One of these companies really took the cake. In fact, they deserve an entire blogpost detailing just how much they suck.
It started off at an interview at Ubi. Yes, still around the Tai Seng/MacPherson area, but it was my policy not to turn down opportunities and at least hear them out. Being near my place was only a nice-to-have. Then the red flags just kept coming.
Red Flag #1 - Punctuality
When I arrived at the address at the appointed time, no one was in other than one employee who seemed utterly clueless. She was probably one of the developers. No senior staff were around. OK, fine. Punctuality is important, but I could accept that something came up last-minute. Eventually, one of the senior guys came back from lunch, and sat me down for a makeshift interview. |
| Form-filling. |
Red Flag #2 - Redundant form-filling
Apparently, he wasn't prepared. He made me fill up this badly-photocopied form asking for information that should have been available from my resume. I swear, what is it with interviewers and forms?! This was obviously a tactic to buy time while he figured out what to ask, and who he should kill for saddling him with a task he was woefully unsuited for. I say this because...Red Flag #3 - Stupid Ratings Questions
... he hemmed, hawed, and out of sheer desperation, asked me how I rated myself, on a scale of 1 to 10, in Joomla! and various other technologies. I've made my thoughts on this mode of questioning abundantly clear, and won't repeat myself. Needless to say, I was not impressed.But... (silver lining!) he was a fellow smoker. After a little break on the balcony and a bit of informal chatting, I was willing to accept that he was just one of the senior staff and not really trained to interview. After that, I met his Manager, the one I was actually supposed to interview with. They arranged for me to return the next day for a technical test. Now that was more up my alley.
It turned out that they were in the business of producing parallax websites, and their chief developer of said websites had left. They were looking for someone who could produce the same thing. As part of the test, they gave me a sample and told me to produce one just like it. This took several hours of me reverse-engineering the code, and finding out that the example they gave me did not work anyway. Finally, they returned and I showed them the results. My own product was lacking; but I did show them why the example they gave me, which happened to be the work of the previous guy, wasn't working. They seemed satisfied.
Back home, I made my own parallax website and used the results in the Easter web tutorial of 2017. Hey, you learn wherever, whenever.
Over the weekend, I received a WhatsApp message from the boss. He wanted me to come in on Monday to discuss my employment. Apparently, they'd been suitably impressed. Suddenly, all the red flags I had encountered during the initial interview didn't seem to matter as much. Boy, how wrong I was...
I arrived after the lunch break, as scheduled. They all seemed to be busy, so I waited. Meanwhile, Mom had sent me a text message asking if I'd be going to her place for dinner. It seemed reasonable to say yes - I mean, how long could a simple discussion take? The meeting started soon, and the stakeholders started to ask me what was the possibility of setting up a CMS to create parallax websites, the tech involved, and so on. I answered to the best of my ability, and they seemed somewhat satisfied. Still, nothing resembling an employment discussion. Fine, I was content to wait.
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| This better be worth it... |
Red Flag #4 - No concept of time
One of the stakeholders received a call from a client to make modifications to the site. He asked for my help, and mentally, I shrugged. It was just text amendments, no biggie. I might as well do something while I waited for them to get their act together. Before I knew it, it was 6:30pm, and my appointment for dinner at Mom's place looked like it wasn't going to happen. I gritted my teeth and waited, but their lack of organization was setting me on edge. I wasn't even an employee and they had me working on stuff. And on top of that, they didn't even have the courtesy to at least make it interesting?!Finally, around 8:30pm, I dropped whatever I was doing and told that stakeholder flat-out that if they wanted to hire me, they would have to stop dicking around and make me an offer, or I could just go home because I had another interview the next day. But either way, I was done waiting for the discussion to take place.
He looked panicked, then hurried off to have a word with the boss, who stopped me on my way out, for that long-awaited discussion. I should have told him to fuck off, but what the hell, I was already there. How much worse could it get?
Red Flag #5 - Bullshit
In the meeting room, the boss tried to get me to name a figure for my expected salary, but I told him he would have to make me an offer - if I liked it, we'd talk some more, and if I didn't, then we wouldn't need to talk anymore. I know that sounds arrogant, but I was tired, hungry and pissed off. One hell of a potent combination.He started by going "how about we pay you this amount first, and after a three month probationary period, we - " I stopped him right there, and explained, keeping my voice nicely calm and even, that there was no way I would ever accept such an arrangement. The Probationary Pay Gambit? What kind of noob did he think he was talking to?
He tried to convince me by saying they were going through a transition period right now and couldn't pay me what they thought I was worth, but I had the potential to be a technical director in their company one day. The smell of bullshit was getting stronger by the minute. (I may not be what people describe as "humble", but I do have a realistic view of my abilities.) And then he went on with "- so, if you trust me..."
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| Stop. Talking. |
Whoa, buddy. I do not trust you. I have no goddamn reason to trust you. We've known each other for all of three days and in that time, you've managed to give me a very poor impression. And right now, everything you're saying sounds like typical douchebag sales double-talk.
I blew him off by saying I would think about it, and left the office.
Zounds! These guys were fucking unbelievable. They had wasted my entire day. A week later, the boss called me and upped his offer by more than a thousand dollars. I suggested that he go fuck himself. (No, I didn't actually say that - what kind of unprofessional asshole do I look like? But the meaning was clear enough.) He could have trebled his offer and I wouldn't have touched that shit company with a ten-foot pole.
No, my search would have to continue. Luckily, I had a few more prospects lined up...
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