• AC (unregistered) in reply to Random832

    a clbuttic mistake in text processing...

  • Dave (unregistered)

    Wow, same thing happened to me (almost). I was a programmer getting paid jack shit and I got a job offer for twice of what I was making. Their counter-offer was a slap in the face. Once I left, they moved a f'ing sales guy off the sales floor paid him MORE than TWICE what I was making; spent $6k training him to realize he knew absolutely nothing about programming (can't teach common sense either!!). It's been 9 months and now I hear they are looking to spend a ridiculous amount to outsource. GOOD JOB!

  • AC (unregistered) in reply to Random832
    Random832:
    Bob:
    blah:
    Motti:
    If it were then you couldn't use

    buttertion

    as a variable name.

    ERROR! Detected naughty word. Replacing...

    ERROR! Stack overflow.

    There we go. Fixed that for you.

    I don't ge breast t, what's this a reference to?

    FTFY!

  • Pfhreak (unregistered)

    One of the problems here is that people generally undervalue programmers. They think that it is something that you can pick up in a few days/weeks, and be a pro. (This idea isn't helped by the TEACH YOURSELF ... IN 24 HOURS! series, either.)

    I have a friend who asked me yesterday, "If I took some classes at a community college, how long would it be before I could have a programming job?" This person has no prior programming experience. I had to be the hard one to tell him that, if he worked real hard, and did some impressive side projects, maybe 4 years or so.

    I don't think he believed me.

  • The Wanderer (unregistered) in reply to shadowman
    shadowman:
    The Wanderer:
    I'm not necessarily an unbiased judge on that question, since that's how I got my present job, having been turned down for it once before on the grounds that I glanced up at the ceiling instead of keeping my eyes on the interviewer while framing my answers.
    I normally look down my pants for answers during interviews. But I never find any. :-(

    Seriously, though, what? Are you supposed to stare at the interviewer the whole time you're thinking about the question she asked you? Or were you pretty much staring at the ceiling for uncomfortably long periods of time?

    As best I remember it, I was glancing upwards for anything up to a few seconds at a time, as a way of keeping myself calm enough to actually be able to think about the question. (This was very early in my career, and I was quite nervous about missing the chance at getting out of my existing mind-numbing job.)

    I have since discovered that the interviewers, or at least one of them (who is the titular head of the department), consider maintaining eye contact to be an important part of presenting a professional image to the "customer" (it is, or was supposed to be but really involves much more than, a tech-support position). From a certain perspective I can see their point, but to give it that much importance does still seem a bit silly to me.

  • Spispopd (unregistered) in reply to D0R

    "I have a (family member) that's good in computers"

    Sometimes it works the other way. I build low latency linux clusters for parallel computing with hundreds to thousands of processors for a living (that's only low to mid range by modern linux cluster standards, of course, but still). My family, other than my two computer-literate kid brothers, have essentially no understanding of what I do. I've tried even really dumb analogies -"okay, imagine your PC was a car, I do airports full of 767s.", but since they basically think all computers == magic black box, they think I'm essentially at the same level as the high school dropout (not that all highschool dropouts are dumb, but on average...) who "repairs" laptops by reinstalling windows.

    So I'm "good in computers", but in their minds only exactly as good as some dude who's "good in computers" because he works sales in circuit city...

  • Keith Twombley (unregistered)

    I was sure I knew the end of the story and was horrified with how I thought it'd turn out until I read this line:

    'Simon buried his face in his hands, slowly looking up. "Look, my new employer made me a better offer, and how could I possibly want to work here after what happened?"'

    Whew!

  • luptatum (unregistered) in reply to Claxon
    Claxon:
    snoofle:
    #define G F int n = 0xFFFFFFFG; // wtf!?

    Wow... I might have to throw in a few of those defines into the apps I'm porting, just to make sure the next guy has the same headache that I've had for the past 2 years. >:)

    IG and only IG choose to use that be sure to use the correct syntax!!

  • JohnLocke (unregistered) in reply to Dennis
    Dennis:
    andrewbadera:
    blah blah hardworking underpaid employee blah blah blah idiot boss blah blah nepotism blah blah blah. seems like we've heard this one before.

    Possibly because it happens all the time.

    In a former life, I worked at a company where the boss's wife was (officially) a VP, and (in practice) a part-time A/P clerk. Her main duty was (apparently) sending female employees to the washroom in tears, which she did on average at least once a week. (Sorry about the sexist bent on that, but the whole time I was there she never managed to get a single male to cry).

    You won't see a man admitting he cried. I'm sure many of them silently cried in the washroom.

  • Interview (unregistered) in reply to Pfhreak
    I have a friend who asked me yesterday, "If I took some classes at a community college, how long would it be before I could have a programming job?"

    If he's good at BSing his way through interviews, the answer could be "Tomorrow." And I think we've all worked with that guy before...

  • Bowie (unregistered)

    All too familliar.

    One of my first gigs was a network admin at a certification shop. Every few years, they'd have to purchase new PCs to keep up with the competition. One year, they had bought 30 or so brand new Pentium 133's with 16MB RAM each.. Insanely overpowered for the time. These boxes cost $2400 each.

    My boss'es boss, whom we'll call Mr. Hickdead, hired a new secretary one day. The new secretary needed to run Wordperfect on her PC, and that was it. So Hickdead commandeers one of the newly-purchased PC's out of the stock room, and gives it to her to use.

    A $2400 glowing 350-watt typewriter.

  • (cs) in reply to Jay

    I heard of a place that almost exclusivly, and intentionally, hires staff members children for summer jobs.

    Their logic was this : If the child is screwing up, and everyone knows who's kid it is, the parents themselves will discipline the kid more than any job would.

  • soft_guy (unregistered)

    Why would he stay for the full two weeks in that case?

    Seriously, why wouldn't he just walk out when the accused him of trying to sabotage things?

  • (cs) in reply to D0R
    D0R:
    "I have a (family member) that's good in computers" translates as "I have a (family member) that spends a lot of time playing videogames".
    [image]
  • (cs) in reply to Michael Kimsal
    Michael Kimsal:
    I think I've been brought in *one* time based on a recommendation of a family member, and I wasn't comfortable in that situation. Was only a short term (few day) project, but even then I was aware that people might have been aware of the relationship with the family member.

    Oh, well, in another case I ran a small consulting practice with my brother, but that was up front and out in the open from day one.

    But in most cases, the 'I've got a nephew' syndrome (IGAN syndrome?) is likely a bad sign. If the nephew/family member doesn't acknowledge the awkwardness at all, it's even worse.

    I got my current job when my uncle was the COO (he's since moved on). But the difference is that I'm actually capable and he knew it. I also know that my hiring was entirely above-board. He simply put me in contact with the people who would interview me and completely divorced himself from the process. In fact, I just thought I was making use of him as a networking resource at the time and didn't even know he had started working there until the day I was hired. The only involvement he ever had with my actual hiring was signing my contract (in his COO role) after I was officially hired by the 3 people who interviewed me.

    And I was fine with the situation. In fact, I discovered recently that there are people who have been here for several years who had no idea about our family relationship (probably because of the different surnames). It was a sort of "open secret" that I just figured most people knew. I never denied it if asked but I never advertised it either. And it's probably because I never made a big deal out of the relationship, or used it for any type of leverage, that even most people who knew about it almost completely forgot about it.

  • carny666 (unregistered)

    Oh my.. I don't think I could explain how a modulus 11 checksum works and write an example of how it would work in pseudocode. I hope my employer doesn't find out..

  • (cs) in reply to carny666
    carny666:
    Oh my.. I don't think I could explain how a modulus 11 checksum works and write an example of how it would work in pseudocode. I hope my employer doesn't find out..
    Google is your friend.
  • matt (unregistered) in reply to bugmenot1
    bugmenot1:
    #define F *0x10+0xF) #define G F #define O ((((((((( #define x 0 int n = O x F G F G F G F G F; // wtf!?
    TRWTF is posting code that compiles on TDWTF!
  • Spiders Everywhere (unregistered)

    Our hexadecimal goes up to G. It's one louder than F, see.

  • Jeff Bell (unregistered)

    The next question is whether Ryan suffered a pay cut after the review.

  • ASM826 (unregistered) in reply to Bowie

    So, in 2008, we have P4 processors with 2 GB of RAM, sound cards, gigabit LAN cards, and 19" flatscreen monitors to serve as glowing 500-watt typewriters.

    Progress, I suppose, at least they don't cost $2400.00

  • Leon (unregistered) in reply to Spiders Everywhere
    Spiders Everywhere:
    Our hexadecimal goes up to G. It's one louder than F, see.

    Couldn't you just make F louder?

  • BentFranklin (unregistered)

    What is the point of the final step of translating the remainder from 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,X to 0,X,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1?

    And why is base 11 used anyway?

    And who would know about this except programmers for Amazon?

  • WestFred (unregistered)

    The first computer I worked on (Bendix G-15 in the 1960's) used U-Z as the additional six hexadecimal characters. The other computers I encountered all used octal until System/360 came out and used A-F. Using B-G is new to me.

  • Mayo (unregistered) in reply to Leon
    Leon:
    Spiders Everywhere:
    Our hexadecimal goes up to G. It's one louder than F, see.

    Couldn't you just make F louder?

    These go to G.

  • Courtesy Flush (unregistered)

    Who wants to bet Ryan's manual labor job includes the same pay he was getting in IT?

  • DHager (unregistered)

    In this article, I guess it depends on the specific business...

    But in general I wouldn't worry that somebody (e.g. myself) doesn't know the specifics of a modulo-11 checksum.

    I'd would worry if they didn't already know the concept of a checksum...

    But the specific implementation isn't a big deal, any more than whether they know the internals of a CRC variation or MD5 or SHA1.

  • larry (unregistered) in reply to Jay

    Hiring children of employees is fine as long as you don't assign tasks that are beyond their competence. Some good might even come out of it. But assigning Windows System and Network Admin tasks to someone that excelled at playing games on a Mac? I am not knocking Macs, they are good machines, but they are a different beast than Windows boxes! Plus, video games as the sole qualification?

  • This happens Not just for relatives but friends too (unregistered) in reply to Bob

    My question is if Ryan's uncle got fired. That would be justice.

  • Joe (unregistered) in reply to Spispopd
    Spispopd:
    "I have a (family member) that's good in computers"

    Sometimes it works the other way. I build low latency linux clusters for parallel computing with hundreds to thousands of processors for a living (that's only low to mid range by modern linux cluster standards, of course, but still). My family, other than my two computer-literate kid brothers, have essentially no understanding of what I do. I've tried even really dumb analogies -"okay, imagine your PC was a car, I do airports full of 767s.", but since they basically think all computers == magic black box, they think I'm essentially at the same level as the high school dropout (not that all highschool dropouts are dumb, but on average...) who "repairs" laptops by reinstalling windows.

    So I'm "good in computers", but in their minds only exactly as good as some dude who's "good in computers" because he works sales in circuit city...

    I don't even think you're an exception.

    My entire family has no clue what I do for a living. And my job's not even 100% technical. It has a business and management aspect to it. It's kinda sad when your parents raise you to go to college and get a good education. And when you do that and get a job, they have no clue how to gauge how successful you are skill-wise beyond your salary.

  • Flo (unregistered)

    Could I see the code for question ten? I am curious, and since hopefully some day someone will consider hiring me, I would like to know what to expect... Thanks!

  • Stewie (unregistered) in reply to mark11727
    Oh yes, and I was paid a stockboy's wages. :o(

    Yeah, but would you rather stock shelves or operate the computer?

  • Conner (unregistered) in reply to D0R

    usually "i have a (family member) that's good in computers" is bullshit. Because if you have a family member that is good in computer AND unemployed... They probably aren't that good in computers.

  • AdT (unregistered) in reply to AC
    AC:
    a clbuttic mistake in text processing...

    Googling for "buttertion" brought up a site about a virtualization software project called plex86.Then I searched for another word and came up with (old) news - on the same site - stating that Safari was the first released browser to pbutt the ACID2 test. (Shouldn't that be the ANGELDUST2 test, though?)

    The German Censors – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – morons – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –.

    (original language version by Heinrich Heine)

  • pong (unregistered) in reply to Bowie

    If she was a cute redhead, then it was worth it.

    captcha: validus

  • Joe (unregistered)

    Great story! Well told.

  • AdT (unregistered) in reply to JohnLocke
    JohnLocke:
    You won't see a man admitting he cried. I'm sure many of them silently cried in the washroom.

    I don't think that men are emotionally tougher than women in general, but when harshly reprimanded and faced with the choice "Either (s)he is a mofo, or I am a good-for-nothing", men are less likely to draw the latter conclusion.

    Bowie:
    A $2400 glowing 350-watt typewriter.

    Which reminded me of the $2100 email machine.

    A child could do this one.

    Groucho Marx (to cabinet): Why, a four year old child could understand the report! Groucho Marx (to assistant): Go out and find me a four year old child. I can't make head or tail of it.

    (from Duck Soup)

  • bleh (unregistered) in reply to BentFranklin

    Base 10 would be just a repetition of the last number.

    This is the idea:

    From wikipedia '...computed so that multiplying each digit by its position in the number (counting from the right) and taking the sum of these products modulo 11 is 0.'

    Clever, right?

  • MrsPost (unregistered)

    I only really had to deal with the nepotism thing once. A friend of our CIO had a daughter looking for work. We got her.

    She ended up handling our licensing (way back in the mid 90s) and didn't do too badly at it. Of course, this was after she was rotated through every other tech position and this was the only one left.

    We referred to her as "our little 8088".

  • lrucker (unregistered)

    I actually worked at a place once where the boss's friend's son really was a fantastic programmer - it was just the boss who was an idiot.

    It had started out as an office supply company, until the boss discovered that to sell a 5c pencil you first had to buy a 4c pencil, but to sell $10K worth of custom IBM 360 software you only had to buy a $10 floppy. That R&D and support were included in the difference just didn't seem to sink in to him.

    Boss's friend's son was in high school with me when they hired him to fix the problems that their bottom-shelf programmers had created; I worked there one summer during college. I learned an awful lot about what kind of companies to avoid.

  • Max (unregistered) in reply to Bob
    Bob:
    Half of me worries that I'll get into a job that I'm not prepared for. The other half worries that I'll work with people who are totally not prepared for their job.

    As such, I worry a lot.

    So do i.

  • GP (unregistered) in reply to Bowie
    Simon:
    His blood boiling, Simon couldn't help but say exactly what was on his mind. Fists clenched at his side, he yelled "This guy is a complete idiot! He doesn't know anything about computers, he doesn't know anything about the business, and the only reason he was hired is because he's related to Larry! And that's also why he's making twice what I made!" After a brief flash of embarrassment that he'd gotten so worked up about it, he realized he had proof of Ryan's incompetence. "Look, I think we can clear this all up if we just look at his exam."

    You are godly. Most people would've kept it silent and left - You actually prevented the company much trouble.

  • glomek (unregistered)

    There aren't any G's, but "Sexidecimal," as described on page 12 of Programming and Coding for ORDVAC includes K, S, N, J, and L.

  • Dave (unregistered)

    When I first started reading this I thought that he was going to accept the obvious counter offer, and we would see the inevitable disaster. I'm glad to see that wasn't what happened.

  • Ned Flanders (unregistered)

    You didn't mention if Larry owns the company. For tax benefits alone, I'd keep family on the payroll every time and use 1099 contractors to get the real work done.

  • (cs) in reply to WestFred
    WestFred:
    The first computer I worked on (Bendix G-15 in the 1960's) used U-Z as the additional six hexadecimal characters. The other computers I encountered all used octal until System/360 came out and used A-F. Using B-G is new to me.
    It seems there was much variety in the choice of additional digits. The Monrobot Mark XI (also from the early sixties) used these:

    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 S T U V W X

  • Berger (unregistered)

    Hmm my manager hired somebody for a digital imaging position. The person had never used Photoshop and had never heard of resolution, dpi, output size, etc. I totally understand this dude's frustration (especially since I'm the one in-charge training the newbie!)

    I just realized I'm probably underestimating her abilities. She probably also is way advanced and knows gexahecimal, just like Ryan. She probably can also code in F--.

  • immibis (unregistered)

    What's a trackback and why does the "URL" link return this:

    <response>
<error>2</error>
<message>Url is invalid or missing</message>
</response>

    I guess it's the mandatory XML?

  • SomeGuy (unregistered) in reply to Andy Goth

    So the kid was complete idiot, but that seems to be exactly what he was expecting given that he set aside a day of training for basic maths. I'm guessing day two was set aside to explain "What is this board of keys attached to the magical beige box?".

  • emp (unregistered)

    Actually, I often have to deplete family members who "want to move into programming".

    My cousin would like to speak with you, he is so smart with computers, he can do everything, he would like to be a developer.

    Inevtiably, 10 minutes later I know that all the kid can do is copy CDs, rip DVDs, download torrents and play a mean game of Counterstrike:Source.

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