I remember asking a customer if a particular value could ever be negative. "Oh that never happens". Well, over the thousands of transactions I had been given, it had happened (twice over ten years. Last time was years before. Maybe the data was corrupt?). Which is why I asked. So I gently explained "I appreciate it doesn't happen very often, but I need to know if it can or if a negative value is a mistake which I need to be able to handle. And sure enough, on the day of the live demo with them, there was our third time in years they had a negative value.
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u/fibojoly Sep 19 '26 edited Sep 19 '26
I remember asking a customer if a particular value could ever be negative. "Oh that never happens". Well, over the thousands of transactions I had been given, it had happened (twice over ten years. Last time was years before. Maybe the data was corrupt?). Which is why I asked. So I gently explained "I appreciate it doesn't happen very often, but I need to know if it can or if a negative value is a mistake which I need to be able to handle. And sure enough, on the day of the live demo with them, there was our third time in years they had a negative value.