You learn a lot when you deal with people. Mostly, you learn that people are really stupid. At least those people commonly known as “users.” No, not druggies. Most of them are OK (except the meth heads, who are kind of toothless and stupid and scary), but the people who use the systems that I program for. You know, the ones who generate the 1D10T and/or PEBKAC errors. The inherent stupidity that exists in a typical user necessitates that I spend hours upon hours idiot-proofing the things I write.

For instance, I got an e-mail with a screenshot from one user who was getting an error. To make a long story short, it was because there is a certain field on a form for contact phone number and extension. The phone number is masked, so that you have to enter it in the format, (999)999-9999. Then there’s a box for extension. Typically, an extension is about 4 numbers, so I gave them one that would hold 10.

This intrepid user, however, decided the extension should be “Dr R’s Cell Phone” – which is not only not a number, but it’s also 17 characters. I mean, c’mon.

Oh well, since I have tomorrow off, today is kinda like my Friday, and I’m really itching to get it the hell over with. Plus I made an executive decision to take Monday off, too.

Tomorrow is a big day, as Fritz gets to go to the vet (oh boy). He’ll be pretty excited, until he realizes he’s not going to visit his cousins. Then, in the afternoon, $700 worth of Home Depot stuff is being delivered. So I can fix my leaky shed roof, repair my existing deck, and add a 12×16 foot one. Probably not all tomorrow, of course.

Oh well, back to idiot-proofing.