Must have 20 years experience in brand-new technology
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I once worked on fixing some "real-time" code that couldn't keep up with real time - it was running at approximately 185% of CPU. Since it was to do with aircraft telemetry during test flights it was critical. My boss's boss assigned me to look at the code (written by my domineering, head of programming, boss) while he was away on a three-week touring vacation in Europe. The first thing I found was a sequential search of an array column for a unique item that noted where in the array it found it but still completed searching the entire array. It did this 32 times a second for up to 2000 array columns after having searched the column headers in a similar way for a string match to check which column it needed to search. First thing was to sort the array columns and then do a binary search (create and store an index to the column as they didn't change during the processing), then do a similar search of the columns for the data - and stop when it was found! Result = 34% of CPU and we achieved "Real-Time"! He was steaming mad when he got back and found out what I had done - but he couldn't do anything because his boss told me to do it (and backed me up) and it was actually working for the first time since the system was written. It was to replace an older system and they went ahead and switched to the replacement system in production immediately it could keep up - which was before he got back. He was later reassigned to "Special Projects" - and then fired for incompetence.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
Forogar wrote:
He was steaming mad when he got back and found out what I had done
I'll never understand this mindset. His code didn't meet requirements and you fixed it. Learning opportunity for him yet he wastes it on his ego. It's nice to see a story where the Dilbert principle[^] doesn't hold.
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
An old client of mine had CVs through from an agency stating they had people with 5 years experience in the project they had just started, which was a brand new venture.
So what you're saying is that both you and your client don't have time machines.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
Pretty much yup.
This space for rent
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This question was inspired by Kent Sharkey's recent comment in The insiders: "Must have 20 years experience in brand-new technology". How many of you have come across something like this? Update: I had one case where they asked for 10 years experience with SQL Server 2008 - this was in 2009. When I pointed out that I had more than 10 years experience with SQL Server and was currently using SQL Server 2008 in my current job, the HR telephone pre-screener said it was very important that the experience be in SQL Server 2008 specifically - when I pointed out the impossibility of this they got very condescending about it, implying that as I didn't have enough of the clearly requested, required experience, I shouldn't be wasting their time! In another interview, I was asked basically the same question and just lied about it. They accepted this without further questions - so when they offered the job, I turned it down.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
Never, but what I have experienced is that the job description turned out to be a lot more exciting than the actual job. "We're moving to the cloud and microservices" while in reality management still thought the cloud to be insecure and the team knowing nothing about microservices. "We're always looking to build software that's dynamic and maintainable" that team didn't even grasp the basics of OOP. And of course the team that had 30 years of experience with Oracle, but was absolutely flabbergasted when I asked about profiling and told me that wasn't possible because why would anyone ever need that.
Best, Sander sanderrossel.com Continuous Integration, Delivery, and Deployment arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly
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Frequently! The other one I really love is the "let's make a really, really long list of every tech the recruitment twat has ever heard of" game: The ideal candidate will have worked with: VAX, Hoover, Dyson, SCO-UNIX, HPUX, AIX, XENIX, Multix, C, X (there must be something called X), BCPL, C++, C#, B flat, F# (ooh! Get me! That's quite a new one isn't it?), P-SQL, T-SQL, Java, Javascript (in case it's something different from Java), AS400, I4GL, Informix, HTML, XML, JSON, WCF, WPF, Sinclair BASIC, Excel, Word, Fortran 5, ALGOL, CSS, PC World (I got my laptop from there!), DOS, DR-DOS, Oracle, Ruby on Toast, PHP, PGP, JPEG (Man, I'm on a roll!), Visual Basic, ASP, Apple stuff (Note to self: look up later), Facebook, Amazon, Red Tube, Donkey (it's obscure but my mate told me about it), OS2, PS2, PS3, PS4, X-Box, Windows (I've got Windows on here, it must be a thing), USB stick, Mouse, Keyboard, Hard drive, Floppy Disk, CAD, DVD, DVT, Frisbee, Freeway (Oh, hang on, that was the dog in Hart to Hart - knew I'd learned something in last night's pub quiz), Sharepoint, Biztalk, SMMS, REST, Spandex, Ultravox, MySQL, LINUX, Ubuntu, X-Ray, Yankee, Zulu (Christ! That's a good list! How did I ever fail that CS degree?)
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
There is something with X (XBase++, XSharp - as "xbase" language, X# - as "highl level assembler ... something with cosomos)
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Frequently! The other one I really love is the "let's make a really, really long list of every tech the recruitment twat has ever heard of" game: The ideal candidate will have worked with: VAX, Hoover, Dyson, SCO-UNIX, HPUX, AIX, XENIX, Multix, C, X (there must be something called X), BCPL, C++, C#, B flat, F# (ooh! Get me! That's quite a new one isn't it?), P-SQL, T-SQL, Java, Javascript (in case it's something different from Java), AS400, I4GL, Informix, HTML, XML, JSON, WCF, WPF, Sinclair BASIC, Excel, Word, Fortran 5, ALGOL, CSS, PC World (I got my laptop from there!), DOS, DR-DOS, Oracle, Ruby on Toast, PHP, PGP, JPEG (Man, I'm on a roll!), Visual Basic, ASP, Apple stuff (Note to self: look up later), Facebook, Amazon, Red Tube, Donkey (it's obscure but my mate told me about it), OS2, PS2, PS3, PS4, X-Box, Windows (I've got Windows on here, it must be a thing), USB stick, Mouse, Keyboard, Hard drive, Floppy Disk, CAD, DVD, DVT, Frisbee, Freeway (Oh, hang on, that was the dog in Hart to Hart - knew I'd learned something in last night's pub quiz), Sharepoint, Biztalk, SMMS, REST, Spandex, Ultravox, MySQL, LINUX, Ubuntu, X-Ray, Yankee, Zulu (Christ! That's a good list! How did I ever fail that CS degree?)
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
You forgot experience with PG Tips!
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You forgot experience with PG Tips!
I take PG Tips as read - all good code-monkeys drink it!
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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I take PG Tips as read - all good code-monkeys drink it!
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
Indeed - tea making (and drinking) is a fundamental and irreplaceable skill. It's the bedrock on which apprenticeships were built.
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This question was inspired by Kent Sharkey's recent comment in The insiders: "Must have 20 years experience in brand-new technology". How many of you have come across something like this? Update: I had one case where they asked for 10 years experience with SQL Server 2008 - this was in 2009. When I pointed out that I had more than 10 years experience with SQL Server and was currently using SQL Server 2008 in my current job, the HR telephone pre-screener said it was very important that the experience be in SQL Server 2008 specifically - when I pointed out the impossibility of this they got very condescending about it, implying that as I didn't have enough of the clearly requested, required experience, I shouldn't be wasting their time! In another interview, I was asked basically the same question and just lied about it. They accepted this without further questions - so when they offered the job, I turned it down.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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This question was inspired by Kent Sharkey's recent comment in The insiders: "Must have 20 years experience in brand-new technology". How many of you have come across something like this? Update: I had one case where they asked for 10 years experience with SQL Server 2008 - this was in 2009. When I pointed out that I had more than 10 years experience with SQL Server and was currently using SQL Server 2008 in my current job, the HR telephone pre-screener said it was very important that the experience be in SQL Server 2008 specifically - when I pointed out the impossibility of this they got very condescending about it, implying that as I didn't have enough of the clearly requested, required experience, I shouldn't be wasting their time! In another interview, I was asked basically the same question and just lied about it. They accepted this without further questions - so when they offered the job, I turned it down.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Frequently! The other one I really love is the "let's make a really, really long list of every tech the recruitment twat has ever heard of" game: The ideal candidate will have worked with: VAX, Hoover, Dyson, SCO-UNIX, HPUX, AIX, XENIX, Multix, C, X (there must be something called X), BCPL, C++, C#, B flat, F# (ooh! Get me! That's quite a new one isn't it?), P-SQL, T-SQL, Java, Javascript (in case it's something different from Java), AS400, I4GL, Informix, HTML, XML, JSON, WCF, WPF, Sinclair BASIC, Excel, Word, Fortran 5, ALGOL, CSS, PC World (I got my laptop from there!), DOS, DR-DOS, Oracle, Ruby on Toast, PHP, PGP, JPEG (Man, I'm on a roll!), Visual Basic, ASP, Apple stuff (Note to self: look up later), Facebook, Amazon, Red Tube, Donkey (it's obscure but my mate told me about it), OS2, PS2, PS3, PS4, X-Box, Windows (I've got Windows on here, it must be a thing), USB stick, Mouse, Keyboard, Hard drive, Floppy Disk, CAD, DVD, DVT, Frisbee, Freeway (Oh, hang on, that was the dog in Hart to Hart - knew I'd learned something in last night's pub quiz), Sharepoint, Biztalk, SMMS, REST, Spandex, Ultravox, MySQL, LINUX, Ubuntu, X-Ray, Yankee, Zulu (Christ! That's a good list! How did I ever fail that CS degree?)
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
On a roll yes, but forgot to mention the Absolute essentials: COBOL,MVS,VM,VSE,RPG,JCL,CICS,REXX,JCL,CL,VSAM,DB2. Good that you mentioned AS400 though :)
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On a roll yes, but forgot to mention the Absolute essentials: COBOL,MVS,VM,VSE,RPG,JCL,CICS,REXX,JCL,CL,VSAM,DB2. Good that you mentioned AS400 though :)
And to my eternal shame, I missed out C-ISAM, too! Now those were the days ...
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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When can you start? (Please say last April, we've been advertising for ages!)
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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I did start last April. You need to pay me up right now. Don't ya know.
To err is human to really mess up you need a computer
We'll pay you just as soon as we find someone who know's the 867 tech stacks that our payroll system is written in!
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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"20 years experience? Really? Is that hexadecimal, octal or decimal? Anyway, I thought we invented it when I worked on this project five (hex, octal or decimal, your choice) years ago."* *Say something like that only if you decide to decline during the interview. Then, when they come with something like this: "I'm very sorry, but I must tell you..." finish them off with this: "No need to apologize. The loss is on your part. You just turned away the best man you could possibly get." Arrogance can be delicious, especially if it's the truth. :-)
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats. His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
I'm on the verge of doing that at the moment. Been tooing and froing all day with what I now realise is a recruitment agency, after responding to an email requesting a freelance teacher to deliver one days worth of training to beginners in JavaScript. I get the feeling that the person answering the emails is of Indian descent (Based on the syntax structure of the writing) so the answers are short and blunt with no meaning, just a stuborn refusal to listen. They keep pushig and pushing, must have CV or we don't proceed, as I've pointed out to them, I've not written a CV for over 10 years, my employer for the last 7 has been my own limited company. But nope, Must Have CV in Microsoft Word Format, nothing else is acceptable. My Linked-in profile, is my CV these days. So I printed my Li-Profile to a PDF, then saved that PDF as a Word doc, sent that... reply: this is not a CV, this is linked-in, must have CV. So I'm about to turn round and tell them a) get lost & B) you'll not find a technology trainer, at such short notice (Needed in 10 days time) that has relevent teaching experience, and lives so close to the client... Bloody idiots, all of them.
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Frequently! The other one I really love is the "let's make a really, really long list of every tech the recruitment twat has ever heard of" game: The ideal candidate will have worked with: VAX, Hoover, Dyson, SCO-UNIX, HPUX, AIX, XENIX, Multix, C, X (there must be something called X), BCPL, C++, C#, B flat, F# (ooh! Get me! That's quite a new one isn't it?), P-SQL, T-SQL, Java, Javascript (in case it's something different from Java), AS400, I4GL, Informix, HTML, XML, JSON, WCF, WPF, Sinclair BASIC, Excel, Word, Fortran 5, ALGOL, CSS, PC World (I got my laptop from there!), DOS, DR-DOS, Oracle, Ruby on Toast, PHP, PGP, JPEG (Man, I'm on a roll!), Visual Basic, ASP, Apple stuff (Note to self: look up later), Facebook, Amazon, Red Tube, Donkey (it's obscure but my mate told me about it), OS2, PS2, PS3, PS4, X-Box, Windows (I've got Windows on here, it must be a thing), USB stick, Mouse, Keyboard, Hard drive, Floppy Disk, CAD, DVD, DVT, Frisbee, Freeway (Oh, hang on, that was the dog in Hart to Hart - knew I'd learned something in last night's pub quiz), Sharepoint, Biztalk, SMMS, REST, Spandex, Ultravox, MySQL, LINUX, Ubuntu, X-Ray, Yankee, Zulu (Christ! That's a good list! How did I ever fail that CS degree?)
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
Whew! That's a relief. If Pascal had been listed in there that would have certainly eliminated me. I mean, learning Pascal in college doesn't count as "real" work, right?
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I once worked on fixing some "real-time" code that couldn't keep up with real time - it was running at approximately 185% of CPU. Since it was to do with aircraft telemetry during test flights it was critical. My boss's boss assigned me to look at the code (written by my domineering, head of programming, boss) while he was away on a three-week touring vacation in Europe. The first thing I found was a sequential search of an array column for a unique item that noted where in the array it found it but still completed searching the entire array. It did this 32 times a second for up to 2000 array columns after having searched the column headers in a similar way for a string match to check which column it needed to search. First thing was to sort the array columns and then do a binary search (create and store an index to the column as they didn't change during the processing), then do a similar search of the columns for the data - and stop when it was found! Result = 34% of CPU and we achieved "Real-Time"! He was steaming mad when he got back and found out what I had done - but he couldn't do anything because his boss told me to do it (and backed me up) and it was actually working for the first time since the system was written. It was to replace an older system and they went ahead and switched to the replacement system in production immediately it could keep up - which was before he got back. He was later reassigned to "Special Projects" - and then fired for incompetence.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
You KNOW YOUR IN TROUBLE, when you get assigned to "Special Projects" :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
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You KNOW YOUR IN TROUBLE, when you get assigned to "Special Projects" :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
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This question was inspired by Kent Sharkey's recent comment in The insiders: "Must have 20 years experience in brand-new technology". How many of you have come across something like this? Update: I had one case where they asked for 10 years experience with SQL Server 2008 - this was in 2009. When I pointed out that I had more than 10 years experience with SQL Server and was currently using SQL Server 2008 in my current job, the HR telephone pre-screener said it was very important that the experience be in SQL Server 2008 specifically - when I pointed out the impossibility of this they got very condescending about it, implying that as I didn't have enough of the clearly requested, required experience, I shouldn't be wasting their time! In another interview, I was asked basically the same question and just lied about it. They accepted this without further questions - so when they offered the job, I turned it down.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
When I was working in the profession I came across this nonsense all the time. I went on one interview, which required that I have OOP development experience. I told the young lady who was interviewing me that I was fluent in both C# and VB.NET, which I further explained were both OOP development languages. She told me that I needed C++ to have OOP experience. Yet, the job description was calling for .NET development experience in either language. Needless to say, I cut the interview short...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
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Exactly! He had to work with some German partners and they were *not* very tolerant of incompetence - and let everyone know it!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
HA ha ha, Magic!! Yes, Germans, they are an abrasive lot ain't they. (Speaks from experience) :-D
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We'll pay you just as soon as we find someone who know's the 867 tech stacks that our payroll system is written in!
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
