Ok everyone, quick poll:

Does referring to people as "resources" make you sound like an executive or a douchebag?

Faceless drone? They're a resource, and the executive is a douchebag.

Skilled worker? They're a co-worker, and the executive is a leader.

Many of our leaders are executive douchebags.

Oct 20 2013 11:13am from Sig @uncnsrd
Many of our leaders are executive douchebags.

The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round.

A customer told us that they would only ever create these .mxf files the same way, forever, amen.

Which, surprise surprise, was a lie. They created tons of these .mxf files that did not have something that my coded depended upon.

It has taken them two weeks of derping along, not figuring out how they managed to create the kinds of files they used to always send us.

I figure the handwriting is on the wall, I need to figure out how to deal with these files. I shouldn't really need for this particular thing to be in there... I ought to be able to create it myself. But the .mxf file format is very fiddly, and I am not an expert. I need a library to help me with it, and the one I had is too low a level for me to work with effectively.

But I got lucky, and yesterday, I found another library that does precisely what I need, and is easy enough to work with (despite not having any documentation, thanks BBC).

So, today, I modified our software to use this other library. It should be a lot better, capable of converting from an incompatible .mxf type to a compatible one, yadda yadda.

I had asked them not to delete the original files when all of this started.
I gave them specific instructions to provide the files for us in a new folder that I created.

But today, they deleted all the old files. So, I can't test to see if my solution worked.

I hate these people. This kind of not-listening-to-them crap has been going on since the very beginning. They never knew what they wanted, they cost me tremendous amounts of time and effort, and they are quick to throw us under the bus when the opportunity presents itself.

And right now, I'd love to strangle them.

I'm getting a little money to keep the company going (customers happy, etc). It is not a salaried position, and there's concern that it could all be gone in December. I'm also subject to the whims of whenever the customers actually decide to pay their fees (which in some cases is not timely).

In the end, this specific customer found another way to resolve their immediate problem and didn't bother to tell me or the company who had done the captions already. They will be billed regardless... the very thing I had sought to avoid happening to them. Oh well... maybe they'll pay closer attention to me next time.

Part of the reason I'm getting some money to help keep the current company going involves a project we think we'll get 'soon'. I'd really like to work on that project, as I'd be working with people I know, working in Linux, and doing stuff that I think will be fun. There's quite a bit of money behind this project, and it's the sort of thing that I think we can sell to a number of people (all of which involves a lot of money, due to economies of scale).

But I can't really talk about that in detail. I think it's a deal that will happen, though, as it solves a problem for which a certain executive is getting hammered right now.

And right now, I'd love to strangle them.

STRANGLE THEM! STRANGLE THEM!!

That's awesome!

"Hey, the caption file didn't play. We said the media started here, but the captioning starts here. What's wrong?"

"Well, you have to provide an offset so the captions will match when the media starts."

"We did that, but it still didn't work."

30 minutes of research, as I try to check on code, dig through log files, pull up the actual caption file, etc...

"You specified an offset in the reverse direction. Your captions would not have run late, but early."

*crickets*