• Tsirf (unregistered)

    What a dreadful frist job opportunity.

    Imagine he took it, because of his greenness. Would be good for a few WTFs, though.

  • snoofle (unregistered)

    If the "office" was a closet, can you imagine what the comm closet would be?

  • LCrawford (unregistered) in reply to snoofle

    The comm closet wouldn't have any air conditioning, for sure.

  • Spike (unregistered)

    Sounds like a dream-job to me..

  • Quite (unregistered)

    ... so he turned the job down because he didn't like the idea of working from home? I'm not sure I understand what the problem is here.

  • Friendly_Reminder (unregistered)

    CoMmEnT hElD fOr MoDeRaTiOn.

  • Derp (unregistered)

    Are we not allowed to swear on here anymore or something? What's with the held for moderation?

  • Anon (unregistered)

    I'm scared. Please hold me (for moderation).

  • Anon (unregistered)

    Everything in moderation, especially moderation...

  • (nodebb) in reply to Tsirf

    Perhaps, although even a newbie who can learn fast can produce reasonable code; it might still have WTFs just due to lack of experience, but would be worlds better than your typical 10+ year "senior" dev who knows garbage.

  • Chronomium (unregistered) in reply to Quite

    Sounds to me more like he turned it down because

    1. The guy misuses an industry-standard term ("in-house") to mean something completely different. Could be malice, but more likely to be simply that out-of-touch with the current state of the industry,
    2. Who /really/ wants to be the only developer on a "new computer system"?
  • BernieTheBernie (unregistered) in reply to DocMonster

    'typical 10+ year "senior" dev' - I guess you mean 'typical 10times one-year senior dev'

  • Doctor Memory (unregistered) in reply to Chronomium

    My first job was as the in-house developer for a non-profit. I took them from tracking everything on legal pads and post-it notes to a database-driven system with automatic reporting and scheduling. I guess if you're a "cut-and-paste" programmer who can't write code from scratch you should stick to being a corporate drone, but anyone with real skills will take an opportunity like this and run with it.

  • thegoryone (unregistered) in reply to Tsirf

    I did, when I was so desperate for money after graduation that I could either take the dodgy job that interviewed me in a coffee shop and worked out of a rented house or get kicked out of my own. The highlights include, but are not limited to, the owner taking a Debian web server out of rented rackspace and setting it up at his mum and dads house (daily record updates to support the fact the home DSL had no static address), late pay, wrong pay, missing bonuses, no understanding at all in any way, shape or form of web development despite being a "hands-on" boss, threats to sue, forcing me to provide my own laptop to work on (luckily I had one), literally ripping off a competitor by getting source from one of their systems on the above mentioned Debian server and rebranding it, leaving me in his parents empty house with said Debian web server until 9pm one night (I finished at 5) as it was 15 miles from the public transport I used, physically, verbally and other-ly threats when I quit (kept the e-mails, too). And that's just the things I remember.

    Good learning experience, though.

  • Hasseman (unregistered)

    On my first job, 1990, in the Neterlands I did some programming in HP New Wave for Hewlet Packard at their main office. I had to bring my own computer. A desktop in those days. They did provide a monitor and keyboard though.

  • For Great Justice (unregistered)

    Well, technically, he was correct... ^_^

  • Erik Gern (unregistered)

    fuck

  • Parametamolcil (unregistered)

    Comment held for great justice

  • Erik Gern (unregistered) in reply to Derp

    yeah - apparently we're doing this now: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Clbuttic-Mistake-

  • Dave (unregistered)

    Granted this was almost the chap's first ever job interview, this is still TRWTF:

    ""Can you be here in an hour?" she asked. James managed to hide the fact he was freaking out about how to make it in time while assuring her he could be."

    Your first task in the job application/interview process is to establish that you're not a doormat and won't let them walk all over you. The answer to 'Can you be here in an hour?' is 'Of course I can't. Is this a prank?'

    As the story makes clear, it's not like you're going to lose out by not dealing with that kind of idiot. And in general it's my experience that the more you act as if you are interviewing them to decide whether to allow them to employ you, the better the jobs you get.

  • OldCoder (unregistered)

    I think the moderation has arrived partly because of dumb spammers and partly because of recent problems with blakeyrat lookalikes.

  • That one guy (unregistered) in reply to For Great Justice

    And if he were in an apartment building? Not exactly in-house, eh?

  • Appalled (unregistered)

    What's up with all this moderation jazz?

  • Jeremy Hannon (google) in reply to Appalled

    Better than the full-on spam that we were getting.

  • The Moderation (unregistered)

    Your comments are being held because they were deemed unintelligent. Please comment again once you have learned a thing or two. Okay thanks bye.

  • Chronomium (unregistered)

    If you check the forums you can see that this moderation stuff is actually doing pretty well at finding and nuking the spam. It's clearly a bit too sensitive, and needs more eyes to get the good stuff approved faster, but it works.

  • paulb (unregistered)

    "My first job was as the in-house developer for a non-profit. I took them from tracking everything on legal pads and post-it notes to a database-driven system with automatic reporting and scheduling. I guess if you're a "cut-and-paste" programmer who can't write code from scratch you should stick to being a corporate drone, but anyone with real skills will take an opportunity like this and run with it."

    The problem there is that with nobody to learn from, no examples of things done "the right way"- you may or may not figure out good ways to do things. You may or may not write effective code that accomplishes business objectives. But when you do things wrong, there is nobody to help you realize that they were wrong and give you ideas on how to do the right thing. There is nobody to say "oh, there is a library that does that, no need to spend a month writing that code from scratch." Usually someone with 0 experience doesn't even know what patterns may be effective for solving certain types of problems. It is POSSIBLE to be effective and learn a lot, but it is a lot harder. The final nail in the coffin is that there is no way that a company that fits those needs is going to value you anywhere near as much as a company that makes software development a priority.

  • code_goddess (unregistered)

    This could almost be a job that I worked at for just over a month. The CEO didn't even want to hire a developer, but the front desk person goaded him into it. I happened to be between positions and desperate, so I took the job at his company, which was located in his guest house. He made me promise not to quit without notice like the last several developers did. It was 2 weeks before I got a usable workstation, 3 weeks before I saw any source code (what? I was only the developer, what would I want to see freaking source code for?), and I never did understand what it was he wanted me to work on. (There were numerous health and safety concerns as well.) Finally one afternoon he came in with a notice of termination - he'd never even written me up or anything, just a sudden have a nice life - so I glanced it over, thanked him, grabbed all my things, and left.

  • Jeremy Hannon (google) in reply to paulb

    Exactly. It depends on the education, but some of the worst developers I have seen are those fresh with a computer science degree. It depends on the task, but this one was smart enough to know that he wanted to learn real world experience from someone who, well, has had real world experience. I used to hang out with some developers and instructors at a major university - I was contractor. I just listened a lot but realized all of their experience was from the college and was much more theoretical than practical.

  • Friedrice the Great (unregistered) in reply to OldCoder

    Anyone who looks like blakeyrat deserves it.

  • Barf4Eva (unregistered) in reply to Spike

    lol.. The first response I went looking for after this article.. If it wasn't gonna be you...

  • MiserableOldGit (unregistered)

    Sounds like my first gig.

    Either it damaged me beyond belief or catapulted me to greatness.

    Well, obviously not the latter or I wouldn't be wasting my time on this bitch-fest. I only come here to look for my old shit cropping up.

  • Zenith (unregistered) in reply to Doctor Memory

    This. A 500 error destroyed my original response. I would love to be a solo developer again, let alone live the deam of working from home. No incompetent lead handcuffing me or throwing me under the bus! The only cause for concern would be that it sounds a little fly-by-night. But OP came from a retail job and could easily go back short-term if worse came to worse.

  • GoatRider (unregistered)

    I was offered a couple "opportunities" of this sort when I was young. They usually came with an offer of a cut of the action, instead of actual pay. I was young, but not stupid. If I want to work on something on those terms, I have to believe in it. And I might as well work on one of my own ideas instead of someone else's.

  • markm (unregistered)

    A long time ago when I was young, arrogant, and ignorant about the limits of my knowledge, I might have jumped at this job . The OP is wiser than I was. Breaking down the WTF's:

    --Offices in a "closet": Even today, that would only dismay me because it suggested that the employer and the job were unlikely to last. I'm quite happy with small enterprises and minimal overhead, and I have worked for eccentric employers who ran a business out of their house - when I had no responsibilities. That changes when you have children.

    --The boss doesn't know industry-standard terms like "in house developer". That might mean that you get the opportunity to create the entire MIS infrastructure for the company. OTOH, if the company's main business is supposed to be computer or software-related and the boss is totally ignorant about software development, that's a TRWTF.

    --They're thinking about hiring a guy out of college with no work experience as the lead (and only) developer and MIS manager. That's TRWTF-squared.

    --15 minutes after his resume went online he got a call, "Can you make an interview in one hour." Either they are testing how eager he is - and the next thing will be offering payment in startup company shares - or it's red flags for a non-serious and impulsively run (dis)organization.

  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to thegoryone

    And your experience differs from working for a big established company, how?

  • Shoreline (unregistered) in reply to Tsirf

    Agreed.

    I would have taken it for exactly that reason.

    And exactly that outcome would have occurred.

  • anonymous (unregistered)

    ...when you try to use a catchphrase in your job advert but have no idea what it means.

  • wtfman (unregistered)

    100% working from home? That would be a dream

  • (nodebb) in reply to OldCoder

    Seems like the BlakeyNope script from Mike unfried and me can be retired finally..

  • RP (unregistered)

    I'm obviously getting old. A team of (possibly set in their ways) devs to "learn from"? Is that what Millennials are looking for now? I'm 44. I've been developing for 27 years. And I think I was about 13 years in when I first worked with a team. I didn't see it as a good thing at the time. Nowadays, it's an expected part of the job, and I do appreciate there are things you can learn in such an environment if you choose your mentors wisely. But in my first jobs that lack of a team was the reason I got to make mistakes of my very own and learn from them. I still see that as an important part of being a developer. So much so I often let more junior developers do things their way, even if my advice on how I would tackle the same tasks would be different and even if I am in charge of the work. If you just want to do things because that's the way they're done rather than thinking for yourself, become a programmer in the public sector or a bank is my advice. Most of them park their brains at the door on day one and never innovate again.

    TLDR: There were a lot more red flags in this opportunity than just working alone.

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