👨‍👨‍👦‍👦 👨🏿‍🤝‍👨🏻 📪 Puddle interview 😛 ✍🏽 🐜

So, we collect the stories of the most bizarre interviews, hires and companies where you have been. I was usually lucky somehow, I didn’t see very large deviations from the norm. Well, there was a polygraph, I had to send an interviewer, once even arranged a reverse interview - the IT head, having recognized my salary in the current place, wanted to work for me, even a simple programmer.

But the most outstanding case occurred a few years ago, when there were so many impressions of the first day of work that by the evening I had slept with a high temperature, despite the fine May weather outside.

So, for political reasons (they offended me, what is already there), I quit my job as the head of the IT agricultural holding (chicken, pigs, sausage, barbecue, etc.). A similar employer responded to the resume - they also make sausages and raise pigs, only without chicken. It seems that everything is one to one. In addition, a friend worked at this enterprise. I tinkled at him, found out - he answered rather succinctly that everything was fine, work as work.

First interview

The first interview consisted of two phases, nothing unusual. At first, a nice HR-girl (just like she was written out of the catalog) sat and pretended to be interested in the difficulties of finding out the cost structure of multiple production processes in order to determine the change in the share of electricity in the cost of selling sausages.

Then the head of the IT factory almost did not listen and did not ask. He found out where I worked, was delighted, and said - I take you. OK. I went, quit, and drove to their village.

First call

Well, the fact that before work sawing an hour on the highway is a familiar thing. Pig farms are not being built within the city limits, the smell is unbreakable, especially if there is also a smoking shop on the territory.

The division of the amount of income into black and white was a bit annoying - the official salary was only 12 tr. At the first interview, we discussed only the full income, they were not the same years in the yard to get so small - it never occurred to me to ask about this in advance.

Okay, I thought, we’ll survive, I was already a happy owner of a mortgage.

Bulging eyes

Then the IT chief led me to the director. Oh, it's a Character. I have never seen such, either before or after.

Usually directors are quite adequate people. Yes, companies have a “mission,” “values,” “strategy,” and “goals.” And relate to them ... In general, "relate."

And this - just like a chain broke. We, said, gathered here in order to supply the whole country with sausage. And does not smile. This, says our mission. And again she does not smile. Only bulging eyes, as if trying to convince me with all my heart.

Then he drove in general. Based on, he says, from our high mission (well, the country is waiting for sausages), any employee should forget about his personal life. I’ll try to quote ... “Even if you are a drunk, even with a prostitute, even if you are naked in the bathhouse, you always have a telephone with you, and on the first call, you drop everything and arrive to repair it.” Yes, it was necessary to physically fly in - the udalenka was forbidden. More precisely, it had to be earned, and not before IT, but before the security service.

Okay, I thought, I’m unlikely to see this guy. Let him continue to supply the country with sausage, but I will go programming.

Business user

The only business user that I and the chief of IT managed to visit is the chief accountant. An interesting lady, took out a cigarette, lit a cigarette, and began to talk about the difficulties of calculating cost. The head of IT also lit a cigarette and, for some reason, began to divert the conversation towards the taste characteristics of sausages.

He quickly succeeded, and the lady happily forgot about the calculation of cost. I decided not to participate in their smoke break, and for a while I was silent. But, because at that moment he was fond of calculating the cost of production of the dead from the living, he still returned to this topic.

The conversation turned out to be strange. The chief accountant says that it is difficult. Mention some difficulties. The IT chief assented her wholeheartedly. I say that everything is simple - well, I’m not just scratching it; I literally a week ago solved exactly the same problem in a similar, only more complex enterprise.

The chief accountant listens to me, and glances at the chief of IT. He is a little embarrassed, and says that, already working here, he ate the sausage of another factory, for which he is still a little ashamed. And without letting me finish, he says “well, we have to go!”, Takes me by the arm and takes me out of the office.

Excursion

Deciding, apparently, to get rid of me so far, the IT director sends me on a tour of the enterprise, accompanied by a programmer - the same one, my friend.

At first, nothing remarkable happens. We go, we look. I remembered only the car, pumping liquid into the meat. They used to tell me that this is to increase the weight of a product for nothing. Then I heard the version that this is for a better salting.

Gradually, I begin to notice a huge number of weights, all kinds of brands and sizes. The rooms (namely the rooms, not the workshops) in the production are small, and for each, at least, a pair of scales - at the entrance and exit.

I ask - why so many, and why at the door, and not at the equipment. He says this is called controlling. They take out products from the room - weigh them, record them. We crossed the threshold - again on the scales, weighed, recorded.

And what, I say, do it if the weight is different? I don’t know, the programmer says.

Then, for some reason, he brought me to the slaughterhouse. Actually, I come from a village, and I saw how they get meat. But he has never been to an industrial slaughter. And I will not. And still I don’t understand why he brought me there. Why did I need to see a huge, amazingly clean room, a lone pig and a pool of blood.

Further excursion - like in a fog.

My tasks

After the tour, the IT chief was already waiting for me. Judging by the look, he got a little cold, invited me to his office to discuss the tasks that he wants to entrust me with.

I took this opportunity to ask if there were so many weights. His eyes flashed immediately, and he proudly said that the company is very fond of "controlling". True, their understanding of controlling is different from what is accepted around the world. Their controlling is to constantly weigh everything.

Not only are there scales everywhere - there is still a “Controlling Department”, about 40 (!) Girls who are only engaged in running and “controlling” the weighing. Those. workers, movers, drivers weigh, and girls check them. No, they control - they are not the verification department, but the controlling department. Without this, a country cannot be provided with sausage. It’s good that there are more weights than girls.

Moved to the tasks. I look forward in joyful expectation that they will entrust me with a difficult and interesting task - costing. But it was not there.

Remember, I asked the programmer what would happen if the readings of the scales diverged? This problem was given to me by the head of IT. He says sometimes the scales diverge. And what to do, no one knows. And I need to figure out what to do about it.

Being a measuring engineer by training, I began to tell that this is not a task of automation, but metrology and stat. analysis, because comparing the results of different measuring instruments with different errors does not require automation - you just need to formulate simple rules, or make a plate of permissible deviations for each pair of scales. Or, if you look a little higher, rearrange the scales in places so that the same models stand nearby. Or, if you completely step aside, then fuck so much weighed?

Then he was directly upset - apparently, for a quick touch. The lively thing was that this IT department was implementing the project. In terms of weights, I bought them and set them up everywhere. Instead of calculating the cost. And now these scales and, most importantly, the problems of their operation are the bread of the IT department.

No, I say, litter, but I do not want to deal with such nonsense. I say, dude, a week ago I was in a position similar to yours, only in a company of a larger size, turnover and profitability. It is necessary to do real things, and not to accompany someone’s sick imagination (didn’t the IT department come up with the idea of putting scales everywhere?).

He was even more offended. He began to suspect that I was trying to get into his place on the very first day. I explain: you are this, they will soon come to you for the cost price and normal consideration, you will not put in kilograms instead of rubles from your scales.

Well, he freaked out even, started asking where I got the crown on my head. I think - but why, after a hefty puddle of blood, there’s nothing to lose anymore, and somehow kind of honestly told him that he was an ordinary half-fool who thinks he has saddled a topic and will sit on it all his life. And life is a little more complicated, it is necessary to outstrip demand. And your customers are not just guys with bulging eyes. And those with bulging eyes are just hired personnel who will change tomorrow, and a sane guy will come and ask for numbers. Or maybe ask where the numbers are.

Just in case, he told how the director loved numbers from his previous work. And I judged the work of the IT department only by the timely receipt of numbers and the work of Wi-Fi (by the way, I got burnt on Wi-Fi).

The IT director was very upset, and said that he would think. And I went to work.

The wonders of development

I came, sat down, I think - I’ll take a look at what they have here. I ask - let the food look. Code, metadata, improvements, data, reports. Well, understand what they are using, how, in what condition the accounting is.

They say it’s impossible. I don’t understand, I ask again - what is impossible? In the food, they say, it’s impossible. Forbidden by the security service. Programmers are prohibited in the prod.

OK, I smile and ask - what about a copy? Pf, and you can’t copy it. And there is no copy. It is impossible. Prohibited.

Damn, I say, and where is your base for testing development? Let with not very relevant data, a month ago there, but at least one year old. No. It is impossible. Prohibited.

And how to work? And so. Create a local database for yourself. From the source, but without data. And drive the data yourself sit - the nomenclature there, units, issues, arrivals, prices, etc. You will test on this data.

Then I stopped wondering how Alice was in the Looking Glass. Just for fun, I asked how they reproduce errors - well, when a user does something in a specific context, and he has an error. Well, and reproduce, they say. According to the verbal description. Context. And then a mistake. If you're lucky.

For example, the user will say that the wrong price is being tightened in the parish. That is, there is that price, but there is not that price. There are at least two of them. And in my test base - not a single one. And there is no such nomenclature. And the counterparty too. And accounting policies. And the settings for filling in prices. There is only a description of the context - "when you buy corrugated packaging, the wrong price rises." Scales are far from the most interesting, as it turned out.

Stuffing

I sit, deploy the base, look at the source. At least I pretend. I myself am writing a letter to people who refused to continue communicating on employment a couple of days ago. I liked the first meeting with them, and it seems to them, too, but then they gave out - you need to go through a polygraph. I had no such experience before, I was afraid that they were somehow strange, and refused. Now the polygraph was not scary.

Then some dude rushes into the IT office and says: hey, defective meat, go eat! At first I thought - a local comedian. I looked closely - no, in my hand something like a ham, or carbonade, in a vacuum package. Explains - defective packaging, and the meat is normal, you can gobble up.

I think - well, right now the programmers will say "thank you, put it on the table, then we'll eat it." Yeah.
Everyone was blown up. They did not get up, but were blown up. Almost the chairs didn’t fall. They attacked, torn the packaging, torn to pieces with their hands and gobbled up. No knives, no forks, no plates.
I did not even have time to be surprised. Or could not. I do not know. I wrote a letter.

Conversation

Then I could not stand it, and sat down with a familiar programmer. He began to ask what the hell. He offered to go out for a smoke. Moreover, just the lunch break began.

Knowing that he does not smoke, I realized that everything is not so simple. When we confidently walked past the smoking room to the exit from the enterprise, it became even more interesting.

They went beyond the territory, moved a kilometer away. Then he stopped and said that the security service was listening to all conversations in the territory - both telephones and ordinary verbal communication. I was surprised and did not believe - how can a village security service listen to my phone that is not connected to their corporate tariff? Even the mobile operator is different. The programmer said he could. I still don’t know if I lied or not.

Well, since there’s such a conversation, I ask - what’s the office so dumb? Yes, she’s a moron. Which have.

Why, I ask, is the head of IT only concerned with his weights? Because someone from the authorities is worried so that they do not steal.

And I ask, they steal? No, they do not steal. But the authorities are still worried.

Then I remembered a story from a previous job. The system administrators climbed into the attic of the building of the smokehouse to stretch the stp cable there. And they discovered a mountain of chicken bones. Local workers, from a neighboring village, gradually stole smoked chicken wings, dragged into the attic and ate. They just dragged and ate. So, I remembered.

I asked about strange prohibitions for programmers - well, yes, strange. But you can live. He does not know the reason.

I asked about the salary. Well, yes, she says, official little. Well now.

Doesn’t bother, I say, to engage in any nonsense? You are a programmer. Not, he says, fine. I'm used to it. Like even.

Well, the main question: why didn’t you tell me all this when I called you here before the device?

Well, he says. Firstly, everything seems normal here. Secondly - they listen to the phone, and I called during working hours. Well, that's fine here.

Total

In general, I sat until the end of the day, rushed home, and even on the way I started to freeze. By evening, the temperature was 38, which I was incredibly happy about. Quickly wrote an SMS to the boss that I would be ill, he answered - of course, no question, get well soon.

I had a good few days. I realized that in vain I left my previous job. I realized that I was naughty about a polygraph. I went to him, by the way. I even learned to cheat.

After 3-4 days I arrived and said that I would not work with them. The IT chief, for some reason, was surprised. Again, something was carrying about my crown.

I went to the personnel department, where a pleasant surprise awaited me - they didn’t manage to get me a job in a week, so they just gave me the job. I did not ask for money from them, but it seems that there’s nothing at all.

Kadrovichka said she was already sick of watching programmers quit before they could start working. I asked to sit down and tell what was wrong with their company. I sat down and told. She recorded.

The programmer was not surprised at my decision. A few months later he quit. And after a couple of years he moved to Moscow.

The IT chief came with a glass of water to the programmers' office, and pictorially, with lamentations, blessed the table on which I sat for one day. He said that the table was damned - no one lingered on him for a long time.

Puddle interview