• (cs)

    Actually, this whole thing is utterly unlikely and I call BS: If I turn up for an interview, and someone tries to recruit me to fix their hardware, there's no way I'm going to get involved. There's all sorts of insurance/responsibility/negligence issues. For example, if you were to be electrocuted by a faulty power lead, you probably aren't insured. If you go to "fix" their file, and accidentally delete some crucial business information, you probably aren't insured. You shouldn't even be reading their documents. This is why IT contractors have to have Indemnity insurance, at least in the UK. Any company that expects me to jump in and work on their systems before they employ me are fooling themselves.

    Addendum (2008-10-23 07:50): Apologies for awkward last sentence "Any company...are fooling...". You think of something better.

  • Steve (unregistered)

    I really like this interview concept. Sure, there may be some insurance / health and saftey issues if an interviewee starts working on the company's system but realistically, there isn't a whole lot to go wrong if you're just flipping the copy protect tab on a floppy disk. I'm pleased to say that I would have no problem fixing any of these issues (or assembling a box from scratch), even though I'm a dev and not a tech. Nice to know I've got options when I finally burn out from coding.

  • return of the spelling nazi (unregistered) in reply to JobCandidate
    JobCandidate:
    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.

    If you find me a place that doesn't have anybody like that, please email me, and I will go out there and camp out in the lobby until somebody hires me.

    OK, maybe there's programming shops out there where they don't have a receptionist, accountant, PHB, etc. But even so, look at some of these replies. You'd think it'd be a simple thing to check the keyboard/language settings, especially for people who work with computers every day. Enter TRWTF: half the people here say they wouldn't have figured it out, or would have been too much of a prima donna to try to.

    I think what you're really saying is, "don't work at a place where there aren't any helpless morons", and again I really doubt such a place exists. Consultants & freelancers have to deal with their share of idiots, too.

  • foo (unregistered) in reply to mauve
    mauve:
    Ubuntu: making Linux accessible to morons since 2004.

    Pity they've not made it accessible to the average C developer yet.

    (Not trolling; I've got 2 machines at home running ubuntu, and everytime I need to reconfigure something or access a network share, they cause me grief. There's a severe lack of useful documentation.)

  • (cs)

    What is a floppy disk? I searched through all my computers and did not find any that possessed one.

    :-)

  • dangerous (unregistered) in reply to shepd
    shepd:
    It's sad, but I rarely get to the interview stage from a resume application. It's because my resume doesn't look like a million bucks (It's not *bad* per se, it's just I didn't complete post-secondary, I owned my own store and I tried a new career; it seems HR considers these "risks", or so I'm guessing--colleagues and managers consider them perks, though, once they realize how valuable outside experience is). However, every single interview I've ever had has resulted in a job offer. Although, I usually need to apply to a few dozen jobs to get an interview. Oh well, at least I'm in a job that keeps my happy now! But it was rough getting here!

    If you think you would do the job well, then lie to get the interview and knock their socks off once they are there.

  • (cs) in reply to SomeCoder
    SomeCoder:
    It's a good test, for sure, and these people in the story are obviously morons but what would you do if a candidate just said "oh well, better check with IT?" rather than offer to help?

    I'm inclined to agree - if only for liability reasons. I'm not authorized to play around with the hardware belonging to the company I'm interviewing at.

    Although that doesn't stop you offering simple advice like "have you checked the write protect tab?" or "are you sure it's turned on?" If it came down to checking power cables and the like, I'd most like direct them to IS/IT - some companies are funny about who is allowed to poke at cables.

    If someone from a suitable management team asked me, I'd probably do it. In fact I did where I am now; I helped them out with something during my interview, but it was the owner and the IT manager who asked me.

  • (cs) in reply to Craig Matthews
    Craig Matthews:
    The real WTF is allowing people who don't work for your company to touch a computer which has access to corporate information.

    Everyone involved in administering the "receptionist test" should be fired.

    The real WTF is you making the assumption that the computer had access to the network. Where did you get that "fact"? I didn't see it anywhere in the original post.

    Also, so what if it was? Nothing says that the interviewee was left alone to do whatever they wanted on the system.

    Everyone who makes stupid assumptions in public forums should be fired, so... You're fired.

  • conservajerk (unregistered) in reply to snoofle

    That's due to the inferiority complex of the Quebecois... Did you ever hear about the guy who tried to bomb a coffee shop because it was named "second cup"?

  • (cs) in reply to Gleb
    Gleb:
    Actually, the last candidate was right: in Konqueror file type is determined by headers if the extension isn't associated with anyting.

    No, the last candidate was wrong. After being told the receptionist had previously had the file open in Word, he suggested installing an entirely different operating system on the PC instead of simply renaming the file with a .DOC extension and opening it again in Word.

    You fail, just like the last candidate did. No hire.

  • (cs) in reply to sgakagiz

    Heh.. I should have come back to this thread yesterday... =)

    That's amazing that there's really a keyboard shortcut for switching the layout and that some PCs ship with that shortcut enabled.

    You learn something new. I guess I would have failed that test =) (yeah, it's a WTF that the girl didn't even identify the problem, but I didn't see the WTF in not fixing the problem...)

  • (cs) in reply to xtremezone
    xtremezone:
    mauve:
    Ubuntu: making Linux accessible to morons since 2004.
    Seconded. :D
    Operating Systems: making computers accessible to people who post moronic comments on thedailywtf since 1969.
  • MM (unregistered) in reply to AnCoward
    AnCoward:
    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.
    It's something that can reasonably be changed by mistake on computers with multiple languages installed. That, however, can be extremely rare in many parts of the US. It's quite reasonable even for someone who's very knowledgeable and experienced at working with computers to have never seen that sort of a setup.

    Like many problems, the solution is something that's very obvious to anyone who's worked with that setup, but would be tricky to anyone who hasn't seen it before. Of course, given a little time, even someone unfamiliar with the problem should be able to find the language settings, but I wouldn't expect someone waiting for an interview (which they might be called away to at any moment) to take that time to go digging around in unfamiliar settings on the receptionist's computer. At least Lisa came up with an interim workaround (albeit a rather awkward one) that would allow the receptionist to function until someone fixed the problem.

  • Fiona (unregistered) in reply to Scarlet Manuka
    Scarlet Manuka:
    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.
    TRWTF is QWERTY.
  • Paul (unregistered)

    Blimey.

    I mean, I like Ubuntu and all, I wouldn't ever go back to using Windows by choice, but I wouldn't have employed the guy who suggests fixing a simple problem by changing the entire operating system either!

  • (cs) in reply to incognito
    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?
    Um, yes. 18 year olds might not remember 5.25" floppies, but they definitely remember the pain of 3.5" floppies that would go dead after switching computers a few times due to difference in alignment of various drives. I'm 20, so I remember 5.25" floppies from the Apple ]['s we had in first grade...and that DEC Rainbow 100 I had as a kid. Flash drives only replaced floppies maybe 4 years ago. Do you really think they started using computers at age 14? Get real! Besides, who said they were 18?

    Oh, and desktops still have floppy drives, I'm pretty sure. They're unusual for laptops, but hey, having a floppy drive is still usually needed for BIOS updates on desktops.

  • (cs) in reply to KenW
    KenW:
    Gleb:
    Actually, the last candidate was right: in Konqueror file type is determined by headers if the extension isn't associated with anyting.

    No, the last candidate was wrong. After being told the receptionist had previously had the file open in Word, he suggested installing an entirely different operating system on the PC instead of simply renaming the file with a .DOC extension and opening it again in Word.

    You fail, just like the last candidate did. No hire.

    Given that Windows hides the file extensions (by default, I think...), it would be reasonable to assume the .doc was actually there...at least at first. Once you get to it not knowing the file type, you might want to turn on file extensions and investigate.

  • rogue (unregistered) in reply to AboutToFly

    Thanks for the tip - I will check it out. I have a P4350, so not very optimistic, but I will try it anyway!

  • (cs) in reply to MM
    MM:
    AnCoward:
    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.
    It's something that can reasonably be changed by mistake on computers with multiple languages installed.

    Indeed. Used to happen all the time on my machine by mistake until I disabled the shortcut key combination (Ctrl+Shift I think which can easily be hit together by mistake).

  • (cs) in reply to MM
    MM:
    It's something that can reasonably be changed by mistake on computers with multiple languages installed.
    Actually, all you need to have is multiple keyboards. I only have English (US) installed, but I have 2 custom keyboards installed, one that allows typing all of Windows-1252, the other that allows typing iso-8859-1.

    The real WTF™ is the minimized language bar on XP moving to the right side of the task bar every time I focus a MSTSC window. The other real WTF™ is Windows refusing to change the keyboard on console windows from a minimized language bar.

  • Grig Larson (unregistered)

    I got a job like this once. At least I think I did. One of the three guys who interviewed me was the lead telecom software guy. While he asked me about my resume and qualifications, his screen saver kept going off. This meant that he had to slap the space bar, hit cntl+alt+del, and log back in. As the interview progressed, this made him angrier and angrier.

    "Gahd, I hate this!" he said. "Every time the stupid screen saver goes on, it slows the computer down, and then the monitoring software crashes." [this was back when a Pentium 75 was a super-fast computer]

    "Why don't you disable the screen saver?" I asked.

    "Because I need it when I don't run the software. They had us upgrade to NT 4.0 and I hate the damn thing."

    "How about adjust the timing to less than a few minutes?"

    He sighed. "Because I am not the kind of guy who wants to do a reg hack or install software to fix that on a company laptop."

    "No no," I said. "Here, try this..." and I showed him where the screen saver settings were. Right click desktop, choose screen saver. It was set to 4 minutes, and I set it to 30 minutes for him.

    He was IMPRESSED. Like more than I would have considered a normal response. "I had NO idea I could do that! My god, man, THANK YOU! This was driving me CRAZY!"

    I got the job, and worked with him for the next year and a half, and he was actually a bright guy who was wonderful to work with most of the time. But after that, he seemed to think I was some kind of Windows wizard and bragged about my skills to others FAR more than I was comfortable with.

  • JLYNN (unregistered)

    Any jackass that expects an applicant to "work" for the dumbass receptionist before being hired doesn't need to ever try and get a job in the real world.

  • Jenda (unregistered) in reply to shepd
    It's sad, but I rarely get to the interview stage from a resume application. It's because my resume doesn't look like a million buck
    The only advice anyone can give you is to make sure the resume goes directly to the people that actually know anything about the job and skips the most use- and clueless department in any company, the HR. For the HR beings writing you helped God to create the world, the animals and the man would not be too embellished.
  • (cs) in reply to frustrati
    frustrati:
    In fact, now that I think about it, this test would work well for any tech job. Great idea!

    you're right, like for a dev position:

    Receptionist: Oh drat, I was just trying to finish this voicemail message storing script but my regex appears to not parse dates correctly...

    candidate: oh... well, that seems like a perfectly natural problem for a receptionist, let me take a look...

  • (cs) in reply to Milton Waddams
    Milton Waddams:
    Damn write-protect tabs!! I hated those things!

    Ah-- early DRM.

  • Nicolas (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?
    Dude, have you ever used Windows with more than one keyboard layout in the list? It *does* randomly change between them. Or at least it seems to.
  • Andy (unregistered)

    I'd help the secretary, perhaps not by touching her machine, but by suggesting how to fix the problems.

    If I got disqualified for a job for fixing a problem I was asked to fix, then I wouldn't want to work there anyway.

    (If the secretary got in trouble for asking a perfect stranger to fix her computer, then that's too bad, but not my problem.)

    -Andy

  • Amerrickangirl (unregistered) in reply to seamustheseagull
    seamustheseagull:
    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?
    That kind of logical thinking won't get you far in support. Every user will claim that "it only broke five minutes ago" and "No, I haven't made any changes, I've just been doing what I normally do". Even under waterboarding, they won't crack.

    Inevitably when you find the problem, they'll "remember" the useful and descriptive message that popped up 30 seconds before they called you.

    I had a user call me over to tell me that suddenly, when she typed, nothing appeared on the screen even though her cursor appeared to move.

    Somehow she had managed to change her font color to white (on a white screen). She had no idea how she had done this: "it just happened all of a sudden".

    And don't ask me what prompted me to check that.

  • (cs)

    Errrr....there's something wrong here. Ubuntu and floppy disks in the same story? Ubuntu's first release was in 2004, but it really didn't become popular for a few years after that. Let's assume that occured in 2005 - what college student would know about the protect tab on a floppy disk in 2005????

  • ais523 (unregistered) in reply to jonnyq
    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.

    There is, it's Left Alt + Left Shift. (I just tried it, I happen to be on a Windows computer nowadays.) So not one key technically speaking, but a two-key combination which is not completely implausible.

    Now, that's the real WTF.

  • (cs) in reply to ljj116
    what college student would know about the protect tab on a floppy disk in 2005?

    One that wants a job doing computer support at a University that still has lots of computers with floppy disks,maybe?

  • Craig Matthews (unregistered) in reply to KenW
    KenW:
    Craig Matthews:
    The real WTF is allowing people who don't work for your company to touch a computer which has access to corporate information.

    Everyone involved in administering the "receptionist test" should be fired.

    The real WTF is you making the assumption that the computer had access to the network. Where did you get that "fact"? I didn't see it anywhere in the original post.

    Also, so what if it was? Nothing says that the interviewee was left alone to do whatever they wanted on the system.

    Everyone who makes stupid assumptions in public forums should be fired, so... You're fired.

    I guess we'll just have to assume, then, that one of the interviewees got to the Ubuntu website with magic.

    And apparently he was allowed to download software onto a computer that a receptionist uses to manipulate company data.

    Receptionists use email too.

  • Bob... Billy Bob (unregistered) in reply to ljj116
    ljj116:
    Errrr....there's something wrong here. Ubuntu and floppy disks in the same story? Ubuntu's first release was in 2004, but it really didn't become popular for a few years after that. Let's assume that occured in 2005 - what college student would know about the protect tab on a floppy disk in 2005????

    Uhhh... I graduated in 2005 (aged 25), and I still remember the tape drive and 1541 disk drive used on my commodore 128 back in the day. I still have a pile of 5.25 and 3.5 floppys at home.

    Not knowing about the write protect tab most likely means the candidate is someone that never used computers as a kid and "just got into IT because the pay is good". No thanks.

  • more randomer than you (unregistered) in reply to cak
    cak:
    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.

    Anyone who rushes in and 'solves' problems without fully understanding the implications and flow on effects of their changes is a reckless cowboy and won't ever get past helpdesk for a career.

    One day you will find yourself in a position where you work with other people, and you will be thankful that they aren't as careless as yourself about rushing in and changing things which you don't know about.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    A lot of people have commented that the language test was difficult. I beg to differ. Even if you have absolutely no experience of changing the language on a Windows box, a simple process of elimination will lead you very quickly to the root issue of an incorrect language being active. After all, what else could possibly replace the character map other than the language settings? And considering that Windows has its 'langauge bar' that lets you change languages on the fly from your desktop - this one struck me as a very easy win. Obviously they all did, but I don't see this was any trickier than the write-protected disk.

  • alec (unregistered) in reply to more randomer than you
    more randomer than you:
    Anyone who rushes in and 'solves' problems without fully understanding the implications and flow on effects of their changes is a reckless cowboy and won't ever get past helpdesk for a career.

    One day you will find yourself in a position where you work with other people, and you will be thankful that they aren't as careless as yourself about rushing in and changing things which you don't know about.

    I'm sorry, are we seriously discussing the "implications and flow on effects of" such massive changes as turning a printer on?

    I've yet to come across a printer which was linked to the nuclear launch sequence.

  • (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.

    You wish.

  • (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.

    Embrassez mon derrière.

  • (cs) in reply to Bob... Billy Bob
    Bob... Billy Bob:
    ljj116:
    Errrr....there's something wrong here. Ubuntu and floppy disks in the same story? Ubuntu's first release was in 2004, but it really didn't become popular for a few years after that. Let's assume that occured in 2005 - what college student would know about the protect tab on a floppy disk in 2005????

    Uhhh... I graduated in 2005 (aged 25), and I still remember the tape drive and 1541 disk drive used on my commodore 128 back in the day. I still have a pile of 5.25 and 3.5 floppys at home.

    Not knowing about the write protect tab most likely means the candidate is someone that never used computers as a kid and "just got into IT because the pay is good". No thanks.

    I think you're missing the point - the fact that the receptionist even had a floppy disk available is somewhat amazing to me. The time line of the story just doesn't match up.

    By your logic I shouldn't hire a C++ programmer because they never learned FORTRAN. How many floppy-disk emergencies are you going to have in the 21st century?

    They invented these new things called CD's a while back, and some bleeding edge technology allows you to store things on flash memory through a USB port. How is troubleshooting floppy disks going to help me make sure my candidate can deal with these new fangled issues?

  • MM (unregistered) in reply to ljj116
    ljj116:
    I think you're missing the point - the fact that the receptionist even had a floppy disk available is somewhat amazing to me. The time line of the story just doesn't match up.
    All but one of the computers I use at work have floppy drives now in 2008, as does my desktop computer at home. You also have to consider that the story taking place in 2005 or so doesn't mean that she's on a 2005 computer. A receptionist at a college is likely to only get a new computer perhaps once every eight or ten years, so her computer could well be from the mid to late '90s, and probably wasn't top-of-the-line when it was new. If so, it probably doesn't have any USB ports or a CD-RW drive. (In any case, CD-RW had enough drawbacks that it never really caught on for transfering small files. That remained primarily done with floppy disks until flash drives became widespread enough to be cheap, which was only a few years ago.)

    In any case, even if the receptionist happened to have a relatively new computer at the time, not everyone in the department would. An applicant who plans to provide computer support had better be reasonably familiar with the past decade's worth of technology.

  • MM (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    And considering that Windows has its 'langauge bar' that lets you change languages on the fly from your desktop - this one struck me as a very easy win.
    Windows may or may not have a language bar on the desktop. It's optional; and even if the option is turned on, a minimized language bar can be (and often is) completely obscured by the system tray. (Which is a WTF in itself, but that's one of M$'s WTFs.)
  • katastrofa (unregistered) in reply to Kluge Doctor
    Kluge Doctor:
    And, for the record, I think the German insult was (a bit) over the line. It's more Third Reich, than German.

    Ah, Third Reich. They had nothing to do with the Germans, I know.

  • csm (unregistered) in reply to alec
    alec:
    more randomer than you:
    Anyone who rushes in and 'solves' problems without fully understanding the implications and flow on effects of their changes is a reckless cowboy and won't ever get past helpdesk for a career.

    One day you will find yourself in a position where you work with other people, and you will be thankful that they aren't as careless as yourself about rushing in and changing things which you don't know about.

    I'm sorry, are we seriously discussing the "implications and flow on effects of" such massive changes as turning a printer on?

    I've yet to come across a printer which was linked to the nuclear launch sequence.

    Perhaps the printer is positioned right next to the thermostat? :p

  • John (unregistered) in reply to xtremezone
    xtremezone:
    mauve:
    Ubuntu: making Linux accessible to morons since 2004.
    Seconded. :D

    So the Linux bigotry is at the second level -- not only must you NOT use Windows, you'd better chose the correct Linux distribution.

    I'd like to know which distribution I should use when I next install Linux.

    Wait a minute, I'm using FreeBSD 7.0 now, and it gives me all the programming tools I need. Maybe I'll stick with that.

  • vik (unregistered)

    Never heard a story that had Ubuntu and floppy disks in it. A little lame.

  • debian user (unregistered) in reply to r
    r:
    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.

    Come on, telling the receptionist to install Linux on her company computer is not a solution--she probably isn't allowed to do so. Also, the problem (renaming a file!) is absolutely trivial if you're a tech-oriented person who has ever used a Windows computer in the last decade, which is hard for anyone to avoid even if none of their own computers run Windows.

  • Pete (unregistered) in reply to DaveyDaveDave
    SomeCoder:
    Personally - I'd think, 'what an unfriendly, unhelpful person, I wouldn't want to work with him/her'.
    While I'd probably think: "Clever lad. If you touched it as a non-employee, you'd be risking liability for its breakage and any data loss."

    Frankly, the replies in this thread are truly worrying. You do not ever touch gear without being given explicit authority: either by its owner or an employment contract. No, being there for a job interview does not count.

  • Shinobu (unregistered)

    W論g毛yボアrdぁ用t買う秦gウェイrdsくいggぃ絵sーのおお、伊ねヴぇr葉ヴぇてゃtp路bぇm。。。 The stupid thing is, there actually is a setting that allows you to specify the default conversion mode, but it happily ignores it and sometimes appears to randomly switch between the two. So you hit the conversion key when you shouldn't or don't when you should. And the language icon (EN for most of you) always looks the same - to be able to see the conversion mode, you have to turn the extra icons on, which turns the language bar into a huge monstrosity. You can make some, but not all, of them disappear even when extra icons are shown, but that causes other usability problems. The language bar is one of the best examples of abysmal usability out there, which kind of blows because it is sort of central in pretty much anything you do that involves text entry of any kind.

  • Synchronos (unregistered) in reply to csm
    csm:
    Perhaps the printer is positioned right next to the thermostat? :p

    Of course it was. They always are. But they are called routers nowadays.

  • Random832 (unregistered) in reply to Nicolas
    Nicolas:
    Dude, have you ever used Windows with more than one keyboard layout in the list? It *does* randomly change between them. Or at least it seems to.

    If it seems to randomly change between them, you've probably changed it in one application (or on the desktop, which sets the default for new applications) by mistake, and it'll switch as you switch applications.

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