General > General Technical Chat
"Training out the stupid"
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CJay:

--- Quote from: tggzzz on December 16, 2020, 02:38:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: Cerebus on December 16, 2020, 02:24:37 pm ---One of my touchstones for the civility of a company is whether they have a Human Resources Department or a Personnel Department. The choice of words can tell you a lot, sometimes.

--- End quote ---

Quite; I've bemoaned that too.

Do any companies still have personnel departments?

--- End quote ---

Don't think any modern ones do, there may still be a few long established ones which do though.

Can't see what's wrong with getting the measure of a person with a firm, manly handshake and a hard look into the eyes, should be able to size anyone up in only a minute or two surely?
newbrain:
I sometimes was involved in interviews in the early 90's, usually with persons just out of university, for the technical part.

I had one question I liked to ask: "How many bits does a CD-ROM contain? Why?"
Usually the best candidates were the ones who did not know the answer straight away (remember: early 90s), but could find the answer when helped with some data - a basic level of digital signal processing knowledge was needed for the job.
The answer from one candidate went beyond my imagination:
"I don't know"
"Ok, no probs. How'd you go around calculating that?"
"I could not care less, I want to be a manager"
At least he was honest, though jobless.


--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on December 16, 2020, 08:10:14 am ---If you need the job done, you should be able to size up the person in a three minute informal chat. Unless it's for years-long contracts, such scrutiny is just for the power trip.

--- End quote ---
This is what happened to me in my first ever job interview.
Just a short informal chat: being right out of Uni, about my master dissertation and interests.

I think I made a good enough impression:

* I got the job
* In two years I married the examiner (and no, we didn't know each other before).
PS, about long ongoing contracts: The job lasted four years, but the marriage is still going after 28...
coppice:

--- Quote from: fourfathom on December 16, 2020, 06:47:23 am ---
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on December 16, 2020, 01:19:03 am ---I tend to have as much disdain for HR as anyone, but have to admit they have a purpose and a method that works to some degree.
--- End quote ---
Also, HR comes in handy when, in spite of your best efforts, you hire a completely psychotic and useless employee.  HR can help make sure you dot all the "i"s and cross all the "t"s as you go through the firing process.  Otherwise you may find yourself in a time-consuming and expensive legal mess.  This happened once at my company, and there was no way in hell that we were going to let the creep keep his stock options.  HR made sure we did it all correctly.

--- End quote ---
I've worked with two people who were perfectly good employees who cracked up. One went through a period of harmless eccentricity, like wearing a kilt every day, to being a threat to other people. The other descended into heavy drinking and aggression, to the point where he was dangerous to others. People felt sorry for these guys, as something had clearly gone horribly wrong in their lives, but they needed to be removed from the work environment for the safety of others. In both cases HR was largely useless. In one case a fresh grad, straight out of a human resources management course which he'd studied well, was hired at the right moment. He gave us the proper formula of warnings and letters to get the guy out of the place fairly quickly. If he hadn't been hired I think there would probably have been a violent incident coming. In the other case the guy's drunken behaviour got him into trouble with the law outside work, and he disappeared. This was in the UK.
coppice:

--- Quote from: newbrain on December 16, 2020, 03:29:32 pm ---I sometimes was involved in interviews in the early 90's, usually with persons just out of university, for the technical part.

I had one question I liked to ask: "How many bits does a CD-ROM contain? Why?"
Usually the best candidates were the ones who did not know the answer straight away (remember: early 90s), but could find the answer when helped with some data - a basic level of digital signal processing knowledge was needed for the job.
The answer from one candidate went beyond my imagination:
"I don't know"
"Ok, no probs. How'd you go around calculating that?"
"I could not care less, I want to be a manager"
At least he was honest, though jobless.

--- End quote ---
Every country where I've been involved in recruiting has seen a trend to people thinking an engineering degree should take them directly into some kind of management role, before they have developed any understanding of what it is they might be managing. When recruiting fresh graduates "I want to be in management" used to be an answer to the question "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?". Not "Where do you aim to get your first job?".
bd139:

--- Quote from: coppice on December 16, 2020, 03:36:23 pm ---
--- Quote from: fourfathom on December 16, 2020, 06:47:23 am ---
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on December 16, 2020, 01:19:03 am ---I tend to have as much disdain for HR as anyone, but have to admit they have a purpose and a method that works to some degree.
--- End quote ---
Also, HR comes in handy when, in spite of your best efforts, you hire a completely psychotic and useless employee.  HR can help make sure you dot all the "i"s and cross all the "t"s as you go through the firing process.  Otherwise you may find yourself in a time-consuming and expensive legal mess.  This happened once at my company, and there was no way in hell that we were going to let the creep keep his stock options.  HR made sure we did it all correctly.

--- End quote ---
I've worked with two people who were perfectly good employees who cracked up. One went through a period of harmless eccentricity, like wearing a kilt every day, to being a threat to other people. The other descended into heavy drinking and aggression, to the point where he was dangerous to others. People felt sorry for these guys, as something had clearly gone horribly wrong in their lives, but they needed to be removed from the work environment for the safety of others. In both cases HR was largely useless. In one case a fresh grad, straight out of a human resources management course which he'd studied well, was hired at the right moment. He gave us the proper formula of warnings and letters to get the guy out of the place fairly quickly. If he hadn't been hired I think there would probably have been a violent incident coming. In the other case the guy's drunken behaviour got him into trouble with the law outside work, and he disappeared. This was in the UK.

--- End quote ---

Yeah only times I've met people like that it's always because something is seriously fucked in their lives. As always "friends" drift away when that happens so they're stuck on their own and the only outlet is work. Also why I never go to work Christmas parties.
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