Comment On The Sixth Guy, The Company Pond, and More

Nagesh:

Anon:

frits:

C-Octothorpe:

At one of my interviews, they made me write pseudo code on my skin with a piece of broken glass.

The only text I ever carved into my skin was "Slayer".

One a side note, is 4/20 a holiday at TDWTF?

Hitler's birthday - Alex is a well know neo-Nazi

#notintendedtobeafactualstatement

Stop spreding rumours like this. HItler is not liked by anybody I know.

Not in India, sure. But they basically worship him in Pakistan.

Yeah, this one sounds like what'd I'd call a "pushback" interview. To see if you ever confront the interviewer, and how you go about it.

For example for the question:
"Moving on, why would one choose a power generation using the relative motion of conductors and fluxes instead of the modial interaction of magneto reluctance and capacitive duractance?"

You state: Well clearly it has to be that way or otherwise you'll never get the 1.21 gigawatts to the flux capacitor! Then follow up with, so for this software development position, just why are you so interested in my knowledge of electronic engineering? In my XX years of experience in this field I've never come across any need for deep-level understanding of the hardware at this level.... blah blah blah...

Nagesh:

boog:

So top companies in India prefer to hire people on the basis of whether or not they think puzzles are really neat? Sounds very Job Interview 2.0.

But it explains a lot.

i am person with bad english, but you're having reading comprehension trouble, madarchod! I said first level of interview. What part of that statement, you are not able to digest?

Apparently I also have "writing comprehension" trouble, since I completely failed to indicate my inability to "digest" your statement. Did I imply at all that you weren't talking about just the first level of interviews? Damn, looks like I didn't. In fact it looks almost like I didn't have any trouble "digesting" your statement at all. That can't possibly be right.

Please except my sincere apologies, and in the future I'll try harder to demonstrate my supposedly-poor reading comprehension skills.

boog:

Nagesh:

boog:

So top companies in India prefer to hire people on the basis of whether or not they think puzzles are really neat? Sounds very Job Interview 2.0.

But it explains a lot.

i am person with bad english, but you're having reading comprehension trouble, madarchod! I said first level of interview. What part of that statement, you are not able to digest?

Apparently I also have "writing comprehension" trouble, since I completely failed to indicate my inability to "digest" your statement. Did I imply at all that you weren't talking about just the first level of interviews? Damn, looks like I didn't. In fact it looks almost like I didn't have any trouble "digesting" your statement at all. That can't possibly be right.

Please except my sincere apologies, and in the future I'll try harder to demonstrate my supposedly-poor reading comprehension skills.

The first step is admitting you have a problem, madarchod!

Interviewer:

Larry:

Being the third hardware question for what is apparently a programming job, it is time to stop answering and start asking.

It sounds like a Stress Interview. The sixth guy's entire purpose may have been a psychological test of the applicant.

I had one of those once, and I (apparently, from what they told me later) passed with flying colors, but it made me so angry I refused to have anything to do with the company.

A couple of people in the interview chain really wanted me (again, apparently, since they kept calling, even after I'd taken a different job) but while I can handle abuse, I'm not going to work for a company that thinks that the *ability* to handle abuse is so necessary for their employees that they feel the need to test for it.

Satanicpuppy:

Interviewer:

Larry:

Being the third hardware question for what is apparently a programming job, it is time to stop answering and start asking.

It sounds like a Stress Interview. The sixth guy's entire purpose may have been a psychological test of the applicant.

I had one of those once, and I (apparently, from what they told me later) passed with flying colors, but it made me so angry I refused to have anything to do with the company.

A couple of people in the interview chain really wanted me (again, apparently, since they kept calling, even after I'd taken a different job) but while I can handle abuse, I'm not going to work for a company that thinks that the *ability* to handle abuse is so necessary for their employees that they feel the need to test for it.

You should have taken it, not many companies accept pussies.

Satanicpuppy:

Interviewer:

Larry:

Being the third hardware question for what is apparently a programming job, it is time to stop answering and start asking.

It sounds like a Stress Interview. The sixth guy's entire purpose may have been a psychological test of the applicant.

I had one of those once, and I (apparently, from what they told me later) passed with flying colors, but it made me so angry I refused to have anything to do with the company.

A couple of people in the interview chain really wanted me (again, apparently, since they kept calling, even after I'd taken a different job) but while I can handle abuse, I'm not going to work for a company that thinks that the *ability* to handle abuse is so necessary for their employees that they feel the need to test for it.

Yeah, I had one of those too once where they kept calling to ask if I'm going to take the offer... The guy who interviewed me was a total douche bag, and of course would eventually be my boss. One of those book smart people (Masters in mathematics I believe) who looks down their nose at anybody without a PhD. I don't have a digree, but he was so impressed with me, we offered me the job. Unfortunately he had already made so many comments about people without digrees and how they make terrible developers that it was too much for me.

It was nice to know that I was the only person ever that was offered a position in the company who didn't have a digree, and it felt even better to tell them to FOAD...

C-Octothorpe:

...he was so impressed with me, we offered me the job. Unfortunately he had already made so many comments about people without digrees and how they make terrible developers that it was too much for me.

Probably a good choice anyway. From what I can tell, people who repeatedly talk about how they "don't take kindly to" your type (whether it be gender/race/nationality/generation/education/work-history/language-backgrounds/preference-for-puzzles/etc) but offer you a job anyway often pay shit for wages.

hoof:

The REAL wtf is "sheepishly burst". Those two things do not belong in a sentence together, let alone right next to each other.

CAPTCHA: dolor dolor bills y'all

You clearly haven't been watching the right sheep.

Captcha points out that watching the right sheep can be illuminating.

frits:

C-Octothorpe:

At one of my interviews, they made me write pseudo code on my skin with a piece of broken glass.

The only text I ever carved into my skin was "Slayer".

I carved "Ave Sathanas" into my arm once. Sorry, twice.

hoof:

The REAL wtf is "sheepishly burst". Those two things do not belong in a sentence together, let alone right next to each other.

CAPTCHA: dolor dolor bills y'all

I had a sheep once that burst. Messy.

boog:

C-Octothorpe:

...he was so impressed with me, we offered me the job. Unfortunately he had already made so many comments about people without digrees and how they make terrible developers that it was too much for me.

Probably a good choice anyway. From what I can tell, people who repeatedly talk about how they "don't take kindly to" your type (whether it be gender/race/nationality/generation/education/work-history/language-backgrounds/preference-for-puzzles/etc) but offer you a job anyway often pay shit for wages.

Oh, and I can't believe that I forgot to mention the real kicker: he has, for some really odd reason, a huge fetish with string interning (for the non.Netters: a mechanism for using the same string reference).

He went on a tirade for about 45 minutes about it's design, etc. He likes it so much so that his entire data access layer was, get this, using interned strings! Yes, you read that right: the entire DAL was all dynamic SQL, BUT it's using string interning to improve performance.

If that wasn't the worst case of preemtive optimization, and at the cost of security, that I have ever heard of, then punch me in the face and call me an ugly woman...

I gave him a guarded "you're kidding, right?" look, just in case he was trying to test me. He then went on to say that LINQ to SQL does that anyway (parameters anyone?). I asked him if he's ever heard of SQL injection, to which he responded that he would ask me to fix that should I accept the position (I have a white-hat hacker, IT security background). He then went on another interesting tangent about how events were added by MS for security reasons (well no, but I won't argue with you because you're starting to scare me a bit).

Hmm, starting to think that I should've submitted this as a interview WTF.

I have reverenced Hitler's Birthday...pray I don't reverence the birthdays of any other mass murders.

neminem:

Hasteur:

Wow... I'm not going to begin to consider how messed up it is to

1. Bring your kids to a job interview
2. Leave them in the car during the day
3. parent them in the fact that it's perfectly ok to get naked in public and swim in strange pools.

While I would agree entirely with the first two, depending on the age of the children (or possibly not), it's entirely possible to imagine that they were certainly *not* being brought up to think that that was perfectly ok... but decided that they were going to do it anyway. Possibly even specifically for that reason. Did you never do anything your parents didn't want you to as a small child?

Reminds me of my son. At age three, he was warned not to get his clothes muddy (he had a habbit of doing so) one spring day as he went outside to play. Fifteen minutes later, I looked out the window to see his clothes neatly piled on the grass, as he sat naked in a mud puddle...he was careful not to get his clothes muddy. I've since learned that his analytical skills far exceed most adults.

C-Octothorpe:

One of those book smart people (Masters in mathematics I believe) who looks down their nose at anybody without a PhD.

Odd for someone without a PhD. Did he look down on himself?

I don't have a digree, but he was so impressed with me, we offered me the job.

Clearly not in English anyway.

frits:

The only text I ever carved into my skin was "Slayer".

SLAYER!!!

C-Octothorpe:

boog:

Nagesh:

boog:

So top companies in India prefer to hire people on the basis of whether or not they think puzzles are really neat? Sounds very Job Interview 2.0.

But it explains a lot.

i am person with bad english, but you're having reading comprehension trouble, madarchod! I said first level of interview. What part of that statement, you are not able to digest?

Apparently I also have "writing comprehension" trouble, since I completely failed to indicate my inability to "digest" your statement. Did I imply at all that you weren't talking about just the first level of interviews? Damn, looks like I didn't. In fact it looks almost like I didn't have any trouble "digesting" your statement at all. That can't possibly be right.

Please except my sincere apologies, and in the future I'll try harder to demonstrate my supposedly-poor reading comprehension skills.

The first step is admitting you have a problem, madarchod!

Cool, you're learning Hindi gaalis (bad words)!

Nagesh:

C-Octothorpe:

The first step is admitting you have a problem, madarchod!

Cool, you're learning Hindi gaalis (bad words)!

And before too long he'll be able to impersonate Indian programmers too. Way to go, C-Octo!

boog:

Nagesh:

C-Octothorpe:

The first step is admitting you have a problem, madarchod!

Cool, you're learning Hindi gaalis (bad words)!

And before too long he'll be able to impersonate Indian programmers too. Way to go, C-Octo!

Sorry, was I encouraging him?

The Sixth Guy is my hero! I once went on an interview for a Programming position where the interviewer peppered me with programming theory questions that I could not have possibly anticipated, could not have possibly answered without having an OOP textbook at the ready, and had nothing to do with everyday coding ability. It's nice to see the tables get turned for once :-)

Hasteur:

Wow... I'm not going to begin to consider how messed up it is to

1. Bring your kids to a job interview
2. Leave them in the car during the day
3. parent them in the fact that it's perfectly ok to get naked in public and swim in strange pools.

Life is filled with minor "emergencies" and the lack of an available baby sitter falls into that category. So ...

1. As an interviewee: I'd have brought them into the building with me, explained the situation to the company and, based on their recation, immediately have found out what kind of company I'd be working for.

2. As an interviewer: Yeah, that was truly dumb.

3. As an interviewer: I'd have gone into panic-stricken mode ... who knows what the corporate insurance policy would specify in a situation like that. OTOH, they're little kids ... naked and swimming should be part of their lives (have you *never* gone skinny dipping!) so going naked in public is hardly an issue.

McFly:

"Moving on, why would one choose a power generation using the relative motion of conductors and fluxes instead of the modial interaction of magneto reluctance and capacitive duractance?"

There is only one correct answer to this:

Flux capacitor... fluxing!

correct answer would be:
because they did not know any better!
the relative motion of conductors and fluxes can be avoided by bypassing it altogether and tying the flux capacitor directly with the arc reactor. This will increase the power output by 200% ..

I don't think you get that this is another description of the Turboencabulator.

The 6th guy was definitely just messing with him since he asked such a tricky question meant to confuse layman. Finally, he was most likely an engineer considering the questions and the fact that the Turboencabulator is an engineering inside joke.

One is real the other is techno-babble: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboencabulator .