The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Let's Be Facebook!

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2026-06-01

The real WTF is that our long-time friend and submitter Argle failed to dissuade all three of his sons from pursuing IT careers of their own:

Back circa 2012, my three sons all got jobs at a company that had a brilliant web project. So brilliant that it had the support of a Disney VP, the mayor of the city, and other VIPs. At one point, my sons asked to borrow money to invest in the project. They are good boys (one is now a senior developer with Proctor & Gamble), so I backed them.

33 comments - Last comment @ 13:06

Whales Ahoy!

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2026-05-26

The waters are even more dangerous than we imagined. Have a look at some of the crazed whales our brave submitters and commenters have encountered in the wild.

First comes an Anonymous tale of woe:

10 comments - Last comment @ 2026-05-29

The Pride Goeth

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2026-05-14

Janči, a master's student of bioinformatics, was seated near the back of a large classroom. This was a simple compulsory elective course geared toward biologists. The professor was currently walking the class through their latest assignment. "We'll need to connect to some Linux servers," he announced.

The other students seated nearby traded blank stares. They were all Mac and Windows users with no IT background. Meanwhile Janči, a veteran Linux user, started feeling a little smug. An easy A was at hand.

23 comments - Last comment @ 2026-05-19

A Whale of a Problem

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2026-04-29

From our Anonymous submitter:

Our company creates graphs to visualize data. We have many small fish customers, but we have one whale who uses our product that is 90% of company revenue. (WTF number 1.)

21 comments - Last comment @ 2026-05-12

TDWTF Home Edition: Pt 2

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2026-03-19

Read (Part One here)

When Ellis awoke on Sunday, the unusual cold broke through her drowsiness right away. Her new thermostat was programmed to maintain a lower temperature overnight, but at 6:30AM, it was supposed to climb again, kicking the heat on right when she got out of bed.

25 comments - Last comment @ 2026-03-21

Anti-Simplification

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2026-03-09

Our anonymous submitter relates a tale of simplification gone bad. As this nightmare unfolds, imagine the scenario of a new developer coming aboard at this company. Imagine being the one who has to explain this setup to said newcomer.

Imagine being the newcomer who inherits it.

18 comments - Last comment @ 2026-03-13

WTF: Home Edition

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2026-02-23

The utility closet Ellis had inherited and lived with for 17 years had been a cesspool of hazards to life and limb, a collection of tangible WTFs that had everyone asking an uncaring god, "What were they thinking?"

Every contractor who'd ever had to perform any amount of work in there had come away appalled. Many had even called over their buddies to come and see the stunning mess for themselves:

22 comments - Last comment @ 00:22

Marking Territory

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2026-01-19

There's something about hierarchical arrangements that makes top-down interference utterly irresistible to many managers and executives. Writers may also experience similar strife with their editors, a phenomenon Robert Heinlein described with the perfect metaphor: "After he pees in it himself, he likes the flavor much better."

Sometimes, a leader leverages their hard-won wisdom and experience to steer a project onto a better path. But, all too often, someone's imagined wisdom and starving ego force a perfectly good train off the rails.

18 comments - Last comment @ 2026-01-26