• (cs) in reply to Sparky the IT Clown
    Sparky the IT Clown:
    So what's the Java API for posting comments?

    Pish!... Kevin would know.

  • (cs) in reply to Centricity
    Centricity:
    Aside from the part where the receptionist gave him his own evaluation form, it might well have been a test. Yeah, "Leave him in a room for an hour and see how he acts" is something from a bad movie, but it can be useful to see if a candidate reacts when unsupervised. Does he/she take the initiative and go find someone, fall asleep, start texting friends on a cell phone? If they'll do it during an interview, they'll do it during work.

    They blew it when they gave him the eval form, though.

    As long as we're going down the "bad movie" road... perhaps the eval form was ALSO part of that test. If he's honest, he returns the form to the receptionist with a comment along the lines of "I think perhaps you gave me this form accidentally. It doesn't look like one I should be filling out."

    Ya know, I think I'll suggest that we use this technique in the future. BRILLIANT!

  • Kevin (unregistered)

    I left that position for another company that wanted someone like Paula.

  • (cs) in reply to Just this guy, you know?
    Just this guy:
    These jerks are all alike. They have grandiose ideas and thinks no one else has thought of them first; they can't take criticism and insult anyone who tries; they can talk big to woo investors and keep their sorry little empires afloat; they promise the impossible to their clients and expect their employees to deliver (and berate them when they fail).

    Based on my experience, I agree wholeheartedly.

  • (cs) in reply to sino
    sino:
    Stephen:
    What is it about CEO's that makes them so stupid?
    What is it about CEO's what? Semantic Differentials?
    Damn thee. I as just a-fixin' to post that very message.

    www DOT apostrophe DOT org DOT uk

    (akismet thought it was spam with the actual periods in the address... sheesh)

  • sino (unregistered) in reply to SQLDave
    SQLDave:
    sino:
    Stephen:
    What is it about CEO's that makes them so stupid?
    What is it about CEO's what? Semantic Differentials?
    Damn thee. I as just a-fixin' to post that very message.

    www DOT apostrophe DOT org DOT uk

    (akismet thought it was spam with the actual periods in the address... sheesh)

    TRWTF... ;)

  • forgottenlord (unregistered) in reply to Procedural
    Procedural:
    Procedural:
    Isn't the "someone like Kevin" a Douglas Adams reference ?

    "Anyway, this neutrino hit something. Nothing terribly important in the scale of things, you might say. But the problem with saying something like that is that you would be talking cross-eyed badger spit. Once something actually happens somewhere in something as wildly complicated as the Universe, Kevin knows where it will all end up — where "Kevin" is any random entity that doesn't know nothin' about nothin'."

    Well in that case, would you want someone that isn't like Kevin?

  • (cs) in reply to Machtyn
    Machtyn:
    Suffice to say, I should of recognized that.

    I should HAVE recognized that.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    If anything the 3-5 years experience is TRWTF. So you don't want anybody with 5+ years experience? Although again, the motivation here is that they want somebody with some experience, but they won't/can't pay for a lot of experience.

    I encounter this all the time. Nearly every job posting for software engineers specifies 3 - 5 years experience. I have 35 years experience. But they're looking for someone barely out of college. Someone they can pay the least amount of money. And they also want that 3-5-year person to have tons of experience in all the latest technologies. I only ever came across one manager who actually valued the fact that I had genuine EXPERIENCE in software engineering and that my experience would contribute to the success of the company. But then some higher-ups decided to have their hardware supplier write the software for them.

  • (cs) in reply to RogerInHawaii

    YES ! Yahoo! Yippee! I'm famous!

    My story actually got published on "TheDailyWTF" !

    When do the residuals start pouring in?

    Do I get a WTF T-shirt?

    • Roger Garrett
  • CiH (unregistered)

    Roger in Hawaii, eh?

    I didn't find CEO John's ad on Hawii's Craigslist, but I found something almost as good.

    http://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/sof/1578913860.html

    I NEED SOMEONE TO TRANSLATE MY IDEA FOR A SOCIAL NETWORKING iPHONE APPLICATION INTO A REALITY ON THE APP STORE. IF YOU HAVE PRODUCED AN APPLICATION THAT IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FOR THE iPHONE I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU.

    DEPENDING ON EXPERTISE LEVEL I AM OPEN TO A RANGE OF COMPENSATION PATHS.

  • Procedural (unregistered) in reply to forgottenlord
    forgottenlord:
    Procedural:
    Procedural:
    Isn't the "someone like Kevin" a Douglas Adams reference ?

    "Anyway, this neutrino hit something. Nothing terribly important in the scale of things, you might say. But the problem with saying something like that is that you would be talking cross-eyed badger spit. Once something actually happens somewhere in something as wildly complicated as the Universe, Kevin knows where it will all end up — where "Kevin" is any random entity that doesn't know nothin' about nothin'."

    Well in that case, would you want someone that isn't like Kevin?

    For a tester ? No, that's almost an asset.

  • Mr.' (unregistered) in reply to Sparky the IT Clown
    Sparky the IT Clown:
    So what's the Java API for posting comments?
    It's pretty straightforward. You can use it like this:
    CommentGeneratorFactory factory = CommentGeneratorFactory.getInstance();
String textSource = Configuration.getInstance().getDataDir() + "enterprise/text/paula.xml";
MarkovParams params = new MarkovParams();
params.symbolType = MarkovParams.Words;
params.markovStringLength = 3;
TextGenerationPolicy generationPolicy = new TextGenerationPolicy(new MarkovTextGenerator(textSource, params));
CommentGenerator generator = factory.getCommentGenerator(generationPolicy);
Comment comment = generator.generateComment(policy);
String forumDataFile = Configuration.getInstance().getConfigDir() + "enterprise/fora/dailywtf.xml";
Poster poster = PosterFactory.getInstance().getPoster(forumDataFile);
poster.setParam("name", "Mark V Shaney");
poster.setParam("subject", "RE: The Missing Interview, Infantile Expectancies, & More");
poster.setParam("comment", new CommentSerializer(comment).getSerializedData());
poster.setParam("appendCaptchaToPost", true);
poster.post(new HttpTransport(Configuration.getInstance().getConfigItem("forumName"), Configuration.getInstance().getHttpPortNumber()));
  • korvaks (unregistered) in reply to Machtyn
    Machtyn:
    moo:
    "Sufficed to say" -- what? Those words (is that even a word?) don't make any sense. I think you meant "suffice it to say", which, believe it or not, isn't just a series of sounds you can make with your mouth, but an actual set of words with meaning! Specifically, it means "it should be enough to say...", implying that you're understating your point. Suffice it to say, you should know that.

    Suffice to say, I should of recognized that.

    (I wonder how many people will realize what the second mistake is in that sentence.)

    That's easy. Recognise is spelled with an 's'. As is realise. OK, so I use UK spelling, but I know the actual problem: you misspelled "'ve" (which is an contraction of "have") as " of".

  • Nick (unregistered) in reply to Centricity
    Centricity:
    Aside from the part where the receptionist gave him his own evaluation form, it might well have been a test. Yeah, "Leave him in a room for an hour and see how he acts" is something from a bad movie, but it can be useful to see if a candidate reacts when unsupervised.
    Reminds me of a good movie called "The Method": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427582/

    Adding a bit more text so the comment system doesn't think this is spam.

  • OMG_PONIES!!! (unregistered) in reply to moo
    moo:
    "Sufficed to say" -- what? Those words (is that even a word?) don't make any sense. I think you meant "suffice it to say", which, believe it or not, isn't just a series of sounds you can make with your mouth, but an actual set of words with meaning! Specifically, it means "it should be enough to say...", implying that you're understating your point. Suffice it to say, you should know that.

    Actually it's suffice to say, no "it". You should know that.

  • Rodnas (unregistered)

    I am exactly like Kevin, and so is my wife

  • Someone too lazy to login and at work (unregistered) in reply to Jabba
    Jabba:
    More to the point, Kevin is in a low level role and wants to move up in the world. His boss agrees, but HR has to create a position for Kevin to move into. Because it is a new position, HR has to advertise it, but they have no idea what the position entails. So they ask Kevin's boss to write the position description. Kevin's boss is usually too busy for HR stuff, so gives it to Kevin to write (after all, Kevin is the one who wants to move on up). You end up with a position tailored to Kevin (although not usually to this extent).

    I know, I have been on both sides of the Kevin advert (as the Kevin writing the JD, and as the hapless interviewee responding to a ad for a position that you are never going to fill - because you aren't Kevin).

    Hmm, here the second case would possibly never happen. As far as I know all positions have to be advertised internally first, so you would just advertise internally and then hire Kevin for the role. I don't know that there's any requirement that the role be advertised externally as well.

  • Someone too lazy to login and at work (unregistered) in reply to korvaks
    korvaks:
    Machtyn:
    moo:
    "Sufficed to say" -- what? Those words (is that even a word?) don't make any sense. I think you meant "suffice it to say", which, believe it or not, isn't just a series of sounds you can make with your mouth, but an actual set of words with meaning! Specifically, it means "it should be enough to say...", implying that you're understating your point. Suffice it to say, you should know that.

    Suffice to say, I should of recognized that.

    (I wonder how many people will realize what the second mistake is in that sentence.)

    That's easy. Recognise is spelled with an 's'. As is realise. OK, so I use UK spelling, but I know the actual problem: you misspelled "'ve" (which is an contraction of "have") as " of".

    The OED favours the -ize suffix over -ise and both are perfectly valid in British English. In fact both have been in use in English for longer than the USA has existed.

  • grammer nasty (unregistered) in reply to WhiskeyJack
    WhiskeyJack:
    Adriano:
    Otherwise, 10 minutes are still barely in my margin of politeness.

    Uh, did you guys all forget that the guy showed up at 4:30 for a 4:45 interview? By 4:55pm, he'd been waiting far longer than 10 minutes.

    But the first 15 minutes were his fault

  • Anon Jr. (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    Getting someone overqualified is almost as bad as getting someone underqualified. If you are a senior forced to do grunt's job you are going to do it half heartedly and will go away at the earliest opportunity, and you probably don't have the stamina to do the manual labor part that is required. Would you really go and fetch your boss a cup of cofee if you're old enough to be his father?

  • (cs) in reply to OMG_PONIES!!!
    OMG_PONIES!!!:
    Actually it's suffice to say, no "it". You should know that.
    Oh, I do love the Intaweb. You can always find someone spouting incorrect information, and swearing it's true.

    For what it's worth, my hardback dictionary (Chambers 20th Century) insists on the 'it'. It notes that 'suffice it' is equivalent to 'it is enough'.

    'suffice it to say' => 'it is enough to say' 'suffice to say' => 'is enough to say' (?)

    Leaving out the 'it' is therefore incorrect according to Chambers, since it omits the subject. It is probably a widespread usage however, and given that the phrase has become pretty much a black box, I'm not going to jump on anyone who elides the 'it' any more than I'm going to correct someone who says 'please' on its own rather than the original full phrase. But please, please, don't think that 'suffice it to say' is incorrect just because you don't encounter it.

  • New Labour - Rewarding Failure since 1997 (unregistered) in reply to Annoyed with RBS
    Annoyed with RBS:
    RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) are that useless and inefficient that this particular story re. the interview doesn't surprise me. I've often done business with them and failed to get any sort of response or reply without bullying and chasing.

    They deserve to be in the terrible shape they're now in, it's comeuppance.

    I'd hardly call being thrown millions of taxpayer's money as a bailout "comeuppance".

  • Bosshog (unregistered) in reply to Fred
    Fred:
    True story: a guy wanted me to build a website to make him rich. The specs: "Just like ebay, but for cars." He figured I'd do it in a couple evenings of my spare time as a favor (in other words, free) because he was a friend of my cousin.
    Amen brother - people request things like this from me all the time! Also: "I've had a great idea: why don't you have a great idea and then I can be your business partner!"
  • sagaciter (unregistered) in reply to Anon Jr.
    Anon Jr.:
    Getting someone overqualified is almost as bad as getting someone underqualified. If you are a senior forced to do grunt's job you are going to do it half heartedly and will go away at the earliest opportunity, and you probably don't have the stamina to do the manual labor part that is required. Would you really go and fetch your boss a cup of cofee if you're old enough to be his father?
    Thats what secretaries are for. If the boss aint important enough to have one of those, he's not important enough to suck up to. :)
  • Bosshog (unregistered) in reply to SQLDave
    SQLDave:
    As long as we're going down the "bad movie" road... perhaps the eval form was ALSO part of that test. If he's honest, he returns the form to the receptionist with a comment along the lines of "I think perhaps you gave me this form accidentally. It doesn't look like one I should be filling out."

    Ya know, I think I'll suggest that we use this technique in the future. BRILLIANT!

    Maybe his whole life is now part of the test! When he's on his death bed, the HR reps will spring out of the cupboard, give him the antidote and tell him he starts on Monday.

  • petere963 (unregistered) in reply to Fred

    ... that would be ebay then ...

  • lesle (unregistered) in reply to RogerInHawaii
    RogerInHawaii:
    Machtyn:
    Suffice to say, I should of recognized that.

    I should HAVE recognized that.

    I'd've written: I should've recognized that.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Someone too lazy to login and at work
    Someone too lazy to login and at work:
    korvaks:
    Machtyn:
    moo:
    "Sufficed to say" -- what? Those words (is that even a word?) don't make any sense. I think you meant "suffice it to say", which, believe it or not, isn't just a series of sounds you can make with your mouth, but an actual set of words with meaning! Specifically, it means "it should be enough to say...", implying that you're understating your point. Suffice it to say, you should know that.

    Suffice to say, I should of recognized that.

    (I wonder how many people will realize what the second mistake is in that sentence.)

    That's easy. Recognise is spelled with an 's'. As is realise. OK, so I use UK spelling, but I know the actual problem: you misspelled "'ve" (which is an contraction of "have") as " of".

    The OED favours the -ize suffix over -ise and both are perfectly valid in British English. In fact both have been in use in English for longer than the USA has existed.

    Not only that, but in today's economy I feel it is important to use the -ize suffix because otherwise z is in danger of being laid off altogether. And with today's job market, it's never going to find another gig. Think of it's kids! It is already suffering from an identity crisis from not knowing if it's "zee" or "zed".

  • Infantile Expectant (unregistered)

    I wonder if Roger still has the CEO's e-mail address. I, too, would like to try pissing him off.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Scott L
    Scott L:
    Printing in Java is actually quite easy - you make something implement Printable, and then you draw to the Graphics object in the print() method you must make. Then you create a PrinterJob from withing java.awt.print.

    In most cases, you're printing exactly or close to exactly what's on the screen, so your print() method will just call the paint() method.

    I think you've badly missed the point of this website. These aren't challenges for you to complete, hotshot, they're examples of morons out in the field of IT. On second thought, your work might actually fit in nicely around here...
  • Stephen (unregistered) in reply to Carl
    Carl:
    Stephen:
    What is it about CEO's that makes them so stupid?

    The last start up I worked for, the CEO had this mentality that he shouldn't have to pay me. So, he in fact stopped paying me... I stayed around and didn't get paid for 6 months.

    If you stayed more than two hours after the first paycheck went missing, I'm thinking it wasn't the CEO who was "so stupid"...

    Well, yea. I said I was young and stupid.

    I was in college still, I had flexible hours, and the guy promised me the world. The next paycheck was always right around the corner, and we were "all going to be millionaires". Sigh.

  • Last King of Scotland (unregistered) in reply to Phill
    Phill:
    st0815:
    So you were supposed to be interviewed at 4:45 and at 4:55 you decided the job wasn't worth waiting for any more? The job market must be brilliant in the UK ...

    Thankfully the job market is pretty good over here. Well, at least good enough that you don't have to beg and be grateful for any job that comes along. A job interview is not just to see if you are sufficiently awesome and lucky that someone wants to give you a job. It's also about seeing whether the company is a good fit for you. I'm pretty sure I don't want to work somewhere where my boss managed to forget about an interview and I was left sitting in a room by myself for 20 minutes. It may be an honest mistake but, in my experience, those kind of companies tend to have no documented requirements, awful code, barely implemented source control, and an unpleasant work culture.

    // Java Printing API

    public static void translateAndPrintComment(string CommentToTranslate) { if (CommentToTranslate == "It may be an honest mistake but, in my experience, those kind of companies tend to have no documented requirements, awful code, barely implemented source control, and an unpleasant work culture.") { System.Out.Println("This is normal in just about every company I've ever worked in."); } else { System.Out.Println(CommentToTranslate + " Brillant"); } // etc

    }

  • amused (unregistered) in reply to Rodnas
    Rodnas:
    I am exactly like Kevin, and so is my wife

    This is pure gold! GOLD I SAY!

  • mypalmike (unregistered) in reply to aristos_achaion
    aristos_achaion:
    Honestly, probably even a misguided or incorrect attempt at an answer would've been better...who wants to hire somebody who just shuts down and stares blankly when presented with a problem he doesn't know how to solve?

    I'd far more prefer hearing, "I don't know. I've never printed with Java before," than a bunch of verbal diarrhea that is just plain wrong. Where I work, we don't hire people who try to BS their way through interview questions. It means they are weasels.

  • StychoKiller (unregistered) in reply to forgottenlord
    forgottenlord:
    Procedural:
    Procedural:
    Isn't the "someone like Kevin" a Douglas Adams reference ?

    "Anyway, this neutrino hit something. Nothing terribly important in the scale of things, you might say. But the problem with saying something like that is that you would be talking cross-eyed badger spit. Once something actually happens somewhere in something as wildly complicated as the Universe, Kevin knows where it will all end up — where "Kevin" is any random entity that doesn't know nothin' about nothin'."

    Well in that case, would you want someone that isn't like Kevin?

    Actually, in that case you want someone that's almost, but not entirely, unlike Kevin. Captcha: incassum - noun, the technique of using knotted bits of string for calculating inventories.

  • gdjfkghl (unregistered) in reply to iToad
    iToad:
    The Infantile Expectancies CEO is wasting his time in his current position. A big thinker with a total disregard for reality is more suited for politics - or investment banking.

    Do you really think that Steve Jobs must go into politics?

  • Tanel (unregistered) in reply to Procedural

    Maybe they ought to hire Kevin Mitnick: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick

  • Tanel (unregistered) in reply to Procedural

    Maybe they ought to hire Kevin Mitnick: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick

  • Jay (unregistered)

    RE Infantile Expectancies:

    I long ago learned a simple rule of thumb: If you ask someone a question like "How do you know that?", "Do you have any evidence to back that up?", or "What makes you think this will work?", responses tend to fall in two categories.

    Category A will explain their reasons and their evidence. Even if I do not have the expertise to really judge the validity of the evidence they offer, the fact that they can present evidence and logical argument indicates they have at least given this subject serious thought. Sure, there are kooks who can put together elaborate theories by piling one unsubstantiated claim on top of another, but these people tend to be relatively rare.

    Category B will reply with something to the effect of, "I'm an expert, you should just trust my judgment", "You wouldn't understand, this is far too complicated", or "How dare you question me!" When I hear that kind of response, I take it as a good working assumption that the person has no credible evidence to back up what he's saying. Sure, it's possible that he has a pile of evidence and he's just fed up with being asked stupid questions by ignorant people -- but usually not. Knowledgeable, intelligent people are usually eager to explain all the hard work they had to go to to arrive at their conclusions. When someone tells me that he has lots of evidence to prove his claims but he refuses to show it to me, I just don't believe him.

    This applies to everything from ideas for start-up companies to politicians' policy proposals to lots of things that are called "science" today. If the best argument you can give me is, "All the experts agree this is true, we don't have time to explain the evidence to you, and if you won't take my word for it that just proves that you're some kind of crazy irrational extremist" -- thank you, but I regret I must decline to invest in your company / vote for you / donate to your cause.

  • Sou Eu (unregistered) in reply to Scott L
    Printing in Java is actually quite easy - you make something implement Printable, and then you draw to the Graphics object in the print() method you must make. Then you create a PrinterJob from withing java.awt.print.
    You would think it was that simple, but you must deal with font metrics and paging. Oh, and why does Java insist on centering graphics vertically on the page?
  • Tom (unregistered)

    Replicating functionality available on google is actually a perfectly reasonable thing to do for embedded systems that may not have internet access.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon Jr.
    Anon Jr.:
    Getting someone overqualified is almost as bad as getting someone underqualified. If you are a senior forced to do grunt's job you are going to do it half heartedly and will go away at the earliest opportunity, and you probably don't have the stamina to do the manual labor part that is required. Would you really go and fetch your boss a cup of cofee if you're old enough to be his father?

    The problem is that nearly every ad I've come across, and even those jobs I've found through employment agencies, indicate a desire for someone with 3 - 5 years experience. Does that mean that there are no jobs requiring a higher level of experience? Is every software engineer obsolete after five years?

    In my particular case I am retired but always open to working on a new and interesting project, or for a start-up. And I've got plenty of energy and enthusiasm for the right position. Although I would draw the line at getting coffee for the boss

  • (cs) in reply to Infantile Expectant
    Infantile Expectant:
    I wonder if Roger still has the CEO's e-mail address. I, too, would like to try pissing him off.

    [email protected]

    But you didn't hear it from me.

    And his craigslist posting was back in June, so it's long gone.

  • CreepySpiritualGuy (unregistered) in reply to RogerInHawaii
    RogerInHawaii:
    Infantile Expectant:
    I wonder if Roger still has the CEO's e-mail address. I, too, would like to try pissing him off.

    [email protected]

    But you didn't hear it from me.

    And his craigslist posting was back in June, so it's long gone.

    Ugh!

    http://www.flagforallpeople.com/contactus.html

  • (cs)

    Problem with programming nowadays. Not an art anymore, just a matter of knowing hundreds of APIs and being expected to know the business logic when nobody who actually knows it will spec it properly and they are all far too busy to explain it to the new guy properly, and when they new guy actually suggests improvements he gets yelled down with "don't change anything, you have no idea what you might break".

    Probably why the best programmers run from one job to another disillusioned.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Phill
    Phill:
    It may be an honest mistake but, in my experience, those kind of companies tend to have no documented requirements, awful code, barely implemented source control, and an unpleasant work culture.

    You have no idea how closely you summed up working for that bank

  • tristique (unregistered) in reply to gdjfkghl
    gdjfkghl:
    iToad:
    The Infantile Expectancies CEO is wasting his time in his current position. A big thinker with a total disregard for reality is more suited for politics - or investment banking.

    Do you really think that Steve Jobs must go into politics?

    I'm opposed to mixing politics and religion.

  • Doug (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    That's why you see those signs outside that say 'these premises monitored by cctv' (or some variant). No, you do not get to put up hidden cameras and record people without warning.

  • Paul (unregistered) in reply to RogerInHawaii
    RogerInHawaii:
    The problem is that nearly every ad I've come across, and even those jobs I've found through employment agencies, indicate a desire for someone with 3 - 5 years experience. Does that mean that there are no jobs requiring a higher level of experience? Is every software engineer obsolete after five years?

    Ah, but you're not thinking laterally!

    It doesn't say what you have to have 3-5 years' experience in!

    I have 3-5 years experience in... having a daughter in Junior School, or... playing Eve Online, or... Visual Studio 2005 development

    I have a lot more experience in C++ development or Windows development.

    Also, it doesn't say it needs to be the most recent 3-5 years. So I have 3-5 years' experience in embedded programming, although that was 20 years ago.

    It CAN'T be wanting "3-5 years' experience in everything", as I have much more experience than that in walking, or breathing. Even someone called Kevin will probably have more than 3-5 years' experience of being 'someone like Kevin' before they are of any use to this employer.

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