The Official Status Thread


  • Java Dev

    Status: I have a pile of prematurely optimized C code which is a performance bottleneck. I also have some good tooling to identify where my CPU time is going, and where my cache and TLB misses are coming from, down to the disassembled binary level.

    Although I've already resolved a bunch of issues (inner loop doing things it shouldn't be), if I get the chance I'll be at this some longer and bring some sanity. It is needed.


  • Garbage Person

    You may as well go to the interview B. They might decide to worship you as a diety and offer you a money truck.

    If A can't cool their heels for a day, you don't actually want to work there.

    Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.



  • @jaloopa said in The Official Status Thread:

    Are you talking directly to the employers or via a recruiter?

    Recruiter.

    @jaloopa said in The Official Status Thread:

    hinting that you'd show them the same courtesy if they were in the company B position.

    Part of my thinking was that I would be wasting B's time (as well as my own and the recruiter's) if I went to the interview having basically made up my mind.

    @jaloopa said in The Official Status Thread:

    If they tell you it's a matter of accepting now or losing it, that's honestly a bit of a red flag and should give you second thoughts

    I'm sure they won't. The two reasons it would be cool to skip Interview B if it turns out I don't need it are:

    • Stress. Even if there's no pressure because I've got an offer from A by the time it happens, I'm anxious about it and it'snot going to be fun. Also I have to get up early and travel and then rush back because I've only booked a half-day leave.
    • A certain family member is being passive-aggressive about thinking that I should accept as soon as A offer the job, if they do. Which basically falls under "stress" too but for a different reason.

    But I think you're probably right. Urgh.



  • @carrievs said in The Official Status Thread:

    You're expecting to hear an offer or rejection from Company A on the Wednesday afternoon. In the event that you get offered the job, do you:

    accept Job A and cancel Interview B at the last minute, or
    tell Company A you'll let them know your decision by the next (Thursday) afternoon, and go to Interview B, even though you're 99.9% sure that nothing you'll hear will change your mind about accepting Job A.

    I'm expecting a call with a decision very soon, and getting conflicting advice...

    More honest thing to do would be to cancel B and accept A immediately.
    More useful for yourself would be to tell A you will give them the answer by Thursday, then go to B, just to sniff them out, practice your interviewing without pressure, whatever.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @carrievs said in The Official Status Thread:

    Part of my thinking was that I would be wasting B's time (as well as my own and the recruiter's) if I went to the interview having basically made up my mind.

    But you're not certain. You might really click with the interviewer, find you absolutely love the office, discover something you picked up that made you less keen isn't what you thought etc. Or they might offer you £10k more than the other place, although this is unlikely with recruiters IME.

    @carrievs said in The Official Status Thread:

    Even if there's no pressure because I've got an offer from A by the time it happens, I'm anxious about it and it'snot going to be fun

    I actually do find interviews fun. Probably something that comes with a bit more experience of them and confidence that you can do the job so if they say no it's their own idiocy.

    @carrievs said in The Official Status Thread:

    A certain family member is being passive-aggressive about thinking that I should accept as soon as A offer the job, if they do

    Will the family member be doing the job? If not, it's none of their business.

    I realise that it's not that easy with family, but it can help to tell yourself that anyway



  • @carrievs said in The Official Status Thread:

    Even if there's no pressure because I've got an offer from A by the time it happens, I'm anxious about it and it'snot going to be fun.

    A "practice" interview without risk — you don't need the job — is not a bad idea.

    @carrievs said in The Official Status Thread:

    I would be wasting B's time

    I would say this is really the only good reason for not doing the interview. The last (only?) time I was in this position, I told the interviewer straight up front, "I already have an offer for an 18-month contract from A. Do you still want to talk to me? I don't want to waste your time." (It was only a phone interview, so it wasn't like multiple people were scheduled to spend hours talking to me.) He did, and we had a nice conversation, ending with, "If the contract with A doesn't work out, or when it's done, check with us to see if we're still hiring at that time."

    Edit: BONUS: It turned out that B is a vendor to A, and I actually saw the B interviewer's name in some third-party code while working at A, so the A experience should, I hope, give me a good inside track if I ever do apply at B again.



  • @carrievs You'd be foolish to not hedge your bet by doing the interview with B. A's not going to cancel their offer due to a 48-hour delay, not after they'd already expended the money to interview and evaluate you. (The sunk cost fallacy can work in your favor.) (That said, and this is obvious but who knows: let A know there's a delay, don't just go radio silent on them.)

    But also keep in mind interviews go both ways. So feel free to walk out on B if their interview process sucks, or for any reason at all really.

    (This assumes you have an actual offer from A, meaning: an actual job contract you only need to sign, in your hands, right now. If you just have the promise of a pending offer, then DEFINITELY interview seriously with B.)



  • @carrievs said in The Official Status Thread:

    Stress. Even if there's no pressure because I've got an offer from A by the time it happens, I'm anxious about it and it'snot going to be fun. Also I have to get up early and travel and then rush back because I've only booked a half-day leave.

    You're looking at it wrong. It's a free practice interview with no negative consequences. You only get good at doing things by practicing them, and frankly most people are terrible at interviewing so you could probably use the practice. In fact, my advice is to always interview when you have an opportunity for this exact reason.

    If you get anxious during interviews, even more reason you need to practice interviewing. You won't get anxious once you do it enough to build confidence.

    The travel time and getting up early is a big nothing. It shouldn't factor in at all.


  • Java Dev

    STATUS: As I'm moving I have to return the decoder box for the cable TV (which I've never used, as my TV got a built-in decoder which is more convenient). So, I need an appropriately-sized box. Hmm... The one that fitrs the bill is the box that my GTX 970 came in. So... Cut the padding to make room for the box instead of a graphics card, stuff the box and cables into it, tape it shut and presto! Just need to affix the label to it and done.

    I so hope that someone will think it's an actual 970 in the box and steal it along the way, just to take it home and discover it's just an old shitty decoder box for cable TV. I don't think the cable provider will care; in the cancellation letter they threatened me with having to pay a fine of €0.00 if I'd not return the box within two weeks of moving out.



  • @atazhaia said in The Official Status Thread:

    in the cancellation letter they threatened me with having to pay a fine of €0.00 if I'd not return the box within two weeks of moving out.

    Why didn't you just pay the fine ? 🤷🏽♂


  • FoxDev

    @timebandit said in The Official Status Thread:

    @atazhaia said in The Official Status Thread:

    in the cancellation letter they threatened me with having to pay a fine of €0.00 if I'd not return the box within two weeks of moving out.

    Why didn't you just pay the fine ? 🤷🏽♂

    they don't want to waste the postage mailing the check for Zero and 00/xx Euros?



  • @anotherusername said in The Official Status Thread:

    @gąska it's basically a trick question; they actually want to know why you think they should want you to work at WTFCorp. They want employees who want to be working there, yes, but actually more importantly they want employees whose desire to work there will translate into productivity for them.

    I now wonder if there are studies which try to determine whether those questions actually work or are only one of those things which sound good on paper and do nothing (or even the opposite) in reality.


  • Java Dev

    @accalia Mainly because I don't like the provider and want to waste their time and money handling the return of the decoder. :P


  • FoxDev

    @atazhaia said in The Official Status Thread:

    @accalia Mainly because I don't like the provider and want to waste their time and money handling the return of the decoder. :P

    ship it COD and include a large brick in the box you ship?


  • Java Dev

    @accalia It is shipped back on their expense, yes. Otherwise I wouldn't do it. Fun fact: I have been purely expenses for the provider since they bought the old provider. I don't have a sub from them, but they still have to provide me with a basic TV service. They also have to provide support for said service (which I have used on occasion). And they also have to handle taking the decoder box in, even if it was sent to me by the old provider (which I did have a subscription with).

    (Although they have made money off me, having been the only choice for fast internet in my first apartment.)


  • 🚽 Regular

    Status: Allowed Windows to install the big Fall update. It worked swimmingly, except it took 3 hours and broke networking.

    Just had to find a USB stick to get some functional drivers to jam back in it.

    Also, Edge is my browser apparently. Leave my defaults alone!


    Edit: And Office is now not activated. This is feeling a bit amateur-hour so far Microsoft.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @gąska said in The Official Status Thread:

    No, you got me wrong. I want that job. I just never wrote any Python program.

    If you can breathe through your mouth, you can code in Python. By the evidence of some of our users anyway…

    More seriously, it's not hard to get started. There are tricky bits here and there (protip; don't rely on the implementation of threads being fit for purpose) but you can do a lot of useful stuff with what you can learn in a few days if you've programmed a bit before. There's things in there I don't like, but it works acceptably well for many things. If the project is complicated, an IDE will help a lot; there are multiple options. The libraries available vary wildly in quality.

    And if you need huge speed, use something else like C or C++. ;)


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    Status: Uh huh...

    0_1511389498490_d711d894-6b6b-4403-a7ee-ea872eefd252-image.png


  • Banned

    @dkf said in The Official Status Thread:

    More seriously, it's not hard to get started.

    No, you got me wrong. I don't want to learn Python. I want a job.


  • Considered Harmful

    Status: When dedoxing my latest WTF Bites post, I was prompted to update the image editor app that the gallery app links to when you push Edit. I thought sure, why not. I was wrong. Notable changes include: The interface is now semitransparent, making it utterly impossible to see on dark images; all editor buttons take I shit you not five full seconds to pop up their dialogs; the save button takes I shit you not ten full seconds to accomplish a save; some of the buttons look slightly more fancy. God damn it Samsung.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:

    Status: When dedoxing my latest WTF Bites post, I was prompted to update the image editor app that the gallery app links to when you push Edit. I thought sure, why not. I was wrong. Notable changes include: The interface is now semitransparent, making it utterly impossible to see on dark images; all editor buttons take I shit you not five full seconds to pop up their dialogs; the save button takes I shit you not ten full seconds to accomplish a save; some of the buttons look slightly more fancy. God damn it Samsung.

    Oh. For a second there I thought you were talking about Discourse. :trollface:


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    Status: Speaking of shitty software, this keeps popping up on every boot, despite me always clicking the Fuck Off button:

    0_1511409257786_7f7426a4-8e31-44f9-a99c-a3eea55775a7-image.png



  • @tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:

    Status: Speaking of shitty software, this keeps popping up on every boot, despite me always clicking the Fuck Off button:

    0_1511409257786_7f7426a4-8e31-44f9-a99c-a3eea55775a7-image.png

    Why not disable it from running at startup? And while you're at it, disable a bunch of other stuff that's slowing down your startup.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @ben_lubar said in The Official Status Thread:

    @tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:

    Status: Speaking of shitty software, this keeps popping up on every boot, despite me always clicking the Fuck Off button:

    0_1511409257786_7f7426a4-8e31-44f9-a99c-a3eea55775a7-image.png

    Why not disable it from running at startup? And while you're at it, disable a bunch of other stuff that's slowing down your startup.

    Haven't rebooted often enough for it to trigger annoyance.

    It's really the only thing though.

    0_1511416763522_2cf32ed5-9f9c-4f43-9c1e-0c0e2a7e096a-image.png

    Well, besides whatever Program Program is.


  • Considered Harmful

    Status: First time encountering a TDWTFer out in the wild. Spooky.

    https://i.imgur.com/1gNXKKl.png


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:

    Status: First time encountering a TDWTFer out in the wild. Spooky.

    https://i.imgur.com/1gNXKKl.png

    Just wait until you see @dkf lurking around...


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    Status: Heh.

    0_1511419261272_053bbe13-cfdc-44a4-a3b6-6a18b41956bb-image.png


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:

    Just wait until you see @dkf lurking around...

    I don't lurk (or otherwise inhabit) there.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @dkf said in The Official Status Thread:

    @tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:

    Just wait until you see @dkf lurking around...

    I don't lurk (or otherwise inhabit) there.

    I didn't mean to imply you do so at that specific locale.


  • Considered Harmful

    @tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:

    @pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:

    Status: First time encountering a TDWTFer out in the wild. Spooky.

    https://i.imgur.com/1gNXKKl.png

    Just wait until you see @dkf lurking around...

    Don't you by definition not see someone who's lurking?


  • 🚽 Regular

    Status:
    0_1511440356640_a1faa585-016b-463f-926f-412fa1dbaf70-image.png

    Go on...give us a hint



  • @magus said in The Official Status Thread:

    Status: That settles it, I'll be buying some Unstable. Good show, Magic.

    0_1511307676088_cb7f705e-9cce-4e03-aec5-6ddb917b824c-image.png

    JUUUUUUDGE

    I'm tempted to buy it for the lands, but I haven't played Magic in ages, and I don't think an Un-set is going to get me back to filling WotC's pockets.



  • STATUS

    HR from brother's company have heard "good things about me" from various people (including my brother), so they are trying really hard to recruit me - getting my brother to ping me, offering bonuses, the whole shebang. They are desperate for seniors, just the same as everyone else.

    Upsides of this company:

    • Well organized
    • Various bonuses and perks given to employees
    • Reasonably relaxed atmosphere

    Downsides (for me):

    • Outsourcing work (so the level of pain depends on the client you get)
    • Division of labor, I'd have to give up my full stack ways and pick just one area to focus on (backend or frontend)
    • They'd probably want me for .NET core or something like that, and I don't want to go back to MS land (rats, sinking ship, direction of travel and all that)

    They got me to agree to drop by tomorrow to check them out, but unless it's really something special they have there, I don't see myself jumping ship.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @cursorkeys said in The Official Status Thread:

    Status:
    0_1511440356640_a1faa585-016b-463f-926f-412fa1dbaf70-image.png

    Go on...give us a hint

    Denying access to the log file made it work...

    Anyway, now we can do what we set out do:

    You are running on a 64-bit computer. To export to or import from a .pst file, you must be running a 32-bit computer that has Outlook 2003 SP2 or later installed.
    At line:1 char:1
    + Export-Mailbox -Identity someuser -PSTFolderPath c:\pst_export
    + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [], RecipientTaskException
        + FullyQualifiedErrorId : C31D7E19
    

    :fu:



  • @cursorkeys said in The Official Status Thread:

    Denying access to the log file made it work...

    :wtf: ???


  • 🚽 Regular

    @timebandit said in The Official Status Thread:

    @cursorkeys said in The Official Status Thread:

    Denying access to the log file made it work...

    :wtf: ???

    Beats me, ProcessMonitor showed the last thing it was doing before breaking was opening the Log file. So I had a hunch. Possibly an NPE that was avoided when it simply couldn't write?

    I've spun up a Hyper-V instance of Win XP now so I can get this working. All this just to export a .pst from Exchange, if there's an easier way I couldn't find it.



  • I don't know what to do. Two companies intend to make me offers, according to the recruiter. One I really want to work for but I've already pushed my asking salary as low as I think I can afford, and it's £1k above what they want to offer. They may or may not be able to find that extra £1k, and they apparently have another candidate who will accept the lower offer.

    The other one will probably offer me as much as I'd hoped for, but I'm not sure I want to work for them.

    If the first company can stretch their budget by that £1k I'll accept them: it's not about the money, so long as the money's enough to live on without compromising my plans for the mid-term future.

    If their best offer is the lower amount, I think I'll have to say, they can't afford me and good luck to the other guy. But then what to say to the second company? I feel embarrassed about turning down both, since it's through a recruiter, which I know is not rational, and I did tell him I wasn't sure about the second job, but I still feel bad about it.

    I don't know and I don't know how long I have to make up my mind.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @carrievs said in The Official Status Thread:

    I don't know what to do. Two companies intend to make me offers, according to the recruiter. One I really want to work for but I've already pushed my asking salary as low as I think I can afford, and it's £1k above what they want to offer. They may or may not be able to find that extra £1k, and they apparently have another candidate who will accept the lower offer.

    The other one will probably offer me as much as I'd hoped for, but I'm not sure I want to work for them.

    If the first company can stretch their budget by that £1k I'll accept them: it's not about the money, so long as the money's enough to live on without compromising my plans for the mid-term future.

    If their best offer is the lower amount, I think I'll have to say, they can't afford me and good luck to the other guy. But then what to say to the second company? I feel embarrassed about turning down both, since it's through a recruiter, which I know is not rational, and I did tell him I wasn't sure about the second job, but I still feel bad about it.

    I don't know and I don't know how long I have to make up my mind.

    That's a tough one. If they are already baulking at your salary with it as low as you can go then that might not bode well for pay reviews. Worth considering.

    For the other one, if you have reservations and don't need the job then I'd say don't take it. With two simultaneous offers you are obviously very hireable so should be able to find something that does fit you better.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:

    @tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:

    @pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:

    Status: First time encountering a TDWTFer out in the wild. Spooky.

    https://i.imgur.com/1gNXKKl.png

    Just wait until you see @dkf lurking around...

    Don't you by definition not see someone who's lurking?

    Seen but not heard. Like an optimized child.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    status: WTF Chrome....

    0_1511461439958_Screenshot_20171123-111925.png



  • @carrievs said in The Official Status Thread:

    I don't know what to do. Two companies intend to make me offers, according to the recruiter. One I really want to work for but I've already pushed my asking salary as low as I think I can afford, and it's £1k above what they want to offer. They may or may not be able to find that extra £1k, and they apparently have another candidate who will accept the lower offer.

    If they won't make the hire for an extra 1k (after spending something like 10k at least just putting you through the hiring process), you're probably going to be entering into some kind of bureaucratic nightmare company that has no concept of "penny-wise, pound-foolish".

    I dunno.

    If they have another candidate who they say will accept the lower offer, I'd say it's ultimatum time. Worded nicely, of course, in a letter that does its best to convince them you'd easily add more than 1k of value to that company's bottom-line.

    @carrievs said in The Official Status Thread:

    If the first company can stretch their budget by that £1k I'll accept them: it's not about the money, so long as the money's enough to live on without compromising my plans for the mid-term future.

    I also worry that you're 1k away from personal bankruptcy (apparently). Having a few months of living expenses in a savings account is like having a superpower... you can do all kinds of stuff normal people can't. You should try it.

    EDIT: it just occurs to me you might have meant 1k/month which would make more sense here?

    @carrievs said in The Official Status Thread:

    If their best offer is the lower amount, I think I'll have to say, they can't afford me and good luck to the other guy. But then what to say to the second company? I feel embarrassed about turning down both, since it's through a recruiter, which I know is not rational, and I did tell him I wasn't sure about the second job, but I still feel bad about it.

    Ask the recruiter that exact question. Or phrased like this: "A's offer looks best, but I can't accept the offer from B, because of company culture reasons not because of the pay rate. How would you feel if I ended up turning both positions down?"

    A good recruiter will say, "you should follow your gut", a bad recruiter might try to sell you like a used car salesman and then drop you like a hot potato after you don't take the offer. Neither of them can force you to take a job you don't want to take, keep that in mind.

    Also I don't know where you live, but here in the Seattle area recruiters, even good recruiters, are a lot easier to find than good jobs. I know of three agencies full of them who'd take me on in a flash.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @carrievs what is it you don't like about the second company?



  • status Updating my mac. Waiting. Dammit xcode, just update. I don't need you to wait, I need you to DO IT !!!



  • @dcon said in The Official Status Thread:

    status Updating my mac. Waiting. Dammit xcode, just update. I don't need you to wait, I need you to DO IT !!!

    Updating the OS instead... The countdown is fairly accurate. Well, until it gets to 2 minutes. Then they really mean 20. Or more. Hell, even Microsoft's countdown is more accurate than this...

    edit: The OS update is not (whatever the hell they're calling the new OS), it's just updates.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @dcon said in The Official Status Thread:

    @dcon said in The Official Status Thread:

    status Updating my mac. Waiting. Dammit xcode, just update. I don't need you to wait, I need you to DO IT !!!

    Updating the OS instead... The countdown is fairly accurate. Well, until it gets to 2 minutes. Then they really mean 20. Or more. Hell, even Microsoft's countdown is more accurate than this...

    The one that goes from 33 percent to 70 percent to rebooting to 20 percent to 99 percent to rebooting to please wait your files are safe?



  • @tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:

    @dcon said in The Official Status Thread:

    @dcon said in The Official Status Thread:

    status Updating my mac. Waiting. Dammit xcode, just update. I don't need you to wait, I need you to DO IT !!!

    Updating the OS instead... The countdown is fairly accurate. Well, until it gets to 2 minutes. Then they really mean 20. Or more. Hell, even Microsoft's countdown is more accurate than this...

    The one that goes from 33 percent to 70 percent to rebooting to 20 percent to 99 percent to rebooting to please wait your files are safe?

    Yeah that. It's still more accurate than a Mac.


  • Java Dev

    Status: It passed tests before I touched it.

    Of course it's failing one of the more arcane tests, and I found out just before I went home, so I'll be exploring the solution tomorrow.



  • @blakeyrat said in The Official Status Thread:

    I also worry that you're 1k away from personal bankruptcy (apparently). Having a few months of living expenses in a savings account is like having a superpower... you can do all kinds of stuff normal people can't. You should try it.
    EDIT: it just occurs to me you might have meant 1k/month which would make more sense here?

    £1k/year.

    I'm not sure what you mean about the savings. I have an upper-mid-5-figure sum in various savings accounts. But it's no good accepting a job where I'd be living off my savings. I need that money, plus whatever more I can save, for a number of large purchases in the next year or two - namely, a car, the deposit on a house, and a lot of furniture. And after buying a house I expect my monthly expenses to go up somewhat.

    And no, I'm not "£1k away from personal bankruptcy", where did you get that idea from? I said "live on without compromising my plans." There is a lower limit to the salary I decided I'd accept, which I reckoned was enough to support

    • my current lifestyle with no or minimal cutbacks, and
    • the aforementioned increase in outgoings when I buy a house, and
    • a certain amount left over every month, for unexpected expenses or to save.
      That limit, which is a long way from 'personal bankruptcy', is what was £1k above what the company were intending to offer.

    Anyhow. They offered me the extra £1k. Job search over. Thanks for all your advice and support, everyone.


  • kills Dumbledore


  • kills Dumbledore

    @carrievs congratulations


Log in to reply