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[–] 230 points 6 months ago (26 children)

on a job interview in IT, an interviewer asked me if I understood the difference between TCP and UDP. After giving the best technical explanation I could, I ended with

I could tell you a UDP joke, but I'm not sure if you'd get it.

He said go ahead

I paused, that was it.

Kind of awkward.

I didn't get the job.

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  • [–] 102 points 6 months ago (16 children)

    Nothing boosts your impression on people like making them feel stupid. RIP

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  • [–] 65 points 6 months ago (6 children)

    I wouldn't expect this joke to make someone feel stupid if they know what UDP is, so it feels like it was a safe bet

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  • [–] 36 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    Interviewing is (ideally) quite a structured type of conversation, when is a job interview. A lot of people have to lock in pretty hard to deal with how unnatural it is, and they might not have the spare bandwidth to catch a joke.

    Especially not someone from HR, they're fucking troglodytes.

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  • [–] 25 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    I completely agree with your first paragraph.
    But TheFogan was probably not explaining UDP to an HR person in this scenario.

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  • [–] 19 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Oh I've seen some pretty bad interviewing, where HR is sent in with a question sheet and a box to tick for which key words the interviewee mentioned per question.

    Obviously a red flag and useless method of interviewing, but it does happen frighteningly often. Especially where the IT team is so understaffed, they can't spare the time to do interviews.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago

    This is done, especially in government work, to limit bias in the interview process. Ideally, though, the people conducting the interviews understand the questions they're asking and can use some judgement and give credit if someone explained a concept but didn't hit the specific keyword.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (5 children)

    Yeah, but that’s not what this was.

    Interviewer asked about thing then does not get joke about most basic property of thing. Either the interviewer is incredibly incompetent or incapable of getting a joke.

    It’s a weird situation even for a job interview. (& I’ve been on job interviews that can only be described as tribunals with 8 judges grilling you simultaneously.)

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  • [–] -2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Humour is not universal, and cracking jokes in an interview is high risk no reward. I've rejected candidates that made inappropriate jokes before. Intentions don't really matter, there's 10 more candidates.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Why do you keep moving the goal posts? We’re not talking about inappropriate jokes or someone being an ass during an interview. Honestly, if an interviewer wastes my time like this I’m ending the interview. Good luck finding just one more guy matching my talents.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago

    I didn't move to goal post at all. In any interaction, you need to gauge the vibe before moving to the next level. Workplace humour is sensitive, and you should drop a joke you're not confortable not landing.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    Interviews are also (if not primarily) a measure of cultural fit. Making tasteful jokes is absolutely appropriate, but depends on the culture. I wouldn't want to work at a place that is too uptight for some humor.

    The UDP joke isn't one that I'd probably use, but doesn't feel out of place in the context of detailing the protocol.

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  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Unfortunately I don’t know enough about udp to get it, is it that you dumped the information before like, asking about it?

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  • [–] 30 points 6 months ago

    Tcp and udp are to sum it up, internet messaging protocols. UDP specifically is when you send a message over without guaranteeing your message was received. TCP on the otherhand is more like a handshake where you send a message and expect a response back.

    The joke is basically UDP=I dont know if you would get it

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  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago

    Yeah I believe i remember roughly the explanation I gave to the interviewer.

    TCP basically takes the time to confirm every detail actually was recieved, used in almost all situations in networking where accuracy is critical.

    UDP is basically when speed is the more important than everything being perfect, (we were on a zoom call), Like say this video call, if the background gets blurry or a few frames drop or even my face distorts for a few seconds, that would be less of an inconvenience to us than if the network took the time and made sure to transmit every frame exactly as the camera picks it up, at the cost of an extra 10 seconds of lag in the call.

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  • [–] 8 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I asked someone this same question in an interview, not so much that it was important, but to see if they had general basic networking knowledge like they claimed to on their resume. Their highly confident explanation was "TCP is for sending, UDP is for receiving" They did not get the job, though not just because of that.

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  • [–] 36 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    That joke deserved a laugh. The class clearly wasn’t conditioned properly.

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  • [–] 26 points 6 months ago

    it's worse if they then continue with. "ok, well, it's interesting you said that his name rings a bell because the experiment..." like you're too dumb to have even made the joke you did.

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  • [–] 23 points 6 months ago

    Maybe they just wanted to deny the positive feedback to him.

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  • [–] 17 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I've heard that same joke a million times. It's what I'd expect to find at the top of a Reddit thread.

    It's a witty joke but a common one, so wouldn't chuckle tbh

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  • [+] 17 points 6 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    For the life of me I can't remember how we got to the subject, but once we were talking about attaching speakers to a dog and I called it "Dolby Surround Hound." I was very proud of that one and it went completely unacknowledged.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago
    [–] 18 points 6 months ago

    The only acceptable response is “I heard he was good at making bitches wet.”

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  • [–] 16 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Or everyone has heard that same joke a thousand times already

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    [+] 36 points 6 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    I would have said "wasn't Pavlov the guy who had a dog named Ruby Begonia?" and even the prof wouldn't have known what the fuck I was talking about.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago

    Should've started drooling right after.

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  • [–] 9 points 6 months ago
    [–] 9 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Did he expect everyone to start drooling over him?

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago

    what a bunch of drooling morons

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    Too obvious, don't reward someone for going after low hanging fruit...

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    It’s totally overrated compared to Eton Mess tbh

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago

    I am ignorant and unwitty - I don't get it. I thought pavlov was a game.

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