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Admin
Oh yeah? Well I met your mother in South Africa. Woulda done her too but she was too old and primitive.
Admin
Seriously, guy doesn't even recognise the capital city of South Africa!
Oh wait, or is that Johannesburg...?
(hee hee)
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When I was in my 20s, I had this long list of attributes I was looking for in a woman.
By the time I was 30, that list was down to one item: sane.
Now that I am 40, I'm looking for the same thing in a supervisor.
Admin
WTF @ that racist, ignorant interviewer...oh well, I've lived through worse. Upon hearing my country of origin, certain people were expecting a to see a dark-skinned, Muslim guy, only to see another white, Christian guy :-D
The blogging guy too...met a lot of those over ambitious guys that don't really know what their idea implies or if it has already been implemented. I even almost worked for one of them, once.
About "The Best"...heh...self-confidence and relentlessness gone very, very wrong.
Captcha: nimis.
Oh, and fritz ;-)
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I'll call the phone number thats blacked out ... 555-1234
Admin
Yeah sure, why not.
Admin
One of my favourite sitcoms has a scene where the loser son tells his dad that he's finally got a great lead on work. He's going to become a "dot com millionaire".
His dad responds with "You have to have a great idea first" to which the son says, "That is a great idea... dot come millionaire"
Fade to the next scene where he's asking his tech saavy younger brother where the "dot" key is on the keyboard. When shown the next question is, of course, "now, where's the com key".
Love it!
Captcha: augue - Charlie Brown's been reading these posts too.
Admin
Apparently CPound has remembered one of the first things they teach you about contracts: a verbal contract is worth the paper it's written on.
Admin
BLOG-GING guy:
"Yeah, I'll take the job, and I'll start working from home 'cuz I have internet access there."
Then just kick back and install some open source blogging package. Oh, and get another real job, too.
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The first interviewer - would that be Jeff, by any chance? After the MMO project failed?
Admin
come on boys and girls! that's made up, right? that never happened. did it? come on! please - this can't be true! ... I want to cry.
Admin
Idiot! Archeologists frequently unearth COBOL listings in the pyramids...
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fail-ing
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Once in Aberdeen I was in a taxi heading to a client. The taxi driver asked me what I was doing, I said I was going to fix a computer...
At that point he slammed on the brakes and exclaimed "There's no computers where you're going!"
Turns out he had misheard the address, but to this day I wonder where he was originally taking me.
Admin
I remember that... It's from an episode of My Family, isn't it?
People really find it hard to believe, sometimes, just how much technological advances are made in South Africa. (and yes, I am a programmer in Cape Town :-P)
Admin
But are you a COBOL programming? We still haven't proven if Cape Town is cool enough for COBOL.
Admin
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Interview WTF's are my favorite, they have so much entertainment value.
Admin
It is.
And the only reason I didn't comment on the Cape Town interview is because my jaw hurt from hitting the desk. The incredible ignorance of some people astounds me. I mean, seriously what makes him think there are Cobol programmers in Scotland? Ridiculous...
Admin
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it's awesome that cape town now does a large portion of offshore coding for backwards places like the united states
captcha: distineo i don't know what it is, but it sounds awesome
Admin
Scotland is supposed to be primitive according to some. I used to work for an Edinburgh based software house. On a business trip to Athens I shared a taxi with two American girls. They asked what I did and when I told them I was a computer programmer in Scotland they replied "You have all that over there?"
Sheesh.
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We buried them there for good reason! Would you idiots please stop digging them up?
Admin
Not to excuse him or imply that it's OK, but the story opens with "Nearly twenty-five years ago...", so hopefully the person in the story isn't indicative of today's society. Or he's become more enlightened since then.
Or he's dead. That would work, too.
Admin
The most popular payroll package in SA was developed by Cape Town-based company in COBOL...
Admin
This is totally off topic, but have you by any chance ever worked at M-Web?
Captcha: ingenium
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Yeah they're easily my favorites, too. I would love to go on one of these interviews where you walk away thinking the company is a complete disaster. Or in the case of "blog-ging" guy, an abortion aspiring to be a disaster.
Admin
We have a programmer from South Africa here at work. He's the weirdest-looking African American I have ever seen...
Admin
Same here!
Admin
The iPhone does have a .com key on its virtual keyboard, at least in some entry modes (where you're typing an Internet address).
Admin
One of my English teachers at Secondary School was South African; she was fond of saying "You lie!".
Nice lady; she and her husband quit South Africa because they refused to live in a country with apartheid.
Also, their accent is nothing like ours :P
Admin
South Africa has three (count 'em, three) capitals.
One of them is, indeed, Cape Town.
None of them are Jo'burg, though.
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Is it just me or have we seen the first one before?
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As does the Tablet PC input panel.
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Hey, I think I've worked with The Best at more than a few places.
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..and then, after apartheid ended in '94, they moved back?
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I think someone listened a bit too much to a certain Tina Turner song
Admin
I wonder if there's ANY country in the world today where there aren't at least some computers around. I mean, even in the poorest, most primitive country, there must be some number of relatively wealthy people who have nice houses and all the modern conveniences. Powered by a generator in the basement if necessary.
I recall years ago talking to a woman who was a missionary in, umm, Cote D'Ivoire I think, in a place remote from any modern civilization. But she had solar panels on the roof of her house that provided enough power to run lights and a small refrigerator.