Why can't geeks lie?

As he's been known to [b]Stand People Up[/b] just ask GG as she's still out to inflict an enormous amount of [b]Pain & Suffering[/b] on Neil for doing this previously. :D

Col ]:)

You can't hold down a steady job even though I'd ben working in the same industry for over 20 years just not at the same compamy. :^0

They couldn't understand why I would leave a perfectly good job at one copmpany and move to another which offered better pay & conditions so according to this poorly traind shrink I wasn't capable of keeping a job for a [b]Long Term.[/b] Silly Basdterd he was too he didn't last more than 6 months where hewas but I at least always kept a job for about 3 years and then started getting Ichy Feet. :D

Mainly because what was once considered as challeging had become booring. But that's life and we all do the best that we can. :p

Col ]:)

No way are you [b]Racked With Guilt![/b] You like the rest of us are laughing all the way home and then much longer. some of the best jokes that I've pulled have had people in stiches for days if not weeks. :^0

Then there are the [b]Not Funny[/b] ones like one of the staff acidently dropped a Z 80 chip onto his seat and sat on it My imediate reaction was to tell people to [b]Hold him down[/b] while we completed the circuit and then we could sent him out as a completed Circuit Board. Funny at the time and he laughed and took his mind off the pain so we could get him to hospital and get it removed. [b]Not Nice at All That One[/b] but I had everyone in fits of laughter when I told the Quack to be [b]Very Careful[/b] when he removed the Z 80 as I wanted to use it again! ;\

There is a massive difference between a [b]Pratical Joke[/b] and a Direct Lie when I chased the apprentence out of a building with a 22 inch number 1 Phillips head screwdriver I really ment it when I told my boss that I was going to kill him by nailing him to a wall with the screwdriver with his feet at least 12 inches off the ground. They wouldn't let me kill him off but at least they moved him away from me. :D

Col ]:)

.
Just say, "Sorry, but I just can't answer that question."

If you're pressed for a why or when, and it's a sales person, just repeat yourself with the comment that you don't really like to be pressed on the issue.

If you're pressed for a why or when, and it's a customer, just repeat yourself, but with the comment that you'll pass the inquiry onto someone who might be better suited to answer, if he/she would like to pursue it, since you don't want to provide false or incomplete information.

[b]SHMBO[/b] gets driven crazy by my answers to her questions as she knows that I'm not telling her the exact truth she just not quite sure which part is an embelishment and which is real. Example [i]You left here at 6.00 AM and said that you wouldn't be long and it's now 8.30 PM and you're just arriving home why didn't you phone me telling me what was happening." My Reply "Well I was having so much fun with my girlfriend from such & such a company that I just lost track of time and didn't realise how late it was till it got dark and by then the phones had been switched off and I was out of a Recption area."[/i] She know that the full truth is that I had a mongeral of a job and forgot about everything except what I was working on. This suits her when it's something that she wants me to do but it doesn't work the other way. :_|

Or the best one so far I did some work on my Ducati and took it for a short test drive which resulted in me not taking any money or a Mobile Phone or anything else at all with me and I had to call her from a Service Station 100 miles away and tell her to drive up in the car and bring some money with her for petrol and this phone call. That one made her [b]Very Happy![/b] :^0

The best thing though is as a Tech I sell more of the better Hardware than I could even hope to as a Salesperson I just tell them what they need and why it's better and people accept this without question. It used to drive the Sales Staff crazy when I put through sales that they would never have considered for a company and I did it in a few minutes while they would have spent hours with a lower end product. :p

Col ]:)

That [b]Core Breach[/b] was a minor inconvenience that will be put right shortly. :^0

Or the [b]Opperation was a complete success unfortantly the patient died on the table before we managed to open them up.[/b] :D

Or this is a [b]Minor Computer Bug that will only cause Minor Inconvenience[/b] when actually the entire power grid has been shut down and will remain down for several days till everything can be brought back on line. ?:|

Col ]:)

[b]Microsoft Sucks[/b] so how the [b]Hell[/b] can you expect our software to work properly on an OS that doesn't? :p

Col ]:)

Never ask me about any new born anything!

To me they all look terrible so I constantly to save hurt feelings use a Quote from Peanuts [b]"I'll come back in a week or so when their eyes are open and answer that question."[/b] Thank God for Snoopy. :D

Col ]:)

are either lying, mentally ill or perhaps both.

[b]Dawg[/b] ]:)

I am sending him to the other end of the country, so he won't be tempted to stand me up! Might be trying for some kind of record, don'tchaknow?

:D

so my typing is just because i speel like krap. :D

but then the blindness and hairy palms don't make life any easier..... ;\

is getting harder and harder every day :(

I find it difficult to lie as well. I'm too damned busy and it's too much work to remember what you lied about.

When the question allows it, I tend to use non-answers, or questions as answers.

Q: Do you think I'm an idiot?

A: I would never say anything like that about you. What would make you ask that?

Of course, if they ever press me on it, I'm going to be forced to tell the truth.

Just goes to show how far in the gutter your mind lurks....

I edited the first sentance to correct your impression.

Hope at least you were embarrased in the office.

James

No wonder tech support gets such a bad name! How many people have followed this instruction because they didn't know better?

Unfortuately, companies that have support departments are usually short staffed and throw people to the wolves before they are trained properly. Also, training appears to be secondary to putting bodies into the chairs.

At one point in my career With the Dade County School board I was responsible for guidiing purchaases in a school site. All to often Technology venders would not tell us about known bugs or would outright lie to me as to its disgustingly pure performane (can you say *&%^ crashed again!)on a microsoft network or gee, this only works in DOS mode! I am gald somebody was willing to be honest.
I think that some vendors just want the one sale and forget about upgrades and new versions

just make sure that at least 1/3 of your friends are certifiable, and that you never learn the statistical meaning of "deviation from the mean." Then, you can live in ignorance, but safe in your delusion that [b]it cannot be you![/b]

]:)

Geeks love to talk about marketing weasels making promises they can't keep.

When was the last time you had a geek bring in a software project on budget, on time, and on spec?

If it happens all of the time (and it does), it means that geeks are either delusional or dissemblers.

there is a big difference between being wrong about something, and lying about something.

And the geeks that do the coding are rarely the ones setting the promise date anyways! :p So there! ;\

there's the truth (shakes head) and the truth (nods and smiles). For some reason this keeps popping up in my head but then again my head is a weird place. :)

Loosing customers is not good but I dont think you need to lie to a customer to keep them. When I have to deal with an external client I try to relate to them (even if only on a superficial level). This way I can find out what a customer wants and why the customer wants a product then I can sell the good points (Some people I've met actualy want to know flaws but these people are few and far between). Providing someone with a good sales experience is more important than what you actualy say.

I suppose I was talking about bald faced and compulsive liars (the worst kind in my opinion). Also I was talking about the people who react (extremely) badly when confronted with a truth they don?t like (I think Maxwell on global warming is a good example).

I do believe in compassionate conspiracies although sometimes they don?t sit right with me even when I agree with the principal. Like I said I like to be straight up with people and I like people to be straight up with me.

I try to avoid lying when I can. When I can?t tell the truth I avoid it, when I can?t avoid it I avoid them and if I can?t to do that I'll give them the shortest lie possible. It's alway's better to give not enough information than too much information.

Most of us make estimates on what is asked of us. We do it in all honesty and often inflate that estimate to include a "fudge factor" (time to go out for a bite of fudge or ice cream :) ).

What is usually asked is "How long will it take to write this bit?" What isn't asked is "... and debug it and put in comments and write documentation and get user sign-off and include spurious/random changes to the spec and include unforseen functionality that is really needed if the app is to really be useful and... and... and..." :(

In general we aren't good at answering the questions that the project manager doesn't ask but should have. Our estimates are, all too often, "What is the cumulative time to write the first version of the code not including mgmt interuptions for status reports, meetings, pulling me off to fix other things and going on sales calls."

The PM is usually not very good at listening to the developer when s/he says "You are missing a bit of functionality here..." that isn't included in the estimate but often ends up in the downstream spec changes (without changing the estimate). The Business Analyst is often not that good at asking the client "If this app needs to save intermediate work, shouldn't there also be a 'load' feature?" and so on.

Specs are usually a wet finger in the wind so who is really doing "lying"?

So you are not a geek, you are a salesman.

Salesmen don't lie they just stretch the truth. That car will get up to 30 miles a gallon, when it really only gets 15 (but 15 is up to 30).

There are some folks here that actually communicate with each other and have respectful interaction.

Hang around for a bit and get to know them. You might find it a good neighborhood to visit and try to make friends.

Playing the Lottery; fighting for world peace; telling your kids to clean up their room... the list is endless. :D

We all do things over and over with little expectation for them to ever change so I guess we are all a bit insane. :)

The difference is in knowing that you are doing something productive that gets some reward or attempts to reach a better end.

Do I work on a new project knowing that it will probably have all of the aforementioned issues? Of course. Because I know that we will all work to achieve an optimal end. Things change. Specs are a static picture of a wild idea that somebody has. As work progresses we see that things need to change so we change them. It doesn't mean that the process is invalid, more to the point it shows the process is working. And it all comes back to the understanding that we didn't lie, we estimated honestly on what we knew. It is up to the PM to include the meetings in the estimate. If the PM doesn't do that then everybody comes to understand that and adjusts expectations accordinly.

But you knew that already, didn't you? ;\

Edited for errant smiley

yes, lie to me, lie to meeeeeeee!!!!!!!!
no seriously, it's great, but what is the lieing about anyways?
it just depends on the lie meant to say, and you know, you there is the truth, and then there is the truth (smile and act pretty).

That's my best explanation. We don't gain respect among our peers unless we can fully explain what we've done. This means disclosing quite a bit of information. I think we've inherited this from other scientific disciplines, which strongly believe in peer review. One of the reasons open source has appeal to some developers is that they gain "cred" among their peers for the work they've done, and everyone can see their code. Again, full disclosure.

Many techies, myself included, find it hard not to get diarrhea of the mouth during job interviews. We forget that interviewers are not necessarily techies, and most of the information we give is irrelevant to them. We give too much information and forget in that situation that sometimes less is more.

The only communication skill I've learned when communicating with higher-ups is to occasionally "speak in the language of uncertainty". I don't lie, but I use words like "might", and "should" (as in "this should work"). They can get annoyed with this because it makes me sound like I'm trying to avoid accountability. The reason I do it is I don't want to make a promise I'm not sure I can keep. In the line of business I'm in I'm constantly learning, and so I hardly ever reach a point where I know everything there is to know about a technology. So everything is an experiment to a certain extent.

These two things are the contributing factors of the geek culture that make it extremely difficult for any geek to outright lie.
Murphy's Law is "If anything can go wrong it will."
Probability shows that anything IS POSSIBLE, but most things are improbable.
This leads to the geek responding to folks that pose questions expecting solid yes or no answers with answers including the words; should, could, may; and typically followed by the words; however, yet, and but.
It is the lack of an intrinsic black and white understanding the precludes most geeks from raw yes or no statements, to themselves or others.
As we live in a universe where Chaos Theory thrives, it is difficult for any geek to say "Yes, the project will be completed on time and will do everyting advertised.".
This is not to say that geeks are more honest, just that they have to express the 65533 different levels of gray between black and white when responding to technical questions.

In sales, there are two answers, yes and no.
Can the product work and can we make money selling it to this client. Notice the can vs. the will.
This is the difference.

... telling the truth is the easiest and most logical solution. You won't have to think about what you told this person and what you told another. Keeping track of what you said has never been easier if you tell the truth. It saves on processing resources.
If it were not for geeks' laziness, we would still be living in an untechnological era.
Also, it's a matter of conscience. Geeks are known to be integer, and this is because of their unfailing moral conscience. This also explains why most male geeks tend to be single until the woman they meet is wise enough to appreciate his knowledge and skills.
As for the "politically correct" part... Well, political correctness is a means of censoring people's speech. To say what needs to be said in more words than necessary constitutes a waste of resources.

Integrity is an all or nothing condition. Either you have it, or you don't. Saying you ahve some integrity is the same as saying you're a little bit pregnant. It's a rare condition that telling a lie doesn't void your integity.

A lie is a statement that deviates from or perverts the truth.
To tell a lie is to tell an untruth; pretend with intent to deceive.

If you're having a conversation with the intent to entertain, and it is recognized by all parties that lies are a required part of the entertainment, then there is nothing wrong with lying; and it maintains your integrity.

A lie to protect your life, or the life of your loved ones may be justifiable. That's a real ethical dilemma, stay true to your word, or protect your family? Frankly, if you're threating my life or my family, I certainly don't OWE you any consideration of the truth. Killing the monsters you lied to probably will void any feelings of guilt about it; as well as restoring a condition of safety.

Lying about trivial things like when a problem will be repaired, what caused an outage, who really screwed up the presentation, what your product quality really is don't fit into those previous conditions. You do that sort of thing on the job, then you don't have any integity, you're dishonest, untrustworthy, and a liar.

SO, how does that make you feel?

WHAT, are you going to do about it?

Yeah, I was just dreaming there for a bit. Not only do they care more about aesthetics, they don't give a damn how the software is designed under the covers. It could be total spaghetti code. They don't know the difference. They end up paying what's necessary to maintain the spaghetti code (for the sake of argument), which is more than it would be if the software was designed well, but they don't seem to care about that. They probably figure that's just what software maintenance costs.

I know my suggestion is not going to happen in most cases. I was just throwing it out there as a possible solution to the problem. It's really up to the customers how they want to do it, since they're the ones footing the bill. I was just saying to the other people who posted above me in the thread that since we live in this arrangement, don't accuse the developers of lying if they keep missing their estimates. They're doing the best they can, given the delapidated software lifecycle process that the other parties insist upon.

It's been my experience both in the workplace and observing online discussions about IT management that in most cases software developers are low on the totem pole. Their opinions are either dismissed or ignored by management types, even if the managers are directly involved in IT. The arrogance is sad. I think they could learn something and save themselves a good deal of money on software projects by taking a few pointers from us.

While few people would ask most of us for marital advice, there is a lot of trust for travel advice. Just look at the sub-thread at the beginning of this series for the guy travelling to the Grand Canyon area. He is putting time and money on their advice.

I would trust many folks here to give me advice on computer configuration issues while ignoring their advice on political issues. Following their technical advice will require trust that I won't completely waste my time.

Yes, we are mostly cynics but we live knowing that we are. We trust, but not too far out of our own field of knowledge.

Who knows... maybe we, who don't like lies, gravitate towards this field because we know that the computer won't, in most cases, lie to us...
:D

If you can't lie that means you are great!
It is perfect for you not to lie.
Your wife must love you!!!
ANna

But I'll let you take that one up with SG as I value my body way too much to even make a suggestion along those lines. :0

I've just suffered through a 12 hours MS Day so why would I try to provoke SG on this one? :p

Col ]:)

Pun-tastic!
:p

Oh, and that I agree as well. Lol.

I left, and that company soon lost their contract to provide service for that computer company.

A support desk's job is to give support. If it does anything else it is being fraudulent.

This ties into out topic of geeks and honesty by the way.

A help desk should never tell the caller to do anything catastrophic to their system if there is an alturnative.

There is a big difference between just telling a user to reload their software (which if doesn't not always fix their problem) and saying "At this point I can talk you through reloading your software to see if that will resolve the problem, or I can forward your problem to Level 2 support."