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I was applying for my first real tech job as a help desk/sysadmin/LAMP stack admin role at a webhosting company. I had some experience doing a bit of this type
by jpdb 8y ago
I was applying for my first real tech job as a help desk/sysadmin/LAMP stack admin role at a webhosting company. I had some experience doing a bit of this type of work on my own, but by no means was I an expert.
During the interview I was asked something like, "Can you explain what the LAMP stack is and what each piece does?" I gave my answer but when I got to MySQL I prounced it "My-Sqwill." The interviewer kind of gave me a funny look, chuckled a bit, and said, "Do you mean, 'My-Sequel'?", I gave the excuse I didn't know what the word was because I never heard anyone say it.
I walked out of the interview pretty defeated, but a few days later I heard back and got the job.
A month or so in I was speaking with the interviewer and he said, "Do you know why I hired you? Because you mispronounced 'MySQL' and said you didn't hear anybody say it out loud, but you could still tell me how it worked, what it did, and how to use it. To me that says you were mostly self-taught."
He was right and huge props to the interviewer for recognizing that.
- gumby 8y agoI've actually hired three people like that over the years. Seemed OK but had bizarre mispronunciations. Clearly they hadn't gone to the right schools. Each of them turned out great, because it was a signal that they "read a lot and learn from it". This was three different companies over decades. I wish I ran into more people like this, but, as is attested in countless HN stories, as well as elsewhere, the "right schools" networking is really powerful. And this is despite the fact (and I am a graduate of one of the "right schools" myself) that a significant number of those grads aren't great developers either.
- dragonsngoblins 8y agoOh man I once made a huge ass of myself by hearing someone call SQL "Sequel" for the first time and saying I had never heard of it while talking about database design. Everyone else I had ever heard say it out loud had used the "Ess-Cue-Ell" version of pronouncing it. Weeks later I heard someone else call SQL "Sequel" and I had enough context there to know they were talking about an SQL database and put it together. I think the person from that first conversation just thought I was a complete fucking moron though.