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Comment by Paul_S | Hacker News Reader

This is such comic book villainy I just don't believe it happened as described. I wonder how the other side would describe it.

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No, I see this everywhere.

There's a large segment of the software industry that believes their way is right, and everything else is wrong. The phone you use, the computer you use, etc.

Recently I had someone tell me that if you're still writing apps that serve HTML, you're "doing it wrong" because everything should be an AJAX backend with JavaScript. Is that the way apps are going? Certainly. But is that the way to do everything? No.

I did a conference talk on Elixir this last week, and later ran into someone who told me that there's no need for that as he can do everything better and faster with Node, and "why should I waste my time learning THAT? I saw a benchmark showing that Node was faster, so I'll use that."

Here's what I think the problem is. Every morning you log on to Twitter and HN and you see ten new things out there. You don't know when your thing of choice will be out of style with the clique you run with. And it's tiring. So developers are so insecure about their own knowledge that they seem to seek out confirmation bias, surrounding themselves with an echo chamber that believes what they believe. That's more comfortable. And anyone who believes differently has no business being there.

It's like high school, really.

> Recently I had someone tell me that if you're still writing apps that serve HTML, you're "doing it wrong" because everything should be an AJAX backend with JavaScript. Is that the way apps are going? Certainly. But is that the way to do everything? No.

Excuse me, but what are the advantages of not serving HTML directly? I honestly find that way more convenient (possibility to give links for example).

Main one is that you deliver less content if you serve JSON instead of HTTP.

Pros: You don't have to rebuild a full HTML page for every new query, be it server-side of client-side, you don't have to serve assets for every request and client doesn't have to recall/reinterpret them, less content means it's served faster,...

Cons: More strain is put on the client (virtual DOM, keeping the front-end framework in memory). Though it's negligible on most clients.

I've worked at enough places to see twerps like that, it doesn't seem very far fetched to me. It's just classic abuse of power. Granted, they're outliers, but they are out there. Really, though, in the grand scheme of abuses of power, this story is relatively pretty tame.

I hear this sort of thing so often. Not the OP; I mean your comment. "I can't believe anyone in this industry could be so obnoxious/callous/racist/misogynist/solipsist." It's true that most people are unreliable witnesses, but don't forget there is also our tendency to discredit unflattering stories of people like ourselves. Let's face it: this kind of bullshit behavior is hardly unheard of. The only surprising part of the story is the quantity of bullshit -- the quality of each individual nugget is all too familiar.

I agree to a small degree. It is certainly one mans biased perspective. However, ive been through enough interviews and am even guilty myself when interviewing of turning on a condescending attitude when feeling threatened. Im not proud of it, but its the truth.

The other side of the story probably has a perspective/narrative that makes them look peachy. As with most stories, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Both sides made mistakes. I just hope this candidate turned interviewer realizes the solution is not as easy as, dont do what they did...or even " treat people with respect" those words mean nothing without taking ownership of your own screwups and working on being secure in who you are... IME nothing will make you a better human being than being secure in who you are intrinsically, owning your imperfections and striving to improve yourself...judging others, as this article does, while possibly true, id an indication of someone shirking their own culpability in this experience and blaming external variables. Its not about what actually happened, its about what you do with the experience, and being a nice interviewer is too subjective to know if you are actually nice or just think you are acting nice.

Looks like the story some time ago. Especially with emotionally charged stories like this, people always tend to misremember or warp the details and not realize they're doing so. I'm sure the general gist is right, but I always get a little suspect when someone describes eye-rolls or how someone sounded sarcastic. Those are exactly the sorts of things that we remember differently as time goes on.

Yeah, 25 minutes late set the tone for that interview. I don't really care what the reason is, I'm going to be pissed if someone is 25 minutes late for anything.

> I found out later their recruiter had given me and many other candidates the wrong time.

Right, but as someone conducting an interview, checking your watch every minute waiting for someone to arrive, you don't know what their reasons are. And as the time passes, you start wondering what the hell is up with this person, wondering about all the other things you could be doing, etc. etc. and it leaves you in a bad mood for when they do arrive. No amount of explanation will change the bad mood, I'm not going to suddenly get bright eyed and cheery because it turned out to be a scheduling error.

I've definitely been there. Their receptionist told the CEO the wrong time. I showed up on time, and all the C-levels I was supposed to meet were gone. They gave me over to some other manager for a courtesy interview, but I already knew it was over. I immediately confirmed the time after with proof, and they admitted their error, but at that point, it didn't matter. I imagine they were too embarrassed to give an apology, and, after seeing how it was handled, I was no longer interested.

No, just no.

A candidate is taking time from their busy schedule and are considering making a contribution to your company/team/project. You should appreciate that more.

In the real world, shit happens. There are an inordinate amount of things that can go wrong and delay someone. In this case it's all the worse, since the problem was the interviewers own organization. The interviewer should be apologizing on behalf of his organization instead of being an asshole.

Nothing justifies the interviewers' reaction.

No, I think there is justification. In the real world, people aren't stoic and patient, especially executives who have their day planned out to the minute. The applicant did everything right here, and I'm not defending the interviewers, just trying to think about how that situation comes about. If the applicant was on time, would the interview have gone the same way? I don't think so.

You're conflating explanation with justification. Being a pissy asshole like described is explanable, but not justified: it betrays a deep lack of professionalism, and is a giant black mark on the interviewer.

Equivalent situation: If someone turns up 30 minutes late because they wanted to catch a couple extra zs, that's also understandable, but is just as unjustified and makes them just as much a jackass.

As professionals, we are called to treat everyone with dignity and respect, no matter what bug happened to crawl up our ass this morning.

> No amount of explanation will change the bad mood, I'm not going to suddenly get bright eyed and cheery because it turned out to be a scheduling error.

It won't & can't change your past frustration - sure. But do you have to take it forward to the new few hours as you are judging another person trying to find his means of livelihood?

Me personally, no. But I recognize that it takes extraordinary actions to turn people's moods around. Saying "the recruiter messed up" doesn't solve my mood, I'm just mad at a different person now.

I used to do get riled up over things I don't control. Getting into a bad mood over this is your responsibility. Think of it as a situation to work on your emotional intelligence.

Okay, but then what you're saying is, at that point you are in a state of mind such that you are not going to be able to accurately evaluate the candidate. In that case, you should recuse yourself from conducting the interview that day, and reschedule, get someone else to do it instead or both.

Being half an hour late is not really an excuse for their sociopathic behaviour.

Yes, because it happened exactly as written, and totally wasn't embellished at all.

Do you have any special reason to doubt his story so vehemently? Should we dismiss any workplace abuse story as embellishment? Bosses and coworkers are always friendly and professional?

I know people that have suffered boss/coworkers bullying and I find this story plausible. And I know this industry and some people can be very inmature and unprofessional.

As the root poster said, it's comic book villainy. I believe that he had a bad experience and that the interviewers were rude but the story as told doesn't pass the smell test.

My take is the candidate has his head so far up his arse and lives in this bubble world of his making.

The people I have known who are truly that good are humble about it. Those who are not humble, IME are never as good as they think.

I would expect that, as the interviewers did not instantly bow down at this guys superior knowledge. This write write up is his personal interpretation of what the interviewers thought - why else would they not give him the job?

Interviewers perspective. "This cocky guy comes in, tells us everything we do is wrong, that he can improve everything we do, literally laughs and derides our working. In the end I walk out."

Personally I really find it quite amusing, when people exactly do the same thing they accuse others for (but without any proof at all).

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