3 ms·

> How it went unnoticed is that we were all busy with our own stuff, he was put on some small project that none of us were working on, and we just assumed that

by rtlfe 6y ago

> How it went unnoticed is that we were all busy with our own stuff, he was put on some small project that none of us were working on, and we just assumed that nobody would be stupid enough to hire someone without at least /some/ vetting. I'm still confused about how this could have happened. Did anybody ever ask how his work was going? Did he just lie and say it was great? Did the person have a manager? Shouldn't the two of them have set some kind of goals and milestones for their first project? Does the company do code review? Wouldn't it be considered odd that the person wasn't sharing any code to be reviewed? It seems like there must have been some serious culture/management problems at this company.

Aeolun 6y ago
Yeah, the problem is that you need a marginally decent company to make all of this work.
chiph 6y ago
Back during the dot-com era, we hired someone (and paid for their relocation across the country!) who didn't know how to code. We were a VB6/COM shop at the time and they spent easily 3 days on a simple if..else statement before someone noticed. To their credit, the company was generous with the severance. There were a couple of reasons why this happened. Firstly because at the time, companies were hiring anyone who could spell "programming". There was this huge shortage of talent. And secondly, everyone was too busy and tired from 14+ hour days to have done a proper interview.
bane 6y ago
> It seems like there must have been some serious culture/management problems at this company. Yes. In almost every case I've seen it seems to come down to a localized culture/management issue in the area where the person works. Usually fixed on a particularly terrible senior manager who has the clout and connections to distract from the problem while problem employees fester forever.
mercer 6y ago
> I'm still confused about how this could have happened. Did anybody ever ask how his work was going? Did he just lie and say it was great? Yes and yes. I suppose he also lied to get his previous job as a 'programmer', or made the whole thing up. > Did the person have a manager? Shouldn't the two of them have set some kind of goals and milestones for their first project? He'd been given time to 'get comfortable' and familiar with the codebase, and was left with some really minor tasks. I think management just forgot to check in with him after a week or so, and everyone else around assumed he was busy working on something. Quite a few freelancers in the department who sort of just did their own thing. > It seems like there must have been some serious culture/management problems at this company. Maybe. I remember that particular time being really busy because of some big feature that was about to be deployed and, as I mentioned, it was quite common for freelancers to come and go and work on things that didn't really involve the rest of the team. I think it wasn't really a serious culture/management problem, but more a consequence of the fact that he came from another department after someone discovered that he was a 'programmer', bypassing the usual process. When I started at this company I got some time to get comfortable too, but I was hired to work on something specific, so the manager in charge of that came up to me pretty soon.

by rtlfe 6y ago

Aeolun 6y ago

Yeah, the problem is that you need a marginally decent company to make all of this work.

chiph 6y ago

Back during the dot-com era, we hired someone (and paid for their relocation across the country!) who didn't know how to code. We were a VB6/COM shop at the time and they spent easily 3 days on a simple if..else statement before someone noticed. To their credit, the company was generous with the severance. There were a couple of reasons why this happened. Firstly because at the time, companies were hiring anyone who could spell "programming". There was this huge shortage of talent. And secondly, everyone was too busy and tired from 14+ hour days to have done a proper interview.

bane 6y ago

> It seems like there must have been some serious culture/management problems at this company. Yes. In almost every case I've seen it seems to come down to a localized culture/management issue in the area where the person works. Usually fixed on a particularly terrible senior manager who has the clout and connections to distract from the problem while problem employees fester forever.

mercer 6y ago

> I'm still confused about how this could have happened. Did anybody ever ask how his work was going? Did he just lie and say it was great? Yes and yes. I suppose he also lied to get his previous job as a 'programmer', or made the whole thing up. > Did the person have a manager? Shouldn't the two of them have set some kind of goals and milestones for their first project? He'd been given time to 'get comfortable' and familiar with the codebase, and was left with some really minor tasks. I think management just forgot to check in with him after a week or so, and everyone else around assumed he was busy working on something. Quite a few freelancers in the department who sort of just did their own thing. > It seems like there must have been some serious culture/management problems at this company. Maybe. I remember that particular time being really busy because of some big feature that was about to be deployed and, as I mentioned, it was quite common for freelancers to come and go and work on things that didn't really involve the rest of the team. I think it wasn't really a serious culture/management problem, but more a consequence of the fact that he came from another department after someone discovered that he was a 'programmer', bypassing the usual process. When I started at this company I got some time to get comfortable too, but I was hired to work on something specific, so the manager in charge of that came up to me pretty soon.