Skip to content
DevMeme
3697 of 7590
The Oblivious Manager's Guide to Data Transfer
Management PMs Post #4036 · source on Telegram

The Oblivious Manager's Guide to Data Transfer

Description

This is a classic meme featuring Bill Lumbergh, the infamous manager from the movie 'Office Space'. The image shows Lumbergh in a typical cubicle-filled office environment, wearing his signature glasses, suspenders, and tie. The text, in a bold white font, is overlaid on the image, reading 'YEAH, IF YOU COULD EMAIL IN YOUR DATABASE' at the top and 'THAT'D BE GREAT' at the bottom. This meme humorously captures the profound disconnect between non-technical management and the engineering team. The request to 'email a database' is technically absurd, as a database is a complex system, not a simple file that can be attached to an email. For experienced developers, this is a painfully relatable scenario, representing countless clueless requests from stakeholders who don't understand the scale or nature of the systems they manage. The passive-aggressive tone of 'that'd be great' perfectly encapsulates the corporate culture it satirizes

Categories

Management PMs Stakeholders Clients Databases Communication CorporateCulture

Common Tags

StakeholderExpectations ManagerExpectations MisalignedExpectations Database Corporate DeveloperFrustration ScopeCreep

Comments

23
Anonymous ★ Top Pick Sure, I'll email you the database. Just as soon as you approve my PO for a P-terabyte sized flash drive and a forklift to carry it to your desk
  1. Anonymous ★ Top Pick

    Sure, I'll email you the database. Just as soon as you approve my PO for a P-terabyte sized flash drive and a forklift to carry it to your desk

  2. Anonymous

    No worries - I'll just gzip the 12-terabyte Postgres dump, attach it to Outlook, and pray Exchange supports resumable uploads

  3. Anonymous

    Sure, let me just zip this 500GB production database and attach it to an email - right after I finish implementing our new microservice that sends each row as a separate Slack notification for 'better observability'

  4. Anonymous

    Sure, I'll email the database - Exchange's 25MB limit is the only data-loss-prevention policy this company has ever successfully enforced

  5. Anonymous

    Ah yes, let me just SELECT * FROM production_db INTO 'attachment.sql' and hope your Outlook doesn't choke on the 47GB file. While we're at it, should I also fax you the indexes and carrier-pigeon the foreign key constraints? This is the enterprise equivalent of asking a civil engineer to 'just email me that bridge' - a perfect encapsulation of the eternal struggle between those who understand data persistence layers and those who think databases are just fancy Excel files with an attitude problem

  6. Anonymous

    When stakeholders treat your 500GB PostgreSQL cluster like a mildly oversized Excel sheet ready for Gmail

  7. Anonymous

    Apparently Outlook-as-ETL is our new architecture: zip the prod dump, password “1234,” reply-all to Finance; we’ll worry about GDPR and DLP after the VP finishes VLOOKUPs

  8. Anonymous

    Sure, I’ll just attach a transactionally consistent snapshot of our 2TB sharded Postgres to an email, bypass DLP, violate GDPR Article 32, and hope Outlook supports two‑phase commit

  9. @okutaner 4y

    dumps as csv, open in excel, emails screenshot

    1. @emil_wislowski 4y

      ...pasted into .doc

  10. @QutePoet 4y

    Maybe he means that he wish to write data to database from email? There are several solutions for that. https://hevodata.com for example. And https://zapier.com

    1. dev_meme 4y

      No.

    2. dev_meme 4y

      Please, no

      1. @QutePoet 4y

        Why? What's wrong sith these solutions? If you'd like a programmer way, you can make special email for database connection and accept commands written in it's body. On message receive start a script that will search for SQL commands inside and perform it. It's better to delete drops commands first. If you don't like message receive as a trigger than you can use cron and check every few minutes for the new massages with SQL commands.

        1. @RiedleroD 4y

          → ew

          1. @QutePoet 4y

            Please tell me why you find this solution disgusting.

            1. @RiedleroD 4y

              as a programmer with decency, I am obligated to gatekeep

              1. @RiedleroD 4y

                the question you need to ask here is: what is this for? People? Make a proper GUI, maybe a website if you will. Automation? Make a proper API. shits & giggles? sure ok, go ahead man.

              2. @QutePoet 4y

                Sure, you can accept emails only from whitelist and only with several source IPs. You may also require a key before SQL which you can generate similarly to TOTP but with no so fast updates. But of course API would be better for that. Isn't this disgusting that we are seriously talking about just a funny picture? I've only described a way to create something that man from the picture wish. Didn't even want to hurt your feelings.

                1. @RiedleroD 4y

                  the point is that the guys wish was in itself stupid (or uninformed)

                  1. @a_desant 4y

                    The guys wishes are not always the guys wishes. Sometimes they are the customer wishes.

                    1. @RiedleroD 4y

                      your point being?

                2. @RiedleroD 4y

                  > Didn't even want to hurt your feelings. I was mostly just joking around, no problem here.

More like this

More like this in Management PMs →
Management PMs StakeholderExpectations ManagerExpectations
AI Magic Meets Actual Work

AI Magic Meets Actual Work

AI ML
Sales Promises Three Weeks, Engineer Says Months: Work Chronicles Classic

Sales Promises Three Weeks, Engineer Says Months: Work Chronicles Classic

Stakeholders Clients
A Gentle Q2 Check-in on Your Abandoned Q1 Roadmap

A Gentle Q2 Check-in on Your Abandoned Q1 Roadmap

ProjectManagement
Use J and K for navigation