gistfile1.txt

On 18 Aug 2011, at 16:52, Paul Battley wrote:

> On 18 August 2011 10:44, Matthew Geppert <matt@osrecruit.com> wrote:
>> * Command Line Wizard
>
> Presumably, the office has a steady supply of goats, chickens,
> brimstone, eye of newt, etc.


Indeed, these metaphors have caught me out in the past.

I heard "Rails Ninjas" were in high demand a few years ago, and keen to land a top job I travelled to Japan and sought the apprenticeship of a 15th century jonin shinobi.

Alas, I don't know whether it's because their primary weapon is to ensure their existence is unknown, or that they're all dead, but I couldn't find one. So instead, I spent considerable time and effort on my own developing my skills as a mercenary spy, saboteur, agitator and assassin. This was costly, as there are *no* books on these topics in O'Reilly Safari (an oversight, surely?).

I then perfected my craft, infiltrated criminal gangs and eliminated many of their leaders whilst they slept. The Japanese police have many unsolved crimes that I am sure one day I will be held to account for. I believe they call me "The Dark Lord", and Interpol are trying to find me, fearful I will betray my honour and turn upon the innocent civilian population.

On my return from Japan I was shocked to hear nobody was hiring ninjas in the Rails industry any more! What a waste of time! I then discovered what recruiters were *really* after was "Rails rockstars".

Fortunately the skills involved in being a rockstar are somewhat simpler than those required for being a ninja, however the lifestyle is rather contradictory.

I live in Manchester, so it was easy for me to find a band and some gigs. For a week I was a member of The Fall, but then hasn't everybody in Manchester at some point? Eventually I decided as I couldn't sing, my best chance was to become a lead singer of a punk rock group. Our songs were mostly about hating untested code, which didn't go down so well, but it kind of worked. I shaved my head (save for a mohican) developed an arrogant, surly attitude and destroyed about £10k of equipment on-stage over one tour.

I worked hard on developing a huge cocaine and amphetamine dependency, and couldn't get out of bed without the aid of a bottle of Jack Daniels. NME called me "obnoxiously bad" and that's when I knew I had made it.

I then started applying for jobs as a senior developer for various start-ups.

I was SHOCKED to discover that these were just metaphors.

Worse, absolutely nobody wants to hire a punk with a face full of metal, a heavy drug and alcohol dependency, arrogant attitude, several international arrest warrants out for them, and a skill for silent assassination to work on their "social music app".

Apparently they "just want good coders".

I don't understand why they didn't just say so.

I am writing this from The Priory where I have made considerable progress, and from now on I'm just going to focus on getting better at writing Ruby and using Rails. I advise the rest of you to continue doing the same.

Sincerely,

Paul Robinson a.k.a. Shinobi Dark Lord a.k.a. DogFace of the Vomit Rockers