• XMLord (unregistered)

    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!

  • tina turner (unregistered) in reply to wtf
    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:

    ...or PTKFGS?

     http://ptkfgs.ytmnd.com/

     

    Slashdotted from theDailyWTF!!

     Their site is now displaying:

    MYSQL CONNECTION FAILED: [1129] Host 'ytmnd.com' is blocked because of many connection errors; unblock with 'mysqladmin flush-hosts'
     

     

    What does slashdot have to do with it? 

    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

  • Baha Men (unregistered) in reply to tina turner

    Who let the geeks out? (slash dot slash dot)
    Who let the geeks out? (slash dot slash dot) 

  • jefffurry (unregistered) in reply to daSlug

    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)

  • (cs) in reply to themagni

    themagni:
    This means I decreased our code overhead by 99.98% and saved about 4 weeks of work every month. (Yes, a month of work a month. None of these statements are typos.) It took at least one minute to recompile and save each file, for 10,200 minutes. Divide by 60 and you get 170 hours, or 4.5 weeks at 40hours / week. The damnable thing about it is that it looks like it's impossible, so it looks like my resumé has a big glaring error on it.

    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.
     

  • MS Bob (unregistered)

    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
     

  • Bob, meet Bob (unregistered) in reply to MS Bob
    Anonymous:

    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
     

    Education:

    WTFU, 1969 - Present, 9.9 GPA
    BS, MS, and PhD in BS, specializing in Passing the Buck methodologies. 

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Bob, meet Bob
    Anonymous:

    Education:

    WTFU, 1969 - Present, 9.9 GPA
    BS, MS, and PhD in BS, specializing in Passing the Buck methodologies. 

    The year should be 19NaN. 

  • Bud Pass (unregistered)

    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.

  • (cs)

    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."

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to MS Bob

    References:

    Paula, Brillant! 

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Anon Coward
    Anonymous:

    Not so fast!  Sometimes it's the head-hunter who adds all the latest buzzwords and acronyms.  However, I have to agree that the candidate should have handled the question differently.

     

    That's why you should always bring copies of your resume to an interview. 

  • (cs) in reply to Bob, meet Bob
    Anonymous:

    Education:

    WTFU, 1969 - Present, 9.9 GPA
    BS, MS, and PhD in BS, specializing in Passing the Buck methodologies. 

    Since we seem to be playing buzzword-bingo, shouldn't that be, "specializing in PTB methodologies?"
  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous

    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 

     

  • Rich (unregistered) in reply to emurphy
    emurphy:

    He should have handled it by ignoring the headhunter's advice to lie.  Or, if the headhunter lied without his knowledge, then saying "What? Let me see that. Oh, man, the headhunter totally added that. Sorry he wasted both our time."

     

    You're right. I misread you post as saying that the recruiter had added the comments. Been one of those kind-of days.

     

    Rich 

  • (cs) in reply to MS Bob
    Anonymous:

    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

    Now that's easy:

    Marklars: Malklar, Malklar, Malklar, Malklar++, Malklar#, Malklar, Malklar, Malklar.

    Sorry - couldn't resist :)
     

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:

    Education:

    WTFU, 1969 - Present, 9.9 GPA
    BS, MS, and PhD in BS, specializing in Passing the Buck methodologies. 

    The year should be 19NaN. 

     

    1969 has a fine WTF tradition behind it.  (Specifically -1 -> 1969-12-31 23:59:59)

     

  • (cs)
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    In disbelief, the candidate packed his bags and headed back home to strongly recommend that they begin using the registered version of the software.  The operations lead refused because, as he saw it, they had a perfectly acceptable 'workaround' to the trial software.

    And that was what inspired the candidate to update his resume and began a job search.

    While Z didn't end up hiring that candidate, he sure did give him some bonus points for the best definition of "increasing application performance by 50%."

     

    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.

  • (cs) in reply to chrismcb
    chrismcb:
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    In disbelief, the candidate packed his bags and headed back home to strongly recommend that they begin using the registered version of the software.  The operations lead refused because, as he saw it, they had a perfectly acceptable 'workaround' to the trial software.

    And that was what inspired the candidate to update his resume and began a job search.

    While Z didn't end up hiring that candidate, he sure did give him some bonus points for the best definition of "increasing application performance by 50%."

     

    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.

     

    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.

  • seebs (unregistered)

    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.

  • Alexander (unregistered) in reply to Volmarias

    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

  • Veronica (unregistered) in reply to John Smallberries

    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.....
     

  • rob_squared (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:

    We had a good one a couple of months ago.  Mind you, we were specifically looking for a Windows admin with Active Directory experience.

     It says here on your resume that you've got extensive experience setting up and administrating an Active Directory infrastructure.  What and how did you setup.

    Candidate: Oh that, the recruiter recommended that I put that on my resume.  I haven't really worked with Active Directory.

    Interviewer: Do you understand that we're specifically looking for a senior level admin with at least 5 years Active Directory experience

    Candidate: I guess I'm not in the running for the job.
     

     

     

    Job Accomplishments: Invented the color orange.

    (If you're going to be stupid, at least be creative about it.) 

  • rob_squared (unregistered) in reply to John Smallberries
    John Smallberries:

    I recently received a résumé from a candidate who had extensive experience in C+ and Pearl.

    *cries* 

     

    I'm sure he's quite familiar with C+, along with C+'s friends: D and F. 

  • rob_squared (unregistered) in reply to viraptor
    viraptor:
    Anonymous:

    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

    Now that's easy:

    Marklars: Malklar, Malklar, Malklar, Malklar++, Malklar#, Malklar, Malklar, Malklar.

    Sorry - couldn't resist :)
     

    Badger, badger badger.  Badger, badger, mushroom?

  • That smarts (unregistered) in reply to phx

    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.
     

     

  • U-wing (unregistered) in reply to rob_squared
    Anonymous:

    Job Accomplishments: Invented the color orange.

    (If you're going to be stupid, at least be creative about it.) 

    I've heard that mauve is considered best for database jobs.

    (But maybe you should use that only if you're heading for management.)

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to That smarts

    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.

  • That smarts (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous

    " 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).
     

     

  • seebs (unregistered) in reply to themagni

    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
     

  • V (unregistered)

    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! 

  • (cs) in reply to seebs
    Anonymous:

    I eventually got fired.  :P
     

     

    For what?  Surely that would be a WTF all its own, given your track record.

     

  • Redshirt Coder (unregistered) in reply to Zlodo

    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.

  • bedtime (unregistered) in reply to emurphy
    emurphy:
    Anonymous:

    I eventually got fired.  :P
     

     

    For what?  Surely that would be a WTF all its own, given your track record.

     

    The company charged for the hour.
  • former clc regular (unregistered) in reply to Redshirt Coder
    Anonymous:

    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. 



    Except there's no strdup() in C ;-)
  • (cs) in reply to kuroshin

    kuroshin:
    Oh boy, you should have seen the look on his face when he told the panel that Netscape Navigator went out of business because it couldnt do POSTs, which according to him were much faster than GET by factor of around 200-300%.

    Tat's why I like fools, they're always creative...

     

    PS: ARRRRRGH lol

  • (cs) in reply to ssprencel

    ssprencel:
    How would you spice up "Spent hours of company time surfing the internet and reading TDWTF while the project deadline loomed closer and closer."?

    In-depth research and prospect via Web2.0 technologies.

  • (cs) in reply to MikeyP

    Anonymous:
    Okey Dokey Pro was used extensively in my previous employment to prevent those pesky modal dialogs.

     Oh my, and it's a real program in addition *runs away screaming*

     

     

  • (cs) in reply to compforce
    compforce:

    How would you spice up "Spent hours of company time surfing the internet and reading TDWTF while the project deadline loomed closer and closer."?

    Researched the latest in pre-production issues assuring quality control and reducing the total cost of development by assisting in the avoidance of design flaws that are commonly implemented.<!-- End: CommunityServer.Discussions.Controls.PostDisplay.TextPost -->

     

    Ok, you win :-)

  • (cs) in reply to That smarts
    Anonymous:

     "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.
     

    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."

  • Wuggy (unregistered) in reply to WIldpeaks
    ssprencel:
    How would you spice up "Spent hours of company time surfing the internet and reading TDWTF while the project deadline loomed closer and closer."?

    "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.....

     

  • Ricster (unregistered) in reply to Zlodo

    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.

  • (cs) in reply to AS
    Anonymous:

    Should be PTFB

    http://www.ptfbpro.com/index.shtml 

     Used it extensively at a previous place I worked, but mostly for automated testing of the UI

    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.

  • rmg66 (unregistered) in reply to That smarts
    Anonymous:

    " 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.

     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.

     

     

  • keymaker (unregistered)

    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 

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to ssprencel
    ssprencel:
    Anonymous:

    Alex Papadimoulis:

    <snip>

    The candidate recently flew to an overseas client site to help debug a serious problem.

    <snip>

    ...strongly recommend that they begin using the registered version of the software. 

    <snip>

    While Z didn't end up hiring that candidate, he sure did give him some bonus points for the best definition of "increasing application performance by 50%."

    Maybe it's just me, but how did the candidate increase the speed of the application at all?

    He could have honestly said something like "Provided first-response onsite global support to our premiere customers when their integrated systems would periodically grind to a halt. Performed in-depth system-wide diagnostics. Recommended appropriate integrated software upgrades."

    He might have had to BS a little to get through it, but that's why you practice interviewing yourself in front of a mirror.

    Hey that's pretty good!  Maybe people could send you their resumes (and a small monetary incentive) and you could help "fluff" them up a little bit.  How would you spice up "Spent hours of company time surfing the internet and reading TDWTF while the project deadline loomed closer and closer."?

    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.

     

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to WIldpeaks
    WIldpeaks:
    Anonymous:

     "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.
     

    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."

     

    Maybe he meant a real Indian, instead of an Indian from India?

  • Renny (unregistered)
    Dunno if this is true, but some years back the company I worked at suddenly needed a lot of developers, and so started interviewing.  It was at a time when the market was down, so the news that a company was hiring led to all sorts applying.
    Anyway, in the interview, the interviewer asked the candidate what operating systems that he'd had experience with, and the candidate replied "DOS, Windows and UN-9."  The interview moved on to other topics.
    After the interview, the interviewer started wondering about this mysterious "UN-9"... when suddenly it dawned on him - if you're into Roman numerals, that's how you'd pronounce "UNIX" if you've only ever read the word instead of actually discussing it with someone!
  • (cs)

    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

  • (cs)

    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. 

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