What You've Done Today - Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life

[ShadySands]

I also like to do interviews and I'm pretty easy on the candidates. I just want to see if they can do the job well enough and maybe see if there's any obvious personality clashes but some of the people that I've interviewed with are on some weird power trip that I just don't understand. 

[majestic]

I had one job interview in my life. I ended up having to do a Thomas PPA and didn't get the job I applied for. Initially, at least, turned out the other candidate was a bit of a dweeb. Still enjoy teasing them with the 2+ years they lost over that decision, but to this day I don't know what the result of this PPA thing was.  

edit: This one should give @Sarex a heart attack, I recently integrated a customer where I didn't write a single line of code for that integration until one day before the project release date. I faked my way through the entire acceptance test suite with a glorified unit test script. That was fun. Not recommended unless you enjoy a little bit of pressure and some insanity. Heh.

Edited June 24, 2022 by majestic

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

It's a standard kind of question for junior QAs, not the spice rack per se but test something really basic, like a marble for an example. It's supposed to show if the candidate has a QA mindset, which is mostly bs.

Yep, normally it's one something that actually has working parts. A spice rack doesn't, now if it were how to design a spice rack, okay that's different. Then again, that company also hired me, so that tells you about their level

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

edit: This one should give @Sarex a heart attack, I recently integrated a customer where I didn't write a single line of code for that integration until one day before the project release date. I faked my way through the entire acceptance test suite with a glorified unit test script. That was fun. Not recommended unless you enjoy a little bit of pressure and some insanity. Heh.

Ah, if only you knew the environment I work in...

44 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Yep, normally it's one something that actually has working parts. A spice rack doesn't, now if it were how to design a spice rack, okay that's different. Then again, that company also hired me, so that tells you about their level

Basically the answer to those kind of question is to start defining some arbitrary requirements for the thing you are testing and then to start putting it through basic use cases and then go with more "advanced" scenarios. For the spice rack you would define it's dimensions and  the maximal size of the spice shaker that can fit and of than max size the number of those that can fit. Then you define if it's wall mounted or freestanding. Lets say it's wall mounted, you verify that using the provided hardware to screw it in would keep it on the wall, than you add the weight of all the shakers, then you add more weight to find the max load before failure. Then you go wild and test if during an earthquake various sizes of spice shakers would fall out. And so on, and so on... Basically you want to show them how many scenarios for testing you can find, but the trick is to cover all the basic functionality.

2 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I also like to do interviews and I'm pretty easy on the candidates. I just want to see if they can do the job well enough and maybe see if there's any obvious personality clashes but some of the people that I've interviewed with are on some weird power trip that I just don't understand. 

The issue is that people train for interviews and you want to see how they really think. Saying that, I know of one company that just has a one hour talk with the candidates where they just talk about their experience and some random things. No assignments, no tests.

[ShadySands]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

Saying that, I know of one company that just has a one hour talk with the candidates where they just talk about their experience and some random things. No assignments, no tests.

This is actually my favorite format for interviews but I've only experienced it a few times as the one being interviewed. It's what I try to do when I'm conducting interviews as well but since it's usually a panel interview I don't always get my way.

[LadyCrimson]

Current US politics:

[Guard Dog]

Working longer hours to get ahead. Our Canadian vacation is in two weeks. Sounds like a movie title! 

[Keyrock]

And now for my old man sitting on his porch yelling at kids moment:

I can't believe I still see young men wearing sagging jeans. It's not nearly as many as like 8 years ago, but how is this still a thing? How has this stupid fad lasted this long? It's not the dumbest fad I've ever seen. I mean, I remember JNCO jeans, that might take the cake for dumbest fad ever. However, that only lasted a couple of years before people realized that it looked stupid, those giant pant legs constantly got in your way, and the whole thing was just dumb and we all moved on. How is sagging pants still a thing? It looks stupid, it can't possibly be comfortable, and they're essentially one-handed since they constantly need to pull their pants up. Are these people that desperate to let everyone know what brand of underwear they wear? Why would they do this?

[LadyCrimson]

 

[ShadySands]

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

I remember JNCO jeans

These have made a small comeback

[Gromnir]

2 hours ago, Keyrock said:

How is sagging pants still a thing? It looks stupid, it can't possibly be comfortable, and they're essentially one-handed since they constantly need to pull their pants up. Are these people that desperate to let everyone know what brand of underwear they wear? Why would they do this?

you have met young people, yes? folks such as you and Gromnir expressing bemusement or curiosity is exact why the fad persisted, 'cause it were mostly young people with the pants and every time somebody older complained or questioned the fad, particular somebodies who didn't look much like those embracing the fad, it further legitimized and entrenched the fad. 

the quickest way to end virtual any youth embraced fad is for every "old" person to adopt the fad. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Keyrock]

1 hour ago, ShadySands said:

These have made a small comeback

As if I needed further proof that humans as a species are doomed.

[Agiel]

My firm belief that efforts to curb the "counterculture" du jour typically begets an even greater hostile reaction, from the satanic panic and Evangelical Revolution of the 80's came the satanic Norwegian black metal and Swedish and American death metal of the 90's.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Agiel

[Malcador]

 

[Calax]

This is two weeks old now, but I got a kitten. Her name is Anastasia and she's about 8 weeks old. Currently my life is filled with trying to keep her and the older boy (Octavian) happy.

[Gfted1]

Speaking of which, I ordered and received two airtags and two cat collars, and lets just say it was a spectacular failure. As soon as I put the collars on my cats they totally weirded out and immediately went into hiding. Around 30 minutes later the alpha (Evie) seemed like she was getting used to it but she wasnt happy about it. My lil bean (Lola) on the other hand wasnt having it and completely forgot how to cat. She sat there staring off into space and then whenever she would try to walk somewhere she would thrash her head like she was trying to shake the collar off. My wife was all "theyre fine" but Im a giant softy and took the collar off her. Then I couldnt make just one of them wear it so I took the collar off the Evie too.  

[Bartimaeus]

My cat acts like she's received a mortal wound and is on the verge of expiring when you put a sock on her back. I imagine her brain would immediately cease all function if I ever put a collar on her.

[Sarex]

So about that 2gb internet connection. Funny how that works when they give you a 1gb ONT with wifi 5... Spent the last couple of days fighting around something that is so obviously stupid, they even advertised a wifi 6 capable device with one 2.5gb port... I will try for a day or 2 more and then cancel my contract. I was avoiding them for years because I heard bad things about their support, serves me right for taking the bait.

[Gfted1]

Are you rope-a-doped into a contract after the free year?

[Sarex]

2 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Are you rope-a-doped into a contract after the free year?

Yep. They offer 50% off for that second year if I upgrade. I can still cancel it in the first 14 days and I could also cancel it on the grounds of false advertising. We will see.

[Gfted1]

I dont mean to pry, but Im about to. Whats the monthly charge for that level of internet service after the free period?

[Amentep]

On 6/24/2022 at 12:05 PM, Malcador said:

I was asked once how I would test a spice rack once, honestly not sure what the **** that was supposed to indicate.

I was once asked in an interview what kind of animal I saw myself as.  That didn't go well.

On 6/25/2022 at 7:41 AM, Guard Dog said:

Working longer hours to get ahead. Our Canadian vacation is in two weeks. Sounds like a movie title! 

If its Tuesday, Guard Dog Must Be In British Columbia*

*with apologies to Belgium.

[Malcador]

8 minutes ago, Amentep said:

I was once asked in an interview what kind of animal I saw myself as.  That didn't go well.

Well, what kind of animal?

[Gromnir]

16 minutes ago, Amentep said:

I was once asked in an interview what kind of animal I saw myself as.  That didn't go well.

 

*chuckle*

we knew a local dean and were asked to give advice to soon-to-be graduates o' a local law school every year for 'bout a decade. we invariably pointed out one o' the most common stoopid interview questions were, "if you were a tree/animal/whatever, what sort of tree/animal/whatever would you be?" 

HA! Good Fun!

[Sarex]

55 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

I dont mean to pry, but Im about to. Whats the monthly charge for that level of internet service after the free period?

Not prying at all. It's 23 bucks for the net. 5gb/1gb is 52 dollars and 10gb/1gb is 61 dollars. The biggest packet they offer is 10gb net TV with 190+ channels (missing the whole discovery family) and phone for 64 dollars. But this is a small provider so they are very aggressive with their offers.

A normal big IPS that costs 36 dollars for 1gb/200mb, their biggest pack is for 91 dollars and you get 1gb/200mb net, unlimited mobile (net and calls) and 3gb international mobile net, unlimited land line and over 250 tv channels, plus some paid apps.

edit: what I payed for before is 31 dollars for tv 200+ channels and 120mb/15mb net (via coax).

Edited June 27, 2022 by Sarex