- 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
Hmmm…. I’ll have a go.
“Frequently visits thedailywtf.com”
is actually
“Leading member of the world wide consortium against the wide spreading use of Anti pattern (charity work)”
And “Walks his dog daily” is really
“posses vast knowledge and hands on experience of GIS systems”
An finally, “never misses ‘Family Guy’” would be
“Extensive experience with graphical and post-AI communication services”
I think I just found a new hobby!
Admin
Oh what's slashdot got to do, got to do with it
What`s slashdot but a second hand emotion
What`s slashdot got to do, got to do with it
Who needs a site
When a site can be broken
Admin
Who let the geeks out? (slash dot slash dot)
Who let the geeks out? (slash dot slash dot)
Admin
Recently seen on a resume, under a Core Compentencies heading:
<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->Detailed, patient and having great capacity for boredom, thorough testing for every project
(Appropriate captcha: stfu)
Admin
It'd be a little clearer if you said you saved a man-month per month. Or even less confusing, 180 man hours per month.
Admin
Objective: seeking gainful employment as a team supporter utilizing company resources to proactively scour new technologies and best practices enabling first-in-class enterprise solutions which are highly flexible, extensible, and robust while delivering 9.9-sigma quality with zero visible delay.
Skills: 200+ WPM, Brown-nosing, Chest-thumping, Work Reduction, Time Management
Languages: Pearl, Ruby, Emerald, Diamond, Sapphire, Topaz, A, B, C, C++, C#, C--, OOPS-C, !C, @C, D, ASP, Python, Boa, Viper, Coral, Tickle, Tk, PK, Assemble, Machine Language, Binary, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Klingon, Vulcan, Marklar
Admin
Education:
WTFU, 1969 - Present, 9.9 GPA
BS, MS, and PhD in BS, specializing in Passing the Buck methodologies.
Admin
The year should be 19NaN.
Admin
I once was interviewing a candidate who seemed to have a good resume, presented himself well, was knowlegeable on the right subjects (Unix System Administration), etc.
However, he was somewhat evasive about the references from his previous position, with the "State Correction System".
He finally admitted he was an inmate in prison for a few years for selling drugs, but he had some knowledge of computers and had become system adminstrator for the prison.
Trying to be fair with him, I did not immediately reject him, but sent him to another manager for an interview.
The manager came into my office a few minutes later, saying the candidate had anger management problems and had stormed out of the office about some minor question.
About two years later I got a resume from the same candidate - he had stretched the duration of his previous job and the next one to cover the prison time.
Admin
I once interviewed a really nice Indian bloke. His resume had all the skills we need listed, and he had a very professional polite demeanour. That company had a pretty simple list of 10 questions (a bit of a WTF in itself) covering extremely basic ASP.Net concepts, which he scored zero. To give him a chance (and because his resume was Windows Forms focussed) I said:
"I see you have experience with Windows Forms, can you tell me about how you last used that tech?"
"Why yes, of course.... you see I.... yes well... um, that is to say... errrr..... um nooooo, not really, no."
Admin
References:
Paula, Brillant!
Admin
That's why you should always bring copies of your resume to an interview.
Admin
Admin
I once got a resume from an experienced 'lunix' programmer.
Though I confess I never considered the possiblity that he was just showing off his mad Commodore 64k skills. http://lng.sourceforge.net
Admin
You're right. I misread you post as saying that the recruiter had added the comments. Been one of those kind-of days.
Rich
Admin
Now that's easy:
Marklars: Malklar, Malklar, Malklar, Malklar++, Malklar#, Malklar, Malklar, Malklar.
Sorry - couldn't resist :)
Admin
1969 has a fine WTF tradition behind it. (Specifically -1 -> 1969-12-31 23:59:59)
Admin
I don't get it. What am I missing?
The candidate did NOTHING except make a recommendation, which was refused. And he did NOT indicate how he actually incresed performance by 50% (or how he measured this increase)
The candidate didn't instally the pointy thingy, he didn't install the certs. All he really did was blantantly lie on his resume.
Admin
It seems that everyone has missed this so far. (Admittedly, I had to read it a couple times to get it) The candidate didn't increase the performance of the application on the server, he improved his own performance at applying for new jobs. The 50% is just an average between always looking and never looking, or just completely made up.
I'd have given him some major slack at that point (barring any obvious lying of course), because it would have been funny -- and if your work can't be fun, it had better be funny.
Admin
Who says we've "all" exaggerated on our resumes? Assuming we don't count the parody resume I put up that lists imitations of excessive padding (such as my work for Apple doing "post-release product testing" and "funding company"), I certainly haven't.
Admin
Actually we have one on place. Not because we try to cheat the component vendor but because they haven't been able to suppress this dialog even if the component is registered properly. The dialog even tells me that it's registered properly. Actually our project wiki has its own WTF part fed solely with the support emails we exchanged....
Alexander
Admin
But Pearl is a real-time multitasking program (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEARL_programming_language) and I thought this crowd would have heard of the subject-language C more-or-less: http://www.baetzler.de/humor/c_more_or_less.html - maybe the person was just trying to see if the interviewer was awake :)
We had a guy submit a resume once in which he stated that he was a Ph.D. He submitted "proof" in the form of a full page of business cards for different companies that he had used with the title "Dr." used on them.....
Admin
Job Accomplishments: Invented the color orange.
(If you're going to be stupid, at least be creative about it.)
Admin
I'm sure he's quite familiar with C+, along with C+'s friends: D and F.
Admin
Badger, badger badger. Badger, badger, mushroom?
Admin
Please don't do this...
"I once interviewed a really nice Indian bloke."
Why is there a need to include the guy's ethnic origin in this statement? It makes no impact on the story. If it was a white guy, would you say "I once interviewed a really nice white bloke."? I doubt it.
Admin
I've heard that mauve is considered best for database jobs.
(But maybe you should use that only if you're heading for management.)
Admin
Umm, get a little less sensitive. They weren't being racist, just stating a fact. They even said he was "really nice"?
OR
Please don't do this...
"Why is there a need to include the guy's ethnic origin in this statement? It makes no impact on the story. If it was a white guy, would you say "I once interviewed a really nice white bloke."? I doubt it."
If it was, say, "I once interviewd a really nice fat bloke" would you have gotten all up in arms about it? I doubt it.
Admin
" Umm, get a little less sensitive. They weren't being racist, just stating a fact. They even said he was "really nice"?"
Being racist isn't just about beating up on someone because of the colour of their skin. By stating his ethnic origin, the poster is drawing attention to that aspect which is discriminating by ethnicity. Oh, and because he said he was "really nice", then that makes it all ok? So it would be alright to say "I think black people are really nice, but they shouldn't be in our country". Bit more extreme and obviously racist, but it's ok because they said they are "really nice".
If it was "I once interviewd[sic] a really nice fat bloke", then yes I would still be annoyed by that. It doesn't add anything and there is no need for it.
Captcha : stfu (how apt).
Admin
Long ago, I was asked to look into a program which plotted data points. It just sent plotter instructions. The output looked like this:
PU
PD
PM x,y
PU
PD
...
And yes, it raised and lowered the pen every time.
I modified it so that it kept track of the pen location, and the pen state, and only issued changes when it needed to, and so that when drawing a whole lot of movement in one axis, and none in another, it would just keep all the points, find the minimum and maximum, then plot the whole range and move to the last point before moving on the other axis.
Average real-world data files came out anywhere between 1/8 the size and substantially smaller. Better yet, without several THOUSAND pen up/pen down adjustments per plot, the actual output speed was probably at least 15x faster.
Later, at the same company, I introduced the magic of using larger packet sizes and streaming mode in Kermit to get about a 10x improvement in the speed of file transfers over international calls. (Yes, they did this via modem. It was a while back.)
I eventually got fired. :P
Admin
As a long time lurker and reader of tdwf, I feel for the current state of the posts - they're all stories - and pages long!!
Where are the code snippets so that we can actually say "the eyes - they goggle" and whatnot with right indignation??
Show me the code, Alex!
Admin
For what? Surely that would be a WTF all its own, given your track record.
Admin
This reminds me of some interviews i went to. Let me share two"brilliant"interviewers with you here, as they tried to play the "shock and awe" game asking for deep knowledge in areas they could not evaluate because they did not know the stuff themselves..
One "C" test was "how would you write a function that allocates memory and copies a string to that place?" Answer was "i wouldn't. I would use 'strdup()'". Interviewer didn't know that one.
Then there was a test if i knew C++ or not, where they hand you a small function and ask what it does, only to get the paper back with all portability issues and two bugs carefully marked and explained.
I still have to grin sometimes when i remember these.
Admin
Admin
Except there's no strdup() in C ;-)
Admin
Tat's why I like fools, they're always creative...
PS: ARRRRRGH lol
Admin
In-depth research and prospect via Web2.0 technologies.
Admin
Oh my, and it's a real program in addition *runs away screaming*
Admin
Ok, you win :-)
Admin
What's wrong with being Indian (which is a country btw) ? I woudln't mind personally if told of me "I once interviewed a really nice french bloke."
Admin
"Core participant in a well-known working group focused towards establishing software engineering and project management best-practice through in-depth review of a large number of failed projects."?
I think my BS detector just overloaded...
--
captcha: "pizza"... hmm.... pizza.....
Admin
QUOTE:
When I was interviewed for my current job, my resume had a line with stuff that I touched and had basic knowledge about. Not the stuff I actually consider having enough knowledge of to put them into the "knows: blabla" category, but rather in the "basic knowledge of: blabla" category.
Me too, in my interview for my new job i pointed out that I'd only just recently passed my MCP in C# so had no real world experience of using it, but they gave me the tech test anyway, were very happy with the result, and offered me the job with some more MS training thrown in too. Meaning they valued my overall attitude and general experience more than the precise knowledge of the exact tool-for-the-job.
Admin
I notice that they don't actually state what PTFB stands for anywhere on their site. I can't believe a company would actually publish an application with a name like that. What's next? An error cross-referencing application called WTFPro? Or a documentation searching app called RTFMPro?
Hey, maybe there's a market for these...makes me wish I was a coder.
Admin
There is absolutely nothing wrong with recognizing our differences. The PC crowd has gone waaaayyyyy too far in this respect.
Was is wrong is treating someone with lesser respect becuase of differences beyond his control, such as ethnic origin. The original poster did not treat the "Indian Fellow" with any disrepect. He simply included facts that add color and depth to his story.
We are all different, pointing that out doesn't make you racist.
Admin
I needed to install and IDE on my machine for a job I was on. I asked my boss where they registration key was and he told me to "just work around it" like they had done before. The problem (besides obvious software piracy) was that the vendor had made it much harder to defeat the registration key in the new version of their software. Instead of paying a few hundered dollars for a legitmate key, he me and another worker to try and defeat the key.
I shouldn't have even tried, but the challenge sounded like fun, so the two of us dug in and spent two days trying to crack the registration system. The vendor had done their job and we didn't make any headway. It took us another day to convince our boss that it was pointless. Add another three days for the purchase order to clear, and it was well over a week lost before we got the keys we needed - not to mention the $$$ he spent getting two contractors to pound on the key for two days.
CAPTCHA: hotdog
Admin
Actually, I already help lots of folks with their resumes, for free. I won't lie for someone on a resume, but creative phrasing is just something I've learned over the years.
Admin
Maybe he meant a real Indian, instead of an Indian from India?
Admin
Admin
I am reminded of time I was being interviewed for a job. After meeting with the Administrative leads I finally got to sit down with the Technical lead. This was the only guy in the place with long hair and wearing jeans and beat-up old slip-on shoes.
The conversation went very well and he hit me with a very strange request. He said: "Describe the Internet"
I (with much eloquence) explained a worldwide collection of servers that are loosely connected with a sort of "gentlemen's agreement" to share data. And I made a quick description of a separate DNS network (very much akin to the SS7 network in the Public Telephone Network). He was suitably impressed.
He then explained to me that this same query was posed to a recent interviewee who, after pondering for quite a while, responded with an emphatic:
Object Oriented
Admin
Believe it or not this sort of thing is not just limited to pressing buttons. A friend of a friend's customer found that their free version of a well known database driver limited them to a maximum of 20 connections. To upgrade would have cost them a massive $150, so instead they opted to have a scheduled task in windows which every now and again kills database connections which have been idle for more than 1/2 hour.
This is a company which has an annual turnover close to $1M.