The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

JayBlanc:
TWTF...
The string of misogynistic, backwards thinking, stuck in the 50's idiots in comments here.

If men could get pregnant too, you bet no one would question maternity leave.

If men could get pregnant, I'm pretty sure we'd be able to handle it rationally and without drama--just like we've handled everything else for thousands of years.

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

The economic ignorance in this thread is staggering. The harder you make it to employ people, and the more costs you pile on employers, the worse your economy will perform. Take the example of Portugal that was raised in the post I'm replying to: its youth unemployment rate AND unemployment rate for women are both more than double the equivalents in the USA. Those who argue for "protecting" women in hiring and firing decisions actually hurt women the most. But why should you care? You can keep on raping women and patting yourself on the back at the same time, and no-one will bother to call you out on it, except me, who can easily be shouted down. I want you to know, however, that there is at least one person who considers you to be the economic equivalent of Creationists, ie. pond scum.

http://imgur.com/ROhwolf

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

s73v3r:

But, because you can't ask, it just means that ALL young women are 'silently' discriminated against - even if they have no intention of having kids, or even can't.
The discrimination may not be as overt as Judith's, but it is there.

The ONLY reason one would ever ask that question is so they can discriminate against the person on the answer. Hence, it is not a legitimate question to ask.

But, isn't the whole point of interviewing to discriminate for or against people?

Because the question is taboo, it means that ALL women aged about 18-35 are discriminated against 'silently'.

So, in fact, this 'anti-discrimination' rule actually leads to even more discrimination. A lot of women have no intention of having (more) children, but if they are of child-bearing age, they are treated with the same wariness as women who are almost constantly pregnant - because you can't ask a simple question.

Which is better, to have an informed discussion about the effects on the business of someone being away for a year, or just to rule young women out totally?

The rules (in the UK) mean that a new mother doesn't have to say whether they are returning to work until just before their maternity leave is up - so that means the employer has to first get someone temporary in (and train them) to cover for the mother, then months later when the mother says they won't be returning to work, they have to get a permanent new employee (and train them). This means that SMEs are often wary of recruiting young women.

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

LSE Economics:
The economic ignorance in this thread is staggering. The harder you make it to employ people, and the more costs you pile on employers, the worse your economy will perform. Take the example of Portugal that was raised in the post I'm replying to: its youth unemployment rate AND unemployment rate for women are both more than double the equivalents in the USA. Those who argue for "protecting" women in hiring and firing decisions actually hurt women the most. But why should you care? You can keep on raping women and patting yourself on the back at the same time, and no-one will bother to call you out on it, except me, who can easily be shouted down. I want you to know, however, that there is at least one person who considers you to be the economic equivalent of Creationists, ie. pond scum.
http://imgur.com/ROhwolf

I'll bet the incarceration rate is way lower than in the US (a safe bet, given this rate is outrageously high in the US), though (and I doubt convicted prisoners are counted as unemployed). Other countries in the vicinity have similar rules and lower unemployment rates (though probably higher than in the US, but refer to the previous point). Additionally, you seem to have missed the fact that the funds for social security (or whatever it's called) come from employees as well.

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

Anonymous Will:
LSE Economics:
The economic ignorance in this thread is staggering. The harder you make it to employ people, and the more costs you pile on employers, the worse your economy will perform. Take the example of Portugal that was raised in the post I'm replying to: its youth unemployment rate AND unemployment rate for women are both more than double the equivalents in the USA. Those who argue for "protecting" women in hiring and firing decisions actually hurt women the most. But why should you care? You can keep on raping women and patting yourself on the back at the same time, and no-one will bother to call you out on it, except me, who can easily be shouted down. I want you to know, however, that there is at least one person who considers you to be the economic equivalent of Creationists, ie. pond scum.
http://imgur.com/ROhwolf

I'll bet the incarceration rate is way lower than in the US (a safe bet, given this rate is outrageously high in the US), though (and I doubt convicted prisoners are counted as unemployed). Other countries in the vicinity have similar rules and lower unemployment rates (though probably higher than in the US, but refer to the previous point). Additionally, you seem to have missed the fact that the funds for social security (or whatever it's called) come from employees as well.

In the US, almost all of our prisoners are male.

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

... is unsure how many posts on this thread are trolls, and how many are legit misogynists.

Anyway, the question about privacy for pumping: if the company is too small to afford a room set aside for the purpose, they can probably at least give up a conference room for part of the day. Too small for that? Let the lady in question work from home (if possible).

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

STFU, it was an enjoyable story, and you don't speak for all of us, you arrogant little worm.

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

foo AKA fooo:
Dang:
You must be thinking handling utf-8 variable-width characters, which is a nightmare! utf-16 is fixed-with.
Nope. UTF-32 is fixed width (and UCS-2 if you must). Welcome to the new millennium.

"new millenium"? Welcome to 1996, which is when Unicode 2.0 was produced with it's surrogate characters and such.

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

You are all the literal worst.

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

Maternity Leave; Paternity Leave

19 October, 12th year [1430 A.D.] The King said to his Secretaries: "In the past, when a government servant gave birth, she was expected to return to service seven days later. This provision was made out of concern for the fact that harm might come to the baby if she returned leaving the child behind her, and so this period of leave was later increased to a hundred days. However, there have been instances of women whose time was near, and who gave birth before reaching home. I therefore suggest that one month of full leave be granted prior to giving birth. Please amend the relevant laws."

26 April, 16 year [1434 A.D.] Dispatched to the Ministry of Justice: "It has been enacted that a female servant, who is due to give birth in a month's time or has given birth within the past hundred days, shall not be required for government service. Since no leave has been granted to the husbands of such women, however, they have not been able to provide assistance to their wives in childbirth, and because of this some women have even lost their lives, which is most pitiful. From this day forward, a husband is not required to return to service for thirty days after his wife has given birth."

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

Sorry, the comment above is from the records of King Sejong the Great (May 15, 1397 – April 8, 1450, r. 1418–1450) of Korea.

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

QJo:
If the profit margin on your employees is so tight that a few thousand a year is the difference between profit and loss, your business is in trouble and you're better off without that person (and in fact should never have employed them in the first place).

The whole point of this thread was that you are not allowed, by law, to decide that "you're better off without that person... and should never have employed them in the first place".

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

ObiWayneKenobi:
Of course HR is just as likely to say who cares unless it can be proven which is nearly impossible. But yeah what a maroon Judith must be to blatantly discriminate.

Proof would be quite easy. There was a witness present.

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

funjon:
#include <stdio.h> #include <limits.h>
void refoveo() { unsigned long long val = ULLONG_MAX; while (val) { printf("%llu\n",val--); } }

int main (int argc, const char* argv[]) { refoveo(); return 0; }

Sadly, the only thing I had to look up was ULLONG_MAX because I'd forgotten which macro that was.

People really can't do this? Wuh?

(CAPTCHA: refoveo)

Talk about overly complicated.

void main( void ) { unsigned int val = 0; do { printf( "%ul ", --val ); } while ( val ); printf( "\nDone.\n" ); }

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

lurking woman:
... is unsure how many posts on this thread are trolls, and how many are legit misogynists.

I don't hate women. I do recognize that men and women are different, despite what liars insist. I also wonder why our laws are written to insure that on average, a woman will be a more expensive hire than a man -- since that almost guarantees discrimination.

chubertdev · 2014-05-07 Reply Admin

Haxy:
Jack:
s73v3r:
What the hell is there to learn about? How is that situation any different than someone accepting the job, and then before they start, call you up and say they've accepted a better job? That happens all the time.
I had that happen to me once! Now, I make it a point never to offer a job to someone who could possibly get hired elsewhere.

...like, the best candidates?

That would be the joke, yes. WHOOSH!

chubertdev · 2014-05-07 Reply Admin

RandomDude:
So, in these countries, when you get sick, unemployed or you will give birth, the state will pay you the benefits from these funds while you are on your leave. Your company should plan anyway so that anyone missing from a team shouldn't be a show stopper for a project so from this perspective maternity leave shouldn't be an issue. A women getting pregnant is no different the someone getting sick or missing work for some other reasons. Also, in most of these countries part of the so-called maternity leave can be allocated to either the man or the woman in the couple.

Yeah, I remember after my wedding, friends and family were asking us if we were going to contract pneumonia right away, or if we were going to wait.

chubertdev · 2014-05-07 Reply Admin

Herr Otto Flick:
I'm sure it is, but one doesn't tend to get kicked in the balls for hour after hour, it tends to be a one off event.
Or at least, it is for me, you might get your kicks in a different way.

Your German name betrays you.

chubertdev · 2014-05-07 Reply Admin

LSE Economics:
The economic ignorance in this thread is staggering. The harder you make it to employ people, and the more costs you pile on employers, the worse your economy will perform. Take the example of Portugal that was raised in the post I'm replying to: its youth unemployment rate AND unemployment rate for women are both more than double the equivalents in the USA. Those who argue for "protecting" women in hiring and firing decisions actually hurt women the most. But why should you care? You can keep on raping women and patting yourself on the back at the same time, and no-one will bother to call you out on it, except me, who can easily be shouted down. I want you to know, however, that there is at least one person who considers you to be the economic equivalent of Creationists, ie. pond scum.
http://imgur.com/ROhwolf

Yeah, it's really the production of goods and how cheaply it can be done that drives an economy, so if you raise the cost, the economy does suffer.

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

Chelloveck:
It'd be nice to think that, wouldn't it? But unfortunately I've been that interviewer many times, doing the campus career fair circuit. The only restriction I put on it is that you can't call a pre-defined library function like "reverse_string()". There are CS and CE seniors and graduates from respectable universities who can't handle it. Some days I just want to say, "Pick your favorite language. Write 'hello, world'." Just to see how many of them would fail it.

The next level would be handling UTF-8 correctly on a code point-for-codepoint basis, and then comes handling Unicode _characters_ correctly (you don't want letter followed by modifier to be reversed to modifier followed by letter).

Pawprint · 2014-05-07 Reply Admin

Dang:
Dude:
agbeladem:
new StringBuilder(string).reverse().toString();
Define "quick"

Oddly enough, StringBuilder also uses an array internally. Calling reverse on it does an in-place array reversal with some logic to handle multibyte utf-16.

You must be thinking handling utf-8 variable-width characters, which is a nightmare! utf-16 is fixed-with.

The problem with Dude's quote is the word "multibyte." UTF-16 is always multibyte; that's what the 16 tells you. What he should have said was "surrogate pairs."

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

I had the misfortune to work with someone like this. He'd been working for the company for 12years as a data programmer/web developer but had zero comprehension of even the most rudimentary basics. It still baffles me how he lasted as long as he did, guess he was a master of flying under the radar?

Management eventually started getting suspect about his skills and asked me to help train him (and evaluate whether they should continue his employment). He had zero comprehension of OOP, the concept of a "class" was completely foreign, he'd never heard of design patterns, didn't use exception handling or input validation at all, there was zero code documentation, didn't use version control and everytime you would ask for a progress update he'd respond with "Yeah good good. 90% there, nearly done." even if he hadn't actually started. I was unlucky enough to inherit his code when he left the company and it was all copy+paste jobs from random sites he googled...complete with original method names and comments ie:

public void Tutorial03_Lesson1 { // This tutorial shows how to Foo }

Last I heard he was rocking up to job interviews claiming to be a senior web developer...Judith sounds like the exact sort of person that'd be liable to hire him and give him another decade of gainful employment being utterly incompetent :/

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

QJo:
If the profit margin on your employees is so tight that a few thousand a year is the difference between profit and loss, your business is in trouble

Yes.

QJo:
and you're better off without that person (and in fact should never have employed them in the first place).

No. (Well, sure that is a possibility, depending on characteristics of the person and the company, but it doesn't automatically follow from the economic condition of the company. The company does need someone to answer the phone from customers, debug programs, etc.)

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

Evan:
foo AKA fooo:
Dang:
You must be thinking handling utf-8 variable-width characters, which is a nightmare! utf-16 is fixed-with.
Nope. UTF-32 is fixed width (and UCS-2 if you must). Welcome to the new millennium.
"new millenium"? Welcome to 1996, which is when Unicode 2.0 was produced with it's surrogate characters and such.

Some of those surrogate characters should mind the baby so mom can return to work.

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

reverse string?

select reverse('weeeeeeeeeeeeee')

I win!

chubertdev · 2014-05-07 Reply Admin

Barf 4Eva:
reverse string?
select reverse('weeeeeeeeeeeeee')

I win!

not enough database calls

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

faoileag:
Asked as it is (without some restriction), even a complete dummy should be able to produce some pseudo code.

Believe me, there are plenty of "experienced professionals"^H^H^H dummies out there who would fail at this...

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

I'm just relieved that, in the comments section on a tech website, 1) more than one person pointed out the misogyny 2) they aren't getting piled on for it 3) at least a few people even seem to be satirizing the trolls.

That's a pretty low standard, just for the record.

Though I have no doubts that a couple of people here legitimately believe the things they're saying.

2014-05-07 Reply Admin

Pawprint:
Dang:
Dude:
Calling reverse on it does an in-place array reversal with some logic to handle multibyte utf-16.
You must be thinking handling utf-8 variable-width characters, which is a nightmare! utf-16 is fixed-with.
The problem with Dude's quote is the word "multibyte." UTF-16 is always multibyte; that's what the 16 tells you. What he should have said was "surrogate pairs."

That depends on what you mean by "multibyte."

For example, C has "multibyte" string functions, e.g. mblen, which are not for UTF-16/UCS-2/UTF-32; strings in those encodings are "wide character" strings and you use a different set of functions for them, e.g. wcslen. In the jargon of this specific area, wide-character strings are not "multibyte" strings.

2014-05-08 Reply Admin

Calli Arcale:
In the US, taking 6-12 months off is generally career suicide.

Could you (or anyone else) explain that? (Yes, obviously I'm not American.)

Why would not working for half a year kill someone's career? Why would such a person be seen as no longer able to do useful work?

2014-05-08 Reply Admin

Marcel:
QJo:
If the profit margin on your employees is so tight that a few thousand a year is the difference between profit and loss, your business is in trouble and you're better off without that person (and in fact should never have employed them in the first place).

The whole point of this thread was that you are not allowed, by law, to decide that "you're better off without that person... and should never have employed them in the first place".

I beg your pardon? I start a business. I say to myself: I can either work very hard myself, and earn a healthy profit for me and my business, or I can take it easier, by employing someone else to take on some of the duties. The latter is a decision not to be taken lightly. I can pay them a pittance and grant them no benefits, thereby increasing the profit margin. Or I can provide them a humane package which allows considerable sick leave, vacation days and childbirth benefits. If the latter package is unaffordable, or it will eat into my profit margin too much, then I am afraid my business model is insufficiently viable to allow me to employ that person.

What you are suggesting is that I do not have the choice as to whether to employ someone else or not -- I am required by law to employ other people in my business whether I can afford to or not? That sounds wrong to me.

2014-05-08 Reply Admin

Evan:
foo AKA fooo:
Dang:
You must be thinking handling utf-8 variable-width characters, which is a nightmare! utf-16 is fixed-with.
Nope. UTF-32 is fixed width (and UCS-2 if you must). Welcome to the new millennium.
"new millenium"? Welcome to 1996, which is when Unicode 2.0 was produced with it's surrogate characters and such.

Actually I considered this but figured it wasn't worth nitpicking since 1996 or 2000 or 2001 doesn't really make a difference in this context. It's ancient either way and "Welcome to the new millennium." just sounds more condescending than "Welcome to the years 1996 and later." :)

2014-05-08 Reply Admin

gnasher729:
Chelloveck:
It'd be nice to think that, wouldn't it? But unfortunately I've been that interviewer many times, doing the campus career fair circuit. The only restriction I put on it is that you can't call a pre-defined library function like "reverse_string()". There are CS and CE seniors and graduates from respectable universities who can't handle it. Some days I just want to say, "Pick your favorite language. Write 'hello, world'." Just to see how many of them would fail it.
The next level would be handling UTF-8 correctly on a code point-for-codepoint basis, and then comes handling Unicode _characters_ correctly (you don't want letter followed by modifier to be reversed to modifier followed by letter).

At which point any answer but "use the library" would be an automatic fail, right?

2014-05-08 Reply Admin

foo AKA fooo:
At which point any answer but "use the library" would be an automatic fail, right?

1. Find me a library that does this. 2. How do you hire someone to write that kind of library?

2014-05-08 Reply Admin

In the US, taking 6-12 months off is generally career suicide.

That just seems insane: here in Finland, many of my 30-something male colleagues are taking 3-12 months off for parental leave ( with about 60% of normal pay ) - not taking even a few weeks of to be with your baby is considered as being a bad father. Discrimination against young women takes place like everywhere else, but no-one would consider it weird for a mother to take time off after a child.

2014-05-08 Reply Admin

zbxvc:
Calli Arcale:
In the US, taking 6-12 months off is generally career suicide.

Could you (or anyone else) explain that? (Yes, obviously I'm not American.)

Why would not working for half a year kill someone's career? Why would such a person be seen as no longer able to do useful work?

Everywhere I've worked (in the US) they pile on between 3 to 10 times as much work as it is humanly possible to do, then expect you to work evenings and weekends and still fail. Since everyone is carrying a similar load, if even one person goes missing for a few days the entire organization feels a disturbance in the force as projects go from hopelessly late to never gonna happen.

Now, if you're looking to hire someone and you see they've taken a large chunk of time off in the past, that suggests they may be susceptible to such defective behavior again in the future. Who the hell would want to take a horrendous risk like that? Thus, such a record ensures you never get hired again. Lesson learned: stay on the treadmill until you die, sucker.

2014-05-08 Reply Admin

zbxvc:
Calli Arcale:
In the US, taking 6-12 months off is generally career suicide.

Could you (or anyone else) explain that? (Yes, obviously I'm not American.)

Why would not working for half a year kill someone's career? Why would such a person be seen as no longer able to do useful work?

Because if the company can do without you for 6 months, it can do without you pretty much indefinitely. Either they hire and train someone to fill your shoes while you're gone, or everyone else helps share the load; either way, they'll see no advantage in bringing you back unless you were really good at your job.

chubertdev · 2014-05-08 Reply Admin

Ted:
zbxvc:
Calli Arcale:
In the US, taking 6-12 months off is generally career suicide.

Could you (or anyone else) explain that? (Yes, obviously I'm not American.)

Why would not working for half a year kill someone's career? Why would such a person be seen as no longer able to do useful work?
Everywhere I've worked (in the US) they pile on between 3 to 10 times as much work as it is humanly possible to do, then expect you to work evenings and weekends and still fail. Since everyone is carrying a similar load, if even one person goes missing for a few days the entire organization feels a disturbance in the force as projects go from hopelessly late to never gonna happen.

Now, if you're looking to hire someone and you see they've taken a large chunk of time off in the past, that suggests they may be susceptible to such defective behavior again in the future. Who the hell would want to take a horrendous risk like that? Thus, such a record ensures you never get hired again. Lesson learned: stay on the treadmill until you die, sucker.

I think that says more about you. You're definitely working for the wrong companies.

2014-05-08 Reply Admin

F:
Kabi:
...
Such easy questions are needed because dummies can't answer them. In fact, they should be asked because around 90% of CompSci graduates are not able to answer them. There are enough blog posts in the web that state the same. Just search for "Fizzbuzz" or "Why can't programmers program".

Fizzbuzz? I thought it was Buzzfizz.

Damn, that must be why ...

Its FizzBizz. No need to be cruel and make them say a tongue twister.

2014-05-08 Reply Admin

Ted:
Everywhere I've worked (in the US) they pile on between 3 to 10 times as much work as it is humanly possible to do, then expect you to work evenings and weekends and still fail.

You need to hold out for better jobs. I've been in this industry 25 years and I've never seen that. NEVER.

2014-05-08 Reply Admin

gnasher729:
foo AKA fooo:
At which point any answer but "use the library" would be an automatic fail, right?
1. Find me a library that does this. 2. How do you hire someone to write that kind of library?

OK, maybe there isn't a library function that does it all in once. I've never one (when do you actually need to reverse strings outside of job interviews?). But a character-boundary iterator should do the hard part, the rest is trivial two's complimenting of the least significant byte etc. ;)

2014-05-09 Reply Admin

anonymous:
zbxvc:
Calli Arcale:
In the US, taking 6-12 months off is generally career suicide.

Could you (or anyone else) explain that? (Yes, obviously I'm not American.)

Why would not working for half a year kill someone's career? Why would such a person be seen as no longer able to do useful work?
Because if the company can do without you for 6 months, it can do without you pretty much indefinitely. Either they hire and train someone to fill your shoes while you're gone, or everyone else helps share the load; either way, they'll see no advantage in bringing you back unless you were really good at your job.

Well, yes, I can see that this particular company may not be interested in having me back, I suppose that depends on how good the replacement is comparing to me. But, that's only (perhaps) killing my career at that particular company and I don't think that's US-specific.

What I don't understand is what is special about US that other companies wouldn't want to hire me just because I took a long vacation (child care or otherwise), of course assuming that it was not a sudden surprise to my former employer. I mean, what is so different about it than simply changing jobs for whatever reason?

I do prefer to believe that Ted was trolling in his answer to my question ;) I wouldn't want to work for a company like he described anyway so if he wasn't trolling I'm glad I don't live there.

2014-05-09 Reply Admin

zbxvc:
anonymous:
zbxvc:
Calli Arcale:
In the US, taking 6-12 months off is generally career suicide.

Could you (or anyone else) explain that? (Yes, obviously I'm not American.)

Why would not working for half a year kill someone's career? Why would such a person be seen as no longer able to do useful work?
Because if the company can do without you for 6 months, it can do without you pretty much indefinitely. Either they hire and train someone to fill your shoes while you're gone, or everyone else helps share the load; either way, they'll see no advantage in bringing you back unless you were really good at your job.

Well, yes, I can see that this particular company may not be interested in having me back, I suppose that depends on how good the replacement is comparing to me. But, that's only (perhaps) killing my career at that particular company and I don't think that's US-specific.

What I don't understand is what is special about US that other companies wouldn't want to hire me just because I took a long vacation (child care or otherwise), of course assuming that it was not a sudden surprise to my former employer. I mean, what is so different about it than simply changing jobs for whatever reason?

I do prefer to believe that Ted was trolling in his answer to my question ;) I wouldn't want to work for a company like he described anyway so if he wasn't trolling I'm glad I don't live there.

A gap in employment means you're a liability. Changing jobs too often makes you appear as a liability. This is how employment in America works; the most poisonous thing on a resume is an employment gap.

2014-05-09 Reply Admin

Anonymous Coward:
zbxvc:
anonymous:
zbxvc:
Calli Arcale:
In the US, taking 6-12 months off is generally career suicide.

Could you (or anyone else) explain that? (Yes, obviously I'm not American.)

Why would not working for half a year kill someone's career? Why would such a person be seen as no longer able to do useful work?
Because if the company can do without you for 6 months, it can do without you pretty much indefinitely. Either they hire and train someone to fill your shoes while you're gone, or everyone else helps share the load; either way, they'll see no advantage in bringing you back unless you were really good at your job.

Well, yes, I can see that this particular company may not be interested in having me back, I suppose that depends on how good the replacement is comparing to me. But, that's only (perhaps) killing my career at that particular company and I don't think that's US-specific.

What I don't understand is what is special about US that other companies wouldn't want to hire me just because I took a long vacation (child care or otherwise), of course assuming that it was not a sudden surprise to my former employer. I mean, what is so different about it than simply changing jobs for whatever reason?

I do prefer to believe that Ted was trolling in his answer to my question ;) I wouldn't want to work for a company like he described anyway so if he wasn't trolling I'm glad I don't live there.

A gap in employment means you're a liability. Changing jobs too often makes you appear as a liability. This is how employment in America works; the most poisonous thing on a resume is an employment gap.

Too bad that "liability" is one of these terms I've never actually really understood. So this explanation - for me - is like "it is not good because it is not good". That's not your fault of course; thanks for trying to explain this!

Maybe there's a cultural difference of some sort involved that makes it hard for me to understand what it really is about with this employment gap problem? Oh well.

2014-05-09 Reply Admin

Fear not, they get paid less (on average). Due to no discrimination.

2014-05-09 Reply Admin

zbxvc:
Anonymous Coward:
zbxvc:
anonymous:
zbxvc:
Calli Arcale:
In the US, taking 6-12 months off is generally career suicide.

Could you (or anyone else) explain that? (Yes, obviously I'm not American.)

Why would not working for half a year kill someone's career? Why would such a person be seen as no longer able to do useful work?
Because if the company can do without you for 6 months, it can do without you pretty much indefinitely. Either they hire and train someone to fill your shoes while you're gone, or everyone else helps share the load; either way, they'll see no advantage in bringing you back unless you were really good at your job.

Well, yes, I can see that this particular company may not be interested in having me back, I suppose that depends on how good the replacement is comparing to me. But, that's only (perhaps) killing my career at that particular company and I don't think that's US-specific.

What I don't understand is what is special about US that other companies wouldn't want to hire me just because I took a long vacation (child care or otherwise), of course assuming that it was not a sudden surprise to my former employer. I mean, what is so different about it than simply changing jobs for whatever reason?

I do prefer to believe that Ted was trolling in his answer to my question ;) I wouldn't want to work for a company like he described anyway so if he wasn't trolling I'm glad I don't live there.

A gap in employment means you're a liability. Changing jobs too often makes you appear as a liability. This is how employment in America works; the most poisonous thing on a resume is an employment gap.

Too bad that "liability" is one of these terms I've never actually really understood. So this explanation - for me - is like "it is not good because it is not good". That's not your fault of course; thanks for trying to explain this!

Maybe there's a cultural difference of some sort involved that makes it hard for me to understand what it really is about with this employment gap problem? Oh well.

Sorry, let me try to explain it a little better. In the US, taking time off or going on vacation is seen as a weakness, and showing that you're not fully committed to working for Company A. US workers not only have a low average of vacation days per year, but studies have shown that only roughly half of those few vacation days are even used. Note that for many American workers, we have to use vacation days as our pool of sick days too. This also applies to gaps in work history; taking time off between jobs is also seen as a lack of commitment to your employer, and future employers see that as a lack of potential commitment. A lot of job swapping in a short time span on your resume might also make you look like you you won't be a more permanent asset, especially if your employer has to train you (US employers expect to provide as little training as possible). To put it crudely, a lot of employers in a short period of time makes you look like a slut to potential employers, and makes them hesitant to enter a work relationship with you.

2014-05-09 Reply Admin

zbxvc:
Anonymous Coward:
zbxvc:
Well, yes, I can see that this particular company may not be interested in having me back, I suppose that depends on how good the replacement is comparing to me. But, that's only (perhaps) killing my career at that particular company and I don't think that's US-specific.
What I don't understand is what is special about US that other companies wouldn't want to hire me just because I took a long vacation (child care or otherwise), of course assuming that it was not a sudden surprise to my former employer. I mean, what is so different about it than simply changing jobs for whatever reason?

I do prefer to believe that Ted was trolling in his answer to my question ;) I wouldn't want to work for a company like he described anyway so if he wasn't trolling I'm glad I don't live there.

A gap in employment means you're a liability. Changing jobs too often makes you appear as a liability. This is how employment in America works; the most poisonous thing on a resume is an employment gap.

Too bad that "liability" is one of these terms I've never actually really understood. So this explanation - for me - is like "it is not good because it is not good". That's not your fault of course; thanks for trying to explain this!

Maybe there's a cultural difference of some sort involved that makes it hard for me to understand what it really is about with this employment gap problem? Oh well.

If you understand why the first company would prefer to just cut ties and let you go, then it's for exactly the same reason that other companies will esteem you at a higher risk to hire - they don't want to hire you and then have you do the same thing to them.

2014-05-09 Reply Admin

anonymous:
If you understand why the first company would prefer to just cut ties and let you go, then it's for exactly the same reason that other companies will esteem you at a higher risk to hire - they don't want to hire you and then have you do the same thing to them.

I don't think that's quite true, or maybe I just don't want to think it's true as I might like to take a few months off every few years (in a less-directed sabbatical-style). :-)

The convincing-to-me part of the argument about the first company is that they need someone to take your place during an extended absence, but then at the point you want to return, that place is taken unless they fire the person who was just hired. But by definition, other companies that are looking for hires have places that aren't taken.

Provided that you worked out the break with your employer instead of just surprising them (preferably being flexible with dates, though obviously that doesn't help much in the case of paternity/maternity leave) and provided you're not taking long breaks more often than every few years, I don't see why even the first company wouldn't be willing to re-hire you if and when they have another opening. It's not like a lot of people don't already change jobs every few years anyway. In fact, if you are interested in returning to the same employer after your break I'd say you're almost less risk of heading out in a couple years than a new, unknown hire.

2014-05-09 Reply Admin

Evan:
anonymous:
If you understand why the first company would prefer to just cut ties and let you go, then it's for exactly the same reason that other companies will esteem you at a higher risk to hire - they don't want to hire you and then have you do the same thing to them.
I don't think that's quite true, or maybe I just don't want to think it's true as I might like to take a few months off every few years (in a less-directed sabbatical-style). :-)
The convincing-to-me part of the argument about the first company is that they need someone to take your place during an extended absence, but then at the point you want to return, that place is taken unless they fire the person who was just hired. But by definition, other companies that are looking for hires have places that aren't taken.

Provided that you worked out the break with your employer instead of just surprising them (preferably being flexible with dates, though obviously that doesn't help much in the case of paternity/maternity leave) and provided you're not taking long breaks more often than every few years, I don't see why even the first company wouldn't be willing to re-hire you if and when they have another opening. It's not like a lot of people don't already change jobs every few years anyway. In fact, if you are interested in returning to the same employer after your break I'd say you're almost less risk of heading out in a couple years than a new, unknown hire.

It's still not in the best interests of your employer to have someone who's trained and familiar with their job to leave, even if you worked it out beforehand and gave them plenty of time to train someone else to replace you.

2014-05-09 Reply Admin

anonymous:
It's still not in the best interests of your employer to have someone who's trained and familiar with their job to leave, even if you worked it out beforehand and gave them plenty of time to train someone else to replace you.

First, that's why I said that if your company could hire you back you're still potentially less risk than an unknown hire. Second, even if that's not true, it doesn't explain why taking a break would look any worse than moving to a different company. The original statement was that a long break looks really bad ("In the US, taking 6-12 months off is generally career suicide"). How often do you see someone say "in the US, changing jobs is generally career suicide"?

The risk to your employer seems the same in both cases. Why would one look at least acceptable and the other suicidal?

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