Sara Golemon

My coworkers and I routinely get calls at our desks about "exciting opportunities". Most of the time the message comes to my voicemail (because I keep odd hours), so I'm able to be nice and passive-aggressive by simply not returning the call. Other times, I'll thank them for thinking of me (which is BS, since they probably got my name from some scraper-database), and occasionally, just so often, I'll toy with 'em for awhile. As karmic retribution for interrupting my productivity and really, generally being inappropriate by trying to recruit me WHILE I'M WORKING.

On one occasion I've even dropped the phone back in the craddle the minute I heard "Hi, I'm a recruiter from...", but as rude as that was, it didn't compare to one of my coworker's interactions:

<Coworker's Voicemail> Hi Bob, this is Alice, some papers came across my desk that
                       I need to talk to you about, please call me back at 123-456-7890...
<Coworker> I don't think I'm going to call that lady back, the whole message sounded kinda sketch...

One week later

<Coworker's Voicemail> Hi Bob, this is Alice again, we still ned to talk about those documents,
                       can you please call me back at 123-456-7890 as soon as you can?
<Coworker> I guess it won't hurt to just call and find out if this is a scam or not, I can always hang up...

ring-ring

Turns out it WAS a recruiter, and the "documents" they so urgently had to discuss were an ancient version of his resume. At this point "Bob" was rightly miffed at her tactics and told her so. Not too harshly, but stern enough that SHE STARTED CRYING. Ouch... "<Coworker> On the one hand, I feel REALLY-REALLY bad about chewing her out for just doing her job, but...on the other hand...wtf kind of tactic is that?"

For what it's worth, I agree with him... The tactic was really inappropriate. Why blog about it though? I'll tell ya... See, I just got a call from a recruiter as well, and since I was right in the middle of a package roll I really wasn't in the mood to give him much time. I did back out of the call somewhat politely though (at least, I think it wasn't too rude), and as he hung up, he said something which caught my attention, "I guess I'll keep an eye on your blog in case anything changes *click*" (e.g. pending rumored layoffs).

Like Terry, I get an instant ego boost when I find out someone actually pays attention to my ramblings, so for a minute I though, "Hey! Maybe I should have given that guy more than 15 seconds before shutting him down" (Not that I'm looking to leave Y! necessarily). If he's read a blog post from me, then he scores above the random recruit-o-tron who's slurped my CV in from some database that got a keyword match on "PHP". Unfortunately, I got immediately slapped down by my cynical side which insisted that he *was* just another head-hunter who's trying yet another new tactic to get their foot in the door.

Tactic # 19392b Stroke their ego, and they will c^H^H^H _{nevermind, this is a PG blog...}

So here's the turing test, Recruitobot 5000, post a comment. I dare ya.

P.S. - Less than a minute after posting, I got a call from a pre-recorded voice-dialer on my cell phone telling me I'm paying too much mortgage interrest. *sigh*

A blog reader (I have readers???) recently shared his wishlist, "I'm trying to figure out how to show the opcodes like you have in your post...". I promised that I'd throw something together, so here it is:

Slow down, wtf is an "Opcode"?

Short answer: It's the compiled form of a PHP script, similar in principle to Java bytecode or .NET's MSIL. For example, say you've got the following bit of PHP script:

<?php
  echo "Hello World";
  $a = 1 + 1;
  echo $a;

PHP (and it's actual compiler/executor component, the Zend Engine) are going to go through a multi-stage process:

1. Scanning (a.k.a. Lexing) - The human readable source code is turned into tokens.
2. Parsing - Groups of tokens are collected into simple, meaningful expressions.
3. Compilation - Expressions are translated into instruction (opcodes)
4. Execution - Opcode stacks are processed (one opcode at a time) to perform the scripted tasks.

Okay, I get that I'm one of the only women listed on the PHP Credits page (possibly the only one, but there are some names I don't recognize which could go either way). I also get that I'm one of the most visible women in the PHP community (though there are CERTAINLY several of those). I'm willing to let me ego expand that far, but if ONE MORE PERSON introduces me as "One of the founders of PHPWomen", I'm just...going to snap...It can't be helped.

It's not that I have anything against PHPWomen, far from it. Count me as a "charter member", or supporter, that's fine... I just don't like taking credit for something I didn't create. Leave that distinction for Ligaya Turmelle or Elizabeth Naramore. Speaking of which, they're working on setting up non-profit status for the group and establishing some formal fund-raising. You can drop by now and donate to help out the cause.

I was running some test queries using my usual spread of values and came across a result of "Lieutenant Fluffy?" which was far too whimsical a topic to ignore. Turns out someone thought my holiday photos made for a good creative commons pick. Kudos to the news site for respecting licensing terms properly!