python was: transputers again was: The dissolution of Commodore 2914

Oh yes you do. When you're interviewing, you need to talk to the people and find out what the place is like, as much as they're talking to you to find out what you're like. You also need to READ your employment papers instead of blindly signing them when they're tossed at you in a blizzard of paper.

I've had HR folks become very cross when I said I wanted to take the papers home (or to my lawyer's) for a good reading. "But you're not supposed to take that out of the office" - "ok, I'll camp out here all night then, is that OK?"

I want to find these things out before I become their wage slave.

For instance, BEFORE I started at my current job, I understood I couldn't hack the firewall, I couldn't use webmail or blog from work, if I was working from home I needed to use an approved compatible VPN solution, I needed to be in the office 3 out of 5 days, I needed to observe SEC quiet periods, etc etc.

I had no problem with any of that.

You don't understand. It's not a preference. It's a tool I need. No less than I need metric sockets to work on a Japanese car.

These people demand data mining and metrics reports in less than 4 hours. I don't need to be sitting around privatesing with regexps or something when I could do an EMACS macro or Python script and have their data imported in the time I need to have it loaded.

When I'm working on a report for an EVP to show to the CEO, I can say "Joe in internal services says I can't use emacs because it's not approved, so I can't do your report in time for your meeting" and Joe's butt will be kicked.

Otherwise, it's just time for more coffee, and it's a shame that report won't get done, and I don't care. But that usually doesn't happen because people don't give a poo HOW I do something as long as it gets done, and done before the deadline.

-gc

-- Like an enthusiastic missionary, Performance Bikes is still on top.