Thick skin required

Reading this BBC News article today reminds me how there are still a large number of companies that just have an over-inflated opinion of how good it is to work in their offices.

I mean, seriously - you expect a 16 year old to be thrilled non-stop about working in marketing and logistics?

I'd be worried that a company that supposedly works in marketing has such a poor grip on reality. Firing her has made the company look far, far worse than if they'd kept on
a 16 year old who was getting bored at work.

They also compare facebook to the company notice board - no it's not. It's comparable to a comment made with work colleagues down the pub. Would the company sack anyone who said they were "bored at work" at the pub?

Beats the face on Mars anyday

The human brain is great at pattern recognition. One problem is that it is so good, it sees things that aren't there. Apart from a dirt track, there's not a lot at the coordinates of 50.01,-110.11 that isn't natural, but...


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Three As and a Facebook account

Oh, shock horror. A Cambridge University admissions tutor has admitted to looking at prospective students facebook public accounts.

The University says it relies on "interview performance, academic record and personal statement, outlining their interests and reasons for studying a particular course."

But someone can be nervous at their interview, or overstate their interests in a personal statement. Or they could be very, very dull and do nothing but work (while I like to think of City boys as being very, very dull, nowadays they like to recruit people who get firsts while, say, captaining the rowing club).

Perhaps the tutor doesn't really want a bunch of dry, grey, faceless academic clones who can do nothing but work, because if you pick that you'd get a bunch of nervous breakdowns long before the finals. I suspect the tutor isn't using this as an excuse to deny people, but as a clue that someone should really be let in.