Andy Lester

"And you say "Thank you, tourists, for helping support our local economy."" - Andy Lester

"> Do I tell the company their interview questions are crap? No." - Andy Lester

"> Am I right to assume they would also view a follow-up about the application via email as inappropriate? Yes." - Andy Lester

"JPEG is fine if your image is a photograph. The P in JPEG stands for Photographic. It's when you have non-photographic images that JPEG's lossy compression algorithm causes those ugly artifacts and makes lines smeary." - Andy Lester

"Please please please don't use JPEG for anything that is not 100% a photograph. Do you see how smeary the text on the right is? That's because of the JPEG compression artifacts. If the image is 100% photo and doesn't have big patches of flat color, then go ahead and use JPEG. Otherwise, you should use PNG." - Andy Lester

"No no no no do not bring it up. * If the company does NOT care about the DUI ** Not bring it up: All good, because who cares if they find it? ** Do bring it up: Now you've brought up something bad for no reason * If the company DOES care about the DUI ** Bring it up: You don't get the job, whether or not they would have found it on their own ** Not bring it up: Then they may find it, or they may not. If they care, you telling them first isn't going to mitigate that. Similarly, don't go into a drug test saying "Man, I got baked last night, just letting you know" because that will help you exactly zero. They're not going to say "Oh, well, since you told us up front, we will no longer care that you fail the test."" - Andy Lester

"The email is your cover letter. Do not send the email as a separate attachment. Put the text of your cover letter in the email, and have the PDF as the attachment." - Andy Lester

"> One guy talked in his cover letter about how he battled alcoholism, lives in poverty and needs a job to take care of his sick mother. It was too much personal information and I felt very uncomfortable after reading that. It's not just the TMI. It's that he put his problems on you. "I have a problem with poverty and a sick mother, and I'm now leaving it to you to take action to solve them."" - Andy Lester

"Don't make yourself crazy trying to read meaning into everything that was said and done. You can't accurately figure out if anything is a "good sign" or not." - Andy Lester

"Some of us are old enough to think of that as "Bea Arthur (Maude from All In The Family and Maude)"" - Andy Lester

"Get [The Pragmatic Programmer](http://pragprog.com/the-pra...) and devour it and reread it at least yearly." - Andy Lester

"Don't call. Write a letter and mail it to the chief of police at the police station." - Andy Lester

"My advice is that you might get more help if your handle wasn't "FuckRightOff"." - Andy Lester

"> I sent him an ultimatum by email since he refused to talk with me when he was in town. Essentially I said get help or say goodbye. Good. You're protecting yourself and setting a boundary. > I miss the person who I met so many years ago and I despise the beast that he has grown into. Understood. All of us here have been in that situation, and we've come out of it a little hurt and a lot wiser. > What can I do - if anything - to encourage him to get help? You did the best you could by walking away." - Andy Lester

"And CB is where the IRC term "handle" comes from." - Andy Lester

"> Well, you might not consider your time or money valuable, but I do. Exactly. You have choices. It's not that you "can't drive back to return a pen". You have a choice that you are making. It's not that you "can't". > I'd laugh at you for driving an hour You might, but I bet the interviewer wouldn't. It certainly can't hurt." - Andy Lester

"> Then 40 minutes in he says, "Well, mxpmx, I don't think you have ADHD." And did he kick you out the door? Or did you ask "OK, so what do we do then about these problems I'm having?"" - Andy Lester

"> I live over an hour away, I can't drive back to return a pen) Yes, you can." - Andy Lester

"Back when I was growing up in the 70s, there were lists like this everywhere: Dynamite magazine, news stories about the CB craze, and the back of any record album related to trucking." - Andy Lester

"> asking if that would be negotiable beforehand? That answer will always be "no" so don't bother asking. If you're going to do this, you're going to go through the interview process and impress the hell out of them so that they say "We gotta make an exception for this guy."" - Andy Lester

"> Does he think all librarians are silently sitting behind our desks, scared to death of the computers we begrudgingly use ONLY to check books out (while we pine for the halcyon days of rubber stamps)? Yes." - Andy Lester

"There's a rule in interviews that says you **never say anything bad about anyone or anything** in an interview. Your interview is probably an example. Even if they didn't like Dreamweaver, either, you saying things like "it disgusts me" is very negative, and most people don't want to work with a negative grumbling person. > "I personally prefer to use gEdit and <name of an IDE>, I try to stay away from software like Dreamweaver because it almost disgusts me when people use Dreamweaver to make websites." to which the interviewer replied: "We use dreamweaver here" So what you just said was "You people disgust me." You don't think that's an interview killer?" - Andy Lester

"> every company has to have somebody in an accounting position, so it's never "Because you work in X industry" or "I'm really fascinated by the work you do" Why not? Are you saying you don't care who you work for? That you'd just as well work for a defense contractor or a florist or a hospital or a university or a non-profit charity or an automobile manufacturer? Do none of those make a difference to you? If the answer is "No, I don't care, just gimme a job", then that's your answer. Even if you don't say those words, it will be clear that that's the case." - Andy Lester

"Either or both will do. Start with http://openhatch.org Work on an open source project you use anyway." - Andy Lester

"Rule 1: **If it sounds too good to be true, it's too good to be true**. Rule 2: **Listen to your gut.** There is no reason for you to have to set up an account at a specific bank. No legitimate company will only work in bank transfers. Why don't they mention who their benefits are through? Who administers the 401k? Who is the health plan through? What sort of "company discounts" can they offer? The terrible English is also a bad smell. "The Head Dept of the company"? Anything that assures you it is legitimate is not legitimate. This whole thing smells." - Andy Lester

"Yes, all three. Unless you see a downside, cover all the bases." - Andy Lester

"> include a link to the reviews Include a link where? If you're in an interview, and you're asked about your prior employer, then you can't "include a link"." - Andy Lester

"There are, but usually the choking doesn't happen until August." - Andy Lester

"> Don't use books to learn programming. Why not? Why make such a blanket statement? > You can't just unprint 10,000 books though. That argument assumes that there will be errors in the book. For something like SQL that hasn't changed in forever, I can't see that a book from OP's local public library won't do the job. Remember that not everyone learns the same way. For many of us, learning on paper is entirely different than learning on a screen." - Andy Lester