• (cs) in reply to Osno
    Osno:
    I would gently suggest that she call IT, but nothing more.

    Same here. "Look, I'm a visitor here, not an employee of your company, so I'd feel very uncomfortable about doing anything on your company equipment."

    I'd also use the response as an indicator of whether I wanted to work there or not. Does she say something like "Oh I'm not going to call IT, they are helpless"? Does he phone the helpdesk and spend 10 minutes on hold? Does my interviewer take time out from me to help the receptionist?

    B

  • Steve (unregistered)

    Floppy disk? What's that?

    Oh, I'd flunk number four, too, since I avoid touching Windows at all costs. Of course, I may be pretty dumb but I'm not dumb enough to apply for a Windows support job. Eeech.

  • pong (unregistered) in reply to havokk

    If I were in the receptionist's position, I might accept it, but I also might say, "Aren't you going to be doing this kind of thing if you get hired?"

    As far as I'm concerned, a polite answer seals the people test portion of the test and I just want to see if you're a braggart. If you continue to refuse, then default back to having the interview screen you.

  • Athteist (unregistered) in reply to snoofle

    The good old aproach to malfunctioning hardware: If brute force doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough

  • tekiegreg (unregistered) in reply to mp

    As well they should. Failing this test IMHO shouldn't just get you thrown out the door (though I'd admit the problems are fairly simple as described here). See how the candidate stacks up otherwise and evaluate them as a whole. Maybe they just plain didn't know what was wrong and never dealt with the issue?

  • (cs) in reply to phleabo
    phleabo:
    I like how you managed to fit in the Linux bigot stereotype. Very subtle.

    I think the real WTF is that this story is largely fictional.

    Of course it's fictional, they're M$ fanboys, and everything by M$ proponents is fiction. Like that rumor about Bill Gates not biting the heads off of puppies for the pure pleasure of it...all those distasteful works of fiction.

  • bramster (unregistered) in reply to Dan
    Dan:
    Satanicpuppy:
    incognito:
    Wait...I'm having trouble placing the time period - what with the talk of Ubuntu and Wikipedia. The PC still had a floppy drive???? Honestly - do you think an 18 year old kid has grown up with a floppy drive at all?

    But step one (assuming you didn't immediately think write protect tab) should have been to try another disk

    Actually, I'm pretty sure step 1 would be to pay attention to the error. I assume it's a Windows PC, and (I realize it has been a while, but) its error message should be something like "Write protect error writing the file". That should be an immediate clue to check the write protect tab.

    Of course I quit using floppies long before they fell out of use, simply because they became completely unreliable. Take a brand new floppy out of the box and half the time the drive would tell you it's unreadable. The other half, the file would likely not last long enough to be transferred to another drive. I typically resorted to writing multiple copies of a file to multiple floppies, hoping one would work.

    I'm just happy for flash drives.

    Before the flash drives, floppy drives were a lot more expensive, and a lot more reliable than now. I did a lot of work with floppies.

    Then again, maybe the candidate should have asked the receptionist if she had dual floppies. . . might he try the other one?

  • vadi (unregistered)

    interestingly enough, I tried removing the extension in ubuntu and it -did- work.

    but wtf at failing to listen and using such a convulted solution.

  • (cs) in reply to Bobble
    Bobble:
    Dirk Diggler:
    xous:
    static dhcp
    What is that?

    I would guess it's a fancy way of saying hcp :P

    Nah, it's dhcp where all the allowed hosts have static mappings. easier to manage that way.

  • Jim Beam (unregistered)

    LOL, talking about BUSTED! Wow.

    www.internet-privacy.pl.tc

  • more randomer than you (unregistered) in reply to LuckiNite

    the real WTF is that anyone would even think about getting involved with helping with these odd jobs when:

    (a) they are supposed to be waiting for an interview - what if the interviewer is pushed for time, comes to grab the interviewee and the interviewee is halfway through changing something. Do they leave the system in a possibly inoperable state, or do they waster the interviewers time? not a good position to put yourself in.

    (b) If you don't know a system then you shouldn't just rush in and change parts of it. Those floppies don't just lock themselves, perhaps there is a very valid reason why it is write protected, such as .. gee I don't know.. someone doesn't want the file to be written to? I'm sure the boss would be delighted with you if you helped the receptionist to overwrite his floppy disk which had crucial unbacked up information on it.

  • FLQ (unregistered) in reply to xtremezone
    xtremezone:
    No, the French Canadians are proud they speak French. The rest of us hate it. >:(

    C'est bien correct, nous detestons votre langue aussi. :)

  • Cheong (unregistered) in reply to pitchingchris

    Actually, if you've been working as support staff at any organization where multiple people (possibly from different country) share the same PC and everyone login as administrator, you know that every possibility need to be considered - no matter it's possible to be changed accidentially or not.

  • Bob... Billy Bob (unregistered)

    Obnoxious Orangutan.... hahahahahaha. That. Is. Awesome.

    That's seriously one of the funniest things I've read here.

  • Lady Nocturne (unregistered) in reply to snoofle
    snoofle:
    justin:
    I think it would have been great had you assembled it, put a bios password on it, and walked out with a note saying, break this, ill be back in 20 minutes
    I'd hire you in a second!

    Give me a screwdriver and I'll do it in under five, and that includes the time to open and close the case and boot.

  • JobCandidate (unregistered)

    Whether or not I got the test right and fixed the problem. Think about it, do you want to work somewhere that hires people that can't figure out on their own that the printer is turned off or that somehow manage to change the language on their keyboard and then don't know what's wrong? If you have ever had to deal with these people then you know what I mean.

  • (cs) in reply to Endo808
    Endo808:
    K&T:
    snoofle:
    Well, you know us Americans; if someone/thing doesn't understand us, we just speak slower and louder!

    Yes, and the French method would be to write the computer off as worthless and wax on about how Computers should know french.

    To be fair I'd write off some slow speaking, loud shouting american as worthless too. You'll find the french perfectly helpful if you talk to them like people instead of retards.

    The problem is to speak Franglais, so you could understand what they're saying.

  • Fsck These Bots Already (unregistered) in reply to Jim Beam
    Jim Beam:
    LOL, talking about BUSTED! Wow.

    www.internet-privacy.pl.tc

    Hey, Alex, u ban TopCod3r, but u let douchey bots through?

    That's TRWTF™.

  • Braggarts suck dans tous les langues (unregistered) in reply to FLQ
    FLQ:
    xtremezone:
    No, the French Canadians are proud they speak French. The rest of us hate it. >:(

    C'est bien correct, nous detestons votre langue aussi. :)

    bien alors, nous detestons VOUS, aussi. douche.

  • (cs)

    Oddly enough, I was in a bookshop a few days ago and trying to use their computerised catalogue. When I tried to type in the name of the item I was looking for, the letters on the scrren didn't bear much resemblance to what I'd typed. Saw the Language Bar icon on the taskbar, clicked on it, changed the keyboard layout from Dvorak back to US, and all was well. Except that they didn't have the thing I was looking for.

  • Dave (unregistered)

    During one interview I came across as a complete idiot because I couldn't figure out how to copy and paste with a Mac. Ctrl-v obliterated what I wanted to copy and ctrl-z did something completely unexpected...It went downhill from there fast.

    I was so frustrated about halfway through the test that at one point I could not for the life of me remember the correct syntax for setting a unique key constraint in a table def. Worst part about it is that I really wanted to work for the company but I couldn't code out a simple project on a Mac so I must be an idiot.

  • Machtyn (unregistered) in reply to Osno
    Osno:
    I would gently suggest that she call IT, but nothing more.
    This! Really, if I'm at a job interview and the secretary has a problem. I might say, "Yes, I can fix that, but these are not my systems. Give your tech a call and have them fix it."
  • Jay (unregistered)

    At the risk of being a "me too", I'd vote with those who say they would be reluctant to start tampering with a random computer at an interviewer's office.

    Yes, I want to hire people who take initiative rather than saying "It's not my job." But there are limits. If I hire someone to be a programmer I would certainly hope he wouldn't be afraid to turn on a printer. But I wouldn't want him to just decide one day to switch all the production servers from Windows to Linux, or to call the manager of our factory in Atlanta and tell him to move the operation to Ecuador.

    Personally, I would be very reluctant to try to fix a problem on the receptionist's computer in circumstances like this. As others have pointed out, I have no idea how their computers are configured, what software is installed, or what the company's security policies are. It would be quite realistic to worry that the boss could walk in, see me on the computer, and scream, "What the blankety-blank are you doing messing with Sally's computer!" What am I going to do then? If I tell him that she asked me to, I could be getting her in trouble, and I'll certainly sound pathetic. If I try to cover for her, I'm practically confessing to being a vandal or a spy.

    Any employer who would say, "We require a candidate to play a game where we refuse to tell him the rules, and if he is reluctant to play we disqualify him immediately" ... well, I'm not sure I'd want to work at such a place anyway. What other silly games are they going to play on me?

  • bramster (unregistered) in reply to FLQ
    FLQ:
    xtremezone:
    No, the French Canadians are proud they speak French. The rest of us hate it. >:(

    C'est bien correct, nous detestons votre langue aussi. :)

    Can you spell "Fuck You" en Francais ?

  • cak (unregistered) in reply to jonnyq

    Anybody who thinks these tests are silly, or wouldn't do them and ask for IT to look at it, you are all fucking tools and should not be working in IT.

    If you can't solve these simple problems, you do not belong here. Go back to the fucking supermarket and look for trolleys. These are some great tests, and anybody, whether in support or Senior Software developer should be able to help out with these. And for the total losers who wanted her to ring support, just start running. If you won't help someone with something this simple, then give up on computers and go back to the trees. It is a disgrace to read some peoples responses to this. Even a Manager should be able to help with this.

  • JobCandidate (unregistered) in reply to cak

    To REAL IT people, these piddly problems are the supermarket days....yeaaaahhhh.

  • mitschke (unregistered) in reply to vadi
    vadi:
    interestingly enough, I tried removing the extension in ubuntu and it -did- work.

    but wtf at failing to listen and using such a convulted solution.

    Yes, the Ubuntu guy is right: the particular problem wouldn't have occurred using Ubuntu, since no file extensionsion is needed to determine of which "filetype" a file is.

  • Procedural (unregistered) in reply to bramster
    bramster:
    FLQ:
    xtremezone:
    No, the French Canadians are proud they speak French. The rest of us hate it. >:(

    C'est bien correct, nous detestons votre langue aussi. :)

    Can you spell "Fuck You" en Francais ?

    Yeah, racism. Now THAT'S cool. No sure why Alex isn`t pruning that kind of crap.

  • lokey (unregistered) in reply to Kermos
    Kermos:
    jonnyq:
    Anon:
    To be fair, the keyboard language thing is a bit tricky. It's not something you expect to see suddenly change by itself. If the receptionist's keyboard was happily typing in English the day before, why would it suddenly be set to French?

    Exactly what I was thinking. I don't think there's a button in Windows you can accidentally press to change keyboard layout.

    The rest were simple mistakes, but the keyboard layout thing is a WTF by itself. How did the keyboard layout get screwed up? Since I don't work here, I assume you have it set that way on purpose as it's not really something you can do by accident.

    Actually no, they keyboard thing isn't a WTF.

    I use Japanese keyboards myself and Windows absolutely half the time will NOT get them right. It'll randomly all of a sudden add a Chinese layout to the keyboard layout list and then go use that. Or, the layout will revert to standard US which I may not even immediately notice as the roman alphabet layout is identical to the US keyboards. However the moment I go hit my key to switch to direct input Kana mode you'll hear me cursing. This happens several times a week.

    I then have to go into regional settings, and simply look at my keyboard layout settings and hit OK. The settings will still be set to Japanese, but windows just somehow uses US layout.

    So no, seeing how I personally suffer with windows not being able to get my keyboard layout straight on multiple completely different computers, both Vista and XP included, I don't see it as a WTF.

    Oh and before someone mentions possible driver issues, manufacturer incompatibility, etc. these are Microsoft keyboards.

    Obviously, you missed the problem !

    Oh and before someone mentions possible driver issues, manufacturer incompatibility, etc. these are Microsoft keyboards.<<<

    Micro$oft is a (crappy) software company. They don't make hardware. Duh!

  • Elmar (unregistered) in reply to snoofle

    I've actually found that if I'm speaking to a French person, starting of with speaking a totally different language (I'm Afrikaans from South Afrika btw), they then realize that I'm not brittish, and I'll then tell them that I'm from Africe de Sud, and we converse very happily in English.

    snoofle:
    Endo808:
    K&T:
    snoofle:
    Well, you know us Americans; if someone/thing doesn't understand us, we just speak slower and louder!

    Yes, and the French method would be to write the computer off as worthless and wax on about how Computers should know french.

    To be fair I'd write off some slow speaking, loud shouting american as worthless too. You'll find the french perfectly helpful if you talk to them like people instead of retards.

    Having been to both Montreal and Paris, I'd have to say that in Canada, I got more politeness by attempting (and failing) to speak French than trying to get by with English, whereas in Paris, I got far more politeness by just sticking with English than trying to speak French (I only know a few words).

    I guess it depends on the day and the place...

  • (cs) in reply to derula
    derula:
    K&T:
    snoofle:
    Well, you know us Americans; if someone/thing doesn't understand us, we just speak slower and louder!

    Yes, and the French method would be to write the computer off as worthless and wax on about how Computers should know french.

    Okay just that you're happy, the German method would be to concentrate the ones we don't understand in camps telling everyone else they were evil while secretly killing them.

    Oh, and I thought that was the second American method.

  • Reinier (unregistered)

    I might hire Lisa.

    She got one thing right: despite her lack of knowledge, she managed to provided a workaround so the user could at least get by, if awkwardly. That's a good attitude. If she follows it up with some research and the real solution on the next day, of course.

  • (cs) in reply to Procedural
    Procedural:
    bramster:
    FLQ:
    xtremezone:
    No, the French Canadians are proud they speak French. The rest of us hate it. >:(

    C'est bien correct, nous detestons votre langue aussi. :)

    Can you spell "Fuck You" en Francais ?

    Yeah, racism. Now THAT'S cool. No sure why Alex isn`t pruning that kind of crap.

    Well, actually it'd be "baise toi" and not "racisme". But I agree, language wars on this site should better stay in the "TRWTF is using VB", "Java sucks" and likewise ludicrous statements department.

  • AnCoward (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    To be fair, the keyboard language thing is a bit tricky. It's not something you expect to see suddenly change by itself. If the receptionist's keyboard was happily typing in English the day before, why would it suddenly be set to French?

    Well, it actually is something I expect to suddenly change by itself. This is at least the case outside US where my XP has english as a default keyboard layout and our own languages' keyboard layout in addition to that.

    The keyboard language periodically switches back to English without any apparent reason, so you get very used to flipping it back - or removing the wrong layout at the first instance this happens.

  • dag (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    To be fair, the keyboard language thing is a bit tricky. It's not something you expect to see suddenly change by itself. If the receptionist's keyboard was happily typing in English the day before, why would it suddenly be set to French?
    Your wrong. Alt+shift changes the language. So it happens a lot for me.
  • Alan (unregistered) in reply to K&T
    K&T:
    snoofle:
    Well, you know us Americans; if someone/thing doesn't understand us, we just speak slower and louder!

    Yes, and the French method would be to write the computer off as worthless and wax on about how Computers should know french.

    No - they would just go and use thier minitel terminal.

  • (cs) in reply to derula
    derula:
    K&T:
    snoofle:
    Well, you know us Americans; if someone/thing doesn't understand us, we just speak slower and louder!

    Yes, and the French method would be to write the computer off as worthless and wax on about how Computers should know french.

    Okay just that you're happy, the German method would be to concentrate the ones we don't understand in camps telling everyone else they were evil while secretly killing them.

    I hope I'm not the only person here who finds this offensive, as well as boringly ignorant?

  • itsmo (unregistered) in reply to Zecc
    Zecc:
    snoofle:
    I guess it depends on the day and the place...
    Well, I guess it depends on whether they care if you're insulting their language or not.

    FTFY - please don't insult my language

  • Jesper (unregistered)

    John: "Do you have a hammer?"

    Receptionist: "Here."

    Ctrl + BANG!!!

    Still no document from the printer

  • itsmo (unregistered) in reply to Zero
    Zero:
    snoofle:
    Having been to both Montreal and Paris, I'd have to say that in Canada, I got more politeness by attempting (and failing) to speak French than trying to get by with English, whereas in Paris, I got far more politeness by just sticking with English than trying to speak French (I only know a few words).

    I guess it depends on the day and the place...

    The difference is that the Canadians are proud they speak French whereas the Parisians are proud they speak French.
    and the difference is?
  • Addie (unregistered)

    I'm probably too late in the discussion now, but anyway.

    Trust that none of you really remember saving office documents onto floppy disks? Office makes loads of temporary files while editing, so you quickly run out of capacity on floppies and get loads of very strange errors, eventually being unable to save the document at all, even when you try to on other devices. Or at least, it did back in the windows 3.1 / 95 days when I still used floppies.

    Copy your files onto the network share / hard disk, edit them, close office, copy them back onto the floppy. That way you always have two copies as well, don't rely on a floppy.

    Axxx

  • itsmo (unregistered) in reply to Craig Matthews
    Craig Matthews:
    Engywuck:
    If you are *able* to do anything "evil" to the network or computer config with a *receptionist* login on a computer that can be accessed by anyone coming in the building if the receptionist is (mentally) away then your companys security policy is sh*t (or your security officer).

    Not counting being able to f*ck with the Semi-Sensitive Data the receptionist needs to access/change, of course (really sensitive data shouldn't be accessable on a reception anyways...)

    Yes, I know... "should" and "is"...

    but hey, just saying "try another disk this one's write protected" or "your printer is offline, is there a reason for that?" can't possibly be security-relevant or dangerous. Powering the printer on when it's offline for a reason (say, emitting smoke when on) is another case, but even then the tech guy should have put it away or at least stick a HUGE warnig sticker to it.

    The same receptionist apparently has the ability to go to arbitrary websites and download software if the Ubuntu story is to be believed. Sounds like there's hardly any security on these guys' network at all, and yet they let potential employees who don't work there yet get in front of a computer. Hell, they even had them handling removable media.

    This same receptionist is also part of the interview team. How do the inteviewers know how well/badly the interviewee did with this test? Are they being spied upon during this process? Or do the actual interview team have to rely on the receptionist's assessment of the interviewee's perfomance? Could be a bad indicator - I mean the stupid f*ckwit doesn't even know to turn the printer on...

  • (cs) in reply to Addie

    About all the people saying "Call your tech support!", I would probably do the same thing as I do with family nowadays. I ask questions and give verbal advice and only instructions when specifically asked, but I let them do everything themselves.

    That way they hopefully learn something and it makes it harder for them to blame you if something goes wrong.

  • itsmo (unregistered) in reply to Elmar
    Elmar:
    I've actually found that if I'm speaking to a French person, starting of with speaking a totally different language (I'm Afrikaans from South Afrika btw), they then realize that I'm not brittish, and I'll then tell them that I'm from Africe de Sud, and we converse very happily in English.

    They don't want to know that you are not British - just not English. As an Afrikaaner, you could not be expected to know about the Auld Alliance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_alliance), but it is surrpising the reaction an Anglophone gets from the French when they find out you are Scottish.

  • (cs) in reply to Kermos
    Kermos:
    It'll randomly all of a sudden add a Chinese layout to the keyboard layout list and then go use that. Or, the layout will revert to standard US which I may not even immediately notice

    Ubuntu is just as bad. When pressing Ctrl (e.g. to Ctrl-s or so), it switches back to the first layout as long as it is held down. So it is impossible to use these keyboard shortcuts in one of the other layouts. I could not find out an option somewhere to set this behaviour. I think it is a bug.

  • French Candidate (unregistered) in reply to K&T
    K&T:
    Yes, and the French method would be to write the computer off as worthless and wax on about how Computers should know french.
    "Yeah, this is pretty frustrating for you, isn't it?" She nodded in agreement. "Computers suck. You'd never have this problem if you were on an ordinateur. In fact..."
  • r (unregistered) in reply to mitschke

    And there lies the true WTF: article writer was completely unaware of this.

    Besides, Windows tends to hide extensions of known file types, even though that extension dictates the file type... And this is really a WTF too.

    Still, if that "Ubuntu-user" was former Windows-user, it's kinda odd that he couldn't overcome Windows' limitations other than by suggesting use of Ubuntu. Even though it could solve other problems as well, it's kind of a overkill for this simple problem. That obnoxious Ubuntu guy was still the only one to actually solve the problem.

  • (cs) in reply to vr602
    derula:
    Okay just that you're happy, the German method would be to concentrate the ones we don't understand in camps telling everyone else they were evil while secretly killing them.
    Kluge Doctor:
    And, for the record, I think the German insult was (a bit) over the line. It's more Third Reich, than German.

    Of course it was, but as a born Krautfag who listens to anti-fascistic Punk Rock, I feel legitimate to do such insults.

    vr602:
    I hope I'm not the only person here who finds this offensive, as well as boringly ignorant?

    That's what I was hoping writing that.

  • r (unregistered) in reply to mitschke

    Sorry, my last post was reply to this:

    mitschke:
    vadi:
    interestingly enough, I tried removing the extension in ubuntu and it -did- work.

    but wtf at failing to listen and using such a convulted solution.

    Yes, the Ubuntu guy is right: the particular problem wouldn't have occurred using Ubuntu, since no file extensionsion is needed to determine of which "filetype" a file is.

  • Sudden Change (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    To be fair, the keyboard language thing is a bit tricky. It's not something you expect to see suddenly change by itself. If the receptionist's keyboard was happily typing in English the day before, why would it suddenly be set to French?
    Such things do happen. Just the other day I managed to lock myself out of my Windows account before I finally realized that the PC was expecting me to type my password using the French keyboard layout for some reason. Now that was fun... (Naturally, there are security policies in place that require all passwords to have special characters in them.)

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