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I was outside enjoying the day and started musing. If I didn't like the engineers I worked with, how would I go about getting back at them (note: I really like them, but I am drawing on past experience and current observations):
- Send out chapters for review as *.FM files.
- Announce there are bagels outside your office and then put out an empty Honey Dew box.
- Set up an autoreply to everything that says "I don't get it."
- Offer cash prizes for whoever makes the product work.
- Borrow all the engineer's books and take them home.
- Tell them you could hack something together in Perl that would be twice as good.
- Demand that the product be implemented in SmallTalk.
- Ask them to write a use case for web services.
- Mention that the engineering group is being outsourced to India.
- Spread rumours that there will be a dress code.
- Smoke a cigarette and eat an onion bagel before a one-on-one meeting with the lead engineer.
- Tell them the doc no longer supports Unix/Linux.
- Dress well.
- Arrive late for all meetings and spend most of your time trying to get the overhead projector to work with your iMac.
- Enter vague bug reports.
- Set up meetings about feature specs and don't invite the engineers.
- Change your title to "Chief Petty Officer".
- Give docs for review at noon and say you need it back in an hour. Then go to their manager.
- Kick off a new build of the project every time you correct a spelling mistake.
- Write a chapter about a feature you _wish_ was in the product.
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Matthew J. Horn
Sr. Technical Writer
< m a c r o m e d i a >
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