3,040 karma · joined June 10, 2016
Usually there are regulations that state your radio devices can't interfere with someone else's. It doesn't matter if they are off-the-shelf type approved devices, you still have to operate them responsibly.
I live in Ireland and there are have a few cases where the local regulator ComReg has intervened when someones wireless networks and devices affected others.
That being said companies may ask for detailed references, but in most cases all they get back is a list of dates worked - as in your experience.
As for qualification requests, I've had those about 50% of the time and mainly with bigger more established companies or those in the finance sector. A lot of Fintech companies are be obliged by their clients to do full background checks on their employees.
The worst three jobs I've been in did that. I found that the work culture in these companies was "impatient" and where corner cutting was the norm. They wanted you to hit the ground running and figure everything out for yourself. They were also very willing to let go of probationary staff after only a few weeks rather than give them the time to get accustomed to the job.
After leaving primary school I kept collecting, but slowed down as a teenager.
Then as an adult I got serious again. I visited a few philately shops to buy the missing pieces in my UK and Ireland stamp collections. The owners were totally disinterested. They were more interested in knowing about what I had. I did have some very rare stamps, worth about 4-figures. I didn't want to part with them because family members gave them to me. But the way those dealers were obsessed with money over simple enjoyment bothered me.
Some people care about the enjoyment more than the money.
There was also Dolphin Telecom, the network based on Tetra technology and was only in service for 2-3 years.
Surprised those devices aren't in more widespread usage.
Someone submitted the article (edited to sound more academic) to a journal - and with extra authors added. The journal almost published it, but they didn't because at the last minute one of their reviewers felt they recognized the content as having been published before.
I think the moral of the story is that some people are up to no good and we'll never understand why.
In my experience most employers say they want good programmers, but in reality they want quick programmers. People who can get the product out the door ASAP. And that's why I wouldn't take a Java job without learning the ecosystem first. Even if they promise training, there's a high chance of them reneging. So I would end up in a stressful situation trying to learn as I go.
I'd rather stick with what I know and what I'm good at.
As for the offer withdrawal, until the contract is signed they had every right to do that. To be fair having seen it from the employers side, when an agency does something like that it can be messy. You may be the best candidate ever, but if the company has to drop a five-figure sum on solicitors and legal stuff then you may be more of a hindrance to them.
All those new terms like React, Vue, SaaS, Azure, AWS etc. They don't really know what they mean.
I was asked if I could code in Azure. This led to a weird conversation where I was trying to explain what Azure was, whilst he wouldn't listen to me and was adamant that it was a programming language.
The thing is that there are big incentives for the recruiters. Where I live (Dublin) the recruiters finders fee would be around 30% of the candidates salary. In IT that could be a fair whack of money. That sort of incentive can cause some peoples morals to loosen a bit.
Here are some of my experiences...
Recruiters editing my CV to make me look more skilled or possessing skills I don't have.
Editing my CV so that it contains the right information, but the formatting has been destroyed and it looks terrible.
Costing me a job opportunity when I applied direct to a company and because I was on a recruiters system they demanded a fee when they learned I was made an offer. Because the recruiter threatened legal action, the company withdrew the offer.
Calling at me at work. Even on occasions calling me via the company switchboard.
Arranging interviews without my consent.
A recruiter shouting at me for cancelling an interview because I was running a 39 degree fever.
Taking my LinkedIn profile data and creating profiles on their own systems. I added a fake job to my profile to weed those ones out.
Individual recruiters taking my data from one company to the next when they themselves changed employers.
Refusing to delete my data from their systems forcing me to go to the Data Protection Commissioner.
When I went self-employed they started calling me asking if I would hire one of their candidates. Even though I said I was a one man operation and would stay that way - they kept calling.
One recruiter calling my wife when I blocked their number.
Of course different peoples experiences may vary, but in my case I can honestly say I have never had a good experience with an IT recruiter.
Anyways, in this interview I was being asked about Java and I answered every question by saying I don't really know Java. The interviewers were obviously getting annoyed. So I asked "Sorry, I thought this was a C# job?". No, it was a Java job and magically my CV had modified itself to say I had 7 years of Java experience.
I told them I did not put that on my CV, I actually had my own copy with me and showed them that. We all realised the recruiter changed my CV. They apologised and wished me luck.
Thirty minutes after leaving the recruiter is on the phone to me, screaming at me and berating me for not going along with the ruse. He said "Sure aren't Java and C# are pretty much the same thing?"
Now that is why if I ever have to send my CV to someone it will only be a PDF version.
That being said, when I got my Spectrum I taped my ZX81 to the handlebars of my bike because I thought it looked cool. I crashed in to a lamp post whilst pretending to type on it.
In small companies I can understand that. But I've had it also happen in government jobs, in big companies and startups that collect a lot of sensitive personal data.
In one case I was with a startup that had names, addresses, DOBs, phone numbers and debit/card details in their DB. When they hired me they didn't ask for references or ID. I was given full admin rights to their Azure account on day one.
If I were in charge I would at the very least want to validate a new employees ID before giving them any form of access to IT systems, and only elevate access privileges once they had an established track record within the company.
And I would assume most people have things they would rather other people or government not know about.
Everyone has secrets they want to keep.
To me advertising should be fairly passive and loosely targetted. Basically putting car ads on a motoring website or serving local interest ads based on your location.
What the web has given us is a form of "thought manipulation". It has gone beyond just trying to make us aware of a product in to manipulating us to make irrational decisions. The idea of the likes of Google and other ad brokers constantly researching web users actions in order to get inside their heads really bothers me. It's more than creepy, its disturbing.
"If I have done nothing wrong, then no one has the need to take an interest in my personal affairs."
That's my bugbear with Apple, If I own a iPhone I should be able to install software from any source - even if it is risky.
E.G. When they caught Bing copying them... https://www.wired.com/2011/02/bing-copies-google/
And they definitely do it with maps. There is a tiny little village I visit in rural Roscommon each year. Each year a new major retailer appears to have opened in this 500 population village, well according to Google Maps that is. At the moment there is a branch of New Look situated on a farm down a single track country lane.
I blame the manager who came from a sales background. His response to every problem was to "call someone", rather than have the team work out what was wrong.
In Ireland next of kin is purely for cases where the person has been incapacitated/hurt and someone needs to be told. Nothing to do with dispersal of benefits etc. There's a separate process for all that.
Few people took any notice of it.
You could warn him in advance about an impending negative issue. You could use lights, fireworks and even shout in his ears, but he would ignore you.
The the issue would occur and cause problems, big problems.
He would then ask "Why didn't you warn me?"
I would pull out my paper trail of emails, meeting notes etc.
To which he would reply "You didn't try hard enough to get my attention."
And that is why you don't put a career salesman in charge of your IT department.
My docs clearly stated that you should not update the driver unless you were willing to rebuild all the other projects as well. I could only deploy one copy of the driver file, so it had to be the version all the different parts of the application were expecting. It was an old app, whoever started development on it didn't know about repositories and DB singletons - there were DB connections all over the place.
The annoying thing is that the .net error message they were getting actually stated what the problem was in fairly clear terms, yet they still called me.