• Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Patrick
    Anonymous:

    That's about as good as my interview question, "What kind of linked list do you not have to iterate through to find a value?"

    I go, "Uh...an empty one?" 

    He goes, "No one where the bracket [] operator is overloaded...it navigates to the position passed in the operator.  That immediately finds the value at a given index, and returns a the value."

    So did you call him on it?
     

  • Ceritified Asshole (unregistered) in reply to Carnildo

    Back when OSHA was first created, they did a survey of the leading causes of workplace injury, to see where focusing their attention would do the most good.  The outcome was that by far the most dangerous piece of workplace equipment was the ordinary ladder, and a simple training course in how to properly use ladders would greatly reduce the injury rate.
      Damn it, stop ruining our stories with "facts."
     
     
  • zvikara (unregistered)

    YOU THREW AWAY THE CONTRACT!!!

    NOT ONLY YOU ALTERED THE CONTRACT - YOU THREW IT AWAY!!!!!!

    A SPY COULD FIND THE CONTRACT YOU THREW - AND THAN HE MIGHT ALTER THE CONTRACT !!!!!!!!!!!

  • (cs) in reply to mnature
    Anonymous:

    That procedure is not complete enough.  It doesn't specify that you have to use the "DECAF" pot for decaffeinated coffee and the other one for regular coffee.  Some of the people are picky about that.

     

  • (cs) in reply to mnature

    After reading, and chortling happily over, the first one, I was expecting to get as much amusement from the second.

    Imagine my dismay...

     

  • (cs) in reply to zvikara

    YOU THREW AWAY THE CONTRACT!!!

    NOT ONLY YOU ALTERED THE CONTRACT - YOU THREW IT AWAY!!!!!!

    A SPY COULD FIND THE CONTRACT YOU THREW - AND THAN HE MIGHT ALTER THE CONTRACT !!!!!!!!!!!

    Surely revealing the contract to a third party would be a violation of the NDA...?

  • (cs) in reply to Franz Kafka

    That's about as good as my interview question, "What kind of linked list do you not have to iterate through to find a value?"

    I go, "Uh...an empty one?" 

    He goes, "No one where the bracket [] operator is overloaded...it navigates to the position passed in the operator.  That immediately finds the value at a given index, and returns a the value."

    So did you call him on it?

    In all fairness, you don't have to iterate through a list with an Nth operator. The iteration will happen, but it's not your responsibility any more, and you can't be blamed for it going wrong.

    Learn this lesson well, and soon you too could be in a managerial position and ask eager engineers interview questions such as this one.

     

     

    After all, it'd be a lot safer than letting you continue to program.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to gwenhwyfaer
    gwenhwyfaer:

    That's about as good as my interview question, "What kind of linked list do you not have to iterate through to find a value?"

    I go, "Uh...an empty one?" 

    He goes, "No one where the bracket [] operator is overloaded...it navigates to the position passed in the operator.  That immediately finds the value at a given index, and returns a the value."

    So did you call him on it?

    In all fairness, you don't have to iterate through a list with an Nth operator. The iteration will happen, but it's not your responsibility any more, and you can't be blamed for it going wrong.

    Learn this lesson well, and soon you too could be in a managerial position and ask eager engineers interview questions such as this one.

    After all, it'd be a lot safer than letting you continue to program.

     Hey, how's it going? Greeeat...

    Yeah, um, I'm going to have to have you come in on saturday.

     Sunday, too.

    thanks, that'll be greeeat.
     

  • (cs) in reply to Carnildo
    Carnildo:
    Anonymous:
    It is like the required training at my place of employment.  We now have "Ladder Safety Training," which is a 3-hour course in how to use ladders, and is required by anyone who has to ever step on anything other than the ground.  Whenever anyone mentions some stupid training that could be implemented, we immediately make them shut up, because management might hear it and think it is a good idea. 

    Back when OSHA was first created, they did a survey of the leading causes of workplace injury, to see where focusing their attention would do the most good.  The outcome was that by far the most dangerous piece of workplace equipment was the ordinary ladder, and a simple training course in how to properly use ladders would greatly reduce the injury rate.

    All the training in the world won't stop a determined idiot, they should know that. When the option is climbing down the 40 foot ladder just to reposition it a foot to the left, or just leeeeean a little, just far enough that you get to experience how fast the ground rushes up at you.

    If you're a really clever idiot, next time you'll hold onto something, so the ladder will only fall out from under you instead.

    Takes experience to beat the idiot out of you. 

    Ah, the work we take when the work dries up. 

  • (cs) in reply to gwenhwyfaer

    gwenhwyfaer:
    In all fairness, you don't have to iterate through a list with an Nth operator. The iteration will happen, but it's not your responsibility any more, and you can't be blamed for it going wrong.

    This is so Bill Clinton.  "That depends on what the definition of 'is' is." 

    I'd have argued this until I was blue in the face.  The question is loaded and the answer the GP gave is the only sensible one.  If the interviewer is going to make a point to say how the list is implemented (linked list) then requiring an answer that avoids that detail is silly.  (The interviewer is free to accept any answer and judge the applicant on its merits, but to call the GP's answer wrong is either disingenuous or stupid.)

    It's like asking, for example, the applicant to compare and contrast blocking and non-blocking I/O, and what must the programmer consider when handling non-blocking I/O, and after the interviewee gives a long, considered answer, the interviewer says, "Wrong, you use a library that abstracts those details away."

    (And to head off the obvious response, if the interviewer wants to find out if the applicant suffers from NIH, there are far saner ways to do that.)
  • (cs)

    Ahhhh my experience with the contradiction in the my contract wasn't so bad, but it was still interesting.

    I was starting a contracting job. I has hired about the AGENCY to work for the CORPORATION.

    The CORPORATION required all contractors to sign some agreement. The agreement stated they would own the code I wrote. Fair enough. Sounded good, I signed it.

    The contract with the AGENCY said I would give them the rights to my code. No wait a second, if I am giving the rights to my code to the CORPORATION, how can I also give the rights to the AGENCY? I refused to sign.

    They didn't understand this, they claim they've hired thousands of people, and I'm only the 2nd to spot this problem. I was thinking it is not my fault you hired thousands of idiots or people who don't care.

    Then they explained to me that they had a contract with the CORPORATION that they will give all of the code I write to the CORPORATION. Yet they couldn't seem to understand that I had an agreement with the CORPORATION and a contract with the AGENCY... What when on between the AGENC
    Y and the CORPORATION did affect my contracts with the two....

    What amazed me was they claimed I was only the second person to complain about this issue, and how long it took them to fix it. It was on the order of an hour or, but still it shouldn't have taken more than a few minutes. We added an addendum to my contract with the AGENCY that the AGENCY would give the rights to my code to the CORPORATION.

  • Calli Arcale (unregistered) in reply to foxyshadis

    foxyshadis:
    All the training in the world won't stop a determined idiot, they should know that. When the option is climbing down the 40 foot ladder just to reposition it a foot to the left, or just leeeeean a little, just far enough that you get to experience how fast the ground rushes up at you.

    This is very true, and they do know this.  However, if they can document that they trained the idiot in the proper use of a ladder, the idiot has less of a case if he tries to sue them for his own idiocy.  It's an "I told you so" situation, basically.

    At my company, we have similar safety training (on stuff like how to react if you see a fire), but it's not an absurd 3-hour course.  It's basically a PowerPoint presentation and a quiz that you can blow through in about ten minutes by yourself.  After all, most of it's common sense.  It's important to keep your staff trained on this stuff, but there's no need to go overboard on it.
     

  • waefafw (unregistered) in reply to Calli Arcale
    Anonymous:

    foxyshadis:
    All the training in the world won't stop a determined idiot, they should know that. When the option is climbing down the 40 foot ladder just to reposition it a foot to the left, or just leeeeean a little, just far enough that you get to experience how fast the ground rushes up at you.

    This is very true, and they do know this.  However, if they can document that they trained the idiot in the proper use of a ladder, the idiot has less of a case if he tries to sue them for his own idiocy.  It's an "I told you so" situation, basically.

    At my company, we have similar safety training (on stuff like how to react if you see a fire), but it's not an absurd 3-hour course.  It's basically a PowerPoint presentation and a quiz that you can blow through in about ten minutes by yourself.  After all, most of it's common sense.  It's important to keep your staff trained on this stuff, but there's no need to go overboard on it.
     

     Wow, that's really cynical, and also mostly wrong.  Believe it or not, injured employees are also unproductive employees.  Having healthy employees means they are productive, which means that the company makes money.  It's strictly a cost saving measure.

     You can still sue your employer and even have a very good chance of winning if something bad happened during work, even if they trained the bejesus out of you.  You can believe me on this because one of my business partners happens to be an industrial hygienist (read: someone who knows way more about OSHA than you) and we've had discussions about this very topic.

    Too bad common sense isn't common.  You'd think that the existence of this site would be enough to convince you of this, but apparently not.
     

  • waefafw (unregistered) in reply to mnature
    Anonymous:
    Carnildo:
    Anonymous:
    It is like the required training at my place of employment.  We now have "Ladder Safety Training," which is a 3-hour course in how to use ladders, and is required by anyone who has to ever step on anything other than the ground.  Whenever anyone mentions some stupid training that could be implemented, we immediately make them shut up, because management might hear it and think it is a good idea. 

    Back when OSHA was first created, they did a survey of the leading causes of workplace injury, to see where focusing their attention would do the most good.  The outcome was that by far the most dangerous piece of workplace equipment was the ordinary ladder, and a simple training course in how to properly use ladders would greatly reduce the injury rate.

    In my book, a 3-hour course is not a simple training course . . .  And, of course, if someone does get hurt while using a ladder, we ALL have to be recertified in ladder safety.  Besides which, even if OSHA did a survey to see what causes workplace injuries, did they do a follow-up survey to see if taking the simple training course actually lowered the injury rate?  Sometimes what seems like a good idea is simply a waste of time, energy and resources.  We found out, long ago, that all of the training we have here is simply CYA for the management, so when something happens, they can say that the person was trained, and so it was all their fault.

    I hope you learned how to code in a 4 hour programming course.  If three hours is "not simple", then four hours is at least "somewhat complicated",

     No, actually, what you want is a 7-minute programming course.  Think about it.  You're at the University of Phoenix.  There's a 8-minute programming course and a 7-minute programming course.  Which one are you going to pick, man?

    But to get back to the original point, here's a nice PDF that I found using this amazing tool I found way back in the 90's called "Google".  You might want to use it someday.

     http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pdfs/00-116b.pdf

     It actually has data about ladder falls.  But don't let "facts" get in your way.
     

  • (cs) in reply to waefafw

    Heh. Reminds me of Virtudyne :)

  • Some Guy (unregistered)

    For what it's worth, I had an interview that wasn't quite this bad, but similar.


    Right at the beginning of the dot-com boom I applied for a local job listed on a (heh) BBS. It was a small local consulting company, half-dozen employees doing really low-end stuff like inventory systems for local mom-and-pop stores. But the times were a-changin, and they were looking to branch out, and corner the market in this new e-commerce business.

    I followed their directions and at first thought I was lost. I wasn't, they were in a cheap industrial park. I swear it looked like something out of a bad mob movie. Dim, broken florescent lights, stained wood paneling, stained carpets, stained ceilings.

    So I go in, and before the interview the owner asks me to fill out a job application. He pulls out a pad of applications, the kind you can get at Staples, and it's clearly meant for minimum-wage jobs. He watched as I filled it out, and when I was done he went over it from top to bottom, saying things like "So you've never been convicted of a crime. If I verify this, will I find out you're lying?" "Can I verify your high school graduation date?"

    Similar to the original poster, I was given an offer that was extremely low, even for pre-dot-com jobs (somthing in the neighborhood of low 20k). 

  • nicola muneratto (unregistered)

    So it's in Italy today... Low salaries , no benefits..

     

  • Marc.nl (unregistered) in reply to foxyshadis
    foxyshadis:

    All the training in the world won't stop a determined idiot, they should know that. When the option is climbing down the 40 foot ladder just to reposition it a foot to the left, or just leeeeean a little, just far enough...



    Actually there's a really good solution if you can't quite reach it by leaning over a little.
    You grab the top of the ladder, and gently hop the entire thing to where you want to go.
    (Just watch out for potholes down below)
  • Chaos Intestinal (unregistered)

    You... you THREW AWAY the Contract ?!

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to skztr

    I buy it, these things happen.

    At a time that I had been without a job for a while and was desperate (and I mean *really* desperate) for work. It was hard to find anything as I had recently migrated and was a foreigner that hardly spoke the language of the country. I finally found a small company that would have me (a programmer with over 10 years of experience) parttime on a project at 5 euros per hour. Burger flipping would probably have been better pay, but they couldn't afford more, or so they told me. The contract was not completely finished yet, but they'd finish it up soon. And they did; after being shown around the project for 2 days, they rounded up and handed me the contract. They asked me if I would read the contract and notify me of any changes I'd like in there. This was after the dot com bubble burst, so even at that pay rate, at least it would slow me down from ending up in the gutter. Fair enough.

    I took home the contract to read it at my leisure, and was - mildly put - quite surprised. According to the contract, 5 euros per hour would have been based on 4 weeks per month, and the 4-week salary was to be paid monthly - so they nibbled a bit off of the 5 euros yet. Oh- and travel expenses were not covered.

    According to the contract, as long as I would be doing the project, I couldn't look for other work. And after the 6 month project I was to give 2 months of warranty on my work (for free).

    And the contract mentioned I would be paid after the work was done, 'if they were satisfied with it'- in other words, payment was not even guaranteed! In fact, browsing over the contract, it turned out there wasn't a single clause in there that seemed to be there for my benefit. It got so bad that without contract I would have considerably more rights than with one.

    Desperate as I was, I didn't propose any changes to the contract. Instead, I emailed them informing them that I wasn't interested anymore. This must have surprised and disappointed them enormously - their reply was an extremely rude email, calling me names, saying that I wasn't trustworthy because I said I was interested at one moment and then let them down.

    Well, that's was one job offer I've never regretted to decline. It showed me the way out, however- from that point on I started looking for projects rather than jobs. That was much easier; and the very first project actually landed me into a stable job again. One that guaranteed payment for my efforts.

  • st (unregistered) in reply to newfweiler
    newfweiler:
    Anonymous:

    That procedure is not complete enough.  It doesn't specify that you have to use the "DECAF" pot for decaffeinated coffee and the other one for regular coffee.  Some of the people are picky about that.

     

    It also says you can fill the cup with coffee up to the point it would overflow, and then says you can add cream and sugar.

    This would clearly cause the hot liquid to overflow, possibly causing burns and maybe even death to the sluggishly caffiene-impaired.

  • Andrew_Lviv (unregistered)

    Did they allow to take The Contract with you out of the office?????

  • (cs) in reply to Franz Kafka
    Anonymous:
    gwenhwyfaer:

    That's about as good as my interview question, "What kind of linked list do you not have to iterate through to find a value?"

    I go, "Uh...an empty one?" 

    He goes, "No one where the bracket [] operator is overloaded...it navigates to the position passed in the operator.  That immediately finds the value at a given index, and returns a the value."

    So did you call him on it?

    In all fairness, you don't have to iterate through a list with an Nth operator. The iteration will happen, but it's not your responsibility any more, and you can't be blamed for it going wrong.

    Learn this lesson well, and soon you too could be in a managerial position and ask eager engineers interview questions such as this one.

    After all, it'd be a lot safer than letting you continue to program.

     Hey, how's it going? Greeeat...

    Yeah, um, I'm going to have to have you come in on saturday.

     Sunday, too.

    thanks, that'll be greeeat.
     

    Ummm ... in fact, the proposed use of an overloaded operator [] is indeed an iterator -- albeit the rather uninteresting "random access iterator."

    A few questions spring to mind:

    (1) Why pick operator[] when you have all sorts of equally interesting operators to overload -- for example "operator ->*" ?

    (2) How exactly would this overloaded operator be coded for a linked list? Oh, I know, use a bridge-pattern vector to shadow every entry in the linked list.   Ummm again.

    (3) What would happen if you pointed out to your prospective boss that he is a clueless moron by explaining the first two points to him? Not that I really care.

    (4) I'm English, but surely the correct phrase is "Do not taunt Happy Fun Employee Agreement."

    Carnildo:
    Anonymous:
    It is like the required training at my place of employment. We now have "Ladder Safety Training," which is a 3-hour course in how to use ladders, and is required by anyone who has to ever step on anything other than the ground. Whenever anyone mentions some stupid training that could be implemented, we immediately make them shut up, because management might hear it and think it is a good idea.

    Back when OSHA was first created, they did a survey of the leading causes of workplace injury, to see where focusing their attention would do the most good. The outcome was that by far the most dangerous piece of workplace equipment was the ordinary ladder, and a simple training course in how to properly use ladders would greatly reduce the injury rate.

    No no no.  Do not believe OSHA when they tell you the answer is "ladders."  The correct answer is "pencils."

  • (cs) in reply to real_aardvark

    operator[] is not appropriate for linked lists.

     

  • (cs) in reply to foxyshadis
    foxyshadis:

    All the training in the world won't stop a determined idiot, they should know that. When the option is climbing down the 40 foot ladder just to reposition it a foot to the left, or just leeeeean a little, just far enough that you get to experience how fast the ground rushes up at you.

    If you're a really clever idiot, next time you'll hold onto something, so the ladder will only fall out from under you instead.

    Takes experience to beat the idiot out of you. 

    Ah, the work we take when the work dries up. 

    That's great!  I've never heard the term "Determined Idiot" before, but I know damn well how fast that ground can move.  I think this was the best post of the day.

  • Dale Williams (unregistered) in reply to Cobb Webb
    Anonymous:

    The first rule of Employee Agreement:

    YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE EMPLOYEE AGREEMENT or make pencil markings in it

     

    .. and the second rule of Employee Agreement:

    YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE EMPLOYEE AGREEMENT or make pencil markings in it!!

     

    I'm really dating myself here but I once had a first interview were the interviewer became real excited because I had LANtastic experienced.  Mind you this was for a software developer position at a consulting firm.  A couple of days after my first interview, I received a call for the second interview.  BTW, this interview was going to be at one of their client sites helping them install LANtastic for the client!  I told them I would come back to their office and perform any testing they wanted but I didn't feel right going to their client site.  They said, 'Ah...ah, okay, we'll call you right back.'  I've been waiting 17 years for the call-back.<G>

     

     

     

  • (cs) in reply to Dale Williams
    Anonymous:

    I'm really dating myself here but I once had a first interview were the interviewer became real excited because I had LANtastic experienced.  Mind you this was for a software developer position at a consulting firm.  A couple of days after my first interview, I received a call for the second interview.  BTW, this interview was going to be at one of their client sites helping them install LANtastic for the client!  I told them I would come back to their office and perform any testing they wanted but I didn't feel right going to their client site.  They said, 'Ah...ah, okay, we'll call you right back.'  I've been waiting 17 years for the call-back.<G>

     They wanted you, on interview, to go and do their work for them? I'd have told them that I'd happily go along and do it but then they'd have to pay me a consultancy rate because this is work, not part of an interview.

     

     

  • (cs) in reply to Dale Williams
    Anonymous:

    I'm really dating myself here but I once had a first interview were the interviewer became real excited because I had LANtastic experienced.  Mind you this was for a software developer position at a consulting firm.  A couple of days after my first interview, I received a call for the second interview.  BTW, this interview was going to be at one of their client sites helping them install LANtastic for the client!  I told them I would come back to their office and perform any testing they wanted but I didn't feel right going to their client site.  They said, 'Ah...ah, okay, we'll call you right back.'  I've been waiting 17 years for the call-back.<G>

     They wanted you, on interview, to go and do their work for them? I'd have told them that I'd happily go along and do it but then they'd have to pay me a consultancy rate because this is work, not part of an interview.

     

     

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to Ryan

    Pointed here by a post on Slashdot. :)

    You've obviously never interviewed at Google have you?

    At Google, you have - or SHOULD have - SOME idea what you're getting in for before walking in the door. At MysteryMeatCompany, this guy didn't.

    :)

  • (cs) in reply to morry

    morry:
    the correct response would have been...

    I HAVE ALTERED THE CONTRACT... PRAY I DO NOT ALTER IT ANY FURTHER

    I LOL'd 

  • Mortvar (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous:

    I buy it, these things happen.

    At a time that I had been without a job for a while and was desperate (and I mean *really* desperate) for work. It was hard to find anything as I had recently migrated and was a foreigner that hardly spoke the language of the country. I finally found a small company that would have me (a programmer with over 10 years of experience) parttime on a project at 5 euros per hour.

    ... (snipped the long part about that horrible contract) ...

    Although I do believe you it's hard to believe this happened in the EU, even further in the Euro Zone. I mean there are laws here, which sometimes even makes sense. What they did propose you seems to conflict with so many of them that I prefer not to think further about it. Such kind of contract is *hopefully* illicit in about every country you'd pick for migrating too.

    Anonymous:

    Well, that's was one job offer I've never regretted to decline. It showed me the way out, however- from that point on I started looking for projects rather than jobs. That was much easier; and the very first project actually landed me into a stable job again. One that guaranteed payment for my efforts.


    That's fine, I hope you don't measure good old Europe because of those morons you've meet first. 

     

  • J (unregistered) in reply to chrismcb
    chrismcb:

    Ahhhh my experience with the contradiction in the my contract wasn't so bad, but it was still interesting.

    I had something similar at my last-but-one job (the self-proclaimed world leader in their field). The contract never mentioned the name of the company, as it had been deleted throughout the text. Further, it was over three pages (using tiny print so the nth-generation photocopy they sent me had some clauses that were simply illegible) numbered 2, 3 and 4, and the last clause was "I have read and understand the conditions laid out on page 1", which presented me with an obvious problem.

     
    On calling them up, I was told by HR that not only had there never been a page 1, but that I was being "very unprofessional" for querying the contract, as "no-one has ever done that before". Everyone else had just signed this piece of nonsense.

    I shrugged and signed.
     

  • Handsup (unregistered) in reply to Mortvar

    Samething happened to me.

    Was the company Yoyodyne and the manager John Smallberries? 

     

    :Some Farker:

  • mnature (unregistered) in reply to waefafw
    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    Carnildo:
    Anonymous:
    It is like the required training at my place of employment.  We now have "Ladder Safety Training," which is a 3-hour course in how to use ladders, and is required by anyone who has to ever step on anything other than the ground.  Whenever anyone mentions some stupid training that could be implemented, we immediately make them shut up, because management might hear it and think it is a good idea. 

    Back when OSHA was first created, they did a survey of the leading causes of workplace injury, to see where focusing their attention would do the most good.  The outcome was that by far the most dangerous piece of workplace equipment was the ordinary ladder, and a simple training course in how to properly use ladders would greatly reduce the injury rate.

    In my book, a 3-hour course is not a simple training course . . .  And, of course, if someone does get hurt while using a ladder, we ALL have to be recertified in ladder safety.  Besides which, even if OSHA did a survey to see what causes workplace injuries, did they do a follow-up survey to see if taking the simple training course actually lowered the injury rate?  Sometimes what seems like a good idea is simply a waste of time, energy and resources.  We found out, long ago, that all of the training we have here is simply CYA for the management, so when something happens, they can say that the person was trained, and so it was all their fault.

    I hope you learned how to code in a 4 hour programming course.  If three hours is "not simple", then four hours is at least "somewhat complicated",

     No, actually, what you want is a 7-minute programming course.  Think about it.  You're at the University of Phoenix.  There's a 8-minute programming course and a 7-minute programming course.  Which one are you going to pick, man?

    But to get back to the original point, here's a nice PDF that I found using this amazing tool I found way back in the 90's called "Google".  You might want to use it someday.

     http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pdfs/00-116b.pdf

     It actually has data about ladder falls.  But don't let "facts" get in your way.
     

    Oh, my.  Quite a lot of virulence in that reply.  But let me think about this:  We are comparing learning about programming to a class about using ladders.  First off, it would be difficult to find someone who has never seen a ladder in their life.  Heck, it would be difficult to find someone who has never used a ladder in their life.  However, there are certainly a lot of people who have never even seen a computer program.  Another point is, that I don't believe I was even implying that you couldn't hurt yourself on a ladder.  Seems like I was just pointing out that having safety training on using a ladder might not be very effective.  Sort of like using a book to learn how to fire a gun.  All the theory and written tests in the world will not make as good a lesson as actually picking up a gun, loading it, and firing at a target.  And before you complain, let me say that book-learning and practical experience can be better than either one alone, but if you can only do one, it better be the practical experience.

    Nice reference.  It still doesn't answer my question, which is whether the safety training actually and truly makes any difference at all to the accident rate.  Even the references in your reference don't make mention of that.  In my experience, working with a qualified person for a while is the best way to make a difference in accident rates, because they will give you immediate feedback on whether something is right or wrong.  Safety training is something to keep the managers thinking that they are really doing something about safety, whereas it is generally your fellow workers who give you the real lessons.

    And the sarcasm was truly obnoxious.  Not very well done, but sometimes quantity takes the place of quality . . .

  • (cs)

    This re-telling was WAY over-done.  It would have been much funnier if you hadn't gone so "over-the-top" with the sarcasm and exaggeration - remember, use them like scalpels, not sledge hammers. :)

  • (cs) in reply to J
    Anonymous:
    chrismcb:

    Ahhhh my experience with the contradiction in the my contract wasn't so bad, but it was still interesting.

    I had something similar at my last-but-one job (the self-proclaimed world leader in their field). The contract never mentioned the name of the company, as it had been deleted throughout the text. Further, it was over three pages (using tiny print so the nth-generation photocopy they sent me had some clauses that were simply illegible) numbered 2, 3 and 4, and the last clause was "I have read and understand the conditions laid out on page 1", which presented me with an obvious problem.

     
    On calling them up, I was told by HR that not only had there never been a page 1, but that I was being "very unprofessional" for querying the contract, as "no-one has ever done that before". Everyone else had just signed this piece of nonsense.

    I shrugged and signed.
     

     At one place I worked (this was in the late 1980s), the company decided they wanted to put employee agreements in place, rather than just deal with it as Right To Work.  Somebody went around and put them on people's desks with a note to sign and return; about half to 2/3 read it and round-filed it because of several of the clauses in it.  One was that the company would own any works of authorship we made during our period of employment.  Sorry, I'm not going to give you my personal letters, grocery lists, musical musings, etc.  Another one was agreeing to testify in any dispute involving intellectual property we might know anything about after we left--on our dime, even if we'd "moved to Fiji,"  as I put it. That one was modified so they'd pay reasonable expenses, in what was called the Fiji Clause. 

    All in all, not a bad place, even if they didn't pay all that well.  Shoes optional, beer in the Friday staff meeting, occasional extra stuff (e.g.,  had a lawyer draw up wills for folks).
     

  • (cs) in reply to skztr

    " In all seriousness, if this story is true (I doubt it is), the people involved are obviously mentally retarded in some way, and there's nothing funny about that."

    Oh... believe it. I've met people from that world and they can be exactly that paranoid. I've also had discussions very similar to the one described (not for an interview though).

  • Patrick (unregistered) in reply to skztr

    In all seriousness, if the company's CEO is a woman it doesn't surprise me.

  • Egor (unregistered) in reply to Patrick
    Anonymous:
    In all seriousness, if the company's CEO is a woman it doesn't surprise me.

    Why?

  • (cs) in reply to Earl Purple
    Earl Purple:

    operator[] is not appropriate for linked lists.

     

    No, it's perfectly appropriate because it has an obvious meaning.  For instance, Python uses it.

       x = ["first", "second", "third", "fourth"]

       print x[0]

            'first'

       print x[2]

            'third'

       print x[-1]

            'fourth'

       print x[1:2]

            ['second', 'third']

    In some cases performance may be an issue, but that's something you face with every design.

  • steven22 (unregistered)

    dude, you went for a third interview?

     I totally understand. I've done it too.   You're so desperate for a job that you convince yourself that all the warning signs aren't that big of a deal.  To the point where you catch yourself lying to your wife about them.

  • (cs) in reply to Ryan
    Anonymous:

    "i'd have probably walked shortly after being handed the 4-page NDA on the first interview. Honestly, what sort of idiocy/corporate paranoia would one be in store for if i'm required to sign a 4 page NDA before even attending a first interview"

     

    You've obviously never interviewed at Google have you? 

     Question 2 from the GLAT (Google Labs Aptitude Test): Write a haiku describing possible methods for predicting search traffic seasonality.

    Question 12: In your opinion, what is the most beautiful math equation ever derived?

    Odd place. Plus, they can see your house from space and could drop things on it.

     

  • (cs) in reply to poochner
    poochner:

    Another one was agreeing to testify in any dispute involving intellectual property we might know anything about after we left--on our dime, even if we'd "moved to Fiji,"  as I put it. That one was modified so they'd pay reasonable expenses, in what was called the Fiji Clause.

    At a previous place of employment, we were given a set of stock options on the condition that we sign an employment agreement.  The agreement was essentially a promise to use arbitration agreements rather than suing in case of disputes.  The killer clause for me was something like "in case the results of arbitration are not acceptable to one party, they may request another arbitration hearing with the expense split equally between both parties."  That essentially says that whoever has the most money will win.  Since the company had sued some ex employees in the past, and I was pretty sure the stock would go nowhere (I was wrong), I refused to sign it. The CFO was baffled by this, and couldn't figure out why someone wouldn't sign away their legal rights in exchange for money.

  • (cs) in reply to Paul

    Anonymous:
    Down in my neck of the woods, Burger King is paying $9.50 / hour with a $5,000 signing bonus.

    How long do you have to work there to actually get the bonus, 10 years?  or is it paid out over time?   LOL.....

    NO way in hell BK's handing out 5K checks to burger flippers.

  • Me (unregistered)

    I've got it!  Clearly the founder was a mutant with six fingers on each hand, and therefore uses base 12 arithmetic.  6 * 8 = 40. 

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    Anonymous:
    gwenhwyfaer:

    That's about as good as my interview question, "What kind of linked list do you not have to iterate through to find a value?"

    I go, "Uh...an empty one?" 

    He goes, "No one where the bracket [] operator is overloaded...it navigates to the position passed in the operator.  That immediately finds the value at a given index, and returns a the value."

    So did you call him on it?

    In all fairness, you don't have to iterate through a list with an Nth operator. The iteration will happen, but it's not your responsibility any more, and you can't be blamed for it going wrong.

    Learn this lesson well, and soon you too could be in a managerial position and ask eager engineers interview questions such as this one.

    After all, it'd be a lot safer than letting you continue to program.

     Hey, how's it going? Greeeat...

    Yeah, um, I'm going to have to have you come in on saturday.

     Sunday, too.

    thanks, that'll be greeeat.
     

    Ummm ... in fact, the proposed use of an overloaded operator [] is indeed an iterator -- albeit the rather uninteresting "random access iterator."

    A few questions spring to mind:

    (1) Why pick operator[] when you have all sorts of equally interesting operators to overload -- for example "operator ->*" ?

    (2) How exactly would this overloaded operator be coded for a linked list? Oh, I know, use a bridge-pattern vector to shadow every entry in the linked list.   Ummm again.

    (3) What would happen if you pointed out to your prospective boss that he is a clueless moron by explaining the first two points to him? Not that I really care.

    (4) I'm English, but surely the correct phrase is "Do not taunt Happy Fun Employee Agreement."

    There is no such thing as a random access iterator (in the STL sense) for a linked list. You can fake one with an underlying O(n) accessor, but you can't get around iterating a linked list. sorry 

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to indyHarcourt
    indyHarcourt:
    Anonymous:

    "i'd have probably walked shortly after being handed the 4-page NDA on the first interview. Honestly, what sort of idiocy/corporate paranoia would one be in store for if i'm required to sign a 4 page NDA before even attending a first interview"

     

    You've obviously never interviewed at Google have you? 

     Question 2 from the GLAT (Google Labs Aptitude Test): Write a haiku describing possible methods for predicting search traffic seasonality.

    Question 12: In your opinion, what is the most beautiful math equation ever derived?

    Odd place. Plus, they can see your house from space and could drop things on it.

     

     

    In spring we seek restaurants,
     

    In winter, presents,

    we seek porn throughout the year 

    12:  I like compound interest for the obvious reason.

    /creative 

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Egor

    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    In all seriousness, if the company's CEO is a woman it doesn't surprise me.

    Why?

     In all seriousness, if the CEO is a guy, it wouldn't surprise me either.
     

  • Anon E. Mouse (unregistered) in reply to Franz Kafka
    Anonymous:

    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    In all seriousness, if the company's CEO is a woman it doesn't surprise me.

    Why?

     In all seriousness, if the CEO is a guy, it wouldn't surprise me either.
     

     It wouldn't surprise me if the CEO was snorting Bolivian Marching Powder. 
     

  • Ballast (unregistered) in reply to Rick

    Regarding not having pencils or erasers... it's common for employees who handle sensitive personal information, like data entry "technicians" for tax firms, to not be allowed any way of recording that data other than in their heads to take out the door.  But for this circuit company, that doesn't make sense.  It's better to trust your employees.

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