[TRENCHES] Thursday, January 31, 2013 - Logorrhea

Geth

Logorrhea
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/logorrhea

Climbing that ladder right off the edge…

Anonymous

I recently moved and obtained a job working for a HR group that ran the some of the testing for a very large company. You started out at this company as what they called an “on call” tester.  Meaning they would call or email you, sign you up for shifts, and you would do them.

Needless to say this did not always work out correctly. They usually overbooked, causing an alarming number of people to lumber out of their beds for a 7:30 AM shift only to be turned away.

This created a problem financially for myself.

Most people got shuttered into the “on call” corral for years before being offered a position on the permanent testing team. I worked three shifts as an on call tester before they offered me a permanent position.  I have no idea why, nor did anybody else for that matter.

I gratefully accepted the position, which was promised to provide me with, at a minimum, 20 hours of work a week, hoping for something a little more stable to pay the bills. After working three shifts in the permanent department, they stopped signing me up, and the testing staff dwindled to about 3 people working a week…after three weeks of that, they called and said that I was being laid off because they had hired too many people.

A week later they called and offered me a test lead position. I declined. I don’t think I will be working with this company anymore.

Pony

so cora's dad basically is george rr martin then

Ori Klein

I'm sort of hearing a "Take your greedy, drug-addiction based, model and shove it up your ass, scum!" sub-text.

Shadowen

I'm sort of a hearing a "I am old and can just get a handle on Netflix. Get thee away from me, jargon-boy." joke

Dr. Z

A great communicator Q is not.

zepherin

I don't know about the guy/gal in the tails, I mean it is satisfying to say no to an employer (it really is), but it doesn't say if they had already found another employment option. If so good for them, if not take the job and keep sending out your resume. It's way easier to find a job when you already have one. Maybe they had a pocket job. It's always a nice safety net for when you are trying something risky.

Rhesus Positive

Q's spiel reminds me of Ryan's pitch of Dunder Mifflin Infinity in The Office - stringing enough buzzwords and phrases together in the hope of shorting out your brain.

kingworks

The more I read the Trenches, the less I feel it's possible for a sane person to thrive in this industry unless: 1) you know/are related to someone or 2) one is able to convincingly pass themselves off to hiring managers as a schizophrenic crack-smoking chimp.

Hevach

Shadowen wrote: »

I'm sort of a hearing a "I am old and can just get a handle on Netflix. Get thee away from me, jargon-boy." joke

Yeah, he doesn't look even as upset as he was bout the manskirt, and he certainly didn't hesitate to give his opinion then. He gave Q a chance to make his case, and he just vomited letters everywhere. I know if my job allowed it I'd merrily toss everyone out who managed to say that many words without actually telling me what they want.

astronautcowboy3

Why don't the Tales get edited before going up? There are two grammatical errors / typos in the first sentence.

El Guaco

kingworks wrote: »

The more I read the Trenches, the less I feel it's possible for a sane person to thrive in this industry unless: 1) you know/are related to someone or 2) one is able to convincingly pass themselves off to hiring managers as a schizophrenic crack-smoking chimp.

I think these stories are good for people working in IT. First, they are a sanity check. When you're young and desperate for work, you'll take whatever crap is dished out. But the reality is that it doesn't have to be that way. Second, the people and companies that pull this shit will eventually fail because they will not get the caliber of people needed to succeed. Third, by raising awareness we also raise the standard of what kinds of jobs that good employees will take. The more often we do this, the sooner we can rid the industry of bad managers and sweatshops.

Xevo

Called it! =P

Iron Weasel

Rhesus Positive wrote: »

Q's spiel reminds me of Ryan's pitch of Dunder Mifflin Infinity in The Office - stringing enough buzzwords and phrases together in the hope of shorting out your brain.

This kind of thing happens in real life too, btw.

I work for a major pharmaceutical company and there are people here who have pretty much made careers doing exactly this.

Taramoor

If I were that guy, even if my IP weren't in demand I'd probably have the same reaction.

This skirt-wearing, pony-tail having hippy just waltzed into my house because he's a friend of my daughter's, and he wants me to bankroll him based on that alone.

His pitch even sounds opportunistic "I know the rights just came up..." No, dude, fuck you. Get out of my house.

Darkewolfe

The thing with marketing or industry jargon is that in some situations, to some people, or just at one historical point, those phrases mean something. Then people get ahold of it and start using it to obfuscate conversation, rather than to better convey information.

It's not like, "I'd like to use your IP license to make a F2P game with cash shop purchases driven by limited energy for users" is meaningless. It actually conveys a lot of information pretty concisely.

What Q said, on the other hand, is spitting out all the freemium jargon at once.

Hardtarget

so far I think Cora's dad is the only likeable character in this strip

Skunkape

kingworks wrote: »

The more I read the Trenches, the less I feel it's possible for a sane person to thrive in this industry unless: 1) you know/are related to someone or 2) one is able to convincingly pass themselves off to hiring managers as a schizophrenic crack-smoking chimp.

You have to remember you are only hearing 1 side of the story. I know it is cool to pull for the underdog and corporations are the devil, but to believe that all of these people were the best testers ever and then got fired for no reason at all is just ignorant.

see317

Hardtarget wrote: »

so far I think Cora's dad is the only likeable character in this strip

Yeah, until you get stuck in a foxhole with the guy. What he did to Stammerin' Sam is a damned shame. Poor guy couldn't help his stutter.