Random Thoughts - Part Deux [NO POLITICS]

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by hpanju

Exams in about a week. Still got time to prepare but I also have Calculus, Chemistry and my Web Programming courses tonight study for as well. Really hoping to do well cause the dream is to one day work in San Fran. Job market in Toronto isn’t as great as I would like and the stories I hear of people working in Silicon Valley are awesome.

Live that dream!

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by spike021

Speaking of computer science, or, more generally, working as a software engineer: fuck the interview situation in this industry.

I have found over the years that most managers that I have known, make lousy interviewers.

Too bad you ran into one -


humfrz

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by Sapphireho

Something totally cool happened today. I was going out to run errands and there was a group of people walking by. It was a couple of the kids (and spouses) of the parents that built my house. They gave me lots of information about my house including original walls in my garage. They said their parents probably still have the original plans, and if so will bring them too me, and told me who the builder was. The builder is still here.

They say it is an exact duplicate of another house a couple miles away. They built 2 with these plans.

Cool.

Did someone remove them? -

No problem unless the snow builds up on the roof -




humfrz

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by ScoobsMcGee

Fun story about that. About February of this year I went to the doctor due to some issues I was having. They put me on a prescription and an OTC drug, which had some side effects that I reacted poorly to. So they put me on another prescription and another OTC med for that, which caused more side effects. Another OTC med and 400mg of magnesium per day for that, and yet my back still hurt so badly I could barely walk. So they sent me to physical therapy.

About two months ago I got fed up taking 5 pills and two vitamins per day from just one multivitamin 6 months prior, and went to see another doctor. He looked at what I was taking, said "What the fuck, you're only 37," and worked me off everything. Replacing it with just one OTC med. I've been getting steadily better ever since.

Still really do like sleeping, though.

Yep, one good OTC med is all you need -


humfrz

[spike021]

Originally Posted by humfrz

I have found over the years that most managers that I have known, make lousy interviewers.

Too bad you ran into one -


humfrz

Sadly this time it wasn’t a manager. Just another engineer who’d be my peer if I did wind up working there.

Interviews in this industry are just part of a larger, broken system. I’m not sure there’s an easy way to fix it. Many people have had a plethora of discussions on it with no widely acceptable solution.

I think part of the problem is actually rather simple. It lies in the subjectivity of the testing environment that people and companies put their candidates into. Usually questions and problems are left up to individual interviewers to decide on - with only a basic list of bullet points of the areas to focus on.

That means there’s never any real baseline. And because of that, X, Y, and Z people might think some question they ask is “easy” when realistically, their notion of something being “easy” can differ wildly from someone else’s. And not only that, but in the interview setting it can be even more complex.

It’s easy for an interviewer to spend a couple hours on one day deciding a problem and trying it themselves to know if they think it’s right for an interview candidate to attempt to solve during an interview.

But then once the candidate is asked said question, they have typically 45 minutes in which to answer it. And at the same time, they’re expected in many cases to yield multiple answers. A first pass answer that is inefficient but still provides correct results, and then a more efficient second answer that could be either a modified version of the first answer’s algorithm or a completely different one. And while this is all happening, rather than the candidate have space to think it through on their own, they have to relate it to the interviewer who they’ve likely never met before.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of things in there are incredibly useful on the job. Being personable, being able to communicate and ask questions for clarification, etc.

But doing this in an interview environment for a software engineering job can just be such a disaster if the candidate just doesn’t do well in that environment.

So a common thing these days is that people who would likely do just fine in the day to day of the job they’re interviewing for get rejected for trivial, subjective reasons and then there are those who are great at rote memorization and pressurized testing who ace the interview but wind up not being good enough at the actual job once they’re hired.

But the current tech software industry has decided these forms of false negatives and false positives are worth the risk because there’s “no better way.”

Anywho that turned into a bit of a late night rant. Sorry hehe.

[Sapphireho]

Originally Posted by ScoobsMcGee

So you're saying your new house has an available parts car... er house?

Yes. Need to find.

[Sapphireho]

Originally Posted by humfrz

Did someone remove them? -

No problem unless the snow builds up on the roof -




humfrz

No, they added more walls. They built a pool room for the kids to hang out in by dividing the single garage. I'm going to be taking that wall out this winter.

And just as I thought, my secret tv room upstairs was originally all attic. Second owner did that. We are 4th owners since it was built in 1988.

Also found out my POS hot tub is from 1988. Amazing it still works at all.

[Sapphireho]

Had a bad truck day yesterday. The wife and I went shopping for our thanksgiving goodies and truck #2 was making funny noises. Sounds like one of the belt driven accessories is starting to having bearing problems or something. Crap.

So later in the day I take truck #1 out, get to Home depot and the check engine light comes on. Code 420. Ok, that's cool. I don't have a smog check for 2 more years. I'll deal with that one later. Cleared code. Hopefully just a hiccup.

[DarkPira7e]

Alarm went off this morning. I had no idea why, so I dismissed it and went back to sleep. Woke up at 6:10. Thought to myself "huh, the sun is coming up"

I showed up to work 40 minutes later with mismatched socks, no coffee, and full bed head. For some reason, I thought it was a day off. Maybe my mind is trying to tell me something?

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by DarkPira7e

Alarm went off this morning. I had no idea why, so I dismissed it and went back to sleep. Woke up at 6:10. Thought to myself "huh, the sun is coming up"

I showed up to work 40 minutes later with mismatched socks, no coffee, and full bed head. For some reason, I thought it was a day off. Maybe my mind is trying to tell me something?

I have never done that but the reverse has happened a couple of times.
Clock doesn't go off.
I wake up in a panic since I have 20 minutes to get to work.
Leap out of bed throw on whatever clothes are nearby and dash out the door.
Drive like a maniac to get to work luckily the traffic is abnormally light.
Pull into an empty parking lot and wonder what the hell is going on.
It is Sunday.

[Will BRZ]

Originally Posted by DarkPira7e

Alarm went off this morning. I had no idea why, so I dismissed it and went back to sleep. Woke up at 6:10. Thought to myself "huh, the sun is coming up"

I showed up to work 40 minutes later with mismatched socks, no coffee, and full bed head. For some reason, I thought it was a day off. Maybe my mind is trying to tell me something?

I will never panic more or move quicker than when I wake up late for work. Should be an Olympic sport really.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Will BRZ

I will never panic more or move quicker than when I wake up late for work. Should be an Olympic sport really.

Would performance enhancing drugs be OK?

[DarkPira7e]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

I have never done that but the reverse has happened a couple of times.
Clock doesn't go off.
I wake up in a panic since I have 20 minutes to get to work.
Leap out of bed throw on whatever clothes are nearby and dash out the door.
Drive like a maniac to get to work luckily the traffic is abnormally light.
Pull into an empty parking lot and wonder what the hell is going on.
It is Sunday.

I'm on a huge electronic health record conversion/merger between several hospitals, sometimes my shift is 7-5, some days it's midnight to noon, some days I've been on-call. I drove to work the other day for a midnight shift and then noticed it had changed and I didn't need to be there (after getting my laptop docked and booted). It's almost the best feeling to show up and not be scheduled, but you feel mighty silly

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by DarkPira7e

I'm on a huge electronic health record conversion/merger between several hospitals, sometimes my shift is 7-5, some days it's midnight to noon, some days I've been on-call. I drove to work the other day for a midnight shift and then noticed it had changed and I didn't need to be there (after getting my laptop docked and booted). It's almost the best feeling to show up and not be scheduled, but you feel mighty silly

LOL
The one time I did it was about 25 years ago when I was just starting down my carrier path. I knew the security guard saw me pull in and since I didn't want to look like a fool I signed in and went straight to my office to "finish something up". Once I got to the office I figured I was now trapped for an hour or so and decided to finish up a project while I had no interruptions. Took me a little over an hour and then I left.
Monday the boss comes in and asks why I was there on a Sunday. Told him I just wanted to get things wrapped up and had some time to kill. He was very impressed and for my "dedication" I got a really good review that year.