Career Advice

Via Reddit – couldn’t resist link jacking. 🙂

I used to do interviews for hiring students from campus. One question I often tried to ask folks from branches that don’t involve programing is “Now that you have chosen to go into a programing career, how did you arrive at this decision? What did you do to prepare yourselves for it?”. Very few students I have interviewed have given a convincing answer to that question – I have got the impression that many people choose the programing career because everyone else is doing it.

I wish they had the above image as the cover of some text book.

Dealing with Overseas Employers 101

Yakov Fain writes about a presentation he heard titled “Dealing with Overseas Employers 101”.

1. America is rich, we are poor. It’s not fair, they have to share.
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3. One of your major problems will be “what to write in status reports”. Never write “I could not do it ” there. Americans like positive statements. For example, let’s say you’ve got an assignment to create a reusable component that will identify the number of failed database requests. You do not even have a clue what are they asking for.
The first week you spend on Google in hopeless attempts to find such component. The status report for the first week should read “Comparing various approaches of creating reusable db-failures component to find the most efficient and effective way for its development”. During the second week invent something similar. Hopefully, on the third week something more urgent will come up and you’ll get another assignment.
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6. In conversations with your overseas teammates, always require detailed written specifications for each small program modification. Ignore their statements “I’d fix it myself faster than writing detailed specs for you”. They have no choice and must work with you to show that your team is useful.
7. Use time difference to your advantage. For example, if you want to send an email asking for some clarifications, do not send it in the moring, because you may get an immediate answer. Do it in the evening (your time zone), before leaving the office – you’ll get the answer only next day.
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11. Change your local employer every three months. You are gaining experience daily, and even if the new job offers just one percent of salary increase, go there. It’s a golden IT offshoring era – use it while it lasts! Or as they say, it’s time to make a quick buck!

Its funny. I really hope its a joke; its very scary otherwise.

Math, according to Verizon

Verizon quotes a guy 0.002 cents per KB, and goes ahead and charges 0.002 dollars per KB. The customer service reps at Verizon seem to be unable to distinguish the difference between 0.002 cents and 0.002 dollars. Listen to it yourself; its really funny. Via Slashdot.

Update: Verizon seems to have given out a 100% refund.