An extra meeting to discuss a couple of special change requests, I just got fed up with ClockWorker and composed a document from the couple of emails I exchanged with the liaison guy. It didn’t get commented much, only more complaints were added. Nobody likes it. After the meeting I added more complaints to the document. Current, provisory conclusion stands as “Why did we accept an app which is so far below our own standards? Which programmers were consulted? Who tested this? What’s the app’s current customer base? How long are they in business? Who recommended this? Which other apps were tried and why were they rejected? Why is this not linked to Jira or Confluence in any way?”
I suspect that this was Briyesh's solution to Ralph's nagging about how many hours we work for each customer, how much of that is billable. I googled it, and it turned out to be a pale copy of a much more successful app called Office Time. It cost whole 47$. The time we at Firriver wasted, trying to use it and bitching about it, already runs into thousands.
About the same time, there was an offer made to do a financial interface, SEPA compliant, for 5000€, 10K tops, with no specs, just the description copied verbatim from the clinic’s webpage. No programmers were consulted, the specs are still unknown, the range of the interface uncharted (is it one-way or two-way, what happens on failure, what about cancellations, or various other statuses that a transaction may have etc etc). The team refused to do this altogether and asked the management to come clear about this. Suez has put the document together but obviously was asked to do so by either Ralph or David. (In the end, I never heard who wrote this, but it came back to the change request meeting a month or two later, and was flatly refused again, for the same reason)
I likewise don't remember exactly when was it that I went to town for some errand, and dropped by Deedyore (DDOR - insurance and reinsurance stock company, previously state-owned, then society owned and self-managed, then state owned again, then converted into a stock company), to see what was the policy that dad kept paying. They ushered me quickly to the relevant lady, and I said dad died, the house is on me now, so as the heir I'm taking it upon myself now to... cancel it. I couldn't find the contract, so can you please find your copy and show me where to sign. „Ah, well, no, there's no contract on that.“ Huh? „All kudos to you guys, so how do I know what's covered and what not? Okay then, pretend I wasn't here, no contract, no obligation, I'll simply stop paying.“ „But you may never know if you may need it, at least insure the roof“. „Roof was redone recently, thank you, and if I even believed in insurance, I wouldn't pick you ever... woah, you got the people to keep paying you without any contract, they didn't even know what they paid, all the kudos, you are majstor artists. I got a few friends who are experienced lawyers, they may find the story very interesting“.
So this was what dad mentioned around 28-XI-2007.. The trick was that they simply inserted their monthly bill with the electricity bill, simple phishing, and whoever believed it was legit, started paying, just like that. Incredible. Of course, I couldn't be bothered to wield any lawyers, I don't believe in them either.
10-X-2019 - 25-III-2026