• Andrew (unregistered)
    After all, compared to Martin, maybe his job wasn't so bad after all.
    It wasn't mentioned what his current job even was.
  • MP79 (unregistered)

    I actually interviewed for a very similar post in the uk. The company had just come out of bankruptcy and had a single server developer come web developer come sysadmin come support person left, he was the original engineer at the company and had written everything from the company website through to the processing application and the back office system from scratch. He was based in London while the company itself was in Manchester and they wanted a single person to take over all those roles for a less than average wage. I ended the interview early, wished them luck then rang the agency who had put me forward for the role to express my WTF at that position and explain how they would never find anyone to fill it. Still a good WTF to tell my friends :)

  • (cs)

    I was hovering over the phrase "Windows 95 OSR2" thinking I'd found the WTF for sure. It looks like Mark's more 'manly' version of Cornify was just a one-off, which is a shame. No HTML comments either.

  • MrBester (unregistered) in reply to Andrew
    Andrew:
    After all, compared to Martin, maybe his job wasn't so bad after all.
    It wasn't mentioned what his current job even was.
    Doesn't matter. It could be flipping burgers in a Gaza halal shop in the direct line of fire of rockets and it would still be better.
  • Herwig (unregistered) in reply to MrBester
    MrBester:
    Andrew:
    After all, compared to Martin, maybe his job wasn't so bad after all.
    It wasn't mentioned what his current job even was.
    Doesn't matter. It could be flipping burgers in a Gaza halal shop in the direct line of fire of rockets and it would still be better.
    Why? I'd like to get that job...
  • Smug Unix User (unregistered)

    He should have at least seen what the "database" looked like. Sometimes the most rewarding time on a job is watching the new "technology" emerge.

  • Bruce W (unregistered)

    "And one more thing," the Director continued, "you will also need to build and launch a communications satellite for communication failover."

  • letatio (unregistered)

    Factoring in skills but not time is a common mistake.

  • (cs) in reply to MP79

    Actually, I think you are talking about the same company...or really weird coincidence!

  • the beholder (unregistered) in reply to Smug Unix User
    Smug Unix User:
    He should have at least seen what the "database" looked like. Sometimes the most rewarding time on a job is watching the new "technology" emerge.
    Agreed. I bet it would give us one memorable article.
  • (cs)

    Anyone willing to take a bet that the "no outages" server migration will be impossible, because each and every server is a single point of failure for something?

  • (cs) in reply to MP79
    MP79:
    a single server developer come web developer come sysadmin come support person left
    Are you afraid to write the word "cum"?
  • How is this a WTF? (unregistered)

    So a small startup company with inhouse technology wanted an all-around IT person. How is this a WTF? It sounds like a fun position.

  • LonesomeProgrammer (unregistered) in reply to How is this a WTF?
    How is this a WTF?:
    So a small startup company with inhouse technology wanted an all-around IT person. How is this a WTF? It sounds like a fun position.

    If by fun you mean running major overtime because you cannot finish everything within your regular hours then yes this job will have tons of fun!

    Lots of responsibility can be good, except when you are the person who also has to execute every single task.

  • Ben Jammin (unregistered) in reply to LonesomeProgrammer
    LonesomeProgrammer:
    How is this a WTF?:
    So a small startup company with inhouse technology wanted an all-around IT person. How is this a WTF? It sounds like a fun position.

    If by fun you mean running major overtime because you cannot finish everything within your regular hours then yes this job will have tons of fun!

    Lots of responsibility can be good, except when you are the person who also has to execute every single task.

    I think he means fun as in earning half of what any of the positions that has been rolled into this one would earn.

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to Andrew
    Andrew:
    After all, compared to Martin, maybe his job wasn't so bad after all.
    It wasn't mentioned what his current job even was.
    Phil winced. He was a vanilla network administrator – supporting a custom app wasn't quite what he was looking for, but he desperately wanted to get out of his current job.
  • Fries ? (unregistered)

    I would have jabbed "Do you want fries with that ?", and if they were still interested in listening, I would explain politely how/why this is not a single person job, and see if they had funding for perhaps hiring a few more people ...

    If they were still interested in talking, I could lay out how many more people "should" be involved, their tasks etc. Not to design a solution for them, but atleast to get them thinking along the right path ... Perhaps they can hire me and then make me in charge of hiring the others/have the newer hires report to me ... :-)

  • (cs) in reply to Fries ?
    Fries ?:
    I would have jabbed "Do you want fries with that ?", and if they were still interested in listening, I would explain politely how/why this is not a single person job, and see if they had funding for perhaps hiring a few more people ...

    If they were still interested in talking, I could lay out how many more people "should" be involved, their tasks etc. Not to design a solution for them, but atleast to get them thinking along the right path ... Perhaps they can hire me and then make me in charge of hiring the others/have the newer hires report to me ... :-)

    You must be new here! This is TDWTF, where we crush your dreams.

  • TheOldNewFuManChu (unregistered)

    How many TDWTF have we seen with "data center in an old cold war bunker"? Seems to be a highly common theme ...

    Exactly how many such bunkers were built, and why are so many so perfectly outfitted for multiple high speed redundant fiber connections? There wasn't a fiber network at the time, so are the fiber companies looking to include all cold-war bunkers close to their trunks?

    captcha: illum - I'm the illumest non-illuminati captcha repeater ever. represent.

  • Jack (unregistered) in reply to TheOldNewFuManChu
    TheOldNewFuManChu:
    How many TDWTF have we seen with "data center in an old cold war bunker"? Seems to be a highly common theme ...
    I credit that (perhaps wrongly) to the initiative of our writers, who seem to think they have a duty to make the story a little livelier. As in, honcho thought physical security was all that mattered, snicker, ha ha!

    Had just that situation earlier this week. A mechanical device that could easily kill a dozen people standing nearby if it receives bogus commands. The control computer is in a physical cage. But the internet connection is wide open.

  • Enoch (unregistered)
    got tons of funding
    you want a data center guy... someone to migrate the application... a network administrator... someone to provide internal support to the staff. And you want a second line support person
    So take the tons of funding and hire those five people! Should be a no-brainer. Unless the finance guy thinks the way to produce a return on investment is to not invest any of it.
  • (cs) in reply to TGV
    TGV:
    MP79:
    a single server developer come web developer come sysadmin come support person left
    Are you afraid to write the word "cum"?
    That was my thought. It's okay, MP79. It's Latin, we won't laugh. Much.
  • Mark (unregistered)

    Sounds like a challenge. In my younger years I would have taken this job, especially if it paid well and I really wanted out of my current job.

    Who knows, it might have gone something like this: You do well achieving the first major milestone and gain a lot of respect. You tell them bandwidth is limited and that you need to hire another person (they are well funded, after all). Fast forward 2 years. The company is 1 of a few companies left standing from the field of 115, largely due in part to a guy who has the balls to write tools from scratch and learn from his missteps. You've faced and conquered challenges, you are leading a team of people (probably Director level), have a larger salary and are being given founder stock.

    Instead, this story ends without the interviewee even being offered the job and submitting it as a WTF.

  • (cs)

    Pussy!

    "we wrote our own database from scratch"

    Why do you think this is a WTF? I mean, look at all the databases that were started from scratch: Postgre, MySQL, Cassandra, Mongo, Couch, etc...

    So, if you were interviewing for, I don't know, Facebook, and they told you they were using their own database (Cassandra) would you still think it was a WTF?

    I mean, I know when not to re-invent the wheel, but if their business depends heavily on a database behaving the way they expected, maybe they should too build their own database.

  • (cs)

    I wonder how many Americans will pick up on the context of "smart" in this article. I watch too much Top Gear and Wheeler Dealers...

  • JJ (unregistered) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    TGV:
    MP79:
    a single server developer come web developer come sysadmin come support person left
    Are you afraid to write the word "cum"?
    That was my thought. It's okay, MP79. It's Latin, we won't laugh. Much.
    And make sure that when you pronounce it it rhymes with "plume."
  • PseudoBovine (unregistered) in reply to Mark
    Mark:
    Sounds like a challenge. In my younger years I would have taken this job, ...

    Who knows, it might have gone something like this: ...

    n You're running into the balance of probabilities issue, though. While, yes, it could go like that, more than likely it'd turn out to be a complete cluster fuck, where you'd sink years in it, only to have everything collapse under you.

    "In my younger years" puts the finger on it - it's all about how much risk you're willing to take on. If you're willing to take a 95% chance of certain pain for a 5% (or less) chance of payout, great. If not, then not. Young hotshots with years to recover from things can afford to take the risk. Older guys with wife, kids and a mortgage have to be more risk adverse.

    That said, being an IT all-rounder with a laundry lists of different responsibilities isn't automatically a problem. It all depends on how much of a workload (i.e. how big the company is), and how understanding your boss is regarding priority ordering. - If you're the sole "computer guy" for a dozen-man shop, and your boss understands that getting the printer fixed now means that the website won't be updated until sometime next week, it's a decent job. However, if your boss wants servers moved cross-country without any service interruption, while also setting up IT for a dozen people, while not letting the questions from the other 90+ people in the office go unanswered, and oh, yeah, all this has to happen by the end of the week, then you're spread too thin.

  • Mark (unregistered) in reply to PseudoBovine
    PseudoBovine:
    "In my younger years" puts the finger on it - it's all about how much risk you're willing to take on.

    Which is exactly why I said that.

    PseudoBovine:
    If you're willing to take a 95% chance of certain pain for a 5% (or less) chance of payout, great.

    95% chance of certain pain? Only if I was betting my own money on it. It's a job. It pays. It presents some challenges. Even if failed, the experience would be more valuable to me than sitting on my ass in a job that I know I hate.

    PseudoBovine:
    That said, being an IT all-rounder with a laundry lists of different responsibilities isn't automatically a problem. It all depends on how much of a workload (i.e. how big the company is), and how understanding your boss is regarding priority ordering. - If you're the sole "computer guy" for a dozen-man shop, and your boss understands that getting the printer fixed now means that the website won't be updated until sometime next week, it's a decent job. However, if your boss wants servers moved cross-country without any service interruption, while also setting up IT for a dozen people, while not letting the questions from the other 90+ people in the office go unanswered, and oh, yeah, all this has to happen by the end of the week, then you're spread too thin.

    That's as much a guess as anything I wrote. Now, if the article presented reasons that the people on the other side of the table were idiots, losers or pinheads, then you'd have a point. Just because they have a challenging need and write their own tools isn't evidence of that. Maybe I needed to read between the lines more? I don't know, I don't see a clear WTF in this one.

    Breaking news: Start up company with funding run by people with enough expertise to feel confident in building tools from scratch needs like-minded go-getter who they will compensate well for rising to the challenge. Oh the humanity.

    Late Breaking News: Man doesn't get offered job and compensates by submitting WTF and saying he didn't want it anyway, despite admitting that he badly wants out of the job he currently has.

  • (cs) in reply to ubersoldat
    ubersoldat:
    Pussy!
    "we wrote our own database from scratch"

    Why do you think this is a WTF? I mean, look at all the databases that were started from scratch: Postgre, MySQL, Cassandra, Mongo, Couch, etc...

    So, if you were interviewing for, I don't know, Facebook, and they told you they were using their own database (Cassandra) would you still think it was a WTF?

    I mean, I know when not to re-invent the wheel, but if their business depends heavily on a database behaving the way they expected, maybe they should too build their own database.

    Judging from the other details of the article (pasting stock pictures of a datacentre, boasting of a secure datacentre built from an old bunker, etc.), the likelihood of this "database" being a DSN to an Excel 2000 file is astonishingly high.

  • (cs)

    So what they actually wanted to employ was an IT manager.

    The WTF is that so many people seem unaware that such a job exists. You employ someone who can take care of the stuff that should be done in-house, and can effectively manage temporary contractors, part-timers, or outsourcing for the stuff that needs a specialist.

  • ifriit (unregistered)

    I actually worked for a small company that did BI, and a big part of their business was a homegrown, non-SQL database. I was told that the technology was much faster for building the specialized sort of databases used for OLAP. While I was never really in a position to evaluate its performance, it appeared to work and the clientele was happy.

  • ahhhhh (unregistered)

    So... he's interviewing at a startup who is (like all startups) trying to do more with less. Where is the WTF?

  • HeeHaw (unregistered)

    "And one more thing," the Director continued, "you will also be in charge of cooking breakfast. Thursdays are pancake day!"

  • (cs) in reply to HeeHaw
    HeeHaw:
    "And one more thing," the Director continued, "you will also be in charge of cooking breakfast. Thursdays are pancake day!"

    I can't wait for Casual Cannoli Friday.

  • (cs) in reply to LonesomeProgrammer
    LonesomeProgrammer:
    How is this a WTF?:
    So a small startup company with inhouse technology wanted an all-around IT person. How is this a WTF? It sounds like a fun position.

    If by fun you mean running major overtime because you cannot finish everything within your regular hours then yes this job will have tons of fun!

    Lots of responsibility can be good, except when you are the person who also has to execute every single task.

    The savvy IT person would write scripts for doing stuff that needs to be executed, and get them to kick off automatically. The person they probably got in the end would have all these tools already written.

    Sounds like a fun challenge to me...

  • Chelloveck (unregistered)

    I had a similar interview one time. It was a startup which actually had a rather impressive prototype that they were preparing for market. Trouble is, the company was run by a bunch of academics from the local university, who were obviously used to getting slave labor from their grad students. They wanted someone to come in as the sole firmware engineer, convert all the code written by the hardware guys in their spare time to something maintainable and marketable, define and document the firmware development process, and hire and mentor new software engineers as the company grew. All for barely more than the starting salary I had when I was fresh out of school almost 20 years earlier! I wished them well, explained in detail why they were unlikely to get someone with that skill set for that price, and asked them to call me back when they could meet my salary requirements. Funny how I never heard from them... Anyway, they survived a couple more years until they were finally bought up by a bigger company, which I guess is the goal of most startups anyway.

  • (cs)

    The job described would pay less than scale, and the startup would expect the employee to take that pay at as a salaried exempt employee (no overtime);

    Fast forward 5 years, no raise, you get off the plane from an emergency where you have to work 20 hours a day for a solid week and realize that your eyesite has suddenly gone blurry and your blood sugar is over 600.

  • swschrad (unregistered) in reply to Mark

    999 times out of a thousand, however, there are frequent yelling matches and macho struts, and the new guy gets fired and the honcho quits and the company goes chapter 7 with their last two months salary never paid.

  • John (alias) (unregistered)

    Actually, my first full-time Software Development job was at a place that wrote their own database because, well, according to them, when they started out in 1990 "no database available could do what they wanted to do" so they wrote their own flat-file system to store data. Fast-forward to when I was hired in 2000 and it took over half a week to make the simplest change to the database structure (for all clients). Needless to say there were years worth of backlogged DB change tickets to support client requests for new features... But it was a good learning experience and it looked good on a resume so I can't really complain...

  • Dan (unregistered) in reply to Mark

    I was going to same the same sort of thing. This is how you actually get ahead. Take a risk! Instead of confidence and solutions, the candidate provided complaints and doubt. No wonder he didn't get the job.

  • Meep (unregistered) in reply to MrBester
    MrBester:
    Andrew:
    After all, compared to Martin, maybe his job wasn't so bad after all.
    It wasn't mentioned what his current job even was.
    Doesn't matter. It could be flipping burgers in a Gaza halal shop in the direct line of fire of rockets and it would still be better.

    Wait, Hamas fires rockets at themselves?

  • tumbleweed (unregistered) in reply to Mark

    I think its about trust. Can you trust a guy you don't know to reward you like you have mentioned, after doing all that work and investing your career in a potential bad egg.

    Some juniors, will be hired to pull a companies balls out of the fire, only to then be offered an annual pay review.

  • (cs) in reply to Mark

    Never trust anything you didn't write yourself. Not like Microsoft or Oracle know what they're doing anyway. :p

    [image]
  • (cs) in reply to Mark
  • Mizchief (unregistered) in reply to Mark
    Mark:
    Sounds like a challenge. In my younger years I would have taken this job, especially if it paid well and I really wanted out of my current job.

    Who knows, it might have gone something like this: You do well achieving the first major milestone and gain a lot of respect. You tell them bandwidth is limited and that you need to hire another person (they are well funded, after all). Fast forward 2 years. The company is 1 of a few companies left standing from the field of 115, largely due in part to a guy who has the balls to write tools from scratch and learn from his missteps. You've faced and conquered challenges, you are leading a team of people (probably Director level), have a larger salary and are being given founder stock.

    Instead, this story ends without the interviewee even being offered the job and submitting it as a WTF.

    That could happen. Or this job might be in the real world where the guy works 12 hours a day with no overtime, given the requirements it's obvious the company is mismanaged, so after 6 months of busting ass, you end up laid off which means you have to grab the next crappy job that first becomes available and start the process over. All the while your skills become stagnant and you have no success story to help you get the good jobs where the hiring managers want to know how you added value to your previous company.

  • Dirk (unregistered) in reply to Mark
    Mark:
    Sounds like a challenge. In my younger years I would have taken this job, especially if it paid well and I really wanted out of my current job.

    Who knows, it might have gone something like this: You do well achieving the first major milestone and gain a lot of respect. You tell them bandwidth is limited and that you need to hire another person (they are well funded, after all). Fast forward 2 years. The company is 1 of a few companies left standing from the field of 115, largely due in part to a guy who has the balls to write tools from scratch and learn from his missteps. You've faced and conquered challenges, you are leading a team of people (probably Director level), have a larger salary and are being given founder stock.

    Instead, this story ends without the interviewee even being offered the job and submitting it as a WTF.

    You're new to this game aren't you? Don't worry, life will soon knock out your foolish optimism.

  • Mizchief (unregistered) in reply to Dan
    Dan:
    I was going to same the same sort of thing. This is how you actually get ahead. Take a risk! Instead of confidence and solutions, the candidate provided complaints and doubt. No wonder he didn't get the job.

    I agree with that. Step one with any interview is to get a good offer even if you don't want the job. If nothing else it gives you an idea of what your perceived value is and can use that to gauge your other offers. Step two is figuring out how to do all the things you said you could do in the interview before they catch on after you accept the position.

  • Matthijs (unregistered) in reply to grantw79
    grantw79:
    Never trust anything you didn't write yourself. Not like Microsoft or Oracle know what they're doing anyway. :p
    Funny you should mention Microsoft: their Excel team was (is?) famous for writing pretty much everything themselves, up to creating their own C compiler.
  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to Medezark
    Medezark:
    The job described would pay less than scale, and the startup would expect the employee to take that pay at as a salaried exempt employee (no overtime);

    Fast forward 5 years, no raise, you get off the plane from an emergency where you have to work 20 hours a day for a solid week and realize that your eyesite has suddenly gone blurry and your blood sugar is over 600.

    No raise ... so you haven't got yourself a new job in the meantime?

    Besides, the OP stated that the salary was acceptable. These are T&Cs you decide on before taking on the challenge. If you take on an underpaid job in the hope that your personal qualities will allow you to shine and be noticed and thereby rewarded, you're fooling yourself. And if you've had no pay raise after the 2nd year, that's when you quit (or at least threaten to).

  • katastrofa (unregistered) in reply to Mark
    Mark:
    Sounds like a challenge. In my younger years I would have taken this job, especially if it paid well and I really wanted out of my current job.

    Who knows, it might have gone something like this: You do well achieving the first major milestone and gain a lot of respect. You tell them bandwidth is limited and that you need to hire another person (they are well funded, after all). Fast forward 2 years. The company is 1 of a few companies left standing from the field of 115, largely due in part to a guy who has the balls to write tools from scratch and learn from his missteps. You've faced and conquered challenges, you are leading a team of people (probably Director level), have a larger salary and are being given founder stock.

    Instead, this story ends without the interviewee even being offered the job and submitting it as a WTF.

    What you describe is a POSSIBLE outcome, but not a PROBABLE one.

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