What to ask the employer at the interview, so as not to fall into the swamp

Most employers at the interview will give you the opportunity to ask any questions. This is an excellent chance to determine whether an employer is good and whether it is worth working for him. One of the deadly diseases for the team is the imitation of violent activity (hereinafter referred to as IBD). It arises where the leadership is not in coordinating work, but is replaced by formal control, where the team has been marking time, for tens of years not receiving new tasks, where there is no place for your pursuit of new technologies, where you will not learn anything new. The intrigue is intensified by the fact that the simulator never admits that it only imitates work. On the contrary, he will admit the importance of himself and his activities. Only when you boil in a team for a year, you will realize that you should not have come here, that you just lose time. But there are a few simple signs by which you can easily calculate the disease. About them this note.

Excuse

Of course, conclusions cannot be made on one or two grounds. It is worth thinking only if all signs are present. In addition, you should not build on the absolute values, it is better to use these signs to compare two works (for example, the current and the proposed).

And one more important caveat. The form of the publication itself (article) assumes a compact presentation. Hence, some categorical statements. Of course, on all counts there are many reservations that go beyond the genre; I suppose that some of them will be thought up by the reader himself, others will appear in the comments.
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Caution. The article may cause side effects:

• you may want to quit
• you might want to fire
• you may want to minusovt fiercely :-)

A little about the nature of the phenomenon

The simulator differs from the ordinary worker in three noticeable properties:

• He shows in every way that he performs important and necessary work, and works a lot.
• He leaves from specifics; from his verbose stories you will never understand what he does.
• Since he doesn’t really do anything, he’s not very tired at work.

In addition, IBD does not strike one person in a team. Since this phenomenon is connected not with the individual characteristics of a person, but with the nature of team management and company policy.

And the last. The simulator may not even suspect that he is a simulator. He just works in a team, according to traditions and foundations. He just does the work that he has; and prepares the reporting that is required of him. With an illiterate guide, people become imitators, unwillingly. If you feel that you are becoming an imitator, know that your growth has stopped, your value in the labor market has gone down, and you would be good to do something. Take care of business. Change jobs, or work for yourself.

So, questions that are useful to ask the employer to understand whether the team has a real job.

Do you swear in your team? (jokes do not count; it means working moments)

It’s impossible to use a mat like this: “It’s better to use a red-ebony tree for channels, then the channel access cost will be O (ln (N))”. Even less mat is needed to program this idea. (On the contrary, if you program without a clear understanding of what you are doing, then the mate can be shed in tons.)

If the employee wants to show how he is sick for the cause, how he laid out, but at the same time he has nothing to say, then the whole power of the great and mighty goes. In this case, the case does not say anything. Empty showy emotions.

In general, eloquence often indicates the absence of constructive thoughts. If speech has no content, then they try to give it a refined form.

upd: for some reason, many readers are sure that communication with a language is not less effective than - without a mat. I offer them a couple of simple experiments: replace all the nouns in this article with a known word; insert known words through the word. The article will be clearer from this?

What time do you have to leave work?

Obviously, the team works effectively if it is as harmonious as possible. If one part of the staff works from 9 to 18, and the second from 15 to 24, then you cannot call such work harmonious.

Imitators always leave work late. Indeed, (imitator logic) the later a person stays, the more he works. In addition, after eight, the simulator can safely do nothing - no one will see it, but tomorrow you can proudly say: “I left yesterday after midnight!”

What time do you have to come to work?

Of course, it happens that at work Avrah. Then the team goes to extreme measures, people are laid out to the fullest and, indeed, work around the clock. But this mode of operation can not last long.

If it is not about work, but about imitation, then it goes on for years. It is not possible for years to come on time and leave late. The simulator does not come to work before lunch.

(Occasionally there are non-simulators, owls, they start working as soon as they get out of bed, do half the work at home, and only then come to work. They are easy to distinguish from simulators - they leave work, especially not lingering; see the previous paragraph)

Do you have time to spend your vacation?

Do not go on vacation - another feature of the simulator. He is such a valuable employee that he simply cannot leave the business! He is irreplaceable! In addition, the time spent at work does not bother him at all and he does not feel an urgent need for rest.

In a healthy team, people are able to substitute each other (for more, see the penultimate item); and if a person really has a lot of hard work, then he will not postpone vacation.

upd: There are cases when a person is really indispensable. But (!) Firstly, this does not apply to ordinary web-designers, but to chief accountants, top managers and other similar people. And secondly, these people still go on vacation :-) Yes, they do not part with the laptop and mobile phone, and they start the day with reading Vedomosti, but they go on vacation.

Do you have lunch in the dining room?

Most organizations have canteens or arrangements with the nearest cafe. Food staff somehow organized. But the simulator is so busy with work that it either does not eat at all (eats, of course, but after the end of the working day), or takes food in the workplace.

Do you have a discussion about new technologies? Project development plans?

If the work goes, then there is always something to improve. Management of the assembly, configs, versions; transition to new libraries and software versions; processing of critical areas of code and code written in emergency mode ... Even if everything works perfectly, there are new employees who need to be updated; There are new requirements ... In a healthy team, where employees are busy finding solutions to problems, there is always something to discuss and share.

But the simulator is always against such discussions. Firstly, he has nothing to tell. Secondly, others can master his section of work and he will lose all his indispensability. Then he will have to create a new job site, and this is not included in the simulator’s plans. And thirdly, there is no time for him, he is very busy ... non-work related matters.

What is the nature of staff rotation in your organization? (department, group)

Imitators often say that they quit. Sometimes they even go for interviews and collect things (ostensibly handing out their goods). But they rarely leave the crane, much less often than people who work. It is understandable, the simulator does not want to change his swamp on a stormy workflow. In addition, in the depths of his soul, the simulator understands that he has already lost almost all of his skills and does not represent anything interesting.

In the collective, the patient IDB, the rotation of personnel has such a character: There is a “backbone”, consisting almost entirely of imitators. Here people work for 10 years. And there are constantly current employees who come, understand what is happening and dump it. Such people keep 1-2 years.

This sign is not very reliable (therefore it is at the end). This situation with the staff may be caused by other reasons (however, it is also not very good). However, if you find out that the nature of the change of personnel is exactly that - this is an occasion to think.

Successes to all! Smart bosses, interesting tasks, professional growth and a lot of pleasure from work! :-)