>The guy was on something like a three month contract, and a good chunk of that time was on-boarding then slowly getting suspicious.

My perception after reading a lot of this thread is that there's so much bloat and checked-outness in the tech sector that it's probably very feasible as an employment strategy to bullshit your way into multiple 3-month contracts, sandbag your way through the onboardings then fail to be renewed (without having done a day's productive work) then rinse and repeat indefinitely.

I don't know how much longer that will persist now that the free money tap has been turned off, though.

It's another world from the startup sector I know where you could tell within a week that a guy wasn't any good and you'd instantly show them the door because you couldn't afford the dead weight for literally another day. shrug