The Water Cooler

enderland

12:35 AM

@bilbo_pingouin I suspect folks who actively post on SE have higher than average IQ than normal?

@allquicatic how much are you underpaid by? knowing the environment you are in is worth a lot as you correctly identify

@RoryAlsop yeah, no tactic is really going to solve a fundamental problem of laziness :P

enderland

12:54 AM

@JoeStrazzere Sometimes I'm really glad that you can downvote without tracibility, it makes it nice to just "ugh, DV" and walk away

Aaron Hall

2:09 AM

@bilbo_pingouin assuming the mean is the median. If it's not, then it's only close to half.

Masked Man

4:25 AM

@bilbo_pingouin That would be the median, not average. It is not necessary that the average divides the sample into two equal halves.

Magisch

6:19 AM

I posted something on TWP meta (specifically also interested for your input @enderland) : meta.workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/3891/…

Stack Exchange

6:54 AM

1

Q: Importance of flagging spam instead of editing it out or voting to close

The Workplace gets a fair amount of spam every day. According to this listing there are at least 2-3 spam posts on here every day. In general, the way to deal with spammers is to flag and destroy their posts as spam - this imposes automatic IP blocks as well as large heuristic biases for the ba...

Masked Man

7:05 AM

@StackExchange I always thought it was understood, especially by the long time users, that spam posts should be flagged or deleted. I find it hard to imagine why someone would edit a spam to try to "improve" it.

By the way, I kinda love spam posts. It is the only way left for me to increase my "flagged posts" count. I believe there's a badge for that. Before I got to the "Close" privilege, I could flag off-topic questions, but not any more. ;)

Magisch

@MaskedMan There is a room where a bot reports most network-wide spam in real time, and the regulars of the room then go and flag it

Stack Exchange

0

Q: First question is closed, how can I salvage or improve to get better answers?

So I just asked my first question here on Workplace, which by the way I specifically mentioned on the question body. It turns out the majority of the people who saw the question resorted to giving or upvoting snarky comments or outright voting to close. Apparently one person decided to downvote t...

discussion closed-questions

Lilienthal

8:15 AM

-2

Q: Sick Leave Rejection (Australia)

I haven't used even half of my sick leave allowance for the year. My manager knew I wasn't sick and had some commitments for that particular day (a Tuesday not falling after or behind a public holiday). After I handed a sick leave form, my manager asked me to change the entry to be an annual leav...

australia leave

Is it worth butchering this question to just focus on the question "Can I take sick leave in Australia if I'm not sick?". It's a basic question but we've got plenty of those and while the answer isn't that hard to search it may be useful to have as a reference question.

The original version of the question has a lot of problems though and I'm not sure OP will agree to cut it all out.

Magisch

Hey lilien

I'd appreciate your feedback on my meta post as well :3

Lilienthal

Hey @Magisch. Doesn't seem to need any more feedback. The answer links to a similar thread on meta describing what to do.

But good of you to raise it, I hadn't seen anyone do this yet.

Magisch

TWP gets surprisingly little spam in comparison to other sites, though

Lilienthal

Eh, maybe. We get several a day still I think, though I don't keep track.

They don't tend to stay around for more than half an hour.

Magisch

Most of them go through smoke detector @Lilienthal

Lilienthal

8:29 AM

Makes sense.

Zak

11:49 AM

@allquicatic Personal Advice: Go looking for a new job, find out what's out there, *then* you can make a decision as to whether you want to stay where you are or not. Until then, any advice is purely hypothetical and therefore useless to your particular situation.

Richard U

12:29 PM

@Magisch sometimes something is so good, commentary is unecessary

I am amazed at some of my answers that get high ratings..

enderland

1:31 PM

@Magisch it gets a fair bit but they get nuked nearly immediately :P

David K

@allquicatic You're right that it wouldn't amount to a good SE questions, since we don't do "should I stay or go" questions. However, I would say that if you are happy and satisfied at your job and you see yourself staying that way for the foreseeable future, then there's no reason for you to leave.

If you are worried about your career potential, that could be a worthwhile conversation to have with your boss. Saying you are completely happy where you are now, but want to make sure you are working together to make sure a path is set for you in the future. Asking how to approach a conversation like that would make a good question here, though it may exist already.

enderland

man homepage is a warzone today

Richard U

1:51 PM

@enderland you are not kidding!

Zak

@enderland Defintely not kidding. I count only 3 questions >1 upvote, out of 20 in the last 24 hours.

Richard U

-5

Q: Did a complex test task for a month, but rejected due to insufficient experience, with a test task haven't even been taken a single look

Recently I applied to a job of some respected Russia's Internet company, one from the Top 10. The job opportunity is posted on a website (it still is) and is only available for those who managed to complete a practical and a theoretical test tasks, that is applicants have absolutely no way to app...

job-search hiring-process recruitment ethics applications

More free work from unsuspecting job hunters.

How common is this getting?

I have a friend who figured out that's what they were trying to pull on an interview, and he politely told them if they wanted more, they could hire him. This was for a MAJOR financial firm, as in household name.

@Zak, I think for the first time, I may exhaust my close votes for a day

David K

2:25 PM

@RichardU I don't think this is a case of companies getting free work out of candidates. I think the candidate did way more than was asked of them and spent too much time doing it.

Christopher Estep

I'm so cynical these days I'll do conceptual whiteboards and that's about it. I'll provide a program that does certain requested tasks as well, but I refuse to do "write this program right now on this environment while we wait and/or watch" tests.

Fortunately, I've never had anyone ask anything that might be actual work for them.

as a candidate.

Masked Man

@DavidK Totally reminds me of this:

Christopher Estep

I had once company want me to log into remote desktop and when I did so, there was an app that was doing screencaps every few seconds. I logged off and told the company no thanks.

Masked Man

I always thought the "help I accidentally build a shelf" was an out and out troll, but this candidate makes me realize I could be wrong.

Christopher Estep

I don't get it.

Masked Man

2:32 PM

"Help, I accidentally spent 1 month on an interview question to build a web service, and got rejected. Now what do I do?"

Long ago, someone had asked a question on Yahoo! Answers, "help i accidentally build a shelf when I wanted to build something else. now what do I do to fix it?"

and that became a meme of sorts leading to images like the above. This candidate reminded me of that.

Masked Man

2:44 PM

That aside, I feel somewhat sorry for the candidate. He seems to be applying to a somewhat senior role, but is lacking one of the most requirements. I cannot imagine anyone with more than 2 years of industry experience working overtime 5 days a week for a month on an interview exercise.

That aside, he ended up developing something different from what was asked thinking that the more complex stuff I show off, the better chances I have of getting an interview call.

Say, would any of you hire me if you asked me the Fizzbuzz program, and I ended up writing an Operating System in response?

Zak

@MaskedMan Depends what I was hiring for. Probably *not* for whatever the original position was.

Masked Man

@Zak I would reject the candidate right away though. Such people are very hard to work with. You ask them to do something, they decide that you are talking nonsense and end up doing whatever they want.

Christopher Estep

It's funny. My patience at my age is nonexistent. Prospective employers try games with me, I'm gone. I have no tolerance for BS and so many interviews are just that.

Masked Man

I have had the "pleasure" of working with one such person once upon a time. He was interviewed by some other team's manager due to some stupid HR policy, but I ended up being his "technical lead". He would never do what was asked of him because "he had something better to work on".

Zak

3:02 PM

@MaskedMan Put it this way, I would only hire them under the specific circumstance that they were A) Brilliant and B) the organisation was large enough that C) it would make business sense to hire a full-time handler to direct their attention onto some insanely technical, important part of the business.

enderland

3:30 PM

I don't understand how someone accidentally spends 100 hours of work on a project for an interview

Masked Man

@enderland Strictly speaking, it was not an interview project, because they hadn't invited him to the interview yet. He got the question from their website, and overtimed his a** off. If he were a fresh college grad, I would still understand it, but if he is a senior, that is way beyond stupid territory.

enderland

I sometimes wonder about the senior folk who ask questions here

wisdom is part of what makes you a senior (and not a repeat junior)

Masked Man

I wonder though, if he were working 5 days a week from morning till late night, that would mean he either is out of a day job, or is slacking off on his day job. If it is the latter, it is not even beyond stupid territory, it is on another planet, or even another timeline I suppose. :o

enderland

I consider myself pretty blessed to not be cursed with obliviousness to common sense in most regards

Masked Man

One of the "benefits" of working here in India is that I get to see such "seniors" all the time in real life. Recently my team's project manager made an announcement, "upper management has asked us to close 40 issues by end of today".

Now our team has 10 members, and it usually takes about 3 days just to perform the various release checks and code reviews, not to mention it takes about a week to analyze and implement the feature.

So I couldn't resist blurting out right then in the team meeting, "How do you suggest we go about that?" Until I asked this question, it did not even occur to he…

enderland

3:46 PM

@MaskedMan isn't that sort of a cultural thing though? I don't think anyone ever gave any push back on any request from our india teams, no matter how insane the requests were

Masked Man

@enderland Not really, it is more of a stereotype than a cultural thing. Most of my career, I have worked with managers who push back hard, often leading to what I like to call an inverse tug-of-war.

enderland

@MaskedMan I guess there probably was a difference between internal and external too

I only ever worked as a "customer/client" in the relationship

Masked Man

@enderland I have seen both types of managers in those cases too. There were managers who were too "feeble" and wouldn't push back on anything no matter what the client said. But there were also some who could respond with "sorry, no can do". That often led to the client relying on the manager to make the estimates for them.

But rather disappointingly, such assertive managers are not easy to find here. I often end up being some sort of a "cultural misfit" in my own country, because I am one of those assertive "no can do" types.

Ironically, I am more comfortable working with Germans and Americans than with Indians. :P

enderland

none of the folks we worked with ever really pushed back, with rare exception at least

Masked Man

4:02 PM

Just hope that you won't work with me some day, all you will get is pushbacks, and no work will ever get done. ;)

enderland

lol

I'm fairly ok dealing exclusively with same timezone now :P

Christopher Estep

woah! my review doesn't have a number next to it. That hasn't happened since I got mod tools.

enderland

@ChristopherEstep try being a moderator. I see all the review items and can't really go through them and make them lower :( haha

since as a mod my votes being binding makes it harder to have a community review...

Richard U

4:24 PM

I've seen so much dirty pool in my career, I'm inclined to buy a hazmat suit for work.

Masked Man

5:04 PM

At this moment, out of the first 50 questions on the front page, 32 are on hold/duplicate and 18 are open. Not too bad, eh?

Of the first 20, only 5 are open, and of first 30, only 9 are open.

Which reminds me of:

3

Q: "Collapse" on-hold, duplicate and closed questions?

This problem has been discussed before here (High volume of questions being put On Hold or Closed - is that a problem?) and again here (Many Q's downvoted and closed?), so I won't go into that discussion again. I was wondering if we could "collapse" these questions, with the user having the opt...

feature-request

Christopher Estep

I like it. IMHO, the only on-hold q's that shouldn't be hidden are those with positive answers anyway.

Richard U

5:22 PM

It didn't take long for this one to go down, I'm surprised I beat gnat to the first VTC though....

-3

Q: Can I ask my friend to refer me to her company? After I recently missed out on an opportunity?

Just an FYI - the friend I am referring to is my previous colleague/indirect manager; who is higher up in the same job function I am currently going to school for. I work full time and go to school part time. One day a friend told me about a job posting she thought would be great for me. (I was...

career-development

Christopher Estep

it wasn't a dupe, that's why. :)

Then you'd have to fight him and Chad both.

Richard U

@enderland I remember my brief stint as a project manager.... 5:00, wake up, 5:30 call India, 6:00 walk to train station. 7:15, get on phone to UK. 11:00, get on phone to Japan.... continue until 9pm... sleep

@ChristopherEstep the definition of "duplicate" here is.... different

enderland

@RichardU yeah, I had a lot of 7/8am meetings in my last job

though our india team worked something like 1pm-10pm CST or so which meant we had some overlap

Christopher Estep

7:22 PM

I just don't even know what to say about this one.

0

Q: Conflict brainwashed

i'm working in a company from 9 months. during this periodo i lived in a hell. My manager always talked badly about my collegues with me. he told me that he wanted protect me from them.I thought I wanted to defend, but then I realized it was not so. He tried to make me brainwashed. If I initially...

team

Richard U

7:32 PM

@ChristopherEstep Cue "Twilight Zone" music

Christopher Estep

I started to edit it the typos and after the second sentence I realized I wasn't going to spend 10 minutes editing typos out of a question that would be closed 5 minutes after I was done.

Richard U

8:02 PM

How is it that it is still open?

Richard U

8:44 PM

Can we get this one put out of it's misery?

-5

Q: Conflict brainwashed

i'm working in a company from 9 months. during this periodo i lived in a hell. My manager always talked badly about my collegues with me. he told me that he wanted protect me from them.I thought I wanted to defend, but then I realized it was not so. He tried to make me brainwashed. If I initially...

team

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