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Mario Korf's avatar

Thanks for the kind words, Jack. And thank you to any readers who subscribe to Occam’s Racer. Most of the content is free, and you can get the password to the locked articles by using the Buy Me a Coffee link. Or by sweet talking me.

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Ice Age's avatar

"...I truly believed that we were always just about to get approval for the site..."

It happens to most of us. In my naive youth, I would interview for good jobs. The interviews would go well (Thanks, career counselor dad!) and they'd say they needed two weeks to make a decision.

Two weeks. Uh huh. That was the running joke in "The Money Pit," too.

So I'd anxiously wait for the agreed-upon two weeks, which would become three. And then a month. I'd get on the phone and ask if they'd made a decision. No, they'd say, they still needed more time. The VP of Engineering was on vacation and he needed to be in on any hiring. Or the Prototype Shop Manager was at a trade show for the week and had to sign off on new employees. Or some other Big Deal whose OK was required wasn't available for some reason.

I nuked an opportunity from orbit when I indignantly called one company after THREE MONTHS of this and told them that I wanted an answer RIGHT THEN AND THERE, and ANY word other than a "Yes" would be interpreted as a "No."

Guess who didn't get the job that day.

I remember trying to figure this out, so I asked my dad. He called it "Being put in the freezer." He told me that in his experience as a career counselor, companies would pull this shit because they liked a candidate, but they'd already spent their recruiting budget for the year and didn't want another company to hire the guy. Or they had no real intention of hiring ANYONE, they just wanted to see who was out there and available.

I later learned that if a potential employer thinks it's okay to string a potential employee along like this, FUCK THEM. If you aren't prepared to hire someone at the interview, DON'T FUCKING INTERVIEW THEM.

I won't play games with you, and you don't play games with me. I'll go first.

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