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Admin
I love that: Do you want the job? No? Too bad we were going to reject you after you said yes anyways.
Admin
The first guy would have made a fantastic Unix admin.
Admin
Sounds like the poor guy from the first anecdote needs some counseling.
For the second one, the real WTF is how he managed to get to the interview having a completely wrong address...
Admin
Fist! How could I expect that?
Admin
If there's another name change in the future, it's definitely to howcanyouexpectthis.com
Admin
Tricking people into having to code in CF? That's so cruel...
Admin
Oh $50.000 a year? Oh yeah, from the job ad. Actually, we just say that to attract people; we only give you $15.000 per year.
Admin
Coming to an interview for a PHP coding position, only to be told 'we only code in ColdFusion' is the equivalent of buying a Transformer toy for your kid, only to find out that one of those crappy Go-Bots is inside the package.
Admin
reminds me of a job interview I went to several years back. They were advertising for a .NET position.
Interviewer: So why do you want this job? Me: Well I've been learning .NET over recent years and would really like to start using it in a commercial environment. Interviewer: Actually we don't use .NET here, we use MFC. We might move to .NET in the future, but don't count on it. Me: Oh. Interviewer: So why do you want this job? Me: Ummm....
Admin
That first guy shows some serious signs of autism (or ADHD, can't remember which is which), who usually lacks the ability to think in hypothetical terms.
Could possibly be a good problem solver as long as the task are very hands on and people skills are optional :)
Admin
Been there. The ad said that you could earn 30k as a programmer. But it turned out you had to be promoted to department head to actually get that.
Admin
People with OCD are handy to have around if you need new standards implemented or enforced. They also seem to really like cleaning up old code. Of course that all depends on the severity of their OCD.
In any case, making fun of a mentally handicapped person (yes, severe OCD is considered a mental handicap) is pretty pathetic. What's next on TDWTF, making fun of a person in a wheelchair because he couldn't drive into the interview room ?
Admin
I have had interview like the second example... a head hunter sent me to a place that did ASP despite me having no experience in that area. And after having me fill out a form stating all the areas I did, or did not, have job experience...
Eric
Admin
I think I'd actually make fun of someone for driving into the interview room for not having the foresight to park first.
Admin
The first guy was almost certainly a high functioning autistic. (My son is autistic, let's just say I have more than a passing familiarity with the behaviors...)
Admin
OCD - the write-up did not make fun of OCD, just made a comment giving his guess as to why the applicant was acting that way.
PHP vs CF - I once had a headhunter who sent me to numerous interviews that I was either less than qualified for, or had explicitly stated was a position I was not interested in. I later found out that employment agency used the carpet bombing method to get an applicant hired - they would send 10-12 folks to be interviewed, regardless of the qualifications, until the employer finally gave in and hired one. (At the time I was young and stupid, so it took a while for me to find another agency. At least now I am not so young.)
Oh, yeah, and the company with the position I had told the agency to not send me to? They had a gas leak and blew up one night a few months after I interviewed. Nobody was hurt, but the business was shut down for months...
Admin
Did you want to read this post? No? Well, we've found someone else to read it anyway.
Admin
Admin
Jesum crow, people, chill out about the guy in the first post. Maybe he's a high-functioning autistic, maybe he's not. Whatever kind of eccentricity he's got, he's obviously barely functioning at all, and .. (wait for it) .. that's the humor.
Admin
Holden: You're in a desert, walking along when - Leon: What one? Holden: What? Leon: What desert? Holden: Doesn't matter what desert it is, it's completely hypothetical. Leon: Well, how come I'd be there? Holden: Maybe you're fed up. Maybe you just wanted to get away from it all. Anyway. You're in a desert, walking along when you look down and you see a tortoise, Leon. It's crawling toward you. Leon: What's a tortoise? Holden: You know what a turtle is? Leon: 'Course! Holden: Same thing. So you reach down and flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon. Leon: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you? Holden: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. Leon: WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I'M NOT HELPING? Holden: I mean you're not helping, Leon.
Admin
Admin
MUHAHAHA!! Now THAT would be FUNNY!!!
(Esp. if WTF was that he mis-wired the battery on his own wheelchair!)
Admin
+1 agreed. I'd suggest Asperger Syndrome as the particular syndrome. I guess some helpful friend or relative had told him to sit in the middle of the chair so he sat. exactly. in. the. mathematical. center. of. the. chair, because "middle" means "center" and nerves prompt one to get. it. right.
Admin
That's pretty much par for the course. You'd think they could figure out how to use a spreadsheet to match two completely meaningless skills (to them) like "ASP"... but I think they figure it costs them nothing (but a little time) to send people to an interview, so why not send everyone who's at least semi decent?
Admin
However unfair circumstance has been to the autistic guy, he seems to be functioning well enough to have made it through a screening process and into an interview. Shall we pretend that his behavior is not bizarre? How about if we just pretend he doesn't exist, would that work better for you?
Things like this happen. And they are funny. And it's quite possible to laugh at an awkward situation without laughing at those involved.
Admin
Is $50,000 really that much for a dev job in the states?
Admin
What situation were you in (location, time frame) that $30K is seen as a good salary?
Admin
I would like to see an interviewer start off with this question and see if the interviewee picked up on it and played along! A geek who knows his Phillip K. Dick is the geek I would want to hire!
Admin
Bangalore India, 2008?
Admin
For that matter, autistic or not, people are interviewed based on their abilities. You're being tested in an interview, and being measured against others in contention for the position. This guy flipped his wig over a hypothetical question. Assuming you wouldn't just fail him outright then and there, wouldn't he be the kind of person who flips his wig all the time? You probably don't want that kind of person working in a high-stress environment with a heterogeneous mix of technologies.
Now, if had answered the question well and seem like the person that could get the job done, just with some Jerry-from-Boston-Legal style eccentricities that would be something else. But take away the entire first part of the story, and pretend that this is basically a "normal" individual except for the outburst in the interview. Would you hire him?
Also - he yelled at the interviewer. He got MAD at the interviewer. I would imagine that a normal person wouldn't be hired for such a thing, why would a handicapped person be hired?
Admin
What location are you in that you would assume that everyone uses US dollars?
Admin
Somebody with ADHD would certainly not sit still for 2 minutes. ;-)
Admin
Congratulations. Your parents must be so proud.
Admin
The guy in the first interview probably has aspergers syndrome, or some other form of mild autism.
Admin
The CF/PHP position reminds me of a job I am currently waiting to hear back about.
Phone screen -- I completely messed it up: Question: so what attracted you to this company? Me: (completely confused the divisions of the company; raved about a different division)
Question: what skills do you bring to the position? Me: (completely forgot what the position was; BSed about "aligning business and technology")
Somehow I still get selected for an interview when they start messing up: 1st Interviewer: "So, this position is a Senior Business Analyst. Is that what you expected?" Me: "Yes" 1st Interviewer: "The position does the following...... Does that interest you?" Me: "Yes" 2nd Interviewer: "Good; the previous candidate was told that the position was completely different"
Second Interview: Interviewer: "I am seeing you in a Software Developer position." Me: "Uh, I thought I was interviewing for the Senior Business Analyst?" Interviewer: "Trust me--you want the Developer position."
Strange thing is, I still want the job.
Admin
Ok so £30k do people think that is good?
Admin
Ok so £30k do people think that is good?
Admin
Clearly the first guy was Mr. Monk. He wasn't there to get an admin job; he was there to catch a murderer.
Admin
Shortly after the dot.bomb I posted my resume on Monster looking for some entry level IT work. I got a call from CitiFinancial, telling me they were interested in interviewing me for a position they had. I got all dressed up and drove down there for the meeting. When I got there three other people were waiting in the lobby for interviews.
The interview went well, he asked me lots of questions about my goals and expectations, gave me a few hypothetical customer service sitations, and then dropped the bomb. "How do you feel about calling customers over the phone?"
It turned out the job they were interviewing me for wasn't even computer related, it was telemarketing. They were grabbing random resumes off Monster and calling them in under false pretenses to find people who might just be desperate enough to take a job as a cold-caller.
A few months later a friend of mine excitedly told me he had an interview with Citi Group for a computer job. I told him about mine, and when they called him back to confirm he confronted them about it. He saved himself a couple wasted hours of frustration.
Admin
I am also high-functioning autistic, and concur with the theory that the interviewee in the first anecdote had something similar. But this doesn't mean he can't be absolutely barking mad as well, trust me on this. He did however have something of a point; you're not going to get many illuminating answers to a question like that from the guy who's so new he still gets lost looking for the bog.
Admin
In Brazil a very good salary for a dev is about R$ 50,000. That makes about 25,000 in US dollars.
Not every country in the world pay as much as US does, and not every country in the world has a high life cost as US does.
Admin
Maybe the wheelchair got a flat on the way?
Admin
There's a difference between insulting someone for being autistic and reacting to a situation where a person (who is possibly autistic) verbally berates you for a simple request when he is in a position to impress you.
Admin
No one expects the ColdFusion inquisition!
Admin
As a person with ADD, I can attest that that isn't necessarily true. The ADD stereotype is of a person who can't sit still, but the condition is one of inappropriate attention. That can be an absurdly short attention span or an absurdly long one. Or attention to completely the wrong thing, which can include one's internal monologue, resulting in the person making abrupt topic shifts with little warning.
Admin
Everyone in the world knows that the US dollar is the only currency that matters!
Admin
If thats true then I have ADD not ADH
Oh look a red ball!
Admin
I had a phone screen where the advertised position was for a C++ dev. After talking to the hiring manager for a few minutes he then said, oh actually the position was for Ruby On Rails and that he was looking for a generalist and didn't want to attract someone who only does Ruby...
Another Interview I actually went to did something similar, but the RoR part was 30% and the C++ was the rest. Is there something wrong with hiring people who specifically know RoR?
Admin
I need this post to be in the exact center of this thread.
Admin
Yeah ok, 30k Yen per year sounds much better!