- Feature Articles
- CodeSOD
- Error'd
-
Forums
-
Other Articles
- Random Article
- 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
sniffle I'm outta here.
Admin
I really wasnt expecting the last word to be "tears".
Admin
Up until now I didn't know disposable grounding bracelets existed. I really didn't know they had to be plugged into the wall!
That's like having a life jacket you need to keep submerged in water at all times.
Admin
At least, the cocaine addiction can keep you up the whole night while patching up the system you have destroyed in your last cocaine withdrawal.
It isn't so amusing. P.S. it can even be a cheap yearly bonus.
Admin
This isn't exactly the kind of comment people enjoy reading but it's the only thing that comes to mind: What... the... fuck?
Admin
Well, you beat me to it. Unless the ,,tears" was attempt to anonymize it and make the story PG13, (the same apply to substituting ,,extinguished" with ,,composed"). If not, then I am left with mystery, which screams for unveiling. Was he as child molested by a man, masked as outlet? Was his mother executed on electric chair by judicial error? I just can´t put it out of my mind... Why, why did he cried...
Admin
i call shenanigans on this article, no way that last half ever happened.
Admin
Admin
The eating-the-sandwich lady and the dirty clothes guy shouldn't surprise anyone who has worked in IT for more than five minutes...
The others seem like a bit of a stretch. Perhaps they were exaggerated for humorous purposes but were exaggerated a bit too much...
Admin
what'd you get for #7?
Admin
This wouldn't happen to be a British civil service organisation, would it? That would actually explain quite a lot...
Admin
What if the outlet was wired wrong? TRWTF is someone put hot on the grounding screw...
Admin
This story illustrates that you should stick to first semi-competent applicant (hell, she even answered half of a technical question) instead of waiting to the perfect one.
Also applicable to other areas.
Admin
I recently went on an interview to be an enterprise soa architect. The entire interview process consisted entirely of:
Admin
Also, the point of such a bracelet is to protect electronic equipment you're working on from static electricity that might have accumulated in your body, not to protect you from anything. In fact, touching a live wire would MORE dangerous when wearing such a bracelet (unless you're touching it with the arm you're wearing the bracelet on).
Admin
"Me: um, yeah, I can read TDWTF all day long! "
It takes me only about 15 minutes each day. Security Focus - about an hour. So what to do in the rest of the day?
captcha: commoveo (wth?)
Admin
Admin
This is by far the best OP I have ever read.
Stuff the comments, Alex/Jake: blue-light the OP.
Admin
Heh, he said "strap on".
catchpa: usitas
Admin
I always wondered why I interviewed well. Now I understand why.
When I interviewed for my current job, for some reason my now bosses had a huge smile on their faces.
Now I know why: not only did I know programming, and had the right answers to all the questions (including one "I do not know" when I did not know), but I did not act like a goof.
When they told me about the previous interviewees, I was in shock...
Admin
just to point out - the first lady was probably a diabetic, and so REALLY did need the sugar.
I'm diabetic, and it's so annoying when people don't realise that when you say you need sugar, you mean you could quite easily die if you don't get some. While a sandwich isn't the best way to do it, there's still some carbohydrates there.
Oh, and when you're low on sugar, your brain doesn't get enough energy, and basically it's the same feeling as if you're really drunk, so talking with your mouth open is very tame (people have been known to take their clothes off or run around screaming...)
Admin
Wouldn't something like some Polo mints be a bit more subtle?
Admin
You can plug them to the ground terminal, that is of course if you have a three-pronged plug. That's actually the best way to ground yourself... when you manipulate sensitive electronic parts like semi-conductors or memory modules.
If you have a central heating system you can also crocodile clip it to a radiator.
Admin
The sandwich-lady I could imagine, but you'd think they'd have enough sense not to pick a tuna-sandwich for an interview. If you need to keep your blood-sugar up, there must be a less stinky option when you're trying to make a good impression.
Admin
Now that's an interview I'd like to see.
Admin
Admin
Admin
No because you have to stay away from glucose. Tuna salad seems normal, as it has little carb in it but she should have eaten a Wasa prior to the interview. The issue is not with her eating during the interview (after all she mentions a handicap) but rather eating see-food as much as seafood.
Admin
Excuse me, were you selecting the casting for "Lost" or something?
Admin
Admin
I think the phrase "I just need health benefits" limits it to countries that don't have any kind of sensible healthcare provisions.
Admin
I think the phrase "I just need health benefits" limits it to countries that don't have any kind of sensible healthcare provisions.
Admin
A friend of mine retired from the military not too long ago. Lots of people "retire" from the military long before normal retirement ago, so they have a group to help them find civilian jobs.
He said the employment counselor reviewed his record and then said, "Oh, you should be easy to place. You show up for work on time and you passed the drug screen!"
And he thought, That's the criteria? They don't set the standards very high, do they?
Admin
For the diabetic there are better sources of sugar. When my brother was younger, he carried a small tube of cake frosting. Hard candy is good (as it won't melt in your pocket), orange juice is also good, but not so easy to carry.
The diabetic should have monitored her sugar better, though some folks aren't symptomatic, they don't realize their sugar is dropping until it's too late. Stress and emotions can play a role as well, it's possible the stress of the interview caused her to crash.
Admin
Nah this is the best
Admin
Because Elbereth knows, "sensible" is the first word that comes to my mind when I think about government-run organizations!
Admin
I had the same thing - apparently it was between me and some other guy. At the second interview they asked the usual "Why are you leaving your current job?". I went with "Wanting to move on, find new challenges". the other guy went with a huge rant about how everyone at his work was an arsehole.
Admin
Consider it part of preparation for an interview along with showering, dressing presentably, with your research on the company and your set of questions for them in your notebook, and having gone to the restroom just prior.
Admin
When I left my last job, they asked me to interview potential replacements.
My favorite was the guy who answered every question with a long and mostly irrelevant story. I asked him to tell me about his experience with Java, and he proceeded to tell me about how when he graduated college he was recruited by General Motors and they had this program to recruit college students and so he took the job and moved to Michigan and that was why he was now living in the mid-west even though he was born in California and ... and he never even mentioned Java. I asked him about Web development and he went off on a long story that did at least mention creating a small web site but was mostly about how his employer at the time was mainframe-based and didn't do a lot of web work and he worked on their very first web site and on and on without really telling me anything that gave a hint about his skill level.
I don't know if he didn't really have any technical skills and he was trying to cover this up or if this was just how he was. But when I told the human resources guy who was overseeing the process essentially what I said in the above paragraph, his reply was, "Yeah, when I called him to set up the interview, I told him where our office was, and he went into this long story about how he used to drive past this area years ago and back then it was an empty field and now they've built all these offices here and it looks so different from how it looked back then and ...." etc etc.
Admin
Frankly I think I would have gone with the Tuna-Lady. Yeah, its a little disgusting to see someone chewing with their mouth open and rude to eat during an interview, but she still seems the most normal of all of them.
Admin
Admin
So you avoided the question with the standard cliche and he told the truth. And they gave you the job? Get out of there as soon as you can...
Admin
Remember, this is civil service. I also work for a gov't agency, and it's not that simple, at least not here.
First, you have to come up with a list of questions to ask, and expected responses with criteria for grading the answers and assign possible point values and percentage weights to each question so that it all adds up to 100. Then you are given a list of "qualified" candidates. Then you ask each one the same questions in the same order to each candidate. You can follow-up on an answer to clarify, but you cannot ask anything outside of the scope of the pre-written questions. The candidates are limited on what they can ask.
After the interview, the interviewer(s) (preferrably a panel of 3 or more) add up their scores and the highest scorer is the first to be offered the job. What could be simpler? Of course, by the time the forms are scored and has gotten the requisite 8 or 9 signatures required for authority to actually hire the person, he/she has probably already been hired away. But I digress...
Admin
I think a lot of people don't want a job, but their spouses or parents make them apply and go to the interview. They then blow the interview so that there is no chance at a job offer.
Admin
So I went to this interview, only problem was that my tabletpc was zapping the heck out of me, and I needed it to show some of my code if they asked for some examples, theres this really cool thing with virtual walls in a 3D environment that I was particularly proud of...anyways I digress. I slipped on a disposable grounding strap to keep from getting the daylights zapped out of me.
One problem-I put it on the wrong hand. I reached in to grab the PC with the other hand, and it proceeded to zap the daylights out of me. And it was BAD, it hurt so much I teared up. I literally sat there being electrocuted for about 5 minutes before something on the pc finally shorted. These insensitive jerks just watched me nearly get electrocuted. I left, no way I wanted to work there.
Admin
Another good excuse if you arrive for an interview drunk then :)
Alas my last interview was.. 1997 I think. Since then I've been the interviewer..
Admin
Wow these are some messed up interviewees. Why can't I get the hot diabetic woman in any of my interviews?
Some of my most annoying: Interviewing for job that required some 24x7 on call time. Person doesn't want to carry a pager. Doesn't have a cell phone. Doesn't have a working computer at home. Would prefer emergencies are between 6am-10pm. That is only 16x7!
One guy brought a friend to the interview. Luckily the friend just wanted to hang out and eat in our break room and not join us in the interview room. Maybe the friend was scoping out the office facilities for him.
One person couldn't write the simplest of SQL queries even though it was on their resume. "Other people on the project did that part". So why is SQL on your resume?!?
The guy that looked and smelled like a dog. I'm commenting on his attire. Dressed from head to toe in black and coming to an interview after playing with your dog is not such a good idea. Actually would have been a good fit for the position except no one wanted to share an office with him.
We also had someone who spent way too much energy railing on their current employer. A simple "looking for more challenges" would suffice. They deserve some credit if they kept the paychecks coming.
We always have people that run out of steam in the interview. I think they spend too much energy keeping up a facade and don't have any energy left over to answer questions.
Still none of them beats the lumberjack resume I received while trying to hire a reports developer a few years back. Actually if this guy wasn't located in the midwest he probably would have had a better shot at this job than anyone. At least the lumberjack had a lot of 'hobbyist' projects in his resume which shows a lot more initiative than the DB candidates we've gotten so far.
Admin
I've never had a job interview that started on time... That would make it difficult for a diabetic to judge (not even taking into account the stress caused a job interview).
Admin
I don't understand why the incompetent cocaine addict was applying for a low-level state government job when she's clearly qualified to become President of the United States.
Admin
Wikipedia. (You're welcome.)