More shit that pisses you off: What does that say about the quality of your emails?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > More shit that pisses you off: What does that say about the quality of your emails?

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Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

If you're just testing the waters out and not desperate for a change then a 4 hour at-home exercise that's just a general IQ style quiz would be a hard no. I also can't see how it helps the organisation in any way to only hire people who can sit through 4 hours of deciding which shapes tesselate the same or whatever.

# ? Oct 8, 2022 13:14

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# ? May 10, 2024 00:02

Sormus: Jul 24, 2007; PREVENT SPACE-AIDS
sanitize your lovebot
between users

Yea its just a small upward move from factory grunt to factory grunt herder (Shift manager). At one point it felt very much like they were trying to make me cancel my application instead of rejecting it. Like, just keep shoveling poo poo in Sormus' way so that he quits and we can choose the officially less qualified candidate.

# ? Oct 8, 2022 13:27

Potato Salad: Oct 23, 2014; nobody cares

these tests are dystopian poo poo meant to substitute for proper management of results

if an organization feels it needs aptitude tests to gain insight into employee productivity, it's because they're not getting that information from middle managers who don't know how to manage people and their results

idk, if you see an aptitude test, that's a huge loving red flag, especially if the organization clarifies that they use it in any form for employee kpis

# ? Oct 8, 2022 16:00

i am a moron: Nov 12, 2020; "I think if there’s one thing we can all agree on it’s that Penn State and Michigan both suck and are garbage and it’s hilarious Michigan fans are freaking out thinking this is their natty window when they can’t even beat a B12 team in the playoffs lmao"

Agreed and ime I don�t have to tolerate them and sorry if anyone has to for employment because gross

# ? Oct 8, 2022 18:15

AlternateAccount: Apr 25, 2005; FYGM

Hiring is impossible and no matter how hard you work at it, there�s still a large unknown factor and they might show up and be terrible and useless.

Companies sell aptitude tests and other �systems� that they claim fix this. They don�t, they drive away good candidates, and they distract from trying to improve your process, even though you will never get it close to perfect.

# ? Oct 8, 2022 19:02

Weedle: May 31, 2006

they also help hiring managers figure out who will happily spend hours doing whatever dumb bullshit they�re told to. very desirable quality in an employee

# ? Oct 8, 2022 20:20

FlapYoJacks: Feb 12, 2009

If there's a coding test I straight up refuse to work for the company. I have a GitHub portfolio, I have a lot of personal projects I will gladly send your way, and we can talk about general theory. I will not waste my time on stupid poo poo like implementing sorting algorithms from scratch. gently caress you don't waste my time.

# ? Oct 8, 2022 23:38

Volguus: Mar 3, 2009

FlapYoJacks posted:

If there's a coding test I straight up refuse to work for the company. I have a GitHub portfolio, I have a lot of personal projects I will gladly send your way, and we can talk about general theory. I will not waste my time on stupid poo poo like implementing sorting algorithms from scratch. gently caress you don't waste my time.

I personally prefer a take-home project that we can discuss, over a leetcode crap. Alas, that's not how some of them work.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 01:26

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Somewhere out there I bet there's an app developed entirely through coding tests, by a startup that has never hired a single programmer.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 02:01

Breetai: Nov 6, 2005; 🥄Mah spoon is too big!🍌

Counterpoint: ever hired someone for an L1 tech support helpdesk who claimed to know enough about a range of programming languages that they needed to support but in fact was hoping that programming was something where with no prior experience you can fake it until you make it?

A simple "you have 5 minutes per language to write a 10 green bottles program" would have saved a lot of people a lot of time.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 02:20

FlapYoJacks: Feb 12, 2009

Breetai posted:

Counterpoint: ever hired someone for an L1 tech support helpdesk who claimed to know enough about a range of programming languages that they needed to support but in fact was hoping that programming was something where with no prior experience you can fake it until you make it?

A simple "you have 5 minutes per language to write a 10 green bottles program" would have saved a lot of people a lot of time.

No. Ask for a portfolio and some basic questions. Coding tests are bad and not indicative of the real job.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 02:24

Mustache Ride: Sep 11, 2001

I like take home coding :airquote:

challenges :airquote:

because I can say "hey we want you to do x, please publish it to GitHub with a level of documentation you're comfortable with and feel free to use any and all tests then send me the repo. You're welcome to do this on your schedule" and see what they come back with.

If there's coverage and great documentation, I know they're going to do well at work. If there's not, it's a pretty clear indication they've had a single code bootcamp thing and have lied on their resume. It also lets me figure out if they're going to be a problem using code that's not theirs at a later date.

However that being said, if the person has extensive knowledge and presents well in an interview, I'll skip it. Plus if they're way to junior for the role and don't interview well I'll also skip it. I've hired large teams this way and it seems to be okay. But again, it depends mostly on how the initial interview goes. Also, 1 interview, 1 coding challenge. That's it, no follow up interview, gently caress that poo poo.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 03:07

Internet Explorer: Jun 1, 2005

Breetai posted:

Counterpoint: ever hired someone for an L1 tech support helpdesk who claimed to know enough about a range of programming languages that they needed to support but in fact was hoping that programming was something where with no prior experience you can fake it until you make it?

A simple "you have 5 minutes per language to write a 10 green bottles program" would have saved a lot of people a lot of time.

L1 tech support helpdesk who needed to be proficient in a "range of programming languages" to the point where they could support them??? :crossarms:

# ? Oct 9, 2022 03:18

Sickening: Jul 16, 2007; Black summer was the best summer.

Mustache Ride posted:

I like take home coding challenges because I can say "hey we want you to do x, please publish it to GitHub with a level of documentation you're comfortable with and feel free to use any and all tests then send me the repo. You're welcome to do this on your schedule" and see what they come back with.

If there's coverage and great documentation, I know they're going to do well at work. If there's not, it's a pretty clear indication they've had a single code bootcamp thing and have lied on their resume. It also lets me figure out if they're going to be a problem using code that's not theirs at a later date.

However that being said, if the person has extensive knowledge and presents well in an interview, I'll skip it. Plus if they're way to junior for the role and don't interview well I'll also skip it. I've hired large teams this way and it seems to be okay. But again, it depends mostly on how the initial interview goes. Also, 1 interview, 1 coding challenge. That's it, no follow up interview, gently caress that poo poo.

You can shove your unpaid homework up your rear end.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 03:24

SSJ_naruto_2003: Oct 12, 2012

Breetai posted:

Counterpoint: ever hired someone for an L1 tech support helpdesk who claimed to know enough about a range of programming languages that they needed to support but in fact was hoping that programming was something where with no prior experience you can fake it until you make it?

A simple "you have 5 minutes per language to write a 10 green bottles program" would have saved a lot of people a lot of time.

L1 tech support is not going to know a lot about the languages. That's why they're L1 tech support help desk.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 06:17

Breetai: Nov 6, 2005; 🥄Mah spoon is too big!🍌

Internet Explorer posted:

L1 tech support helpdesk who needed to be proficient in a "range of programming languages" to the point where they could support them???

"Know enough about" not "Proficient".

"Dear L1 support. Whycome my code take long? Please see below for example."

code:

Select
blah blah blah
inner join (Select blah blah blah inner join
				(Select blah blah blah inner join
						(Select blah blah blah
							WHERE blah is in blah
							WHERE blah is in blah)));

# ? Oct 9, 2022 10:26

guppy: Sep 21, 2004; sting like a byob

Helpdesk techs are not generally expected to help programmers with their programming, this is very weird. Helpdesk techs can make sure their computer works, that's it.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 10:30

Sywert of Thieves: Nov 7, 2005; The pirate code is really more of a guideline, than actual rules.

Breetai posted:

"Know enough about" not "Proficient".

"Dear L1 support. Whycome my code take long? Please see below for example."
code:
Select
blah blah blah
inner join (Select blah blah blah inner join
				(Select blah blah blah inner join
						(Select blah blah blah
							WHERE blah is in blah
							WHERE blah is in blah)));

We have a ton of 10+ years-old legacy code in our giant web application that was written by someone not...very proficient at it. When he needed a database query to fetch data from 18 different tables, instead of making 10-15 separate queries, he'd just write one query that joined all the tables together in a gigantic 2-page mess of poorly constructed (and badly performing) sql. It has proven extremely hard to replace this crap with sane stuff since "catching up on technical debt" was only introduced in management's lexicon since January.

:psyduck:

# ? Oct 9, 2022 12:26

Breetai: Nov 6, 2005; 🥄Mah spoon is too big!🍌

Sywert of Thieves posted:

We have a ton of 10+ years-old legacy code in our giant web application that was written by someone not...very proficient at it. When he needed a database query to fetch data from 18 different tables, instead of making 10-15 separate queries, he'd just write one query that joined all the tables together in a gigantic 2-page mess of poorly constructed (and badly performing) sql. It has proven extremely hard to replace this crap with sane stuff since "catching up on technical debt" was only introduced in management's lexicon since January.

I think that people think that doing it all in one step is in some way more clever or more efficient so they cram everything in like that.

The above code that I quoted was the actual structure of a query someone was directing at tables comprising somewhere in the ballpark of a billion rows combined, so yeah, that basically brought our entire production environment to a standstill.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 13:34

Potato Salad: Oct 23, 2014; nobody cares

^ happens with powershell too all the time, where people pipe and pipe and pipe and braces braces pipe then nest expression nest expression then inline if() else()

guys

there's plenty of free space, you can break that monster "I did it one line, oops I can't remember how this works" strike of bragging-rights genius into several lines and make something that's readable and thus actual modifiable

# ? Oct 9, 2022 14:38

Internet Explorer: Jun 1, 2005

Breetai posted:

"Know enough about" not "Proficient".

"Dear L1 support. Whycome my code take long? Please see below for example."
code:
Select
blah blah blah
inner join (Select blah blah blah inner join
				(Select blah blah blah inner join
						(Select blah blah blah
							WHERE blah is in blah
							WHERE blah is in blah)));

How do you expect people who are not proficient in writing code to be able to help the people actually writing the code?

I can't say I'm surprised that you're not getting the candidates you're looking for.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 16:52

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

Also I can't imagine the hosed up company dynamics that lead to "my code is bad" to be a help desk issue.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 17:00

teethgrinder: Oct 9, 2002

So that's why all these helpdesk applicants list all their code skills on their resumes...

# ? Oct 9, 2022 17:01

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

Maybe some hiring manager has got it in their head that the helpdesk on a software company should also know how to code, and are wondering why they can never fill positions.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 17:02

Weedle: May 31, 2006

Breetai posted:

"Know enough about" not "Proficient".

"Dear L1 support. Whycome my code take long? Please see below for example."
code:
Select
blah blah blah
inner join (Select blah blah blah inner join
				(Select blah blah blah inner join
						(Select blah blah blah
							WHERE blah is in blah
							WHERE blah is in blah)));

this is crazy. no helpdesk position i have ever worked in my life expected any familiarity with coding. this would be one of the most bizarre tickets i have ever received

# ? Oct 9, 2022 17:39

Erwin: Feb 17, 2006

Imagine having the skill to write code but only ever being allowed to fix other people�s poo poo. Help desk sucks enough already, why do that to them?

# ? Oct 9, 2022 17:56

Gatac: Apr 22, 2008; Fifty Cent's next biopic.

Delurking to say that even on my dev team where our "support" is actually also used as junior devs for database topics, we're not giving them this kind of stuff to solve. Insofar as the users may have performance issues, our support guys are the frontline and may investigate before passing the serious stuff to others, but if your developers are posting this to support, you need to get better developers. Either database side to know how to write well-performing queries and devise strategies to speed up common reports even in an OLTP environment, or app side to know that it's not their job to write complex SQL queries and instead ask the database guys to provide them with an API to pull the data. (Notwithstanding the issue that the app even has access to all those database objects, but that's a different rant.)

# ? Oct 9, 2022 18:00

ConfusedUs: Feb 24, 2004; Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!

A few years back our company released a public API and product management tried to say customer support (as in $12/hour phone monkeys) should be willing and able to help customers write and troubleshoot whatever code customers wrote to leverage the API.

I had to literally put together a budget proposal for upskilling our entire support org with coding basics and hiring a half dozen pseudo developers as SMEs in order to squash it. They saw the increased costs and backed down, as it was more than their projected revenue.

I can�t wait to get out of this company. It�s only gotten worse since our last acquisition and I have less power to stop lunacy than ever.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 18:40

tactlessbastard: Feb 4, 2001; Godspeed, post; Fun Shoe

I just wish our help desk understood time zones

# ? Oct 9, 2022 18:52

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

ConfusedUs posted:

I had to literally put together a budget proposal for upskilling our entire support org with coding basics and hiring a half dozen pseudo developers as SMEs in order to squash it. They saw the increased costs and backed down, as it was more than their projected revenue.

This is the absolute best way to handle these sorts of requests. Like the enthusiasm equivalent of malicious compliance.

# ? Oct 9, 2022 19:36

ConfusedUs: Feb 24, 2004; Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!

Thanks Ants posted:

This is the absolute best way to handle these sorts of requests. Like the enthusiasm equivalent of malicious compliance.

One of my favorite accomplishments was requesting a feature and getting lip service. The feature was a request to automate a very manual, time-consuming, and potentially destructive workflow that was costing us something like 200k per year just in man hours just for support. It required a touch by Operations also, but I didn�t have access to their costs.

Anyway I got lip service for like 18 months about them working on it.

One day I got bored. I made a simple report that multiplied the number of support cases related to this feature by the cost of each case. I started from the first day I made the request up to current.

Then I piped that into a web page and took it to my boss and his boss. The number was like $300k. I said �can I put this report into the rotation [that cycled across monitors all over the office]?�

They said yes.

Then I went to the product manager who was stringing me along. I said �this goes into the rotation on Monday, with approval from [director] and [vice president].

On Friday I got an email copied to my two bosses with official commitment to begin development as soon as the current release was done.

Three months later it was released to great joy.

ConfusedUs fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Oct 10, 2022

# ? Oct 10, 2022 02:45

SSJ_naruto_2003: Oct 12, 2012

ConfusedUs posted:

One of my favorite accomplishments was requesting a feature and getting lip service. The feature was a request to automate a very manual, time-consuming, and potentially destructive workflow that was costing us something like 200k per year just in man hours just for support. It required a touch by Operations also, but I didn’t have access to their costs.

Anyway I got lip service for like 18 months about them working on it.

One day I got bored. I made a simple report that multiplied the number of support cases related to this feature by the cost of each case. I started from the first day I made the request up to current.

Then I piped that into a web page and took it to my boss and his boss. The number was like $300k. I said “can I put this report into the rotation [that cycled across monitors all over the office]?”

They said yes.

Then I went to the product manager who was stringing me along. I said “this goes into the rotation on Monday, with approval from [director] and [vice president].

On Friday I got an email copied to my two bosses with official commitment to begin development as soon as the current release was done.

Three months later it was released to great joy.

Are you an exec or are you automating away these jobs that paid people to do some poo poo lol

# ? Oct 10, 2022 03:54

ConfusedUs: Feb 24, 2004; Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!

SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:

Are you an exec or are you automating away these jobs that paid people to do some poo poo lol

Nah, company growth meant support grew even with the efforts of me and my team.

It just generally meant they didn�t have to do the same god drat rote task over and over and over.

# ? Oct 10, 2022 04:29

evobatman: Jul 30, 2006; it means nothing, but says everything!; Pillbug

I've sat through tons of aptitude tests and personality tests and scientology tests and big five and whatever poo poo in job interviews. It's just white noise in the interview process, and after HR has gotten their box checked in the interview process, I have never heard a single one of these tests ever mentioned again.

# ? Oct 10, 2022 08:09

joebuddah: Jan 30, 2005

I'm truly shocked I have to explain to people that,
work in a lab that having their data tracking program ignore zero values, causes our process and data integrity to be put into question.

All they have to do is remove the points they are not measured and problem solved.

I'm not going to compromise our data integrity because it will cause the lab to do a minute of extra work

# ? Oct 10, 2022 13:08

Gatac: Apr 22, 2008; Fifty Cent's next biopic.

0 or NULL values? Be sure to have a pedantic discussion about the meaning of NULL (Irrelevant to this case? Not measured? Input outside of permissible range?) with the stakeholders, they love that. Then get all validation stuff nailed down up front and protect your table with either a shitton of constraints or only allowing insertion through a table API that validates the data according to those rules. Better to have bad data fail right away on Insertion than have it gently caress up your processes down the line.

# ? Oct 10, 2022 14:11

Devor: Nov 30, 2004; Lurking more.

SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:

Are you an exec or are you automating away these jobs that paid people to do some poo poo lol

Luddite vibes real strong

.bat files are taking food out of the mouths of children, you monsters

# ? Oct 10, 2022 14:23

SSJ_naruto_2003: Oct 12, 2012

Devor posted:

Luddite vibes real strong

.bat files are taking food out of the mouths of children, you monsters

They actually mentioned how many man hours it was in their post, it's not some abstract thing

# ? Oct 11, 2022 04:27

i am a moron: Nov 12, 2020; "I think if there’s one thing we can all agree on it’s that Penn State and Michigan both suck and are garbage and it’s hilarious Michigan fans are freaking out thinking this is their natty window when they can’t even beat a B12 team in the playoffs lmao"

Most teams like that don�t have enough hours in the day though

# ? Oct 11, 2022 05:21

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# ? May 10, 2024 00:02

Breetai: Nov 6, 2005; 🥄Mah spoon is too big!🍌

Whoever decided that Agile should be applied to general project management and handling of BAU functions can suck the rancid farts directly out of my arsehole.

# ? Oct 11, 2022 08:32

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > More shit that pisses you off: What does that say about the quality of your emails?

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