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Admin
Oh man, this sounds even better than a government job!
Are they hiring?
Admin
The real WTF is that they needed a VB developer, right?
CAPTCHA: persto. He was very persto in his efforts.
Admin
lucky b*stard.
Admin
Change Sally to Buzz and 11 months to 3 months and you have my first job. "We're still working on getting you into that position - it should be any day now"
I was paid $45,000 a year to write a few Excel macros and do busy work. Not a bad gig at all.
Admin
IBM?
Admin
Hey, don't be holding out on us -- publish the name of this company and we'll all start "not working" there! It would be like getting paid to not grow corn!
I wouldn't be watching TV, I'd be playing video games or playing fetch with the dog.
Admin
This is no WTF it is heaven on earth. Oooo wait I found the WTF it is Jerry Springer.
Admin
Internationally based? is that even possible?
Admin
Are they big yet agile?
Admin
Hell, after three months, I'd probably have started looking for a real job. Or at least some variety of technical training to stay on top of things.
Admin
Want to trade jobs? I come in early, leave late, have way too much to do all the time. I could do with a year or two paid vacation. Give me time to catch up on all the nothing I've been meaning to do.
Admin
Sounds like my job when I joined a consultancy (though I was only on the bench for 3 months) They even flew me to Germany for a two week long induction and mucho drinking of German beer
I'm a C# developer and when they finally got round to getting me a job it was managing some HR users doing the UAT on their new ERP system - not exactly the sort of stuff I was expecting. I managed to last almost 18 months in the company before finally quitting for something better.
Admin
Wow, I wish I knew what company it was.
Admin
Damn, are these people hiring?
Admin
Admin
Seriously... where can I apply for this job?? It's a dream!
Admin
Yeah, I'd've been picking up freelance work on the side.
Though, question of course was just how much she was getting paid to sit on the bench.
CAPTCHA: wisi. Like wiki but for wusses.
Admin
"But this time, she’s spending her bench time brushing up on her job interviewing skills." this is TRWTF
Admin
Sounds like IBM: "Indian Business Machines"
Admin
As nice as this would sound, fresh out of school I think I'd prefer to get some real experience under my belt, so that at the next job, this wasn't what happened:
"So, what did you do at your last job?" "I sat around doing nothing for a year waiting to be assigned somewhere."
Now that I have work experience, I would gladly accept a job where I do nothing for a year.
Admin
Hey Sally? If you're really interested in switching jobs, feel free to recommend me as a replacement.
Admin
Agreed, that's the perfect job - a steady pay check and benefits without having to do anything at all. What the hell is wrong with her?
Admin
After 3 months I would have started contracting my time out to someone else while keeping this job. I'd just do the "duties" for this one at night.
Admin
I had that experience for a day and a half ... when I arrived at the client's site they didn't expect me for another month, and the contract wasn't in place between the client and the consulting house ... so I go home, being paid by the hour, while they sort out the contract... I felt very guilty about that for a little while ... since it wasn't what I expected I should do as a "consultant" ... hmmmmm...
Admin
First of all, who in their right mind could stand to sit around all day and do nothing.
Second, since when does a Project Manager get a story on TDWTF? I thought this was a coding site.
Admin
Admin
TRWTF is why she didn't get another job at the same time
Admin
You know, getting paid to do nothing isn't that rewarding (except in the financial sense). I could do it for a year though, if I got to stay at home.
Admin
For all those wondering who this firm is, I guessed almost immediately.
But, I didn't have to! It's actually in the article. Check out what Sally read while loitering in Starbucks.
Admin
Gentlemen, please! This poor girl is STRAIGHT OUT OF COLLEGE. All she knows is that she's been "employed" doing nothing for a year, and that odds are that at some point, she will need to get a real job. That she is to scared to take advantage of the situation should hardly be a surprise.
My advice would be to find some worthy charity (or charities), and start doing PM for THEM. She can balance being paid for not working by working without being paid. She gets job experience, and everyone loves her.
Admin
Admin
Wow... This is so better than structured procrastination. I want to do this "not working at home" thing too!
Admin
Wow. This sounds like a job I had. I got a call from an IT staffing company, saying they needed a guy for 2 months to fill a vacated spot. I asked them what I would be doing, and they said "Basic installs of new desktop computers". O.K. Simple enough.
Flash forward 2 weeks. I am now a pro at "Neverball, as well as "Neverputt". There was another technician there. He had been working on site for over a year. I asked him once if it had always been this way. He said no. Before, he had his own office while doing nothing. When I got there, we shared an office with 2 of the companies computer techs. Yes. They had technicians. 10 of them. We were unneeded, but they had a contract with the staffing agency that they would have 2 people on the books from the agency.
Easiest. Job. Ever.
Admin
Sounds about right. And they are hiring. But only a few percent of people are as lucky as Sally.
Admin
I wonder how you'd get fired from a job like that?
Admin
If you ever are in the same position, then do not despair. Install Ubuntu and start contributing your time to Open Source, Wikipedia and charity work. You get work experience, you don't get too rusty, the world gets a bit more good contributions to knowledge and there is no downside to this. Also this allows you learn new technologies that you can add to your CV, which will make you less likely to get the boot after a year of them not being able to sell you.
I am in a similar position right now as well.
Even in this job market there is a need to hold a few people on the bench, but the key is to not get too stressed about it and use your time for a productive rest so that you can be as effective as possible when a project does come around.
Admin
This sounds like the current contract I'm working on at a big bank, been here 5 months and have only been assigned 1 bug so far that took me 2 hours to fix.
Asked for work repeatedly but due to team and company politics the staff are too busy stabbing each other in the back to worry about doing work.
Unfortunately I get paid per hour so have to sit here for 9 hours a day. I've been using the time to learn python and brush up on various java frameworks/libraries though.
Problem (if you can call it that) is I can't leave at the moment because the hourly rate is too good!
Admin
She should have spent that time working on an open source project.
Admin
Admin
... are you people so much in hate of your own profession, that you would actually jump straight to the chance of actually doing "nothing" for a job? Such a dissapointment...
CAPTCHA: tristique ... Alas, exactly my feelings right now for the future of my beloved professsion...
Admin
Am I to believe this kind of position exists in this economic climate? TRWTF is no one is skeptical of this story. Can I borrow five dollars till tuesday?
Admin
This sounds so awful. Sally is welcome to help me with my dissertation.
I'd love to look into working for them.
Admin
I love my job. That wouldn't stop me from taking a job that would have me doing nothing, so I could keep this job as well as have that one.
Admin
TRWTF is that I didn't find this job first. Lucky SOB!
Admin
In this day and age, when a slow sales DAY causes a company to lay off 25% of its staff, I find it hard to believe they'd keep paying someone for a year to do nothing. More and more I think these articles are the result of someone's fertile imagination (y'know, like the letters to Penthouse).
Admin
Sounds like perfect training for a PM. Get paid to do nothing now, get paid shitloads to do nothing latter after a few years on the job.
Admin
Yes, at the client's expense. It's not like they're paying top dollar for experts or anything.
Admin
GB2 4chan
Admin
During college, I had a co-op job assignment that was sort of a nightmarish version of that; I had nothing to do, but lacked the benefits of doing it from home. It was a government position that required a certain level of clearance (that I didn't have upon arrival), so instead of being escorted around my manager's work area, I was shipped off to to a low-clearance/low-activiy area.
5 weeks into my 12 week assignment, I received a computer (with pretty much just MS Office installed and no network connection); 8 weeks in, I received the soil samples I was to analyze; and 11-1/2 weeks in, I finally received the analyzing device. Other than that, I was stuck in a mostly abandoned building with nothing to do but read the dusty annual reports left around.
I was young and naive, and I, too, felt guilty being idle with my time on the clock. Aside from the guilty-feelings, though, I learned just how dreadful it is to be professionally idle like that.
Some time later, I worked with a guy who would -- literally -- hide from his boss when work assignments were coming up (there was this shed full of abandoned equipment that he was known to frequent when things started to look busy), and I could never understand putting so much effort into avoiding work. Sure, there were tasks I'd just as soon not do, but the prospect of having nothing to do just seems so much worse.
On the plus side of my experience, though, my fellow students were pretty impressed with my mad Excel skillz the following semester.
Admin
I would be on my toes as well, preparing for future job interviews. I would live as they figured I'm useless any day now. It could stress a bit.