@MasterPlanSoftware said:
...
Tell me, do you actually have any other hobbies except flaming here. Why don't you get yourself a job?
@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.
Ah, finally a sensible comment here. I was ready to move the bookmark to this forum to the "troll's realm" category...
@BeenThere said:
they 1) think you value yourself too highly 2) have no interest in debating your value with you 3) decided it was easier to just say "we want to underpay" so you go away. They weren't "admitting to their desire to under pay" - they used it as a ploy to get you to stop trying.
Well, and that is just what I believe is a major WTF. How about saying: "We think you over-value yourself, and don't feel like discussing it with you"? Just for the sake of being honest
Or if they want to be polite, then how about a way that would still keep the door open, in case I'd soon work at some potential customer?
@BeenThere said:
Also, if they were the first ones to use emoticons in communicating with you, then I can sort of understand why you would back but still consider it a Very Bad Idea.
Well, I don't know about the other side of the Atlantic ocean - but over here, emoticons have already crept in to the strangest places. I have even seen them on *printed* letters. Well, of course not in industries like banking or so, but in the Internet business - no problem.
@BeenThere said:
Honestly, you can feel they messed up and not you, due to your experience, but it looks like you were screened out for social skill reasons, which is entirely valid and even if it turned out you are correct in asserting you'd be a great asset to them - you can't fault them for not taking the chance once red flags have gone up.
I agree -and in fact after their second reply, on *my* side the red flag went up. I've seen too many badly managed businesses and certainly wouldn't like to work for one of these. The only reason I answered at all was to find out if there was just an incompetent secretary answering or if that was how the company is set up. Sadly, it seems that this is the company.
BTW: Simply *not answering* might seem impolite at first, but it's still better than giving the impression of beeing to cheap to pay for skilled labor. And filtering some otherwise very suitable person out because you don't like the emoticonshe used inan email is... well... just plain stupid.
On the other hand - I admit that there is a point with the wage. The post was for a "Web Developer", and they probably meant somebody who can do a bit of PHP. My profile would rather fit for a Senior Developer, and even unsaid it's clear that I wouldn't work for the same money as a junior (most of whom - over here - seem to have no training other than a one-week introduction to PHP... sadly)
So maybe I'm stretching the "WTF" a bit. But first saying: "Just what we are looking for", and then "but that's gonna cost too much" makes me wonder where I landed.
PS: Just to annoy some people, here a collection of my favourite emoticons: &:-o o:-) :^P :-]==> and |-oZzz
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
Good luck getting a job when everyone here has told you why you didn't get the job and you are still arguing.
Luckily, The TDWF-Forum is not my only scope of reference for these things :-)
Well, indeed the question wasn't directed to you, but to that other
Troll, but it seems his mother sent him to bed. So never mind.
@bstorer said:
Maybe you were working hard in the challenging world of gopher?
The question is not how complicated it was to make web pages on HTML version 1. The issue is that I started back then, and had many years to develop.
It is also there to say that if I already had customers who were willing to pay me for web pages back then, one can imagine that I did some stuff before.
But - to get back to the OP: In my eyes the real WTF is not even that a company is looking for a developer willing to pay under value, but actually openly admits so.
Well, if nobody sees this, can't change it. I found it quite a WTF.
@seamustheseagull said:
And in '93, I'd imagine that "web development" consisted of making some basic table and bullet-point layouts, perhaps with a little bit of Perl behind it.
Not even tables - they only came much later (with Netscape 1.1, if I'm not mistaken!)
@fatdog said:
I'm thinking that Belgium, (I assume you are on a city) has very good public transportation, gas prices are probably very high (as in most of the world) and parking spaces are most likely scarce.Don't see how can this be normal.
Please, allow me to doubt this car thing for a position like a web developer. My uneducated guess would be that unless you are doing some real hot shot position, I would think that they would give you parking space for your bycicle, or maybe some metro tickets. If you behave good, they might even let you park your scooter in the parking lot.
I might be wrong, but still, I will maintain scepticism on this car thing until proven wrong.
Well, to be honest, I found that strange, too. Especially since the public transport situation over here really is quite OK. But so far, every position I even looked at included a company car. They actually really throw them at you.
I learned that paying for a company car (including petrol!) actually comes the company much cheaper than paying me that much more per month so I can pay for the car myself. Again, this has something to do with the high taxes on income, and really very good deduction options for companies - and then there are some big leasing companies which offer "all inclusive" contracts (i.e. car + maintenance + gasoline) for a fixed sum.
In one case, the money set aside for the car leasing was actually even enough to choose a Jaguar. No kidding. Well, the Big Boss(TM) probably wouldn't have liked it if I parked a Jag next to his BMW, but money-wise... :-)
In another place, even the Hotline guys had their own cars. Plus company mobile phones (all payed for) and Laptops. Of course, that also had the side-effect that they could be easily contacted after hours. And then there were lunch cupons and if necessary even the Internet at home was payed for...
All of that just to keep the actual sum transferred as wage at the end of the month as small as possible (and thus the tax load low).
@morbiuswilters said:
"Professional web development" in 1993 would be creating a link. I think this testifies to your level of experience.
So so.. I'm curious to hear what you know about web development in 1993.
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
@Da' Man said:it was a web developer positionWhich you are clearly not qualified for.
Cool. Count 15 years of professional web developing experience (yes, I
do mean since 1993!) vs. an emoticon in an email. I have a different
oppinion about who made a mistake here.
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
And you came off sounding like a stuck up little brat too.
Tsts.. you better don't write this in an application letter either :-)
Hi all,
well, it all depends, of course. Clearly I would never use emoticons in a first letter (or email) of interest - but I would of course adapt to the style of writing they use when answering.
And - heck, it was a web developer position - the same as I would expect a craftsman to use some terms of the trade in his application, I don't think it is wrong to use emoticons in an application to such a position.
Well, maybe somebody in this company didn't see it this way - so obviously this is not the right place for me.
The same some time ago: the company actually demanded a *hand written* letter of interest - for a web developer position. I actually called there to ask if there wasn't a mistake. They confirmed that this is the procedure - and I didn't bother about them any longer. Not my place.
Of course, the same as I try to read whether or not a company is suitable for me from little hints like these, the companies might do the same. They might sort me out because I used emoticons. That's fair enough. But then it would be more honest (and in fact much wiser, too), to say that they decided for another candidate, or that upon much consideration.. blabla.. you know the phrases.
But saying "we can't afford you" - even before we talked about money. Not good.
Ah, and the fringe benefits are really very, very common. This is Belgium, a high tax country, and a company car is in for everybody on a level higher than, say, cleaning lady or so... Of course, that has some effect on the traffic jam situation, but that's another story :-)
After a longer break from professional lifeIrecently decided to go back, and applied for a programmer position at a small startup nearby.
And, guess what, the answer was justwhat everybody dreams of. Quote:
<font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Verdana">From your CV you seem to be just the person we are looking for...</font>
Now that's what I like to hear. They also sent a short list of additional questions - how much I know about a few other technologies (I'm all very well familiar with), whether I can also offer additional consultancy services in my area of specialization (of course) and then there was the question about money:
<font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Verdana">What would be your salary expectations?</font>
Well, it would be a bit too early to answer this one - first I need to know a bit more about the position, the responsibilities, the work load, etc. Well, and that's what I wrote:
would actually prefer to know a bit more about the work (and especially work load ;-) I can expect, and what responsibilities you have in mind for me. I can say that an interesting job in a good work environment is certainly more important to me than maximizing my income - but I wouldn't like to feel under-valued, either :-D Let's say that I expect a competitive salary with the usual fringe benefits (phone, car) - and we need to talk about the details later in person.
Which I found to be rather reasonable. The mentioned fringe benefits (phone, car) are very, very common in this part of the world, and, well, "competetive salary" is of course one of these phrases that mean all and nothing.
Imagine my surprise when I received their answer:
<font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Verdana">In regards to benefits such as car, phone etc... we are not open to discuss this before the start of our second physical year...</font>
<font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Verdana"></font>Well, OK, public transport is acually fine for me - especially since they are located nearby a metro station, but...
<font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Verdana">I do not believe we can make a competitive enough offer that would interest you. <o:p></o:p><font color="#000000"> <o:p></o:p></font>All the best,</font>
Er, did I miss something? I didn't even talk about money so far. In fact, I (stupidly) even made it clear that I am willing to work for less if the work is interesting enough. What are they looking for? An idiot who is willing to work for next to nothing - well, then I already disqualified myself by showing off with my experience :-)
OK, that was a bit fresh, but I had to get back into the game. I also suggested an "informal" meeting one of these days just to see if there is any way to see if there is any posibility to cooperate.
The HR person who wrote back had a different opinion:
<font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Verdana"><font face="Times New Roman">I feel as though we would be wasting our time as I said before I do not believe that we can make you an offer which will swipe you of your feet .</font></font>
Who said you need to 'swipe me off my feet'. A reasonable offer would alreadydo. But this person seems determined:
<font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Verdana"><font face="Times New Roman">Plus the work would be demanding and the load high. :)</font></font>
So, OK. I got the message. No need to schedule an interview. If that is your approach to HR, I don't even want to know how you handle software development.
@poochner said:
In the "blindly following policy" column, I've had a clerk ask for my photo ID when I was using a card with my photo on the front of it. They did realize what they had done about the time I pulled my wallet out, at least.
That reminds me of one situation in a German embassy somewhere abroad - I got a new passport, so I handed in my old one (which was duely punched and thus made invalid by the clerk), then he prepared my new one, but refused to hand it out unless I show him some "proof of identity"... luckily I still had my ID-Card to proof the guy in that passport was really me :-)
@Carnildo said:
On Slashdot, the question would be "But does it run Linux?"
Well, as I mentioned in the original post: it ran on NT Debian ;-)
What I forgot to mention: of course the guys stopped the web server so there are more processor cycles available for freakin' fraggin' :-)
It was in the good ol' days of the dot.com era - I worked as a web programmer for this really sleek web- and design agency: that is, not much pay, but lots of great parties. Cool chicks, too.. well, not too bad altogether, at least in the memory.
One day there, we got our very own web server. Well, we needed one, to test drive these pages, so I think this was a good idea. The admins, of course, wanted a Linux server, the management heard that Windows NT is all the hype. We got an NT server. First thing the admins did was to install Debian (and never told the management). Well, I didn't care, the server worked, and that's all I was interested in.
Or did it? Strangely enough, while I could access the server quite well from the office (and obviously none of our clients had any problems to access it) I simply couldn't check it out from at home in the eveing. It was either "Server not found" or "Timeout". So there must be something wrong with my network connection, obvously.
So one day I was doing long hours in the office and shortly after everybody (most notably the management) left the office, the web server was suddenly down again. So I walked over to the admins to ask them to check. Hm, nobody there? I checked the server room - there they are: all playing Quake - on our web server. As they did almost every evening.
Well, at least that explains... :-)
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.
Once upon a time - well, in fact not so long ago, I lived in a small place in Germany where, among other things, people had the strange habit of giving
houses fractual numbers. No kidding: there were houses with addresses like 'Somethingstr. 12½' or even 'Someotherstr. 4¾'. Strange, but, hey, why not.
I actually lived in a house with the number 3½. And I liked the idea, well, because it was something out of the ordinary (even in Germany).
That is, until the first time I waited for a delivery from my favourite online bookstore, which didn't seem to arrive. So I went to track the shipment, and according to the carrier's web site, it was returned to sender because the address was wrong. Hm...
I went to investigate, and finally I found that in house no. 31, in appartment 2 (or 31/2 for short) lived a nice old lady who was aware of the problem, and usually brought my letters to my letterbox on her way to the bakery but just didn't want to accept the package because she'd have to sign something. Well, we found a nice arrangement (involving a bottle of wine for her) and I removed the '½' from all my customer accounts at the various online stores.
So far, so good.
Later on, I moved again, found another job, then yet another - and eventually ended up at a company which makes software for - well, printing labels for packages. An American company that was, which should explain a lit of the following:
Well, As you can imagine I was surprised to find that this praised software would not really fall for the above error - in fact it would just print '½' as '�'. Not sure if that would really be an improvement, though,
Any other non-ASCII-character (like 'ä' or 'ö') would just be turned into some ASCII-transcription (in this cases 'ae' and 'oe' respectively), regardless of whether it makes any sense (usually it doesn't). I saw a couple of seemingly harmless names or addresses that became incomprehensible (like the common Finnish family name 'Hämäläinen') or even turn into insults (like the German city of 'Haßfurt') by such replacements.
Of course, I felt I have to come to the rescue: because I knew a bit about this stuff, I suggested to support the programmers to do a bit of internationalization work.
Well, to keep it short: I decided it was easier to leave that job rather than to fight against windmills. Not only because of this issue, but also.
if your address sticker has some funny transcriptions on it, or if your package (to house no. 7¾) went to the wrong guy at 73/4, you know now that a lack of understanding of internationalization issues can lead to a lot of your customers laughing about you. Unless they feel insulted, of course.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a long and devoted Apple fan, but this:
Quote:
#if defined(__APPLE__) /* * If the thread on which this probe has fired belongs to a process marked P_LNOATTACH * then this enabling is not permitted to observe it. Move along, nothing to see here. */ if (ISSET(current_proc()->p_lflag, P_LNOATTACH)) { continue; } #endif /* __APPLE__ */
Coming to think of it. Its actually not a WTF, it's a WTH - read: "what the heck!"
What do you guys say to this:
#!/bin/bash
if [ $1 eq "" ];
echo "Usage: bin2xml <infile> <outfile>"
exit
fi
echo "<xml version=\"1.0\"><root><![CDATA[" > $2
cat $1 >> $2
echo "]]></root>" >> $2