IT Temp Diaries #8

I have a step-by-step instruction for creating a batch file for some old bullshit process on one of our legacy systems. "How could the temp screw it up?" I asked myself.

Comes back, "It can't find the drive." That's the error? "Yeah. It can't find the drive."

I look at the batch file and he missed a space in the batch file, and the username in the FTP config file. I fix and it worked fine.

Me, after explaining what was wrong to the temp: How could you have found this yourself?
Temp: Putting in the space.
Me: No, I mean how could you have found the problem without me telling you what it was?
Temp: I don't know.
Me: Well, here you see in the instructions where it specifically says to insert the username in this line? And you see the space here between ftp and "-"?
Temp: I did that.
Me: no, you didn't. What I'm trying to do is show you that scripts and batch files are VERY specific. A tiny thing like a space can break the whole thing.
Temp: I put it in there.
Me: No you didn't.
Temp: I don't know where it went, but I put it there.

It went back and forth a few times like that. I finally said, yeah. It was aliens who deleted your space. He was accusing the computer of changing it after he saved it.

It's a goddamn batch file, nothing fucking sophisticated.

I'm done. I'm gonna raise shit with the boss. If he doesn't get rid of this useless piece of shit, I'm just gonna fucking ignore him from here on. I'm not wasting any time on him anymore.