• (disco) in reply to pscs
    pscs:
    Just because you, as the interviewer, know what you expect

    Gotcha, so it is unreasonable to expect an employee to ask for clarification if they do not understand a task? Employees, when faced with a task that needs clarification should just get pissed off and quit? Got it.

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery

    He did ask for clarification and just had the question repeated and was belittled by being told 'other successful candidates could do it, can't you?'

  • (disco) in reply to pscs
    pscs:
    Are you trying to recruit someone who knows how to do the job and can think, or are you trying to recruit someone who knows how to answer interview questions?

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1

    Google actually stopped asking these, because "it just serves to make the interviewer feel smart"

    In theory, yes. It can show someone's reaction. Its a glorified kobiashi maru.

  • (disco) in reply to pscs
    pscs:
    He did ask for clarification and just had the question repeated and belittled by being told 'other successful candidates could do it, can't you?'

    Yeah, that goes back to:

    Intercourse:
    This article is a dramatization of an event. I am sure some artistic license was used. They probably should have used more, because to me this is not a WTF. You do not know how it was originally phrased...

    Most of the front page articles have a large amount of artistic license taken with them. As the person who originally submitted this has not chimed in, we have no clue how much of this is truth and how much of it was fictionalized.

    You seem to be railing against all of these questions en masse. They are like anything else, they are subject to the whims of those who use them. If the interviewer was a pretentious dick about it, and he felt like this would not be a place he wanted to work, then by all means he should fuck off out of there and look for employment somewhere else.

    If this is an overdramatization of an event and it was presented more reasonably, then he was TRWTF for not even giving it an attempt. I like questions that throw people off-kilter though. Give them something they have never encountered before. If I am interviewing for a position with X language and it is listed as requiring 5+ years experience and I give them a problem to solve in X language, I have just learned fuckall about how they work when given a new challenge.

  • (disco) in reply to pscs

    Youre assuming the article as written was how it went down. You ask the question, and push the interviewee in the right direction as needed. The entire **point ** is to see how you handle the question...its a thought experiment.

    If the interviewer acted like in the story (intimidating them and making them beleive he wanted an exact answer), hes a bad interviewer. If the interviewee sits there and cant get past the fact theyve never had to do such a calculation, then they cant think on their feet. Considering the story mentioned the interviewer giving him ideas (suggesting he wasnt considering evaporation) i tend to beleive latter. Either way, asking the question itself is not the wtf.

    Some acceptable responses would be:

    • asking for more information (and knowing what to ask for)
    • brainstorming
    • ask for hints on how others have solved the problem

    Sitting there like an idiot saying youve never had to calculate that and never will because its not your job to think about things other than writing code isnt one of them.

  • (disco) in reply to pscs
    pscs:
    I will not tell you how much water flows out of the Amazon, because I do not know, and I don't know what you'll use the answer for - I don't want to be sued if I'm wrong. I'll make an educated estimate for you if you want though, I don't have a problem with that, as long as you know it's an estimate.

    Yeah, we know. It's an estimate. Just give me a ball park figure.

    OK, my best guess, based on the incomplete information is X litres per year.

    Great, thanks.

    six months later

    Hey, I just came back from the Trap The Amazon project and it turns out it dumps 3X litres a year. You've cost me millions.

    What? I gave you an estimate. I specifically told you I didn't have all the information and it was a best guess.

    No you didn't. Our entire project was based on the number you gave me. If it wasn't supposed to be accurate you should have let me know. See you in court

         

    Just because you remember the client asking for an estimate, doesn't mean that's what they'll remember

  • (disco) in reply to FrostCat
    FrostCat:
    ...in Manhattan, who was paying I think $600 or more to sublet the tiny bedroom of a tiny one-bedroom apartment on the 3rd or 4th floor.

    What about the rest of the apartment? Sorry, my brain got stuck on this.

  • (disco) in reply to Jaloopa
    Jaloopa:
    Just because you remember the client asking for an estimate, doesn't mean that's what they'll remember

    Anyone who has this issue should be watching this video now:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3RJhoqgK8

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery

    The loud trumpet intro on that video startled my cat. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY.

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery
    Intercourse:
    If a company cannot explain, in one sentence, what they do...you should shy away. Are they still around?

    Yes, but it looks like they changed their name. :laughing:

  • (disco) in reply to Groaner
    Groaner:
    Some of my former coworkers (from when I worked downtown) have a hard time understanding why I stay at a job in the suburbs where I can roll in at 10:30am dressed casual. They also can't get why I wouldn't want to pay twice as much rent as I'm paying right now.
    Groaner:
    Mostly late twenties. Oddly enough, when I was that age a few years ago, I didn't want to live in the city. The twin annoyances of higher living costs and hipsters form a very compelling counterargument.

    Funny, sounds like the place that I worked at in Rhode Island.

  • (disco) in reply to boomzilla
    boomzilla:
    What about the rest of the apartment? Sorry, my brain got stuck on this.

    It was 25 years ago. I don't remember, and she may not have told me. It was probably "average for a 3rd (or 4th) floor walkup tiny 1br in 1989 or so". I don't even remember exactly where it was, except somewhere in Greenwich Village.

  • (disco) in reply to FrostCat

    I think it was just the way you put it. I figure a sublet is either going to be for the entire apartment or for a bedroom in a multi-bedroom place. Meh.

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery
    Intercourse:
    If a company cannot explain, in one sentence, what they do...you should shy away. Are they still around?

    sigh

    I have a phone call coming up with another company, and most Google searches lead to ways to remove apps with their name in it, not sure if it's the same company.

  • (disco) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    not sure if it's the same company.

    Yes. You are sure. You're just afraid that it is.

  • (disco) in reply to boomzilla
    boomzilla:
    I think it was just the way you put it. I figure a sublet is either going to be for the entire apartment or for a bedroom in a multi-bedroom place.

    Ah. Well, maybe the term was wrong. She rented the bedroom in a 1br--the actual rentee lived in the living room, and they shared the kitchen and bathroom.

  • (disco) in reply to FrostCat

    Ah, well, that was what I was thinking, actually. Just...weird. But then NYC real estate is TRWTF.

  • (disco) in reply to ijij

    With how well the call went, I'm very afraid now. :grimacing:

  • (disco) in reply to chubertdev

    Like, the call went really well, and your superiors want to work with them?

  • (disco) in reply to ijij
    ijij:
    Like, the call went really well, and your superiors want to work with them?

    This call didn't involve my superiors. :smirk:

  • (disco) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    This call didn't involve my superiors. :smirk:

    My bad. I forgot that you have no superiors. ;)

    Your boss(es) then?

  • (disco) in reply to ijij

    You are grossly incorrectly buttuming the purpose of this call.

  • (disco) in reply to chubertdev

    This call was part of an attempt to replace your current incompetent management with other, maybe, possibly, slightly less incompetent management, yes?

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    This call was part of an attempt to replace your current incompetent management with other, maybe, possibly, slightly less incompetent management, yes?

    There we have it.

  • (disco)

    So I just found out that I can see what kind of shop that they're running in person next week...

  • (disco) in reply to chubertdev

    Well! Good luck with it.

    Start studying now. The rivers of Europe are quite a bit more challenging than this Amazon stuff... be ready.

  • (disco) in reply to ijij
    ijij:
    Well! Good luck with it.

    Start studying now. The rivers of Europe are quite a bit more challenging than this Amazon stuff... be ready.

    I'll just calculate the Danube as about a tenth of Europe, so basically a fifth of the Amazon output.

  • (disco) in reply to chubertdev

    Hmmm.... initialize thinking cap.....

    So Europe and SA roughly the same size? .. Sure, why not.

    Danube drains 1/10 of Europe..

    Letseee, big European rivers:

    Danube Volga Rhine Rhone Seine Polish/German border river There's one in Spain, on the plain. Po Lala Tinkywinky

    So. Yes. 1/10th . You're good with that.

  • (disco) in reply to ijij
    ijij:
    So Europe and SA roughly the same size? .. Sure, why not.

    In Fermi Estimations, all continents are approximately the same size.

  • (disco) in reply to ijij
    ijij:
    So Europe and SA roughly the same size? .. Sure, why not.

    These are Fermi estimations.

    that's the kind of estimation where 1, 10 and 100 are all close enough to be considered the same number.

    very useful for calculating things where the final result will have many many digits (before or after the decimal)

    mostly used for one of the two reasons

    1. to get a ballpark number before more serious calculations are started because getting the more accurate numbers might be a waste of time/money if the fermi estimation says that it would take more X than exists in twenty worlds to d the Y you want to do
    2. to do a sanity check on you calculations. if yout calculation spits out 43 where the fermi estimation said 400 then you're possibly ok, but if fermi spits out eleventy billion then you have something wrong in your calculations.... probably.
  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    that's the kind of estimation where 1, 10 and 100 are all close enough to be considered the same number.

    I want to do Fermi estimations on my bank account now.

  • (disco) in reply to mott555

    good luck getting the bank to accept those.

    if they do they'll make you use their fermi estimations of your bank ballance

  • (disco) in reply to mott555
    mott555:
    I want to do Fermi estimations on my bank account now.

    but don't forget, the bank would get to do the same....

    and your mortgage company would start to look (even more) like Don Corleone.

  • (disco) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    In Fermi Estimations, **Europe is its own continent and not just a greater part of the Eurasian continent...because Europeans.** 
    "Post can't be empty"
  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    IJIJ: Sure, why not.

    Why are you disagreeing with and explaining my agreement with you?

  • (disco) in reply to ijij
    ijij:
    and your mortgage company would start to look (even more) like Don Corleone.

    Just wait until they see the Fermi estimations on the size of my private army.

  • (disco) in reply to ijij
    ijij:
    Why are you disagreeing with and explaining my agreement with you?

    oh. sorry. i thought that was serious, i must have missed the </sarcasm> tag.

    umm.... have a like?

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery
    Intercourse:
    "Post can't be empty"
    <bullshit>
  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    have a like?

    Excellent!

    Now to the atlas for some actual European rivers....

  • (disco) in reply to ijij
    ijij:
    Now to the atlas for some actual European rivers....

    I doubt you'll find any actual European rivers in an atlas. You may find some graphical representations of European rivers though.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    I like my way better, because I like to bitch about Discourse. ;)

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery

    <oh. i suppost that works too. :-P

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    You just like being annoying, don't you? :stuck_out_tongue:

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery

    somewhat?

    at least i'm cute, no?

    [image]
  • (disco) in reply to mott555
    mott555:
    I doubt you'll find any actual European rivers in an atlas.

    You don't know where I keep my atlas.

    It's not very convenient, but it's pretty secure, and I get to see and hear robust German women singing whenever I go to retrieve it.

    Filed under: But I have to keep digging through all these stupid gold rings....

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    <also, I used to just strip the URL and add in /raw/, but that does not work on long threads where a few have been deleted and Dicsores decides to jumble up the numbers. Then I end up hunting around for the proper post #, etc. I could view source, but that just looks like someone vomitted HTML>

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery
    Intercourse:
    <also, I used to just strip the URL and add in /raw/, but that does not work on long threads where a few have been deleted and Dicsores decides to jumble up the numbers. Then I end up hunting around for the proper post #, etc. I could view source, but that just looks like someone vomitted HTML>

    i just click reply then the full quote word bubble button in the editor.

    works every time.

    i also think @Onyx wrote a user script that adds a button to the user actions that gets the raw for you...

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    i just click reply then the full quote word bubble button in the editor.

    Well yeah, if you want to do it the easy way...

    I am a creature of habit. Now, let me get back to listening to my Hi-Fi. Where did my 45's go?

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery

    you mean these deliciously chewable black circular things?

  • (disco) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    I'll just calculate the Danube as about a tenth of Europe, so basically a fifth of the Amazon output.

    If it comes up you should answer that exact way. "It's funny you should ask that question--a discussion board I read talked about this only with the Amazon just last week" and then say what you wrote above.

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