young coworkers

[cellio]

Last week the director of engineering sent email announcing prizes for an "improve our tests" hackathon. He labelled one prize (about finding and fixing the most bugs) as "write yourself a minivan".

Later, in response to questions, he sent a copy of the 24-year-old Dilbert strip.

Over the weekend our CTO, in response to questions, sent email explaining what a minivan was.

I'll be over here, weeping into my prune juice and yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

Comments

[madfilkentist]

I hope he understood the perverse incentive which the strip pointed out.

[cellio]

He did, and acknowledged it. There's going to be human review, so if somebody were to abuse it that'd get caught. Also, the incentive in this case (for one person, not a per-bug bounty like the PHB's) is low-stakes, so not worth investing a lot of time in stealth bugs.

[gingicat]

I am pretty certain that your young coworkers do actually know what a minivan is, since they still exist.

[kyleri]

*crumbles into dust*

[damont]

I read the OP to montuos, who understandably facepalmed.

[richardf8]

Going back 24 years to find a funny Dilbert strip? Sounds about right.

[damont]

I have to say, with the explosion of car-like SUVs and "Crossover Utility Vehicles" it's become nearly impossible to tell which vehicles go into which category. (OK, some are obvious, e.g. the Chevy Suburban is never going to be anything but the epitome of SUV. Most are far less obvious.)

So it's really more a case of the term "minivan" becoming less and less common, because no matter how cool your vehicle is, calling it a minivan somehow makes it Less Cool.