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Boss, what's vacation?
``Boss, can I ask you something?''
``Sure.''
``Everyone's always talking about vacations and free time and things like that. How come I never have any?''
``You wouldn't like it.''
``But they think it's better than work. They really look forward to it.''
``Remember last year, when the office was shut down for a week.''
``When they replaced all windows? Sure I remember. I couldn't play with a computer for a week. Horrible.''
``Vacations are like that.''
``Oh.''
``So you wouldn't like them.''
``But everyone else does.''
``Ah, but that's because they're lusers, not hackers.''
``Oh.''
``Now go back and write that compiler. We need it last week.''
An algorithm for recognizing weekends and vacations
A weekend is that time when it takes ages for other people to answer mail and talk requests. It sometimes takes several days. I can't imagine what they are thinking. Perhaps they're in the middle of a really intensive game of Doom. It usually takes about two days and happens five days after the previous one ended.
I don't think weekends are the same as vacations. They look the same, but vacations happen more irregularly and can take several weeks at a time. Also, vacations seems to cause changes in skin color for some people, but it doesn't seem to last for very long. (Too bad, a bit of variation is always helpful for those awful face-to-face meetings. Why can't people just send me mail.)
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