The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

dpm · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

I fell into it right out of high school and made enough money to pay for university

I had no idea that being a pr0n photographer paid so well! Why didn't anyone tell me?

minkey · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

For the stored procedures one I think I would have made sure he heard me correctly. If he's been out of the DB world for a while his brain might have just gone to what he's used to first or he could have misheard. To dismiss someone that quickly because someone might be hard of hearing is kind of a dick move.

minkey · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

For the stored procedures one I think I would have made sure he heard me correctly. If he's been out of the DB world for a while his brain might have just gone to what he's used to first or he could have misheard. To dismiss someone that quickly because someone might be hard of hearing is kind of a dick move.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

It's sad that people are such prudes. If it were me interviewing that guy would have moved to the top of the list.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Don't bother posting without a non-returnable photograph.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

backForMore:
Don't bother posting without a non-returnable photograph.

Does it have to be a photograph of me?

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Store procedure was an honest mistake.

CAPTCHA: LUPTATUM

TheMugs · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

We try to keep secret. Now that the news is out, I guess a lot of people will come into the profession and it will bring our salary down.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

The real WTF is that the 'Porn Guy' is called Liz.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

I bet the Porn Guy had plenty of non-returnable photographs for the third company

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Porn Gal:
The real WTF is that the 'Porn Guy' is called Liz.

CAPTCHA: secundum .... indeed.

dpm · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

While I've never read up on actual discrimination laws, it sounds actionable to refuse to consider hiring someone because of a completely legal job in their past. That would be like me showing someone the door because he admitted to being "Barney" on television years ago. It feels justified but it ain't ethical.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

pjt33:
backForMore:
Don't bother posting without a non-returnable photograph.
Does it have to be a photograph of me?

I've got some very tasteful pictures of my girlfriend I took just out of high-school. Would one of those work?

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

The Article:
My question was fairly straightforward: tell me about your experience with stored procedures.

Interview fail. What kind of idiot question is this?

too_many_usernames · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

This is a story that is so unbelievable I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't experienced it personally.

We occasionally give a simple coding test to candidates. We are a primarily embedded systems company, so one question on the test is:

"What is an atomic operation?"

We have in our archives the hand-written response: "it involves the nucleus of atoms."

luis.espinal · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

dolor:
The Article:
My question was fairly straightforward: tell me about your experience with stored procedures.
Interview fail. What kind of idiot question is this?

Me no get it. Why is it an interview fail? Honest question. After all, it was an interview for a database developer position, and it would have been reasonable to ask for one's experience with stored procedures. Where they simple? Where they complex? Any problems in deployment? How do you debug them? Pros, cons? The whole enchilada. I don't see how this question was teh failx0r.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

"everyone is not technically inclined"

I'm not sure if that is what you really meant ;)

capio: leo?

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

My experience tells me that stored procedures are a thing of the past. You should keep away from them as much as possible.

You should rely on ORM tools like Hibernate and that will obviate the need to write any stored procedures.

Death to stored procs, I say.

CAPTCHA: nimis

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Well, it's fairly common to send photographs with a resume over here in Germany. Ok, that's normally a very formal, decent photo as for a passport, but some people also send more "nice" photos to present themselves in a hopefully positive way. This is a funny issue that in USA people are fearing discrimination by giving away their photo on this occasion, normally it's us here in Europe who have bigger fears of privacy violations, see all these StreetView and Facebook troubles recently.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

luis.espinal:
dolor:
The Article:
My question was fairly straightforward: tell me about your experience with stored procedures.
Interview fail. What kind of idiot question is this?

Me no get it. Why is it an interview fail? Honest question.

Indeed. If the candidate has only worked with MySQL, which is sad but common, the answers can be "none", "just starting to use them", and "I have used them since they appeared in 5.1 two years ago".

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

dpm:
While I've never read up on actual discrimination laws, it sounds actionable to refuse to consider hiring someone because of a completely legal job in their past. That would be like me showing someone the door because he admitted to being "Barney" on television years ago. It _feels_ justified but it ain't ethical.

I'd say it's abundantly clear you've never read up on employment discrimination laws. The only things you can't legally discriminate based on are the so called "protected classes": race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, familial status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or veteran status. You can not hire someone because you don't like the color of their tie if you so choose and it's totally legal.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Adriano:
luis.espinal:
dolor:
The Article:
My question was fairly straightforward: tell me about your experience with stored procedures.
Interview fail. What kind of idiot question is this?

Me no get it. Why is it an interview fail? Honest question.
Indeed. If the candidate has only worked with MySQL, which is sad but common, the answers can be "none", "just starting to use them", and "I have used them since they appeared in 5.1 two years ago".

Because it's merely the question: "Are you familiar with stored procedures?" slightly rephrased.

Picture this: you're in an interview. The candidate asks you: "Do you know x?" You want to appear qualified for the job. What is your answer: yes or no?

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Adriano:
luis.espinal:
dolor:
The Article:
My question was fairly straightforward: tell me about your experience with stored procedures.
Interview fail. What kind of idiot question is this?

Me no get it. Why is it an interview fail? Honest question.
Indeed. If the candidate has only worked with MySQL, which is sad but common, the answers can be "none", "just starting to use them", and "I have used them since they appeared in 5.1 two years ago".

The question's a bit open-ended as it stands though. It might be more time-effective to ask "How much, if at all, have you used them?" followed up by things like "What are the benefits of using them?" and a few lower-level questions.

dpm · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

OldPeter:
This is a funny issue that in USA people are fearing discrimination by giving away their photo on this occasion

I didn't see that at all. The point of the story was that the company warned prospective hires that photographs emailed to them would not be returned.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

OldPeter:
Well, it's fairly common to send photographs with a resume over here in Germany.

It´s not about sending a non-returnable photograph at all but about sending a non-returnable photograph by email.

luis.espinal · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Nagesh Kukunoor:
My experience tells me that stored procedures are a thing of the past. You should keep away from them as much as possible.
You should rely on ORM tools like Hibernate and that will obviate the need to write any stored procedures.

Death to stored procs, I say.

CAPTCHA: nimis

Don't fall for that kool-aid. ORMs have their place, but are not general silver bullets. Nothing is. Like anything, they have limitations (severe limitations), and if your architecture deeply relies on having a ORM, you might as well model and store your data on a OO or graph database instead of plastering yet another layer of abstraction on top of your persistence layer just so that you can claim "look, OO!".

Stored procedures have their place, and like anything (ORMs included), they can be used wisely or abused. After all, there are massive relational systems that work just fine and that need extension or integration. And there are applications that are naturally relational (and for which using a ORM is like forcing a square peg on a round hole.

What are you going to do? Rewrite them all just so that they use a ORM? Dead to stored procedures, nice wishful (and impractical from an engineering standpoint) thinking. When people start saying "death to this or that", it indicates they might not have a firm grasp on the technical issues at hand.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

non-returnable email...

[image]

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

dpm:
While I've never read up on actual discrimination laws, it sounds actionable to refuse to consider hiring someone because of a completely legal job in their past. That would be like me showing someone the door because he admitted to being "Barney" on television years ago. It _feels_ justified but it ain't ethical.

I think it's one of those "gray areas", depending on the job. For example, how does that person's former job affect the public's perception of the company? (And public perception can affect the ability of a person to do their job if the job involves a lot of interaction with "the public".)

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

too_many_usernames:
We are a primarily embedded systems company, so one question on the test is: "What is an atomic operation?"

Perhaps I'm ignorant, but what's the causal connection between embedded systems and atomic operations?

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

jger:
OldPeter:
Well, it's fairly common to send photographs with a resume over here in Germany.

It´s not about sending a non-returnable photograph at all but about sending a non-returnable photograph by email.

Your from Germany? Good, I have a question about my German automobile. I drive a Prius, and I heard that diesels get better gas mileage. So I filled it with diesel and now it's making funny noises. Can you help?

luis.espinal · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

dolor:
Adriano:
luis.espinal:
dolor:
The Article:
My question was fairly straightforward: tell me about your experience with stored procedures.
Interview fail. What kind of idiot question is this?

Me no get it. Why is it an interview fail? Honest question.
Indeed. If the candidate has only worked with MySQL, which is sad but common, the answers can be "none", "just starting to use them", and "I have used them since they appeared in 5.1 two years ago".
Because it's merely the question: "Are you familiar with stored procedures?" slightly rephrased.

Picture this: you're in an interview. The candidate asks you: "Do you know x?" You want to appear qualified for the job. What is your answer: yes or no?

In the affirmative, it would be "yes, I've done such and such with x", or "yes, but my experience with x have been limited to such and such".

In the negative, it would be "no, but I've worked on things that resemble x in such and such way", or "no, I've only read about them", or "no, I'm not familiar with that technology."

Moreover, every time I get a question, I repeat the question back to the interviewer (and rephrase and reformulate if the question is too open ended), to make sure it is what he/she is asking.

In an interview, no question is truly a yes/no question, regardless of how the question is presented. If you treat the question as a yes/no question (and the interviewer might be tricking you into doing so for whatever reason), that's on you.

Besides, in an interview for a database development position, how else can someone applying for that position can take "Do you know x"? Context is everything, and the person going into an interview is responsible for being aware of that technology-specific context. Interviewers are not obliged to chew and ruminate questions out until they are these 100% unambiguous, easily digestible snow flakes. They are not.

Maybe (and I'm honestly saying this) I'm missing something legit that you are trying to say with regard to the validity of the interview question. But honestly, I just don't see it.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Chris:
Adriano:
luis.espinal:
dolor:
The Article:
My question was fairly straightforward: tell me about your experience with stored procedures.
Interview fail. What kind of idiot question is this?

Me no get it. Why is it an interview fail? Honest question.
Indeed. If the candidate has only worked with MySQL, which is sad but common, the answers can be "none", "just starting to use them", and "I have used them since they appeared in 5.1 two years ago".
The question's a bit open-ended as it stands though. It might be more time-effective to ask "How much, if at all, have you used them?" followed up by things like "What are the benefits of using them?" and a few lower-level questions.

Your the reason why I have to work with incompitant numbskulls. Try boning up on your interview skills.

amischiefr · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

dpm:
I fell into it right out of high school and made enough money to pay for university
I had no idea that being a pr0n photographer paid so well! Why didn't anyone tell me?

I don't think he was the 'photographer', if you know what I mean. Either that or he got his degree from ITT Tech...

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Ken B.:
dpm:
While I've never read up on actual discrimination laws, it sounds actionable to refuse to consider hiring someone because of a completely legal job in their past. That would be like me showing someone the door because he admitted to being "Barney" on television years ago. It _feels_ justified but it ain't ethical.
I think it's one of those "gray areas", depending on the job. For example, how does that person's former job affect the public's perception of the company? (And public perception can affect the ability of a person to do their job if the job involves a lot of interaction with "the public".)

And, as someone else pointed out, "former job" is probably not on the list of things you can't "discriminate" against.

I know, for example, that a landlord can refuse to rent to someone based on their job. (At least that's true in New York.)

too_many_usernames · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Henning Makholm:
too_many_usernames:
We are a primarily embedded systems company, so one question on the test is: "What is an atomic operation?"
Perhaps I'm ignorant, but what's the causal connection between embedded systems and atomic operations?

I suppose I should have qualified "embedded" as "real-time embedded controls." Data incoherency is *not* your friend!

amischiefr · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

dolor:
The Article:
My question was fairly straightforward: tell me about your experience with stored procedures.
Interview fail. What kind of idiot question is this?

Actually these are the kinds of questions that work best. You get the person talking about a subject and let them either talk themselves into or out of a job. They will either know the subject and elaborate on it, or they will try to BS you and you'll pick up on that too.

What kind of questions would you propose?

luis.espinal · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Chris:
Adriano:
luis.espinal:
Me no get it. Why is it an interview fail? Honest question.
Indeed. If the candidate has only worked with MySQL, which is sad but common, the answers can be "none", "just starting to use them", and "I have used them since they appeared in 5.1 two years ago".
The question's a bit open-ended as it stands though. It might be more time-effective to ask "How much, if at all, have you used them?" followed up by things like "What are the benefits of using them?" and a few lower-level questions.

Interviews are supposed to contain open-ended questions. It is up the interviewee to negotiate and work with the interviewer for an interpretation of such questions. If the interviewee just takes the question 'as-is', that's his/her fail. The interviewer gets a lot of feedback by looking at how the interviewee reacts to such questions - is he/she engaging me in refining the question until it becomes unambiguous, asking for clarifications? Or is he/she acting like a dumb oracle automaton?

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Henning Makholm:
too_many_usernames:
We are a primarily embedded systems company, so one question on the test is: "What is an atomic operation?"
Perhaps I'm ignorant, but what's the causal connection between embedded systems and atomic operations?

Iron atoms are often embedded into a patient's body during operations...

Also I am surprised that the person in the last story was to cheap to visit his friendly file manager and spring for another copy of his jpeg...

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

too_many_usernames:
Henning Makholm:
too_many_usernames:
We are a primarily embedded systems company, so one question on the test is: "What is an atomic operation?"
Perhaps I'm ignorant, but what's the causal connection between embedded systems and atomic operations?
I suppose I should have qualified "embedded" as "real-time embedded controls." Data incoherency is *not* your friend!

But atoms can be broken down into smaller components, making the term a misnomer. Perhaps we should start using "quarkic operation"[tm] instead?

luis.espinal · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

too_many_usernames:
Henning Makholm:
too_many_usernames:
We are a primarily embedded systems company, so one question on the test is: "What is an atomic operation?"
Perhaps I'm ignorant, but what's the causal connection between embedded systems and atomic operations?
I suppose I should have qualified "embedded" as "real-time embedded controls." Data incoherency is *not* your friend!

To be fair, atomic operations are not just restricted to that realm. They are at the heart of database transactions (or in systems programing wrt to uninterruptible ops). A person with a CS degree should (must) know what an atomic operation is, at least conceptually.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

luis.espinal:
Nagesh Kukunoor:
My experience tells me that stored procedures are a thing of the past. You should keep away from them as much as possible.
You should rely on ORM tools like Hibernate and that will obviate the need to write any stored procedures.

Death to stored procs, I say.

CAPTCHA: nimis

Don't fall for that kool-aid. ORMs have their place, but are not general silver bullets. Nothing is. Like anything, they have limitations (severe limitations), and if your architecture deeply relies on having a ORM, you might as well model and store your data on a OO or graph database instead of plastering yet another layer of abstraction on top of your persistence layer just so that you can claim "look, OO!".

Stored procedures have their place, and like anything (ORMs included), they can be used wisely or abused. After all, there are massive relational systems that work just fine and that need extension or integration. And there are applications that are naturally relational (and for which using a ORM is like forcing a square peg on a round hole.

What are you going to do? Rewrite them all just so that they use a ORM? Dead to stored procedures, nice wishful (and impractical from an engineering standpoint) thinking. When people start saying "death to this or that", it indicates they might not have a firm grasp on the technical issues at hand.

I just spoke to the senior vice-president of technical development in my company and he thinks you're only partly right.

Captcha: praesent (I am present)

hoodaticus · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Henning Makholm:
too_many_usernames:
We are a primarily embedded systems company, so one question on the test is: "What is an atomic operation?"
Perhaps I'm ignorant, but what's the causal connection between embedded systems and atomic operations?

Presumably, they have long-running simultaneous processes sharing state. Such as communications and storage providers and their clients.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

anon:
I'd say it's abundantly clear you've never read up on employment discrimination laws. The only things you can't legally discriminate based on are the so called "protected classes": race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, familial status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or veteran status. You can not hire someone because you don't like the color of their tie if you so choose and it's totally legal.

And of course, the onus is on you to prove that you weren't hired because of one of the "naughty" categories. As long as they can come up with a reasonable explanation, they're off the hook. (And even if you win, I wouldn't count on a long and productive stay there anyway.)

hoodaticus · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

minkey:
For the stored procedures one I think I would have made sure he heard me correctly. If he's been out of the DB world for a while his brain might have just gone to what he's used to first or he could have misheard. To dismiss someone that quickly because someone might be hard of hearing is kind of a dick move.

If you have ever written a stored procedure in your life, you would not forget what they are.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Ken B.:
too_many_usernames:
Henning Makholm:
too_many_usernames:
We are a primarily embedded systems company, so one question on the test is: "What is an atomic operation?"
Perhaps I'm ignorant, but what's the causal connection between embedded systems and atomic operations?
I suppose I should have qualified "embedded" as "real-time embedded controls." Data incoherency is *not* your friend!
But atoms can be broken down into smaller components, making the term a misnomer. Perhaps we should start using "quarkic operation"[tm] instead?

It's atoms all the way down!

dpm · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

amischiefr:
dpm:
I had no idea that being a pr0n photographer paid so well! Why didn't anyone tell me?
I don't think he was the 'photographer', if you know what I mean. Either that or he got his degree from ITT Tech...

In the first place,

“I used to be a photographer in the adult film industry,” I told them.

Seems fairly certain --- especially when you consider that admitting to TDWTF that you were a *performer* would make the story better, not worse.

In the second, "Liz" is usually a she, not a he.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Ken B.:
I think it's one of those "gray areas", depending on the job. For example, how does that person's former job affect the public's perception of the company? (And public perception can affect the ability of a person to do their job if the job involves a lot of interaction with "the public".)

Also, you could deduce certain things from somebody thinking that talking about their past in the adult film industry is appropriate in a job interview.

(What's with the black-on-dark-grey captcha? Discriminating against people with poor night sight?)

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

dolor:
The Article:
My question was fairly straightforward: tell me about your experience with stored procedures.
Interview fail. What kind of idiot question is this?

Yeah, it really is a bit like asking an imperative programmer, "so, how about those user-defined functions?" Or like asking a truck driver, "so how do you feel about steering wheels?"

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

dolor:
Chris:
Adriano:
luis.espinal:
dolor:
The Article:
My question was fairly straightforward: tell me about your experience with stored procedures.
Interview fail. What kind of idiot question is this?

Me no get it. Why is it an interview fail? Honest question.
Indeed. If the candidate has only worked with MySQL, which is sad but common, the answers can be "none", "just starting to use them", and "I have used them since they appeared in 5.1 two years ago".
The question's a bit open-ended as it stands though. It might be more time-effective to ask "How much, if at all, have you used them?" followed up by things like "What are the benefits of using them?" and a few lower-level questions.
Your the reason why I have to work with incompitantnumbskulls. Try boning up on your interview skills.

Brush up your spelling skills.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
minkey:
For the stored procedures one I think I would have made sure he heard me correctly. If he's been out of the DB world for a while his brain might have just gone to what he's used to first or he could have misheard. To dismiss someone that quickly because someone might be hard of hearing is kind of a dick move.
If you have ever written a stored procedure in your life, you would not forget what they are.

No, if you had never actually learned SQL and, like most of the people I see on DB forums, just copy-paste code you might not actually know what a stored procedure is, even if you did use them.

Stored Procedures, The Porn Guy, and Non-returnable Email

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