--- F R E N D Z of martian --- ----- Original Message ----- From: bri.cors <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Geeks List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 8:03 PM Subject: GeeK: [plist] Quality Assurance at Napster (fwd) > > from a list that I am on... > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: 27 Apr 2001 18:54:13 -0000 > Subject: [plist] Quality Assurance at Napster > > no i didn't write it: > > Subject: horrifying but true napster story > 45 lines (?) > > It seems like I must have posted this already somewhere, or maybe it's just > that I've told it to so many people if feels like I did, because it's such a > great freaky story. > > We went to a wedding of a couple of talk.bizarre friends of ours a few weekends > ago, and of course most of the attendees were dotcommers recently released to > ahem explore the job market. Fortunately, most of them are not "web gurus" > so they are actually landing interviews and stuff, and none of them tried to > grovel at my feet for Apple work. > > One friend of ours told me about a recent experience he had at Napster. They > were apparently hiring QA people to "develop automation" and he thought, > yeah, I can do that. Talked to a recruiter on the phone. They asked what he > was looking for, salarywise, and he threw $100K out, figuring they ought to > be able to afford it. They didn't even blink so he went in for an official > interview. > > At the first interview, the interviewer mentioned at one point, "You're okay > with putting in long hours, right? 'Cause we tend to put in a LOT of hours." > He thinks, yeah, okay, some twelve hours days, 60 hours a week, I have no > personal life, I can do that, sure. > > At the second interview, the interviewer says, "Did the last person tell you > about the long hours? Whatever she said, she was probably understating." It > turns out this second interviewer, who would have been a direct peer of his, > had come to the interview at the tail end of 36 straight hours at work. She > was going to go home for twelve hours and then be back to do another one. > > Then she showed him what their "QA department" is doing these days. > > They don't even have cube farms. They have long tables set up with systems > in a row at which people are sitting around the clock, manually looking > through endless lists of every single file that goes into and out of napster, > searching for copyright violation material concealed in every possible way. > M3TALL1CA PHAD3 2 BLAKK, ding! Flag it. KCALB OT EDAF ACILLATEM, ding! Flag > it. Anything that sits in their hands for 72 hours and turns out to be a > copyright violation, they're fucked. So they have rows of drones looking at > everything and trying to figure out every possible way people can disguise > band and song names. > > "We need to develop a better way to do this. You up to the task?" > > He got the fuck out of there. > > > --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.226 / Virus Database: 108 - Release Date: 1/5/01 -- Sent to you via the frendz list at marsbard.com The archive is at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
