the long term.
Worst part of being a dev: most employers want to own ya.
When I was at my first big employer, Microsoft, 10+ years ago, I was not even supposed to touch open source, let alone work on a side business.
Then I quit and joined another software giant, Google, that one was asking me to submit for approval on each open source project I would touch, and it was a 30 day period before I would get approval. And working on a side software business was an absolutely no-no, cause anything competes with them, or so they say.
At my current employer I am allowed to do whatever the hell I want. And they have only one, common sense, restriction: Whatever I do, should not be related to their core business.
I wish I would have not sold my soul when I had lots of time, no kids to take care off, and I was young and energetic.
It takes me now months to make a baby step for my wannabe business.
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