i know this isn't healthy, i just don't actually care

Years and years ago I dated a business/history major A Type overachiever--this is relevant--who was going to be a millionare by the time he was thirty or somesuch. Now he owns his own business that got featured in CNN, which makes me boggle because--I mean, wow, I was apparently really goddamn amazing in bed because I don't think we ever so much as shared a working thought. There's really no other explanation.

This is, in fact, something I ponder sometimes.

Anyway, he was also a natural salesman.

After I started ill-fated work in retail--do not even ask--he had the idea that this was a teachable character moment in salesmanship, and he tried to introduce me to the hard sell.

Now, over a decade later, I realize I had at some point internalized that lesson; my current defects on the programs read like ice selling above the arctic circle. I am in the zone of breaking them down into terrifying detail not only explaining the problem, but also why the problem is bad, with bullet points, all the reasons that the problem can't be rectified by other than a code change--with numbers--and occasionally, I break everything into small words. I am attacking their arguments like I am going after tuna and the dolphins are tragic but necessary casualties.

I officially have a "Could you check me for being condescending" alert that makes my lead go "DO NOT POST THAT" and dash over to read because yeah, I'm at the point where I am flirting with "YOU ARE DEVELOPERS. YOU ARE NOT NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS WHO USE A COMPUTER. NEITHER AM I BUT I LIVE AMONG THEM UNOBSERVED AND I KNOW THEIR STRANGE CUSTOMS. THEY WILL NOT DO THIS SHIT. THEY DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS. I WILL TAKE THIS TO MY FLIST AND YOU ARE MALE AND UNCOMPREHENDING OF HUMANKIND; NO ONE WILL AGREE WITH YOU."

Which is, granted, unfair, because if I use a lot of words and then sometimes get a normal human being there and translate between them, they get it! Also, it's possible I have become a little dismissive. And possibly hostile.

My last two defects had fifteen, four, and twenty-two separate points each with illustrative screenshots of before, during, and after. They are going to light me on fire if I don't hide in a new cubicle soon. One was a step by step of what a Normal Human Person on a Computer has to do to make what they want to do work. It's surreal.

And shaming because writing it out I had to go and do it and then stop and go, okay, wait, write that down because yes, that's kind of important even though I do that when I first configure my computer.

Then the Normal Human Beings do this:

NHB: ...what is that about?
Seperis: Three pixels off left. It's throwing the entire page.
NHB: You're serious.
Seperis: *takes out ruler and piece of white paper for comparison, then hits print*
NHB: What did I say about wanting to be educated?
Seperis: What did I say about asking what I'm defecting?

I don't think hiding in a different cubicle is going to cut it when my coworkers hold me down for the fire-lighting. I want to be remembered as dying for consistent markup. You should see my reaction to inconsistent font size. Yes, eleven is bigger than ten and I see what you did there.

I am this person. Somewhere my teenage self is crying hysterically and has no idea. But whatever, my teenage self totally had no clue the horror of the emergence of geocities and Everyone Color Their Backgrounds Crazy Like. I have scars. They still bleed.

Comments

[nagasvoice]

But us normal humanz who depend on your help to make ti work and make *sense* really like it when you crush these stubborn developers with your hammer of logic. (I probably should get a Female Hulk Smash icon, too tired.)

[everbright]

YES! This is one of the times OCD can be leveraged for the Good Of Us All. This reminds me of the episode of USA's Monk where you meet the main character's brother. Dude is agoraphobic, but also writes the clearest, most user friendly manuals for small appliances possible.

I'm also terribly amused that you have a "condescending" Alert. Why is it so difficult to explain stuff with talking down to people? :P

[margrave]

This is the bestest post ever. I could myself needing to laugh more and more.

I know I shouldn't laugh at other people's pain, but this was hilarious. Now I have this mental picture of pages and pages of dot point notes and screen caps.

Ha ha ha.

[watersword]

OMG I want to hire you right the fuck now.

[alwayswondered]

You should see my reaction to inconsistent font size. Yes, eleven is bigger than ten and I see what you did there.

I am this person, too. I just went through our online wiki and marked about 10 pages 'In Need of Updating' purely on the basis of headers in allcaps rather than title case. I may also be murdered and set on fire at some point.

[jesse_the_k]

I am so glad you did. Unfortunately, I am the person who thinks "there should be a way to automate that" and then spends 15 hours reading and not understanding GREP rules and finally hides in her bed, crying.

[litotease]

I adore you for being the hall monitor for this stuff. Because eleven is bigger than ten, and three pixels is not in alignment, and look at the screen, it's so obvious and irritating. (Although I'm not sure that I actually qualify as an NHB; I spent years bookkeeping, which can make anyone anal & OCD: "No, I'm not going to write off that nine cents, damnit! It's here somewhere!")

[scy]

*grins* Considering I twitch when I can't change spelling and grammar and fonts, etc all the TIME, I am grinning so hard at you.

And srsly, you would enjoy the reports I compile at work. I know at a GLANCE whether or not something is out of whack.

Geocities is still on my BAD. LIST. With red pen.

[out_there]

But whatever, my teenage self totally had no clue the horror of the emergence of geocities and Everyone Color Their Backgrounds Crazy Like. I have scars. They still bleed.


*pets*

[ravyn-09.livejournal.com]

This might be a working theory, but there is a very strong possibility that you, my dear, are nuts.

And I mean that in the most endearing way possible, of course. :D

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*resigned* That is also an extremely likely theory. I blame Web 2.0.

[feanna.livejournal.com]

Everyone Color Their Backgrounds Crazy Like

Yeah, it's bad enough on lj, where some people seem to think it's a good idea to have light grey script on a white background or light blue on pink or something but at least you can change that shit (except when you can't, NO people pink does not look good on my blue reading page!). Personal websites with the sparkly purple - not so much.

(Also, please people on lj DO NOT code for a certain font! That remains even in style mine, because that font just looks blurry to me, aside from any different font suddenly popping up just looking bad to me.)

[perriotoi.livejournal.com]

OMG, Geocities trauma. I feel that this is an appropriate excuse/reason for everything web/computer/coding related.

[lifesscar.livejournal.com]

emergence of geocities and Everyone Color Their Backgrounds Crazy Like. I have scars. They still bleed.

*Whistles innocently*

They have removed my first website ever so there is no proof of causing eyesores and permanent blindness.

If there was proof, my defense would be that the funky backgrounds was encourage as it was taught to me.

[cat-77.livejournal.com]

Totally understand the 3 pixel thing. Yet people at work do not understand why it bugs me so much that one of the interfaces uses 3 separate shades of gray where it was obviously meant to be one color (one lines up with what was likely a text box to add descriptive font, the others are just random and half a shade off). Sloppy odd-sized boxes are sloppy, people.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

I want to be remembered as dying for consistent markup. LOL, hey, if you ever need an editor position, we could use someone like you.

Actually, have you ever thought about going into accessibility? You can do everything you talk about here, AND make sure it works with screen readers AND has sufficient contrast for people who are colorblind!

[vickita.livejournal.com]

::blink::

Um. I think you're fighting the good fight?

My last two defects had fifteen, four, and twenty-two separate points each with illustrative screenshots of before, during, and after. They are going to light me on fire if I don't hide in a new cubicle soon. One was a step by step of what a Normal Human Person on a Computer has to do to make what they want to do work. It's surreal.

Dude. Last spring I went to buy a ticket to an event that had a LOT of shows, for which tickets could be purchased separately, or as a variety of season ticket options. Or a combination thereof.

First, the ONE event that I wanted to buy a ticket for, something was wrong with the script, so it did not recognize that I had specified a number of tickets for purchase, and kept insisting that I had to tell it how many I wanted before it would let me go to checkout, even when I had TOLD it how many I wanted.

(At this point, I tried just calling the box office to make the purchase over the phone. The box office was, ostensibly, open. No one answered the phone. Then I posted a names-withheld whine about it on FB, and the event director, who is on my f-list, messaged me and said, "Was that us you were talking about?" Um, yes.)

So, later that day they got that bug fixed, and I made to purchase some tickets. The ticket purchase window came up in a modal, and offered to let me go to checkout, but there was no option for "keep shopping." (Remember, this is an event with a LOT of shows they're selling tickets for.) I closed the modal window and shopped around a little more, but could find no way to get back to my shopping cart. Finally, I added another show to get back to the cart in the modal window, figuring I'd remove it from the cart when I got there, but when the cart came up, MY ORIGINAL SELECTION WAS GONE. Yes, you could only buy one ticket choice at a time, go through checkout, and then go back and do more shopping.

O.O

There may have been a better way (other than making a single season ticket purchase, I guess that would have worked, too), but I never found it. And I DEVELOP WEB APPLICATIONS FOR A LIVING. I've done this kind of thing once or twice. I usually figure if I'm having problems with it, the guys I know who can't figure out how to link a YouTube video on FB (click the little FB icon... now type your comments in the box where it says, "Add a comment"... now click "share") are *completely* hosed.

I'm considering pitching them to let me do the site next year. At least, the functionality part of it. (In their defense, it was a strikingly *beautiful* site. Really pretty.)

Also? If a webpage is off by a pixel here and a pixel there, it shows. Keep fighting the good fight. ::solidarity fist::

[arkanefyre.livejournal.com]

Reading that makes me happy. Seriously. I call myself a Web Mistress, but what I really do is liase between the developers and the normal human beings. Unfortunately, the two of them think in mutually exclusive ways. Le sigh.

You, are brilliant, and I appreciate the anal-ness of what you do. Seriously. It makes my heart a-flutter.

[clari-clyde.livejournal.com]

Why care if it’s healthy if you’re right? ;-)

Once upon a time, my shift supervisor asked one of the bankers, “Why do you cram so much stuff on the page? It looks cluttered. Let things breathe and they’ll stand out.” And the banker said, “But if we put more stuff on the page, it looks like we spent more time on it!” I wanted to tell my supervisor that he should have reminded said banker that as a banker he is not human.

Because that style guide that came from HQ about PowerPoint that said that nothing should be less than 6 pt and even then only fine print and notes should be that small? It’s there for a reason.

[ravenofdreams.livejournal.com]

If it makes you happy, you are not alone. The other day, I was looking at the login box for the ticket-tracker we use, and went "Hunh. Lazy designer. Bad." No one else could get it until I blew up the problem area and you could see that there was a dropped line in a grid (something out of alignment, I assume?) Now, of course, it drives me NUTS and I am seriously considering submitting a bug to them about this.
Also, as if that were not enough affirmation, when being Normal Human Computer People, it is the efforts of people like you that make the web bearable. I'm assuming there's some kind of vigilante group out dragging the people with those geocities backgrounds off into dark alleys.

The whole thing looks like so: http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6021/5932268030_224de10f61_o.png Native res is 1680x1050.
The enlarged image where it's REALLY obvious looks like so:http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6002/5931712803_4c41e5d424_o.png

[amy13.livejournal.com]

QA is under-appreciated and also, apparently, should come with bodyguards to keep the stupid away when you point out problems. ;) My favorite thing ever is when Developers don't take into consideration that not everything is spec'd out and sometimes you have to anticipate that SOME things really should just be a default setting. "Oh, you mean you want to be able to print? It's not on the specs..." *headdesk*