Comment On The Big Picture Thinker, A JavaScript-like Job, and The Job Opportunity

Is my comment awesome?

Fuck yes it is.

Congratulations, you managed COMMENT_POSITION today, though sadly not frist.

Oh, and there's nothing like wasting someone's time in an interview to broaden your network and bring opportunity in the future.

incassum: Incassum gonna throw balled-up paper at your head...

I get letters like that last one from headhunters all the time. They just blast to everyone on the job board who has even a single word in common with the job req; ignoring salary, geography, and actual relevant skills-matches.

I *hate* headhunters!

If it only took him 3 minutes to finish, it must not have been that bad.

It could have been worse. The Recruiter's name could have been Lorena Ipsum.

Larry:

When a big picture recruiter like me with nearly 20 years of experience working with people in FIELD sends you an opportunity for JOB with a company like CLIENT that is pulling down REVENUE per year,
here's what you don't do:

Post it to TDWTF!

When a SIZE picture recruiter like me with nearly NUMBER years of experience ADJECTIVE with people in FIELD sends you an opportunity for JOB with a company like CLIENT that is pulling down REVENUE per TIMEFRAME,
here's what you don't do:

Post it to TDWTF!

I can never understand what is going on in the minds of people like the first guy. Do they actually believe that acting like that will somehow get them the job? Or are they just so full of themselves that they think they're so likely to find a different job that they can afford to burn every bridge they cross just to blow off steam?

Cave Johnson applied for a job? Fuck yeah he did!

Do this: print out a copy of this comment, ball it up, and throw it at your own head.

(Actually, I'm kind of on Thomas B-----'s side.)

"The thing is," he ranted, "using JavaScript is like getting a bad blow–"

No wonder he doesn't like doing front-end work.

perhaps worryingly, having recently applied for new jobs myself. The second guy sounds a great deal like me when describing my vehemence against front-end work. Though the subject was JSP rather than javascript and i'm fairly certain i didn't compare it to oral copulation.

SIZE: grande
NUMBER: 6.02x10^23
ADJECTIVE: Stinky
FIELD: corn
JOB: glass blower
CLIENT: Firefox
REVENUE: ONE MILLION DOLLARS
TIMEFRAME: 7 days

I don't know about you guys, but I like the Big Picture Thinker's style. Wouldn't want to work with him, but I like his style.

Joe Office:

I don't know about you guys, but I like the Big Picture Thinker's style. Wouldn't want to work with him, but I like his style.

His style is like a bad blow job. It's funny at first but soon becomes irritating.

Front-wend work?

Joe Office:

I don't know about you guys, but I like the Big Picture Thinker's style. Wouldn't want to work with him, but I like his style.

I'd like working with him, assuming he wasn't like that _all_ the time.

When you're applying for a job, here's what you don't do:

1. Act like a complete jackass.

Seriously, there is no way I would ever hire someone who did this. Apparently this was such a great test for seeing how someone handles written communication that it works even when you forget to send it.

Franz Kafka:

Joe Office:

I don't know about you guys, but I like the Big Picture Thinker's style. Wouldn't want to work with him, but I like his style.

I'd like working with him, assuming he wasn't like that _all_ the time.

This is how he acts when _applying for a job_; I think it's reasonable to conclude that most of the time he's probably worse.

Seriously, the first message is a classic, right up there with Paula Bean.

Isn't it amazing how a few people like that social misfit end up giving the rest of us normals a bad name? That guy will forever be cemented in the submitter's mind as the living embodiment of all IT workers.

I've worked with people like that in the past - it's hell. Try to get anything done when the one person who is God of Everything spends 20 minutes telling you how brilliant he is and how I couldn't possibly understand what he does. (Yes, that's a real experience.) Arrogant + passive-aggressive + fanboi mentality is a really BAD personality combination!

My guess as to who that is hiding behind the assumed name: (a) Terry Childs, (b) Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons

"Lorena C-------"

With the names in today's article, I can't tell if we're censoring things or playing hangman.

I'm gonna go with both.

Lorena C---F---

Your move.

Maybe this is too obvious too even need pointing out, but, well, apparently not to person #1:

Okay, person #1, so you were totally uninterested in this job because you think company X made bad choices about what technologies to use. Okay.

So suppose you keep looking for another job and find that you just can't find anything else. While you don't like the way they do things at X, it's looking like the choices are them or the homeless shelter. So now what? After that letter, it would be pretty tough to go back and say you've reconsidered.

Okay, maybe you're sure that's an unlikely scenario. Maybe there are lots of jobs available in your area. So how about scenario 2: You keep looking around and apply for a job at Company Y. This looks like your dream job: they're using technologies that you think are great, high pay, good benefit, whatever. Except one of the people who interviewed you and read your rude letter at Company X just moved to Company Y. And that letter was memorable. And now they ask his opinion of this new candidate, and he says, "Hey, remember the good laugh we all got when I told you about that crazy, obnoxious letter a job candidate once sent us at Company X? Well guess what ..."

I've had a number of occassions where people I worked for at what company turned up at another company I got a job with many years later. In one case, my employer bought a company I had worked for just a few years before, so EVERYBODY I had worked with there was now a co-worker again.

My simple philosophy is: No matter how much I hate a job, no matter how mad I am at how badly I was treated or how stupid the boss was or whatever, when I leave, I write a nice resignation letter saying that I have enjoyed working here, I am leaving to pursue what I believe to be a better opportunity, and other such polite pablum. If I turn down a job offer, I say thank you but this offer does not fit my present goals, etc.

Sure, screaming about how stupid everybody is may give you a few minutes of emotional satisfaction, but you never know what it will cost you down the road. I've never had a case where I looked back and said, "Oh, if only I had not been so polite to that person, I would be so much better off today."

Oh dear lord. So, the fellow in the first post, 'Thomas'. I worked with someone whose name was "Thomas", and his last name began with B, and the number of hyphens in the post at the top matches the number of letters in his last name correctly.

And this sort of exchange is EXACTLY the sort of mail he would send.

Can someone ask the OP if this fellow is in the Boston area? If so, then hoo boy do I know who he is, and that mail exchange is so blazingly typical.

Was I the only one who read that letter in the voice of GLaDOS?

Jay:

I've had a number of occassions where people I worked for at what company turned up at another company I got a job with many years later. In one case, my employer bought a company I had worked for just a few years before, so EVERYBODY I had worked with there was now a co-worker again.

My simple philosophy is: No matter how much I hate a job, no matter how mad I am at how badly I was treated or how stupid the boss was or whatever, when I leave, I write a nice resignation letter saying that I have enjoyed working here, I am leaving to pursue what I believe to be a better opportunity, and other such polite pablum. If I turn down a job offer, I say thank you but this offer does not fit my present goals, etc.

To sum up: the toes you step on today may be connected to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow.

Andrew:

Was I the only one who read that letter in the voice of GLaDOS?

Nope, mine was in the voice of comic book guy. GLaDOS would have been much better, though.

Nagesh2.0:

Joe Office:

I don't know about you guys, but I like the Big Picture Thinker's style. Wouldn't want to work with him, but I like his style.

His style is like a bad blow job. It's funny at first but soon becomes irritating.

Sounds like someone out of this forum

Jay:

Okay, maybe you're sure that's an unlikely scenario. Maybe there are lots of jobs available in your area. So how about scenario 2: You keep looking around and apply for a job at Company Y. This looks like your dream job: they're using technologies that you think are great, high pay, good benefit, whatever. Except one of the people who interviewed you and read your rude letter at Company X just moved to Company Y. And that letter was memorable. And now they ask his opinion of this new candidate, and he says, "Hey, remember the good laugh we all got when I told you about that crazy, obnoxious letter a job candidate once sent us at Company X? Well guess what ..."

Exactly. I was recently head of IT for an electronics recycling company. Seeing as there's not a lot of "IT management" in the average day at a recycler, a big part of my job was actually communicating with clients (top-level IT guys at our customers' locations) and coordinating server decommissions, data erasure schedules, backups, pickup schedules, and the like. I had drinks regularly with a lot of these guys.

Well, one day we're looking for an outside programmer/consultant to freshen up a C-pound front-end to our SQL database. In came several people, a few independents, some company-types, and then "Steve X". Steve wants to dig in right away, during the interview. My boss (CIO/VP) told me to let him take a look at the code, and Steve made a few changes right away, which I reviewed and pushed live on an evening shift (to avoid a complete day shift meltdown). The updates weren't too bad, but he broke a few things and I reverted back to an older version.

We chose a different developer for the updates, and Steve went ballistic. He called us everything but straight white men, and after a few weeks of harassing emails and phone calls, we had our attorney notify Steve that he shouldn't contact us again if he valued his freedom.

Fast forward about a year. One of the IT guys I knew, a top guy at a large health care conglomerate, was looking for a lead developer for a project to bring several newly acquired hospitals into the current system. In the course of beers and asking around the table if anyone knew of a good candidate, he mentioned that he had a strong lead but that the guy, despite his obvious skill, seemed just a little off. When he said the name "Steve X" I almost spit my beer in my lap. Needless to say, a psychotic episode coupled with some barroom networking cost Steve a lucrative job that day.

Me:

I can never understand what is going on in the minds of people like the first guy. Do they actually believe that acting like that will somehow get them the job? Or are they just so full of themselves that they think they're so likely to find a different job that they can afford to burn every bridge they cross just to blow off steam?

I love the self-appointed "rock star" developers who think they're hot shit. What's even funnier is this guy is obviously just a cowboy coder; shunning good practices for the wrong reasons. I know what he's getting at, with all the over engineering going into "enterprise" software, but he blames the practices rather than blaming those who abuse them.

A guy like this believes his "own efficient methods" are the way to go. Undoubtedly, this means he's either written some crappy wrapper library that he foists on any company he works for, or he just plows through code without doing any planning. He thinks being efficient means getting it done as quickly as possible with no consideration for maintenance or sanity.

Plus he's an asshole. He'd be brutal to work with.

Maybe the recruiter wanted to play Mad Libs.

You don't worry about COMMENT let me worry about BLANK

Nagesh2.0:

When a SIZE picture recruiter like me with nearly NUMBER years of experience ADJECTIVE with people in FIELD sends you an opportunity for JOB with a company like CLIENT that is pulling down REVENUE per TIMEFRAME,
here's what you don't do:

Post it to TDWTF!

SIZE: evil
NUMBER: 250
ADJECTIVE: killing
FIELD: battle
JOB: Uruk Hai
CLIENT: Mount Doom
REVENUE: 3 kingdoms
TIMEFRAME: tome

I'm on Guy 1s side too. Use little puzzles and tests on CS grads fresh out of school. someone who has been successfully developing software for 10 plus years should have more significant deeper lines of questioning in interviews. No wonder he was insulted. Granted his response was a bit over the top. Probably hit the send button by mistake.
Hiring managers and tech interviewers, tailor your interviews to the percieved level of the interviewer

Shaftoe:

I'm on Guy 1s side too. Use little puzzles and tests on CS grads fresh out of school. someone who has been successfully developing software for 10 plus years should have more significant deeper lines of questioning in interviews. No wonder he was insulted. Granted his response was a bit over the top. Probably hit the send button by mistake.
Hiring managers and tech interviewers, tailor your interviews to the percieved level of the interviewer

Or maybe they want to weed people like #1 out?

>Steve made a few changes right away, which I reviewed and
>pushed live on an evening shift (to avoid a complete day
>shift meltdown).

So, you took some code that a guy you were interviewing wrote on the fly and rolled it out live?

THIS is the WTF for me today...

Maybe you spend too much time at the bar?

boog:

"The thing is," he ranted, "using JavaScript is like getting a bad blow–"

No wonder he doesn't like doing front-end work.

I imagine it's better than doing back-end work

I was hoping that someone could come up with a three minute dissertation on how JavaScript is like a bad BJ/ I'm not disputing that it is but I WOULD like to know why.

Did I just say that?:

boog:

"The thing is," he ranted, "using JavaScript is like getting a bad blow–"

No wonder he doesn't like doing front-end work.

I imagine it's better than doing back-end work

I agree. At least with front-end work, you can see what you're doing.

Possibly dandelions? Now that's hysterical!

From: Robin Lee

Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 3:03 PM

To: Lorena C-------

Subject: Great Job Opportunity!



Dear Lorena,



Unfortunately, I am not sure if I am qualified for JOB TITLE.

I would need additional information before agreeing to move to 

CITY, COUNTRY for DURATION; especially as there may be extensions.



Perhaps you can elaborate on whether my SHORT SKILLS DESCRIPTION would be

compatible with SHORT JOB DESCRIPTION.. 



I do not know if I have any colleagues who may be interested in this contract

opportunity, since I cannot easily explain the nature of it to them.



Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you soon, 



Regards 



Robin Lee

Prospective Contractor

Andrew:

Cave Johnson applied for a job? Fuck yeah he did!

And he's got the FRUIT needed to do the JOB.

Shaftoe:

I'm on Guy 1s side too. Use little puzzles and tests on CS grads fresh out of school. someone who has been successfully developing software for 10 plus years should have more significant deeper lines of questioning in interviews.

ProTip #1: People who say they've been successfully developing big money software for 10+ years are often completely full of EXCREMENT-EUPHEMISM. I don't care what your cover letter and resume says. When I went through that whole, "trust what people tell you during interviews" phase I was rather forcefully taught to assume it's all lies.

ProTip #2: Per "ProTip #1", that was probably just the first interview to make sure you weren't blowing smoke up their ORIFICE-OF-CHOICE. After making sure you at least kinda-sorta know what you're talking about, it's not uncommon to make sure you don't drool on yourself or otherwise appear to suffer a turrets flare up when presented with basic social interactions BEFORE scheduling a much more expensive resource to take you out of the box and see what you can really do. Oops.

C:

Andrew:

Was I the only one who read that letter in the voice of GLaDOS?

Nope, mine was in the voice of comic book guy. GLaDOS would have been much better, though.

Depends if James S was adopted or not...

OK, I'll admit the first interviewee's response was a bit over the top, but having gone through interviews with companies that were both obnoxious and arrogant I'd be very tempted to send that that reply myself.

"Really, you're testing my ability to XOR stuff? Are you implying that the twenty previous years of hardcore programming experience on my resume are a lie? That's no way to start a relationship, I have to go now ..."

Generally I assume that if they don't have any initial respect for my experience, they are probably another mindless sweatshop. A place to be avoided.

Nagesh2.0:

Larry:

When a big picture recruiter like me with nearly 20 years of experience working with people in FIELD sends you an opportunity for JOB with a company like CLIENT that is pulling down REVENUE per year,
here's what you don't do:

Post it to TDWTF!

When a SIZE picture recruiter like me with nearly NUMBER years of experience ADJECTIVE with people in FIELD sends you an opportunity for JOB with a company like CLIENT that is pulling down REVENUE per TIMEFRAME,
here's what you don't do:

Post it to TDWTF!

EVENTUAL-SUBORDINATE-CONJUNCTION INDEFINITE-ARTICLE SIZE CONCEPTUAL-NOUN JOB COMPARATIVE-CONJUNCTION PERSONAL-PRONOUN-OBJECT POSSESIVE-CONJUNCTION APPROXIMATIVE-ADVERB NUMBER TIME-UNIT PARTIAL-PREPOSITION CONCEPTUAL-NOUN ADJECTIVE POSSESIVE-CONJUNCTION PLURAL-NOUN PREPOSITION FIELD VERB PERSONAL-PRONOUN-OBJECT INDEFINITE-ARTICLE CONCEPTUAL-NOUN PREPOSITION JOB POSSESIVE-CONJUNCTION INDEFINITE-ARTICLE ENTITY-NOUN COMPARATIVE-CONJUNCTION CLIENT DEMONSTATIVE-PRONOUN COPULA-VERB EXPRESSION REVENUE PREPOSITION TIMEFRAME DEMONSTRATIVE-PRONOUN COPULA-VERB DEMONSTRATIVE-PRONOUN PERSONAL-PRONOUN-SUBJECT NEGATED-VERB: VERB PERSONAL-PRONOUN-OBJECT DIRECTIONAL-PREPOSITION WEBSITE!

jonnyq:

"Lorena C-------"

With the names in today's article, I can't tell if we're censoring things or playing hangman.

I'm gonna go with both.

Lorena C---F---

Your move.

I'd probably like to F--- Lorena's C--- but the whole time I'd be wondering if she might be Lorena Bobbit so that would kinda ruin my concentration.

Smarty McSmartyPants:

Shaftoe:

I'm on Guy 1s side too. Use little puzzles and tests on CS grads fresh out of school. someone who has been successfully developing software for 10 plus years should have more significant deeper lines of questioning in interviews.

ProTip #1: People who say they've been successfully developing big money software for 10+ years are often completely full of EXCREMENT-EUPHEMISM. I don't care what your cover letter and resume says. When I went through that whole, "trust what people tell you during interviews" phase I was rather forcefully taught to assume it's all lies.

ProTip #2: Per "ProTip #1", that was probably just the first interview to make sure you weren't blowing smoke up their ORIFICE-OF-CHOICE. After making sure you at least kinda-sorta know what you're talking about, it's not uncommon to make sure you don't drool on yourself or otherwise appear to suffer a turrets flare up when presented with basic social interactions BEFORE scheduling a much more expensive resource to take you out of the box and see what you can really do. Oops.

True that. After spending an excruciating amount of time interviewing candidates rather than coding over the last two years (although, let's be honest, any time spent interviewing rather than coding is excrutiating), I can honestly tell you that:

1) Resumés lie.
2) Phone interviews by your HR recruiter lie.
3) Even interview questions you ask youself can lie.

Someone can claim X years experience all they want, but watch what happens once you ask them to solve a (trivial) practical problem. 17 car pile-ups are prettier.

Me:

I can never understand what is going on in the minds of people like the first guy. Do they actually believe that acting like that will somehow get them the job? Or are they just so full of themselves that they think they're so likely to find a different job that they can afford to burn every bridge they cross just to blow off steam?

He's probably very bitter or something. And no, he probably couldn't afford burning those bridges. If he could, he wouldn't have the need to yell out. I understand him, though. IT is almost as fashion based as the fashion industry, and intelligent people are often far between. Poor guy (although the OOP comment was a bit extreme)

SeySayux:

Nagesh2.0:

Larry:

When a big picture recruiter like me with nearly 20 years of experience working with people in FIELD sends you an opportunity for JOB with a company like CLIENT that is pulling down REVENUE per year,
here's what you don't do:

Post it to TDWTF!

When a SIZE picture recruiter like me with nearly NUMBER years of experience ADJECTIVE with people in FIELD sends you an opportunity for JOB with a company like CLIENT that is pulling down REVENUE per TIMEFRAME,
here's what you don't do:

Post it to TDWTF!

EVENTUAL-SUBORDINATE-CONJUNCTION INDEFINITE-ARTICLE SIZE CONCEPTUAL-NOUN JOB COMPARATIVE-CONJUNCTION PERSONAL-PRONOUN-OBJECT POSSESIVE-CONJUNCTION APPROXIMATIVE-ADVERB NUMBER TIME-UNIT PARTIAL-PREPOSITION CONCEPTUAL-NOUN ADJECTIVE POSSESIVE-CONJUNCTION PLURAL-NOUN PREPOSITION FIELD VERB PERSONAL-PRONOUN-OBJECT INDEFINITE-ARTICLE CONCEPTUAL-NOUN PREPOSITION JOB POSSESIVE-CONJUNCTION INDEFINITE-ARTICLE ENTITY-NOUN COMPARATIVE-CONJUNCTION CLIENT DEMONSTATIVE-PRONOUN COPULA-VERB EXPRESSION REVENUE PREPOSITION TIMEFRAME DEMONSTRATIVE-PRONOUN COPULA-VERB DEMONSTRATIVE-PRONOUN PERSONAL-PRONOUN-SUBJECT NEGATED-VERB: VERB PERSONAL-PRONOUN-OBJECT DIRECTIONAL-PREPOSITION WEBSITE!

Woah! Do you kiss your mom with that mouth?