Found in a popular German student comunity site: There is a group called "Geek Dating" - you know, the kind of place where geek girls and geek boys can get together. As soon as there will be a second member, that is.
Found in a popular German student comunity site: There is a group called "Geek Dating" - you know, the kind of place where geek girls and geek boys can get together. As soon as there will be a second member, that is.
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
...
Tell me, do you actually have any other hobbies except flaming here. Why don't you get yourself a job?
The real WTF is that they don't use getters and setters ;-)
@KenW said:
And we get high enough wages that we don't have to stoop to a "cheaper, smaller, older, less safe and less economical car"
I think you are missing the point about the whole 'company car' thing.
To pay for a reasonable car, I would have to pay all in all, let's say about 250 Euro per month, either for leasing or for the credit rates, or at least as a loss in book value (i.e. I have to save the money to buy a new one after some time.
For me to earn 250 Euro, the company would have to pay me close to 350 Euro. That's just how it is here.
For the company, to least a similar car would come for something closer to 200 Euro.First because it is cheaper for a company, secondly because they can deduct all kind of things from their taxes, including "investments" in company cars, etc.
So I would agree to 350 Euro *less* salary if they give me a car that costs them less than 200. Sounds like a good deal for the company, doesn't it?
Plus I don't have to bother about the paperworks and insurance and so on...
@livid said:
The above is all code for "Hmm, yeah. You sound like you've done this before and are going to ask for things like comp time when we start asking you to work Saturdays and, a month or two later, Sundays, too. We're looking for someone who will just sign the boilerplate offer of employment, work for a year or two until hopelessly burned out, and then quit before we have to start paying for things like vacation time."
Ah, you won't believe how good it feels to know that there is at least one other person who sees this the same way as I do :-)
@livid said:
You weren't, by chance, applying for work with a company that makes beverage distribution software out in the microbrew capitol of the world, were you?
No no, it's an Internet consulting firm. A startup obviously.
@livid said:
I received similar treatment a year ago while looking for a job, except I specified a salary range and was later told that my 9.5 years of experience was really only worth 2 years, but they would graciously start me at a junior-level position for 60% of my asking price (and only 75% of my current salary, disregarding that I was moving from a very small market that paid well below industry average into a larger market with a real tech sector). Except, they never made that offer, just told me what I was worth to them and stopped responding to any further calls. It's amazing how the guy who had time to call me two or three times a day leading up to my interview was suddenly "in meetings" from 7AM to 7PM.
Normally, I would just assume, they have found an idiot to fill the post, so they stopped bothering to call you, but...
@livid said:
The best part, though, is that even 16 months later that company is still looking to fill the position I interviewed for.
.. probably they just understood that they won't get you where they want you, so they have to keep looking for somebody with less experience (or negotiation skills).
BTW: I just checked - the job I was applying to is also still open. Unfortunately it doesn't say: "If you expect stings like a 'competetive salary', don't bother applying."
Hey wooter :-)
I agree with you - well, for the most part: If I'm on first-name terms with a client, I would still say "Dear Benoit.. " or whatever his first name is in the email, and in fact even in written letters. And I would continue to use informal addressing at least in German (="du"), though I would probably be more careful with it in French. But that's probably just a matter of personal style, And I'm not implying my style is better, it's just that this works and has worked for me. But if we were all the same..
Also true, maybe I've overestimated the "regular" fringe benefit situation here in Belgium (as you may guess, I'm an Expat here), or in fact I may have even over-estimated theselling power of my CV - but nevertheless the WTF remains: if "competetive" is too much for the company, I immediately loose faith in the quality of products this company may produce one day. And then I may be on the buying end (or rather not, because I would look into other suppliers who may also employ people who are willing to pay for too little (this being Belgium after all) but at least don't admit to it.
In any case, this point may have been lost in all the discussion about emoticons and cars, so I thank you for your advice (which was - different to certain other's - actually well grounded and helpful.
@WeatherGod said:
We flame for stupid stuff. Don't want to be flamed? Don't be stupid.and
@morbiuswilters said:
Are you a retard or something?
I bow my head before such a grandmaster of communication skills.
mustresisturgetousesarkasmtags mustresist....
@wooter said:
You're making the mistake of asking an North-American focused board an opinion about European job seeking ethics.
Yes, I noticed :-)
Well, I thought there are a few Europeans round here (at least there must be some Polish people - mostly from Krakow, if I remember right ;-)
@wooter said:
Yes, it is a bad idea to use smileys in professional communication to a prospective employer, but also yes, I have seen some people enjoy the leisurely chatting style in professional email correspondence - I do not..
Agreed. And for that reason the first letter (or rather email) of interest of course has to be as formal as an email could ever be.
However, communication always involves a constant re-negotioation of codes - and when the other side changes the code set, it would be odd not to go with it (unless you want to tell them: I'm not communicating on *your* level - which would definitely be much worse than a casual emoticon too much).
@wooter said:
Yes, a car, laptop and cellphone are quite common in Belgium
Pssst! Don't tell them! Do you really want to have a mass immigration of American IT-guys to Belgium? Poles are still welcome, though :-)
@wooter said:
But for a web designer do not make the mistake to assume they come in automatically.
Not necessarily for a web designer, no. But for somebody who actually does have to go and see clients all the time...And don't forget, in the end a car comes cheaper to the company than paying a higher salary so I can buy one myself :-) And remember: the job title said "Web Developer" - but then again, there are probably as many different definitions of what a 'Web Developer' does as there are web developers.
Well, as I said, 'car' is negotiable. Maybe they jumped on it. Fine. But in the way they wrote back they made it appear as if they jumped on the word "competetive", and even if it is so, that surely isn't the impression that you want to make - as a company.
As you said, it's probably the wrong forum.
@D0R said:
In our company, we have had a possible candidate who said to the HR: "How much are you going to pay me? Because if it's too low, I'm not even going to come for the interview...."Exactly that's the point. What they said is: "How much are you gonna cost us? Oh, 'competetive'!?! Sorry mate, we're not gonna pay 'competetive'. Stop wasting our time."
@groogs said:
Just guessing here, but they probably tried to dis-interest you with the salary part, as opposed to outright saying "you used emoticons in professional correspondence. WTF!?", because they realize that you may get a job with another company who is a client/vendor/partner, and there is no point in making things nasty. You took it the wrong way and posted it here, so obviously that didn't totally work, but hey.. they tried.
I think you have a point here. Maybe I jumped to much at the "competitive salary" thing. Still, this kind of communication makes me raise a red flag: that is probably not a company I would like to work for..
Oh, and I do use informal writing in communication with clients. And I get very good feedback from the clients for it.A lot of people (over here at least) are actually sick and tired of this over-formulized "business talk", they want to have the feeling there is a real person on the other end, and they actually smile when they see a smilie at the end :-)
But of course, it means reading the signs to estimate what level of colloquialism is appropriate. Getting a mail with a smilie in it is relatively good sign that it's appropriate to use some emoticons as well. But your opinions may differ.
But coming back to the job: It may also be a problem of definition of the job description: For me, a "Web Developer" is somebody who is proficient in a number of programming language like Java, Ruby, PHP, Perl, etc. and is able to use them to build complex web applications. Whereas a "Web Designer" is one who can do the visual concept, and implement it using HTML, CSS and possibly some (usually simple) PHP scripting.
So it might be that they were actually looking for a "Web Designer" but decided to write "Web Developer, well, at least because it sounds much cooler (nobody here is a native English speaker, mind you). On my application they thought: "cool", but after a bit of consideration they realised that this is going to come at a price...
Well, in the end it's all a story of failed communication. One way or another.