The Observatory

The leaves are beginning to turn from green to brilliant reds and golds, pumpkin spice lurks around every corner and animatronics of porcelain dolls and skeletons sit innocently on supermarket shelves, waiting to come to life and scare the living daylights out of their unknowing victims who are just trying to get some milk. It’s time to break out your cozy sweaters and favorite 80s horror movie because Halloween is here!

As most of us have probably come to realize, there are scarier things in the world than Michael Myers chasing you with a knife (and somehow always catching up). The world is an unpredictable place, and there’s no telling what will happen next; which can make anyone uneasy. 

For the month of October, the Carimus crew wants to share some of our unpredictable, “nightmare” situations that occurred to us during our time in the professional field. We’re calling this a month of “Scare-imus.”

Grab a mug of warm apple cider, snuggle up under your favorite blanket and make sure all your doors and windows are locked, because we’ve got some spooky stories to share with you all. 

Disastrous Demo

It was not a “dark and stormy night,” but instead, it was a bright and sunny day in a Florida conference center when Technical Operations Manager, Sarah Gray, stood at a booth presenting a live demo of a game to VIPs. 

Sarah was part of creating a game for a government facility that was supposed to be used for educational purposes. It is a free, online multiplayer game, so anyone can join.

Of course, what was supposed to start as a serious and educational game, turned into a rather horrifying experience once the internet got involved. 

“The game was hooked up to a live, open server, as we wanted to showcase the drop in and drop out functionality,” Sarah said.

As she was demonstrating the features during the live version of the game to a very important General, the unthinkable (yet not entirely surprising) happened.

She slowly panned the camera across the virtual moon’s rocky terrain, only to focus on a beacon a random player had set up.

And what had the player named it you ask?

Let’s just say it’s a vulgar word that rhymes with “Bilbo.”

“I hurriedly panned away, and the VIP pretended he hadn’t noticed, but just another example of why live demos are the worst,” she said.

Anyone who has worked a live demo will tell you it is a stressful and fear-inducing experience due to the uncertainty of how it will go.

Cases like this are when it’s probably a good idea to have a community moderator.

A community moderator’s job is to ensure all communications and content within the community are appropriate. 

A community moderator is able to review and act on the list of flagged posts, comments and flagged files in the community, remove flags directly in the community and delete inappropriate posts, comments, messages and files.

They are also able to share relevant information within the community and keep the conversations focused on the discussion at hand.

Had there been a community moderator, the mortifying case of a vulgar word in front of a head-honcho during a live demo would have never existed. However, it does make for a good story.

Give us your first born

Imagine this: you’re joining a mailing list or signing up for some program. The terms and conditions box pops up, and you’re told to read them all, but you don’t, because who reads the terms and conditions agreement anyways? You hit the check box and continue, not even thinking twice about what you’ve done. For all you know, you may have just signed away your soul.

Or, in this case, your first born child. 

One of our software engineers was building up the component for a project and the terms and conditions page was not yet completed. So, he decided to put a placeholder in, as many people tend to do. This placeholder said “you agree to give us your first born,” and it would give everyone a good laugh.

However, once the application went live, the placeholder was forgotten and remained there. The even scarier part is it’s not like it went live for only a day and then was caught and taken down, but it was on the app for two years before someone noticed it.

“So, we now have legal rights to several thousand firstborns,” he said.

This is why you should always double check your work before it goes live, and actually read the terms and conditions. Otherwise, you may be signing away your first born child.

Stay tuned during the month of October to hear more Scare-imus stories, and make sure to check us out at carimus.com today!

Written by Taylor Sexton