The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
(It's worth also noting that some of them weren't native Hebrew speakers either... A large fraction of Israel's population is made up of immigrants from countries that don't natively speak Hebrew.)

It's also worth noting that Hebrew was reinvented after the second world war. Before that the Jews spoke Jiddish, a mix of the various European languages and Hebrew. When everybody moved to the 'promised land', they reinvented Hebrew, as there is no way to tell if the current Hebrew is the same as 1700 years ago.

About foreign languages: in The Netherlands foreigners hardly get a chance to learn Dutch. Everybody will switch to English on the first hesitation of the foreigner, even if that foreigner only speaks e.g. French and a bit of Dutch. On the other hand, English speaking foreigners always assume that everybody can switch to English on the first word, without bothering to ask if you speak that language. That can be quite annoying, especially in a noisy place.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
I guess I'm in a rare minority of Brits, then. I live in France and take a sort of utilitarian pride in not breaking into English when speaking to my colleagues, even if my French isn't quite good enough to easily express what I want to say. And this is *despite* being invited to do so.
It's pride in that I don't want to descend into the sort of linguistico-cultural arrogance that the English are historically known for, that of speaking English slowly and loudly in the hopes that this will be better understood. I take pride in showing them that we can do better. It's utilitarian in that persisting in this forces me to improve my French, which in turn aids in many other every-day activities.

Bah.

Bravo!

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

ObiWayneKenobi:
Seriously though, if you come to America speak English of some form so people can understand you. Yes, have pride in your original culture but speak it at home and with close friends, don't force everyone else to speak YOUR language in OUR country.

Lol, and what to Americans do abroad? ...

However in this particular case I agree. to work efficiently you need to know the local lingo. That's why in general foreigners get the low paid jobs. You don't need to speak when cleaning public toilets.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

About the ugly american link: English is not my native language and I always use english variable names and comment in english even in my personal projects that probably will only ever be looked at by me. it is just more natural than always translating.

So yeah, a developer that can't speak very good english is a no go.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

QJo:
The real WTF is foreign languages.

FTFY.

lanmind · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

jkupski:
When life hands you lemons, make lemonade

Or, when life ruins your legs, make legonade.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

ubersoldat:
I'm native Spanish speaker and I completely disregard any software/IT related professional who doesn't speaks/understands a minimum of English.
Why? In code I hate to see stuff like:

if is variableTemporal: # Esto va a imprimir algo print algo

It's really annoying to be kept going in/out of English. I really hate localization of English words like hardware, software, cpu, etc.

I'm specially hateful of people who say: encriptación (this word doesn't even exists) instead of "cifrado".

And finally, any programming book worth reading probably won't be translated to Spanish. Hell, StackOverflow is all in English!

Disclaimer: Languages other than English randomized to avoid targeting any particular group.

You know, it's not that everyone is forced to speak English if they want to use something useful. It's that anyone who speaks French doesn't start anything useful IN GERMAN.

Either they want portability and they choose English, or there's just no entrepreneurship in Italian.

If someone really wanted software in Dutch, they'd go make it and use it.

I'm tired of Russian speaking people demanding others speak Hebrew and making stuff in Portuguese because they refuse to learn English. Go make your own stuff.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

The WTF is that they have Elbonian department.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Andre:
To me, the real WTF is how it could possibly be considered discrimination to demand a candidate for any position is proficient in the primary language used by the existing team.

Because people haven't experienced true racism in America for so long that they (water it down to \ include), "You looked at me and blinked you racist. Why'd you blink? That's racist!"

I've been considered racist because I told someone I'd prefer to not date a particular person. I guess it's racist if I don't want to paint my walls black too.

But, it's a good cover for failure. "You don't want me because I'm _____, not because I can't do the job."

At my dad's job there's a ridiculously small woman who can't perform the duties because she can't reach anything (disregarding the fact that she can't figure out how to perform the duties, so it's like a double lie), but they can't fire her because she's the only woman on the team. So should they be forced to install step ladders everywhere at the cost of tens of thousands? Oh I know, they should have to build a ramp up the smokestack.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

suscipit:
The WTF is that they have Elbonian department.

Apparently Elbonians make for good programmers?

If it's true, I don't mind an Elbonian department. But the food staff will be a little frustrated that there's another group of people that can't speak Spanish.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

The worst offenders are the Spaniards. They'll translate everything ... even when it doesn't make sense. I've heard them say shit like "Cortafuegos" (Firewall), "La Placa Madre" (motherboard).

To be honest, I don't like the English dominance of the world, If we were to choose a universal language, I would go with Esperanto, or some other neutral-ground, designed language. But truth is, WE NEED a universal language, and politics aside, it's English. So everyone needs to STFU and learn it. I own a small software development company in Argentina, all of our coders are locals and native Spanish speakers, and yet I insist all of them must understand English perfectly, must speak it fluently, and must be able to write code in English. Documentation, Filenames, variable names, comments, everything must be in (proper) English. Recently, we where late on a particular project, and I outsourced part of it to a team in Romania. They where awesome, did a great job, and since everything in the code was in English, their commits blended perfectly into the project.

It pays off, and it's the best policy.

Mason Wheeler · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Rookierookie:
ObiWayneKenobi:
How is this a WTF? If you go to another country, you should be expected to know enough of the local language to communicate. The WTF is that Sean didn't mention when he recommended the guy that he said "But he can't speak English very well; I did the interview in Elbonian since he was more comfortable speaking that." that way at least management knew and could choose not to hire him.
Seriously though, if you come to America speak English of some form so people can understand you. Yes, have pride in your original culture but speak it at home and with close friends, don't force everyone else to speak YOUR language in OUR country.

Actually that is completely untrue, the majority of American and British folks in most countries where the native language is not English never learn the slightest bit of the native language. Which is fine for them because in most of these countries English is spoken, with varying degrees of competence, and they tend to move in circles where people speak English quite well, but the fact remains that most people moving to English speaking countries are expected to be fluent in English, while the reverse is almost never true for English speakers.

[Citation needed.] When I lived in Argentina, most people "spoke English" about as well as kids in the US "speak Spanish" after studying it for half a year in grade school and never touching it again. I learned Spanish as a basic survival skill: if you can't communicate with ordinary people, it gets mighty hard to buy food or care for other fundamental needs.

In fact, the only foreign country I've been to where my native English was good enough to get by with was Australia.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
It's pride in that I don't want to descend into the sort of linguistico-cultural arrogance that the English are historically known for, that of speaking English slowly and loudly in the hopes that this will be better understood.

But oddly enough, it WILL be better understood if you are speaking to someone who knows some English, but not that well.

I find that when listening to French or German, it is much easier to understand when the speaker speaks slowly, with pauses between the words, and loudly. By speaking loudly, they improve the signal/noise ratio, making it easier to distinguish their speech from other sounds in the environment. By speaking slowly, they give me time to think about the meaning of their words. By leaving pauses between the words, it makes it easier for me to recognize the words because I can more easily recognize the boundaries between words.

I have no reason to think that the same considerations would not be helpful for someone who speaks English as well as I speak French.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Are you for real man?

Elbonia isn't a real country. It comes from Dilbert.

Mason Wheeler · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Valued Service:
suscipit:
The WTF is that they have Elbonian department.

Apparently Elbonians make for good programmers?

No, they really don't, in addition to the language barriers. That's TRWTF here: having not one, but two Elbonians on the same team who are technically competent.

We've got a whole team of Elbonian programmers working as an offshore adjunct to our team at work. (Assuming Snoofle used the term correctly, that is. Elbonia is that big country to the north of Absurdistan.) There's not a single one of them, much less two, who know what they're doing, and some weeks we spend more time and effort cleaning up the messes they made in our codebase than we spend actually creating code.

FragFrog · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Rhywden:
Sweden (as well as the whole of Scandinavia) is not a good example for this, due to the simple fact that most Scandinavians speak 2 or 3 foreign languages, with English being the most common. You'd have a much larger problem in, say, France or China.

Well yeah, but that is why I mentioned the smaller countries - like my home country, they have to teach kids English to get by in the world. But last time I was in France, most people I met spoke English well enough to get by - luckily, the few who did not had little trouble understanding my broken French. I have had similar experiences in Germany (where all the young people speak pretty decent English, but tend to be reluctant with it).

From what I hear, bigger companies in China do not require their foreign employees to learn Chinese either. While that does not mean the 'man in the street' can understand you, English in the workplace is not unheard of over there either.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Anon:
georgir:
Send him on a couple months of English course, and get a great worker. No problem at all. Much more preferable than a candidate with fluid English but needing years of programming courses, logical thinking courses or as the case may seem on some occasions, brain transplant.

I can pick up any programming language you want in a week or two, a foreign language? Not so much.

That's because you're presumably at least reasonably technically competent. The assertion was bringing someone who is technically competent up to understand the language is probably easier than bringing someone who isn't technically competent but understands English fluently up to being technically competent. I suspect this is the case, though I can't prove it. (We as a culture have had a lot more time to figure out how to teach foreign languages than computational thinking.)

MBV:
About foreign languages: in The Netherlands foreigners hardly get a chance to learn Dutch. Everybody will switch to English on the first hesitation of the foreigner, even if that foreigner only speaks e.g. French and a bit of Dutch.

I've heard that complaint before; I don't think it's specific to the Netherlands.

Actually I've even heard a more extreme version secondhand. Someone I know who was born and raised in Russia and moved to the US for grad school and is still around has taken trips back to Russia, unsurprisingly -- and apparently he picked up some sort of mannerism here (the secondhand story said it was smiling too much) that means that lots of people there just start speaking English to him -- and he's a native Russian speaker!

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
I guess I'm in a rare minority of Brits, then. I live in France and take a sort of utilitarian pride in not breaking into English when speaking to my colleagues, even if my French isn't quite good enough to easily express what I want to say. And this is *despite* being invited to do so.
It's pride in that I don't want to descend into the sort of linguistico-cultural arrogance that the English are historically known for, that of speaking English slowly and loudly in the hopes that this will be better understood. I take pride in showing them that we can do better. It's utilitarian in that persisting in this forces me to improve my French, which in turn aids in many other every-day activities.

Bah.

I see no reason to have shame in the fact that you know English better than French. Nor do I see a reason to be proud of using a less effective tool to get your ideas across. If they understand English, and you know how to say it in English, then just say it in English and then ask what is the best way to express the thought in French. You still learn, arguably faster, and if they're insulted by your using the most effective tool to communicate, given the knowledge of both sides of the conversation, that's their issue.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Almafuerte:
Recently, we where late on a particular project, and I outsourced part of it to a team in Romania. They where awesome, did a great job, and since everything in the code was in English, their commits blended perfectly into the project.

What, an outsourced project going well, on the thedailywtf.com of all placed. Will wonders never cease?

alegr · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

D:
It kills your confidence to keep asking "what?" and then you realize it's a simple question.

The question being "Does Marsellus Wallace look like a bitch?"

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Hiring someone who cannot communicate is the worst thing you can do to him. From my experience:

no one will voluntarily work with him
collaborative efforts typically end out of exhaustion, with little useful work on his part
develops no co-worker friendships
gets no assignments worthy of his talents
Just exactly the extent of his talents is unknown
will never get promoted
is (mentally) isolated from co-workers and customers
He is not dis-respected, rather everyone is kind and courteous, but there is a je ne sais quoi of lack of respect.
This continues for years.

Co-workers aren't resentful, they just feel sorry for the person.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Almafuerte:
The worst offenders are the Spaniards. They'll translate everything ... even when it doesn't make sense. I've heard them say shit like "Cortafuegos" (Firewall), "La Placa Madre" (motherboard).
To be honest, I don't like the English dominance of the world, If we were to choose a universal language, I would go with Esperanto, or some other neutral-ground, designed language. But truth is, WE NEED a universal language, and politics aside, it's English. So everyone needs to STFU and learn it. I own a small software development company in Argentina, all of our coders are locals and native Spanish speakers, and yet I insist all of them must understand English perfectly, must speak it fluently, and must be able to write code in English. Documentation, Filenames, variable names, comments, everything must be in (proper) English. Recently, we where late on a particular project, and I outsourced part of it to a team in Romania. They where awesome, did a great job, and since everything in the code was in English, their commits blended perfectly into the project.

It pays off, and it's the best policy.

Same here, sir.

Co-owner, a small software house, the Czech republic (10 M native Czech speakers), and I insist on everyone being fluent in English. We have corporate language courses, everyone should be able to obtain at least C1 within some years from joining the company.

And, well, as soon as people master English, I recommend them to take another language; in our case, it is mostly German (I am learning it myself) or Russian. There are 100+ million German-speaking people and 150+ million Russian-speaking people, and learning another foreign language trains the brain wonderfully.

MiffTheFox · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Although honestly as nice as English is, it's a terrible language for, by complete co-incidence, it's speakers to invent computing. If French or Spanish speakers, for example, invented modern computing, accents would be a solved problem. If Chinese speakers invented it, we'd have been using multi-byte character sets since the get-go. If Koreans did, we'd be using complex character composition. If the Japanese did, we'd have no concept of upper or lower case.

Instead we got probably the only major language that uses the Latin alphabet but doesn't use any diacritics or accent marks.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

RichP:
"The poor guy was made to sit at a desk and stare at the wall for his whole first day."
So he had the typical first day experience of a new hire at a big company.

The IT department probably hadn't received a request for username and email yet. (And if they had, the senior signatures definitely weren't there.) Heck, the department might not have even known he'd come in, sowing endless confusion that day among the peons.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

why cant he simply be fired? thats the problem with the spineless kids today... if Obama had his way, the team would be forced to learn Elbonian!

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

MBV:
About foreign languages: in The Netherlands foreigners hardly get a chance to learn Dutch. Everybody will switch to English on the first hesitation of the foreigner, even if that foreigner only speaks e.g. French and a bit of Dutch. On the other hand, English speaking foreigners always assume that everybody can switch to English on the first word, without bothering to ask if you speak that language. That can be quite annoying, especially in a noisy place.

As soon as you leave the cities, or visit the smaller cities outside the big centers, that's not as true, though. You really need an interpreter or really good miming skills.

Also, even in Amsterdam, it seems that if you look Nordic, people will start off with Dutch. My Hispanic lady never once heard Dutch directed at her the entire trip, however.

/tristique, the art of crying over non-English comments in source code.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

MiffTheFox:
Although honestly as nice as English is, it's a terrible language for, by complete co-incidence, it's speakers to invent computing. If French or Spanish speakers, for example, invented modern computing, accents would be a solved problem. If Chinese speakers invented it, we'd have been using multi-byte character sets since the get-go. If Koreans did, we'd be using complex character composition. If the Japanese did, we'd have no concept of upper or lower case.
Instead we got probably the only major language that uses the Latin alphabet but doesn't use any diacritics or accent marks.

Or, perhaps it is no coincidence as the English alphabet's simplicity likely contributed to easing the much more complex problems in creating and adopting "home" computers.

chubertdev · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

MiffTheFox:
Although honestly as nice as English is, it's a terrible language for, by complete co-incidence, it's speakers to invent computing. If French or Spanish speakers, for example, invented modern computing, accents would be a solved problem. If Chinese speakers invented it, we'd have been using multi-byte character sets since the get-go. If Koreans did, we'd be using complex character composition. If the Japanese did, we'd have no concept of upper or lower case.
Instead we got probably the only major language that uses the Latin alphabet but doesn't use any diacritics or accent marks.

The problem is that those languages DO use them. They need to be marked as deprecated. :)

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

I work with a couple of those people right now.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

FragFrog:
OldCoder:
You can't expect to roll up in [Insert random country here] and get any job without being able to speak the local lingo.
That depends quite a lot on the type of work you do. For example, academics are (at least in Europe) expected to work at least a couple of years in a foreign country, and rarely learn the language unless they stay.
For example, I am currently doing a research project in Sweden, at a Swedish university, and out of 8 people in team only 1 person is Swedish. No two of us are from the same country, and we use English exclusively.

It depends of course on where you are (the smaller countries tend to more easily accept English as the workplace vernacular), but there are plenty of 'international' workplaces in bigger countries too.

Having said that, English does seem to be the primary go-to language - especially for programmers. Strange that someone would not at least be functionally proficient in it.

In general, I'd agree with the original post: You can't expect to roll up in [Insert random country here] and get any job without being able to speak the local lingo.

References to English are, frankly, a special case. There are many places in the world where large numbers of people speak the local language and also speak English. This is simply not true of most other languages. I sincerely doubt that you would find many Latvian or Xhosa or Kazakh speakers in any random place you might visit like you would find English speakers.

The number of people who speak Hindi is in the same ballpark as the number who speak English, but they are almost all in India, they are not scattered around the world.

Two or three hundred years ago you could find people who spoke French all over the world. A thousand years ago you could find people who spoke Latin. Today English is the "international language". I don't doubt that in another hundred years or so it will be something else.

chubertdev · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Definitely a huge WTF on part of the company being so desperate to hire that they only had one person interview the prospect. Should have waited until more people were back. Sure, it would take more time than one interview, but it would take far less time than the situation that they got into.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

radarbob:
Hiring someone who cannot communicate is the worst thing you can do to him. From my experience: * no one will voluntarily work with him * collaborative efforts typically end out of exhaustion, with little useful work on his part * develops no co-worker friendships * gets no assignments worthy of his talents * Just exactly the extent of his talents is unknown * will never get promoted * is (mentally) isolated from co-workers and customers * He is not dis-respected, rather everyone is kind and courteous, but there is a je ne sais quoi of lack of respect. * This continues for years.
Co-workers aren't resentful, they just feel sorry for the person.

Huh, that list leads me to think: The perfect employee! He'll spend his time working rather than chatting with co-workers and angling for a promotion!

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Almafuerte:
To be honest, I don't like the English dominance of the world, If we were to choose a universal language, I would go with Esperanto, or some other neutral-ground, designed language.

And Esperanto is very easy to learn. With just a couple of months of study, you can be speaking it like a native!

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

OldCoder:
Captcha: appellatio. I'm afraid to ask...

The real reason Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Another interesting linguistic thing is that, as an American* who doesn't really speak any other language, the couple times I've traveled to a foreign-speaking country (Norway and Hungary) I've always felt very weird just "assuming" that I can talk to people in English and things will work. I was in Norway for a month, so I did learn some Norwegian while I was there, but not enough to do much of anything. (I did go through a grocery store checkout without using English once. :-))

But I felt a bit better when talking to some people from Denmark... and one of them said that he feels about the same. And if you think about it, it sort of makes sense... if I speak English and Danish for instance, the Danish doesn't help me when I go to Hungary or Spain or whatever. So even Europeans, when they go to a foreign-speaking country, will revert to English because it's a common language.

So us native-English speakers do have things extra "nice" in that we can more easily glide through with what we know, but in some sense it's not AS extra-nice as it can sometimes feel like.

I also don't like this term for obvious reasons, but at the same time the alternatives like "USian" or even "US citizen" in this context just sound... forced.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Michael P:
It is vastly cheaper to have an unofficial (and unwritten) policy about that than to deal with a lawsuit. Employment law and courts in effect almost start off with a presumption that the employer is in the wrong.

Not in the US.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

OldCoder:
georgir:
Send him on a couple months of English course, and get a great worker. No problem at all. Much more preferable than a candidate with fluid English but needing years of programming courses, logical thinking courses or as the case may seem on some occasions, brain transplant.
Er, no. Why should Sean's company pick up the tab because this guy couldn't be bothered to learn the language of the country he is trying to get a job in? Sean did.
You can't expect to roll up in [Insert random country here] and get any job without being able to speak the local lingo.

Captcha: appellatio. I'm afraid to ask...

It's not so much expecting to get a job without knowing the local language, but salvaging a bad situation. It costs quite a bit to hire someone, and it sounds like the guy was actually quite good at what he did, just that he couldn't do it in English. So you could either let him go, spend even more money trying to hire someone else that may not be as good, or you can try to beef up this guy's one weak spot, and get a pretty talented worker. And odds are, because you showed interest in him and showed that you were willing to invest in his professional and personal development, he's going to be loyal for a while.

Nagesh · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

MuTaTeD:
Lagta Hay Aaj baray dinnon baad mujhay Frist comment karnay ka mouqa mila hay.
Above Commend in Urdu, my native language

Bewakoof! Tumhara comment Hindi mein hai!

Nagesh · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Rookierookie:
ObiWayneKenobi:
How is this a WTF? If you go to another country, you should be expected to know enough of the local language to communicate. The WTF is that Sean didn't mention when he recommended the guy that he said "But he can't speak English very well; I did the interview in Elbonian since he was more comfortable speaking that." that way at least management knew and could choose not to hire him.
Seriously though, if you come to America speak English of some form so people can understand you. Yes, have pride in your original culture but speak it at home and with close friends, don't force everyone else to speak YOUR language in OUR country.

Actually that is completely untrue, the majority of American and British folks in most countries where the native language is not English never learn the slightest bit of the native language. Which is fine for them because in most of these countries English is spoken, with varying degrees of competence, and they tend to move in circles where people speak English quite well, but the fact remains that most people moving to English speaking countries are expected to be fluent in English, while the reverse is almost never true for English speakers.

Watch English Vinglish for further elaborate description!

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

FragFrog:
OldCoder:
You can't expect to roll up in [Insert random country here] and get any job without being able to speak the local lingo.
That depends quite a lot on the type of work you do. For example, academics are (at least in Europe) expected to work at least a couple of years in a foreign country, and rarely learn the language unless they stay.
For example, I am currently doing a research project in Sweden, at a Swedish university, and out of 8 people in team only 1 person is Swedish. No two of us are from the same country, and we use English exclusively.

It depends of course on where you are (the smaller countries tend to more easily accept English as the workplace vernacular), but there are plenty of 'international' workplaces in bigger countries too.

Having said that, English does seem to be the primary go-to language - especially for programmers. Strange that someone would not at least be functionally proficient in it.

In other words, you don't need to speak the language of the country...but you DO still need to speak the language of the team you're working on. I imagine it would be pretty difficult for you to add someone to the team who doesn't speak English, since you said that's what your team uses almost exclusively.

Of course, English is as close as we have to a global language right now; doubly so for software development, since nearly all the programming languages are in English, some of the tools are probably in English, much of the support is only in English...so realistically, dealing with someone who doesn't speak English in an English-speaking country is probably more difficult than, say, dealing with someone who doesn't speak Swedish in Sweden.

Also, I'm assuming this was in America...which you have to remember is freakin' HUGE and most Americans can literally drive for DAYS and never pass through an area that speaks a different language...so we have less incentive to learn. Not saying that's good or bad, it's just a fact. Most of Europe is, what, about a 4-5 hour drive from a border across which a different language is probably spoken? Hell I'll regularly drive further than that on a Friday night for a weekend trip! My girlfriend lives eight hours away; my hometown is around 10...and we're all in the northeast corner of the country (I'm in RI, they're in PA)! Hell I've taken 12 hour FLIGHTS and never left the country! The sad truth is we're probably just too damn isolated to have widespread fluency in other languages like the rest of the world.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

It's a Dilbert reference. And you wouldn't want to go there if it were real.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Yes, not being able to communicate with your team is bad. So you shouldn't hire a guy who doesn't. Period. Still, I hate reading this kind of stories, as it reinforces the stereotype of the lazy and incompetent foreigner, which is prevalent especially in IT. Do I need to remind you of all the WTFs circling around outsourcing to incompetent Indian developers? If a guy is not fit for the guy for whatever reason, don't hire him. But stop making these stories, which give rise to stupid 'if they want to live in our country...' arguments. Especially since the opposite is not true, as some have already pointed out: In my country Americans are actually more likely to get a job, as fluency in English and culturally-implied confidence is often mistaken for actual competence.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

fit for the job

pjt33 · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Almafuerte:
The worst offenders are the Spaniards. They'll translate everything ... even when it doesn't make sense. I've heard them say shit like "Cortafuegos" (Firewall), "La Placa Madre" (motherboard).

Your claims intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to the newsletter in which you explain why cortafuegos makes less sense than firewall and why placa madre makes less sense than motherboard.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Fluency in the language of business is a bona fide occupational qualification and not illegal. This is well understood by HR bureaucrats, except in the Daily Mail's fantasy world.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

What about people who have Auditory Processing Disorder (think Dyslexia for the spoken word)?

As those around me can tell you, trying to converse with me is similar to talking to someone who only knows English as a second language. I know I'm protected by the Americans w/Disabilities Act, but I understand how it can feel when you have the skills that are required but can't show it because people don't understand you. At least this guy was given a chance.

Nagesh · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Dominic:
Fluency in the language of business is a bona fide occupational qualification and not illegal. This is well understood by HR bureaucrats, except in the Daily Mail's fantasy world.

Daily WTF, you are meaning to say?

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

bfandreas:
Carting the guy off to an elbonian team was a stupid move. Why does that team exist in the first place?

Perhaps Sean is the go to interviewer, he has made this mistake several times, and no-one has learned from it (;P)

Matt Westwood · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

Almafuerte:
The worst offenders are the Spaniards. They'll translate everything ... even when it doesn't make sense. I've heard them say shit like "Cortafuegos" (Firewall), "La Placa Madre" (motherboard).
To be honest, I don't like the English dominance of the world, If we were to choose a universal language, I would go with Esperanto, or some other neutral-ground, designed language. But truth is, WE NEED a universal language, and politics aside, it's English. So everyone needs to STFU and learn it. I own a small software development company in Argentina, all of our coders are locals and native Spanish speakers, and yet I insist all of them must understand English perfectly, must speak it fluently, and must be able to write code in English. Documentation, Filenames, variable names, comments, everything must be in (proper) English. Recently, we where late on a particular project, and I outsourced part of it to a team in Romania. They where awesome, did a great job, and since everything in the code was in English, their commits blended perfectly into the project.

It pays off, and it's the best policy.

Esperanto is limited in usefulness. For a start, it uses a pointless array of letters with obscure diacritics which are not conducive towards being typed on a keyboard. For another thing, it is hopelessly biased towards European languages. This is a direct result of the fact that Zamenhof was Polish.

chubertdev · 2013-04-02 Reply Admin

urza9814:
(I'm in RI, they're in PA)!

Ouch. I went to NEIT, lived in Johnston/Greenville, and worked in Lincoln. Small wor....no, small state.

Technically Competent != Qualified

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