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Admin
Yeah, I interviewed couple of SQL Experts with similiar skills: Unable to write a simple error free group by statement and index are a dark art. So far I haven't seen a Java dev that ranked his skill at expert level and failed to understand data collection differences.
Admin
I firmly believe, even in the absence of evidence, that the problem started when a senior executive of CompanyX asked, "How hard can it be?"
Admin
If they say that in front of me, I just show them a page or two of source code.
Admin
Ah yes, the danger of answer emails as a favour to an ex-colleague.
The second half of 2019 started for me with an email from one of our account managers from a client site begging for help on how to build their application. Similar problem, except this time the team who really didn't understand what they were doing were in house, from the, ahem, offshore office.
I got sucked in, mainly because I hadn't got anything else urgent on at the time, as my previous team had been wound up and offshored.
Thus the rest of 2019 saw me flying back and forward between UK and US, spending considerable effort trying to put right the problems that had been caused by lack of expertise and experience. The worst of these was working round the awkward configuration management process. I ended up writing an ant script that subsumed all their fiddles and workrounds and bodges caused by things having not been set up correctly, but unfortunately the level of competence in the team was insufficient for them to catch that particular ball and run with it. They carried on doing their builds the manual way, continuing to get it wrong and fail to notice, and wonder why it didn't work properly.
Fortunately, during the course of this, I'd been contacted by a head-hunter who was looking to pay someone twice the money for a job with a fraction of the responsibility, which, coupled with the delights of 2020's unique characteristics, has meant that since touching back down in the UK in Jan 2020, I have hardly needed to leave the house since, let alone the country -- and I'm being paid well for the privilege.
Admin
better still, you don't need to know anything about either science or programming to be a "data scientist" now
Admin
I got sent out on site to sort out a big problem in a project office. Site was a place in the middle of Africa, and the project office was for the construction of (part of) a trans-continental highway. The Resident Engineer (project manager in our industry) had been complaining bitterly he couldn't produce progress reports because the bespoke project management tool "wasn't working". Head Office correctly suspected that was not the bigger picture.
Indeed, this bespoke tool was an atrocity written in MS Access that could barely limp into life after two or three attempts to start it, and that was without much data.
But the real problem was the RE was a roaring drunk who was technically illiterate and needed retraining how to use email every morning ... part of that meant he'd never bothered to get the main contractor to set the office up properly, so there was barely any power or internet.
The highlight for me was being summoned into the meeting room one morning and commanded, loudly, by the RE to "Get a f**ing theodolite, and take these useless fers out to kilometre post 52 and show the idiots what they're doing wrong!". I objected "Well, you're a f*ing engineer aren't you???". So it does happen the other way around!
In his defence, I do have a degree in civil engineering, although that was 15 years earlier and I haven't surveyed so much as a kitchen extension since then. Also, drunken shouty man had decided I was his buddy and I was too naïve and polite to turn down his invites to the bar in the evening, I was starting each morning with a thumping hangover and could barely focus on my computer screen until midday.
Admin
Ah, should have used something else to censor the language!
Admin
Ring ring.
"Head office? Yes, I've got a handle on the bigger picture. It's like this: RE is a roaring drunk who was technically illiterate and needed retraining how to use email every morning. Suggest you replace him with someone with the appropriate personal qualities and technical skills who can ... pardon me? Seriously? How much? O... kay ... and a Range Rover? Er ... can I ring my wife? I'll get back to you within the hour."
Ah, a man can but dream.
Admin
This is obvious a hint at all Indian names to disguise offshare people from Phillipines. We are getting outsource to Phillipines.
Yaay Globalisation!
Admin
Ah dream indeed, they were employing him because he was cheap and ticked the right boxes required by the various banks and clients to hold that position.
I was neither, and they deeply resented paying my day-rate to go and fix these messes in various far-flung places. Wasn't somewhere I'd want to inflict upon the wife!
Admin
I once had 2 delightful highly-paid tax-free sunny water-skiing-filled years in a hot and humid location in the Middle East, purely because a) some idiot had put a clause in the contract requiring a software field-service engineer, and b) nobody else applied for the job. As they didn't sell the source code to the client, I basically had 2 years doing practically nothing.
Admin
My defense in that sort of situation has always been some variation of "I've inherited the temper of some mean drunks in my family tree, and no one wants someone my size going nuts", and let them choose between accepting that I'll be nursing my drinks while staying more or less sober or leave me out of the festivities entirely.
Admin
For those of us on the small side, it takes a bit more acting to convince the drunks that they really don't want to find out just what 130lbs of blind fury can do. Frequent mention of honey badgers helps. ;)