Faking It.
.
At one company I worked at there was a huge, high-profile, project that involved employing dozens of programmers from an out-sourcing company. Well, I say programmers but I actually mean people-pulled-off-the-street-and-poured-into-suits. To my jaundiced eye these "programmers" seemed to have very little programming skills and a breath-taking lack of knowledge of IT in general. So it was up to me to educate them.

"Hey Legless" squeaked one of the masses "What does TCP/IP actually stand for?"

Bear in mind that this was a web project they were working on. A web programmer didn't know what the very bones of the Internet stood for.

"That'll be Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Pixies" I lied smoothly.

He looked suspicious.

"Internet Pixies" he asked looking puzzeled

"Yup. You see the fathers of the Internet were a bunch of hippies so would name things out of Tolkien or from Dungeons And Dragons. I mean, you've heard of Unix Daemons? - Systems processes on Unix boxes? Well the Pixies carry the messages to the Daemons. It all makes a kind of weird sense when you think about it"

I was warming to my theme now.

"Then there's a bunch of other Pixies on the internet. Your dial up modem uses PPP doesn't it?"

He nodded.

"Well that's Pixie to Pixie Protocol. Then there's your mail - POP3. That's Post Office Pixie. I could go on but that's the meat of it. Pixies run the Internet."


He was nodding now and smiling.

"You know, it does all make sense. Can't wait to tell the other guys about this. We've been wondering about it for a while." says Mr Gullible.

And off he trotted.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 7:44, 9 replies)

Hehehe
People ask stuff like that as if it actually means something; was writing a modem string for a dialup customer yonks ago (was something like ATN0S37=5 off the top of my head, was only a basic one). "Oh, what does that mean?"
"It's a list of commands which reset the dialup modem then makes the phonecall using a basic command only, instead of trying out a load of different ones."
"Right. So it uses the phone line then?"
"Yes..........."
"Ah."
A little bit of me died that day.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 8:09, closed)

Acronyms
.
I often drop meaningless acronyms in when I'm interviewing someone. A good candidate will stop me and ask what it means as he's never heard of it. A faker will nod knowingly...
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 8:25, closed)

Dangerous strategy...
I've been in IT, at every level, for over 20yrs now and there's a million acronyms out there. I've heard most, including duplicates, and many times I can't remember exactly what each means.

Anyway, an interview is a two way process and I'm as interested in finding out if my future boss and colleagues are fakers themselves. You don't want to work for a moron after all. I've sometimes heard people making stuff up or using terms out of context. I usually don't bother to ask, but just look a bit quizzical - which is my way of saying "you're either a moron, or trying to trick me, and I don't appreciate either."

That's not to say there aren't lots of fakers in IT. There are - it's easy to fake quality and most clients won't know the difference until it's too late.
(clopinettes, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 8:41, closed)

I want all this to be true!

( Bob Todd whee, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 9:08, closed)

Faking it in IT
As opined elsewhere, the day my boss discovers that all of my knowledge comes courtesy of Google is the day I get fired.

That said, when asked a question I can usually find the answer pretty quickly; many of my cow-orkers just look confused or end up asking me anyway. It appears that being able to just fucking Google it is a valid skill after all.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 12:03, closed)

You
are the wind beneath my wings. Continue please.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Fri 11 Jul 2008, 14:58, closed)

You sir
Are an ass. More please.
(BrainSurgerysFun, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 21:22, closed)

Hippies and Pixies
Well that explains a whole lot about all this computery stuff.
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Tue 15 Jul 2008, 5:18, closed)

Lovely!
Love it. You should have mentioned 'Wizards' to for the M$ lovers.

I can't wait until someone asks me a similar question (should be about 1 min, but the accountants are all off today).
(dchurch bah, Wed 16 Jul 2008, 13:07, closed)