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in reply to Biggest clue you don't want the job you're offered

How about a job where the only person who fully understands the product the company is producing are the two founders? What are we making? Why should people buy it?

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Re: Re: Biggest clue you don't want the job you're offered
by Dominus (Parson) on Apr 15, 2001 at 02:31 UTC
    Says blue_cowdawg:
    How about a job where the only person who fully understands the product the company is producing are the two founders?
    Wow, that brings back memories. When I first got out of school, I interviewed for a job where I would be doing the programming for a scientific experiment that was due to fly on the space shuttle. Sounds great, doesn't it?

    I went down to University of Maryland for the interview, and the folks there liked me fine. Everyone there was really nice, and it seemed like a good job in many ways. But there was one glaring problem.

    Nobody there could tell me what the experiment was about or what my programs would have to do. Nobody knew.

    They kept saying what a shame it was that I had come down to visit on the day when Dr. so-and-so wasn't around, because he could have told me everything. Hmmmm.

    I was too green to know whether it would be easy or hard to get another job offer, whether I was being wise or foolish in throwing away the opportunity. I hadn't yet learned that my instinct (Run! Run away!) was absolutely correct. But even then I knew the smell of trouble, and I didn't take the job.

    A year and a half later, when their shuttle went up, the apparatus wasn't on it.