I am a software developer, and because the language compiler will invariably choke on every misspelling of a variable or keyword, I flatter myself that I am an efficient and painstaking speller (both in source code and in any document, manual or even email which I produce).

I started a new job in January. Soon after, I was told to add code to a Java application's "listener" thread. I kept failing, until I looked at the code and discovered that my predecessor had created the "listner" thread. I still had trouble, because he had named some of its functions "listerner". He also referered to "golbal" variables. I cried.

The appalling mess is still present because I reckoned that it would take five working days to clean it all up. Development schedules are too tight to allow this diversion.