The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2008-10-31 Reply Admin

KenW:
Robert S. Robbins:
"white, fur-lined boots matching her white, fur-lined coat, which she wore over a leopard-print blouse"
This sounds like a very creative outfit and web development requires a lot of creativity. Probably a Mac user.

Well, duh! The leopard-print blouse gave that away, Mr. Obvious. <g>

If she had got the job they could have had a fancy web site with a leopard-print tiling background and white, fur-lined borders. There are Photoshop brushes she could use for the fur. That would have been kick ass!

2008-10-31 Reply Admin

Well, I had to triple-check my own because I usually forget to convert bits to bytes or something like that.

I'm a regular guy. No need for the thanks (but you're welcome). :-)

2008-10-31 Reply Admin

KenW:
Mark:
Probably a Mac user.

Probably a whore.

Probably your sister.

You've met Debbie too?

Captcha: duis - what happens when you keep getting caught driving drunk.

2008-11-01 Reply Admin

I believe in a retarded parallel world, inside our very world, in which retarded companies sell retarded product and services to any customer retarded enough to buy it. That's the long tail for you. Long live the internets.

So very true. The expression I like about it is ... "never underestimate how far the blind can get leading the blind" :)

2008-11-01 Reply Admin

Mr B:
I call "made-up-story", unless you can provide a source better than "I heard about".

Not necessarily a made up one, in some circumstances people got more than one identity, such as myself.

Now, when I thought it would be great idea to live in the UK some years ago - I applied for some jobs in there sending two CVs, one under my european name and one under my asian one.

I got exactly two (2) calls with my asian name based CV, neither of which lead to a job - whereas my european name based ones were way more popular, landing me eventually to a job.

Interestingly enough, some places where I had sent both CVs to, called me up later, using the details in my european name based one.

As for the court case part, never did that, but wish someone else wouldn't mind doing, something is seriously wrong, when having the wrong /name/ alone screws your chances at getting a job.

2008-11-01 Reply Admin

lol indeed

2008-11-02 Reply Admin

sibtrag:
Schnapple:

What would have been an awesome ending to the story was if Thomas B. had just said at the end "...I can tell you're eager to learn. I would recommend that you learn on your own ..."

No, that is not really appropriate for an interview. But, that is why she, like any other rejected applicant who really wanted the job, should contact one of the technical people & ask for a frank appraisal. At that point, such advice can (and should) be given.

Who knows, the person you hired may not work out and the company may be interviewing 6-12 months later. By then, she could be competent enough to hire.

Why isn't it appropriate?

lrucker · 2008-11-02 Reply Admin

Franz_Kafka:
What programming skills? she was a stay at home mother with no background in programming, and she didn't spend any of her 7-8 hours/day learning those skills.

Seriously. Last time I was laid off, I took two weeks and learned the language that was most popular in the area I wanted to work by porting an open-source app to it. Got the job I wanted, too. (Granted that, when you know 16 languages already, adding a new one isn't that hard - but I wouldn't have got in the door without it.)

She'd have been better off applying some of that persistence to skill-building.

2008-11-03 Reply Admin

And who will then have her sorry ass arrested for assault and domestic violence? Sounds like a plan.

2008-11-03 Reply Admin

derby:
Franz_Kafka:
What programming skills? she was a stay at home mother with no background in programming, and she didn't spend any of her 7-8 hours/day learning those skills.

Wowzy ... spoken like a single guy or a married guy who one day is going to find himself laying on the floor with a big welt on his forehead while his wife, the mother of his children, stands over him with a blunt instrument in her hand muttering 'for the last time, just because I'm at home all day doesn't mean I don't work.'

And who will then have her sorry ass arrested for assault and domestic violence? Sounds like a plan.

bjolling · 2008-11-03 Reply Admin

flaggy:
sibtrag:
Schnapple:

What would have been an awesome ending to the story was if Thomas B. had just said at the end "...I can tell you're eager to learn. I would recommend that you learn on your own ..."

No, that is not really appropriate for an interview. But, that is why she, like any other rejected applicant who really wanted the job, should contact one of the technical people & ask for a frank appraisal. At that point, such advice can (and should) be given.

Who knows, the person you hired may not work out and the company may be interviewing 6-12 months later. By then, she could be competent enough to hire.

Why isn't it appropriate?

Indeed why?

When I interviewed at one company 3 years ago, they specifically told me why I wasn't hired and what I would have to do to qualify for a position with them. I took their advice to heart and started working on these points. One year I ago, I applied again with them and I got hired.

I was very happy with their detailed feedback because it rescued me from a dead-end job and gave me the push I needed to relaunch my career.

Technical Thug · 2008-11-03 Reply Admin

I am a robot:
derby:
Wowzy ... spoken like a single guy or a married guy who one day is going to find himself laying on the floor with a big welt on his forehead while his wife, the mother of his children, stands over him with a blunt instrument in her hand muttering 'for the last time, just because I'm at home all day doesn't mean I don't work.'

And who will then have her sorry ass arrested for assault and domestic violence? Sounds like a plan.

Not in this country, bucko. Murder isn't a crime if a women does it on a man.

2008-11-03 Reply Admin

I would have assumed that once production started, the update machinery would be in a hosted environment with lots of bandwidth.

Completely unrelated to the bandwidth available at the office during the startup phase.

WTF = interviewee assumed too much.

2008-11-03 Reply Admin

T1:
I would have assumed that once production started, the update machinery would be in a hosted environment with lots of bandwidth.
Completely unrelated to the bandwidth available at the office during the startup phase.

WTF = interviewee assumed too much.

Or you could have done as I did: asked them if they were going to upgrade and gone from there. You assume too much. :-)

There's no way you can look at a 17MB/s (or about 137Mbps) sustained network to monitor magazine subscriptions that need to be renewed once a year and not call it a WTF. Sure, maybe they were going to upgrade to an OC-3, but that doesn't make a lot of sense either.

2008-11-03 Reply Admin

war gold

2008-11-04 Reply Admin

KenW:
Tim:
PLEASE can we stop all the lame comments that try to replicate the WTF? It is stupid, obvious, and stale.

PLEASE can we stop all the lame comments made only to whine about something? They are stupid, obvious, and stale. They're also very annoying.

PLEASE stop all the complaints about comments complaining about comments! Doh, damn, I guess I'd better stop.

Strider · 2008-11-11 Reply Admin

yah:
Dirk Diggler:
GCU Arbitrary:
Is it me, or are the WTFs getting to be less about IT, and more about incompetent management?
There's a difference? I thought all WTFs were due to management.
'incompetent management' is a tautology anyway

No, it's not. A redundancy maybe. A tautology would have to be a boolean like statement that's always true. like....management == incompetent or management is incompetent...or white != black.

but 'incompetent management' is just redundant and cannot be a tautology by itself

2009-01-12 Reply Admin

Dumbass.

2010-07-29 Reply Admin

Like, real spit when I read that.

2011-07-12 Reply Admin

jaded contractor:
Steve:
I guess you can't blame a gal for trying.
Sometimes enthusiasm and a willingness to learn will make up for a whole lot of experience and qualifications.

I can say that for the last several jobs I've had, on paper I probably was not "qualified", not having the proper letters following my name or even a whole lot of domain experience.

There was often a whole lot of flailing, handwaving, and downright faking it over the first few weeks (or even months) but the process of learning and the point when all the disparate pieces of information suddenly clicked into place were undeniably exhilarating. There's that wonderful moment when you make the transition from asking a lot of questions to being the person folks go to for their answers that makes it all worth it.

I wouldn't want a job that I was qualified for. That would be boring.

Yes - I've seen the stuff you leave behind that you produced while learning on the job - sheesh...

Meh. Everything is a calculated risk. Did I get the experience I paid for? Does the CS degree mean anything? Can I get away with employing this relative novice at a lower rate?

Either way, the company pays but the question is the quality per dollar, technical debt, and turnover.

I feel sorry for Joyce, but sorry doesn't apply in the business world. The thing is, its a shame that circumstances overall don't allow more apprentice/intern type of relationships. I believe the govt has mucked up the meaning and worth and cost of a sheepskin, which has grave consequences for business.

"There is no substitute for enthusiasm" -- I think this applies to far more things than oral sex.

2011-07-12 Reply Admin

pitchingchris:
Schnapple:
Thomas B. had just said at the end "Hey, I'm going to be honest here. We can't hire you because you don't already have the skills we're looking for and you're up against five other people who do. However, I can tell you're eager to learn. I would recommend that you learn on your own - PHP is free, there's tons of resources on the web for HTML and CSS, and so forth. Go make a website on your own, or make one for a friend's business or something. You'll find out really quick if this is the sort of thing for you or not. And if you're really serious about this you can get a job doing it - someone out there will take a chance on you and from there you're good. You clearly have the ambition, you just need the training. Sorry it didn't work out here."

This almost made me laugh. Because you can bet your bottom dollar if this really happened, we'd have a lot more stuff on TDWTF. I'm not saying that people can't be self-taught programmers, but without enough guidance and education behind it, it would take much longer to hone certain skills required.

In full disclosure, I will tell you I am self-taught. That being said, I do try to readjust my prejudices when it comes to the 'formal education' debate.

Its not that I don't recognize that the world is filled with hacks who have no practical utility, its that I feel that there are a comparable number of CS people who lack the same.

So, comments like yours are sure to raise my personal hackles up, and I realize this isn't personal.

I am about to make a similar comment, so don't you take it personal either...

"The best way to convince someone of the importance of a formal degree is to give them one"

This is what I call, Ivory-tower-blindness and it leads to certain misconceptions, for instance:

"I was taught the right way, and I do things the right way the first time. People who weren't taught the right way, probably do things the wrong way, every time. Those people suck"

The first part of that thought is fine, but the second sentence is not well thought out.

Remember, I'm not talking about you personally, but making a generalization.

Its not well thought out because it overlooks what I would consider to be an asset in someone who has struggled due to doing things wrong.

An analogy would be a field surgeon in a war vs a civilian surgeon in a nice clean hospital.

You see, as an 'incompetent' you are exposed to, well, bugs you have inflicted on yourself. Weirder bugs. And you get to puzzle-out WHY a certain thing should be done differently, rather than having all the answers handed to you by the book.

I think things like this are undervalued.

If I have two people whom I know have the same skill level generally, I am going to pick the person who brought themselves to that level on their own, every single time.

Why? Because they have thicker skulls from beating their heads against a problem until it gives. They have a more interesting bag of tricks.

Now, if you are writing "factory code" doing mundane stuff, granted, you probably want the person who doesn't mind pounding nails all day. You want the CS guy who will do whats he's told and be happy about it.

But, if your working with new tech, you need the other guy. The mountain climber who thinks learning new platforms is fun.

And lets face it, the IT world changes fast, and depending on where your sitting in that world, you don't have the luxury of getting an expert in X that was released 6 months ago. Ain't gunna happen on your budget.

I just like to think that there is room for most all types in our industry. And its bad form to condemn type X because he is not practical for your sector.

2011-07-12 Reply Admin

Mr B:
DOA:
dkf:
Chi1x0r:
Many of my older peers did just this, because computer science as a college major is only about 15 years old
In the UK, Computer Science as a separate discipline really took off in 1964, making it 45 years old next year, with the first undergraduate courses starting in the following year. But maybe it took 30 years for computers to be shipped by mule-train into your neck of the woods…
I wasn't around in 1965, but I'm pretty sure they weren't teaching C#, Java, PHP or any other language 90% of the industry will look for today.

That's really interesting, but I don't see what language specifics has to do with a Comp Sci degree. The key to a GOOD Comp Sci degree is that it is largely language independent and gives the graduate the tools and skills necessary to learn new languages as they are created. If you did a Comp Sci degree and all you know is Java and you don't have the skills to pick up new languages, then it's not really a good degree to have is it?

What language would you have been taught 2 years ago? C# 2.0? Guess what, that's out of date BEFORE YOU HAVE GRADUATED.

Comp Sci degrees should NEVER focus on specifics of either hardware OR software, it's changing too rapidly, and chances are that it will have moved on WHILST YOU ARE STUDYING THEM.

I was taught programming concepts using COBOL and Smalltalk (yes I'm old) and somehow amazingly I've been able to pick up both C# and Java, amazing huh!

"...and gives the graduate the tools and skills necessary to learn new languages as they are created"

I feel sorry for the school given this mandate. Given that CS covers the underlying techniques of 'what happens' behind program, I really don't see how they can do a good job of inferring what is the tricky part of new languages... the means of expression, and things like that.

Or even whole new platform paradigms like droid.

I really think IT has gotten to the point where, no matter how many years you spent dumping things into peoples heads, in the end most of it will not matter simply because it becomes unretainable for all practical purposes.

I am much more aligned with a JIT education process. How far does CS go before YAGNI starts playing a big role?

2018-02-21 Reply Admin

"Also, we don't want a sexual discrimination lawsuit." - and that is why marriage rate is going down and men are ignoring women while businesses and especially government keep becoming more incompetent. So called liberals force to hire people who aren't qualified, women make false rape / sexual assault / harassment reports, etc. only making distance even greater.

2021-07-10