- Feature Articles
- CodeSOD
- Error'd
- Forums
-
Other Articles
- Random Article
- Other Series
- Alex's Soapbox
- Announcements
- Best of…
- Best of Email
- Best of the Sidebar
- Bring Your Own Code
- Coded Smorgasbord
- Mandatory Fun Day
- Off Topic
- Representative Line
- News Roundup
- Editor's Soapbox
- Software on the Rocks
- Souvenir Potpourri
- Sponsor Post
- Tales from the Interview
- The Daily WTF: Live
- Virtudyne
Admin
At some point this woman's boss said, "Always call! Always! If you don't call I will fire you!" Is that enough to turn down a job? Equivalent question: are you applying for an HR position?
Doing something stupid that takes two minutes is easier than risking termination.
Admin
She just wanted your phone number.
Admin
snoofle: considering the frequency of your sidebar comments making it onto the front page, perhaps you should start a blog of your own :)
whatever you do, don't quit - we need you there for our entertainment
Admin
Depends on her mood, but often nerds are oblivious to flirtation. Maybe she just wanted to get his phone number.... Anyhow, we've all seen what can happen when a company doesn't check out at least some basics before hiring someone. Playing this little game did serve the purpose of verifying that it really was his own phone number and I'm still willing to suppose that there might have been a friendly wink and nudge thrown in, however subtle. Cheers.
Admin
could have been worse, (s)he could have been fired for not picking up the phone before the 1st ring...
Admin
Please fix it now, for the sake of all our unborn children.
And for Peter Gibbins, who I don't give a paramecium's arse about.
Admin
HEY! I think I've read this before!
And who's this snoofle guy, posting on the main page?! Isn't he just a forum memeber?
What's next?! Spectate Swamp posting an article about how bstorer's conversion of SSDS to .NET is a WTF because .NET is bloatware!?
What is the world coming tooooo?
</insanity></sarcasm>
Admin
FAke
Admin
So, what exactly are you calling "stupid"? Is the process "stupid", or is following the process "stupid"? An edge case caused a secretary to lose 5 minutes of time. Would you rather pay a process modeller thousands of dollars to try to cover the edge cases, and force the secretary to undergo days of training in the edge cases? Or would you rather say, "here are our processes, but you don't have to follow them if you think they're stupid." Or, would you just let the secretary lose 5 minutes?
Idiot developers (that's most of them, as I've said before) would choose the second option, just like they would choose to try to bypass a migration process because "only one line changed". Because, you know, it would be stupid to make QA develop test cases, and CM document the change, when you should really just be able to change it in production.
Admin
Admin
That was Tim Horton's, a Canadian coffee-and-donut chain and cultural icon. She gave the baby a free Timbit (donut hole). The woman was fired, but was reinstated after public outcry. The official response from corporate was that the franchise manager made the wrong call. This wasn't some random McJob kid, either, this woman had worked there for years and had already proved her loyalty.
What puzzled me most when I first heard that story, apart from the fact that Tim Horton's builds their image based on warm fuzzies and friendliness, was that they DO give away freebies. All the time. They sell Timbits in boxes of 20, but frequently I get a box stuffed with way more. I never think to count, but it's gotta be 25-35. I get disappointed if I order a box of 20 and "only" get 20!
I'm glad they reversed that decision, though I wonder if it would have played out the same way without the high-profile backlash from the internet.
Admin
Yes, I consider this prudent too. I'll often go to someone and discuss with them the problem and suggested resolutions. Then once we both know what we're doing I'll send them an email saying exactly what we just discussed. ("This is to confirm our decision to ...")
Works especially well when dealing with managers that have a habit of changing their minds or blaming you for making decisions that he "disagrees" with, despite the fact that you thought you'd agreed...
Admin
This so reminds me of one time in Canadian Tire. I had a box, it was shrinkwapped and completely shut with glue and those huge tacks. The airhead at the register still opened the box (not without great struggling) to see if I had slipped something into it. "It's the procedure" she told me, not realizing the utter stupidity of what she was doing.
Admin
You should've told her all requests for employment verification must be sent via mail on company letterhead.
VERTO--Direction you go when receiving a wedgie.
Admin
There's a definite business opportunity here.
Admin
I think the real WTF here is that so many people here defend her actions as reasonable (for whatever reason). Must be a US thing what with all your lawsuits and fear of being sued. Nicely indoctrinated people there apparently.
Admin
I meant i thought i already read it on the frontpage.
Admin
They did your fiance a favor. There's nothing worse than micromanagement in policy form.
Admin
Perhaps the real WTF is that you bought a box at a tire store.
Tristique--Mysterious threesome
Admin
Two secretaries sitting at a table in the lunch room.
One: You want to hear something really funny? Two: Sure. What did you do this time? One: I totally messed some poor newbie's mind today. Two: How so? One: He shows up to in-process and gets this bored just-get-it-over-with attitude and acts like HR just exists to make his life harder. Two: He must be an IT guy. One: How did you know? Anyway. I take him through the process, and just when we are finishing up, I give him this story about having to verify his previous employment. Two: Sure. It's required. One: But, the thing is that he was self employed. Two: So he was his own boss? One: Yup. I give him the dumb secretary act and tell him that I have to call him up to do the verification. Two: And you called him? One: Yeah. On his cell phone. Two: While he was standing right there? One: Sweet Huh? He does the old "But... but... but... I'm right here" thing. Totally zonked out and clueless. Two: Hah. I can image the look on his face. One: It was priceless. I had trouble keeping from laughing out loud. Two: And he never figured it out? One: Nope. I bet he tells all his buddies about the dumb secretary in HR. Two: And none of them will realize that they've been played for fools.
Admin
Hehe, awesome situation to create a burn.
Admin
Yeah, maybe she just wanted his phone number to make a booty call later?
Admin
The secretary in this story showed no signs of understanding the difference between goals and process. She also gave no indication that slavishly following the process was wrong but she had to do it to save her job (or whatever).
Admin
I bet they have a special department in accounting that reconciles the phone bill to the time sheets just to make sure that a phone call was made for every interview. :P
Admin
[quote user="A Nonny Mouse"]snoofle: considering the frequency of your sidebar comments making it onto the front page, perhaps you should start a blog of your own :)
whatever you do, don't quit - we need you there for our entertainment[/quote]
Yeah, this place is responsible for most of my posts. As I've said in the past, I get paid to be entertained by this stupidity.
[quote uiser="SA"]Two secretaries sitting at a table in the lunch room...[/quote]
While I'm not exactly suave/sophisticated, I do know how to shmooze: I know when a woman is busting my chops, and this secretary was waaay to f'n stupid to have been playing a prank.
Edit: WTF happened to the formatting?
Admin
For one contract-to-hire position, I HAD to have a formal interview from HR before being converted to permie. Despite already having been working there for a long time. The standard stuff:
I was so tempted to "blow" the interview and see what happened. sadly (or happily) I didn't.
Admin
[quote user="snoofle"][quote user="A Nonny Mouse"]snoofle: considering the frequency of your sidebar comments making it onto the front page, perhaps you should start a blog of your own :)
whatever you do, don't quit - we need you there for our entertainment[/quote]
Yeah, this place is responsible for most of my posts. As I've said in the past, I get paid to be entertained by this stupidity.
[quote uiser="SA"]Two secretaries sitting at a table in the lunch room...[/quote]
While I'm not exactly suave/sophisticated, I do know how to shmooze: I know when a woman is busting my chops, and this secretary was waaay to f'n stupid to have been playing a prank.
Edit: WTF happened to the formatting?[/quote]
It's not too clever when you mis-spell "uiser." Which is the inverse of me concertina-ing your moniker and typing "peoople..."
Admin
Admin
That's not a word. Also, this isn't a CV, it's just an old newspaper.
Admin
It is a scam. In order to be certified (if I remember correctly) you also have to only use vendors that are certified, or are getting certified. Pyramid scheme.
Admin
This isn't really a WTF. Believe it or not, she was required to call probably because the conversation was recorded, or, Quality and Assurance staff required that the conversation may be recorded (depending on what state the company is based in, you don't have to ask for permission to record a conversation). Still, it would be better if they just had an option where she could record a face-to-face.
I wouldn't take the fact that she had to call as any indication of whether or not it would be a good idea to work there. The HR department of the university I worked at was great and had two of the kindest people I think I've ever met, but the department I worked in was far, far different.
Admin
You are obviously new here, so I'll advise you that it is customary to remove your vagina sand before entering this website. TIA.
Admin
Another made up story. How stupid do you think we are? This simply never happened.
Admin
You just got 0wned... she was flirting with you dude. ;)
Admin
I made a deposit at my bank yesterday, which has a branch inside the Super Wal-Mart. As I was leaving, empty handed except for a deposit receipt, the greeter asked if he could help me with anything. I was tempted to say, "Yes, I just knocked over the bank. Could you give me a ride to Mexico?"
Admin
Hmmmm.
I would have answered the phone and said "Sorry but I'm out of the office right now so I'll have to take a message for me."
Or some such silly thing.
Admin
I dunno...
If the story had been told from the secretary's point of view like in, "secretary being reprimanded for not calling the guy's that's right in front of you", that too would probably been a good WTF.
Admin
This is fake, it can not be real.
Admin
Admin
The Perfect Droid incarnation.
Admin
I think a more charitable interpretation is the STUPID HR DEPT WTF.
For all you know, there is a formal HR policy in the Dept that all items MUST be verified via telephone call.
Her job would be on the line if she didn't do that.
Granted there should be an exception to the HR policy for self-employed individuals, but that just makes it a STUPID HR DEPT WTF.
Admin
Yes, snoofle, the rest of the company would have been just as WTF-y.
If you look at this recent article here.. http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Superencryptalisticexpialidocious.aspx ..and decode the string, you get, among other things..
... if (($gotten == 111)&&($hd == $id_hd )) { include ('initrodeGlobal_com.php'); } elseif ($gotten != 111) { include ('initrodeGlobal_com.php'); } ...
Sounds familiar? So, yes, wtf-y, very wtf-y indeed.
Admin
Ya seen this before sounds like it comes from my country somewhere in sub sahara Africa. Untrained unskilled ad blatantly idiotic. One bimbo I knew kept answering the phone with "hello how are you" no company, name no intro and anyway who gives a dam I'm usually pissed off on Monday mornings. She then got hot and flustered when I messed with her mind and asked why she would give a F... as to how I was. I didn't even know if I had reached the correct company.
Admin
He should have put her on hold.
Admin
it is possible that a call is required bercause it was recorded.
Admin
Admin
And that's specially useful to deal with customers that request something, change their minds and deny that they actually made that request. You talk to them to make sure that you understood everything they said and then, after you deliver them exactly what they requested, they start complaining that it had "nothing to do with their request".
Then, it's very common to hear a user say:
And that's the reason why I think that customers should be required to SIGN A PRINTED DOCUMENT. This already saved my ass several times:
Here, you signed this document where you specifically approved this prototype.
Admin
Admin
She needed to for her TPS report
Admin
Recently, at a local drug store, A woman went into diabetic shock. A nurse, further back in line made the clerk-monkey get an emergency kit and a container of OJ which she used to save the diabetic's life. The clerk-monkey threatened to call the police if nobody paid for the items right there on the spot.
It made the news and the drugstore reimbursed the nurse for the 25$ worth of stuff the clerk-monkey thought she had "stolen."
Less and less speeple are capable of thought to the point where common sense is becoming a rarity.
It's a shame really.