21

How can you tell if one of your coworkers has been secretly using Meta Stack Overflow in their free time?

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6
  • 6
    Is it Friday where you are already?
    – John Rudy
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 20:40
  • @user I lost track of the days in my cave, so I'm hoping so
    – Earlz
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 20:45
  • 1
    @user: It's Friday somewhere!
    – Jon Seigel
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 20:46
  • 2
    WTF is free time?
    – squillman
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 21:09
  • 3
    @squillman: Meta time
    – perbert
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 21:13
  • 3
    It's Friday here
    – Mark Henderson
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 22:07

18 Answers 18

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38

They stopped posting on Stack Overflow, and now seem to be getting even less work done.

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33

He says "You should totally drop that and use jQuery" in completely inappropriate situations. example

Employee A: Dude, me and my wife got into this big fight last night.

Employee B: You should totally drop her and try jQuery

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5
  • 5
    +1 Extremely unfunny
    – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 22:25
  • 17
    +1 - extremely practical. I tried that today and it worked!
    – DVK
    Commented Apr 16, 2010 at 0:38
  • 7
    There's probably a plugin for that...lemme check
    – Michael Haren
    Commented Apr 16, 2010 at 2:44
  • 3
    I'd like to point out that since 1.4 dropped the easiest way to say "you should totally drop that and use jQuery" in completely inappropriate situations is to use the new $.live() functionality.
    – snicker
    Commented Apr 16, 2010 at 17:40
  • Can you send me the code for that?
    – Gayot Fow
    Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 9:38
24

Every estimate is now 6 - 8 weeks, and he wants to do the work from a boat.

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0
20

  • They have a newly-developed unicorn and/or waffle obsession.

  • They start insisting that it's Friday somewhere, even when it isn't.

  • They begin demanding that freehand circles be drawn around everything.

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1
  • 9
    It is in iceland. While they were off partying, they let a volcano go off, and now all our flights are cancelled :(
    – Phoshi
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 20:49
14

They write next to everything.

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6
  • more like status-declined :P
    – Earlz
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 22:53
  • Okay... fine. That too.
    – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 23:24
  • @Johannes, some, like me, actually think it looks worse.
    – Arjan
    Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 10:08
  • @Arjan Thought it gets the nice red color.
    – Johannes Kuhn
    Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 10:53
  • 1
    @JohannesKuhn Now with nice red colour.
    – michaelb958--GoFundMonica
    Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 12:09
  • @michaelb958 ohh, thanks. Forgot the meta- part *hides*
    – Johannes Kuhn
    Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 12:18
13

They write in haiku,
Expecting people's upvotes.
Whatever that means.

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3
8
  • Instead of playing an april fool's joke, they just replaced all the pictures in your office with unicorns.
  • They complain your charts are useless because the circles were computer-aided.
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8

The website on their screen is the most awkward combination of grey and maroon.

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1
  • 2
    and yes, it is always on their screen.
    – Jimmy
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 22:14
7
  • they suddenly burst out laughing unexpectedly and cry, "waffles, OF COURSE!"
  • you see them spending an inordinate amount of time in Microsoft Paint trying to perfect their freehand circles.
  • they have a google image search up with a lot of waffle and pony pictures standing ready
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1
  • 1
    I would say my practice time is perfectly ordinate. Freehand circles is hard!
    – devinb
    Commented Jul 30, 2010 at 11:32
7

He is wearing a meta T-shirt.


alt text

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2
  • 3
    I want that
    – Earlz
    Commented Apr 16, 2010 at 17:21
  • 8
    @earlz <waves hand> no you don't.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented May 13, 2010 at 8:03
5

He complains about exceeding his disk quota, and when you investigate to find out why, it turns out that it's because he has 38 GB of unicorn pictures saved.

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2
  • 21
    Hopefully it's not uniporn!
    – gnostradamus
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 21:21
  • 1
    @gnovice: That would be one of the top ten signs that your coworker needs professional help. Wait... that's the same as being on Meta, never mind.
    – Aarobot
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 22:03
3

They have started saying "Eeek!" a lot.

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1

They start replying to emails or other correspondence with:

+1 excellent idea!

But most importantly, they have already read this thread. Most likely they will ask something elusive, such as:

"If the top 10 of something have 15 answers, shouldn't it be the top 15?"

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0

Every solution becomes just a greasemonkey script away.

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-1

He'll give you humorous questions/answers/comments that are completely off-topic, and later excuse himself because it's not Friday yet.

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1
  • Lies, its always friday somewhere
    – user207928
    Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 13:51
-1

They start making snide comments every time you ask a question unless that's their normal behavior. If that is their normal behavior, then check whether the comments include references to waffles, ponies, or He Who Must Not Be Named.

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2
  • 2
    We never make snide comments. Never ever! Well, more ever than never, but I think even you will get it...
    – Ladybug Killer
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 21:05
  • Snide what? How dare you! Liar! Cheater! Deceiver! :)
    – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN
    Commented Apr 15, 2010 at 23:25
-1

They come to work wearing breakfast foods on their heads. They keep pets in their cubicles that also, inexplicably, wear breakfast foods on their heads.

better than prosthetic foreheads, i suppose.

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1
  • where was i? i forgot the point that i was making. i said if i was smart that i would save up for a piece of string and a rock to wind the string around
    – quack quixote
    Commented Apr 16, 2010 at 11:26

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