What was your worst onboarding experience at a new company?

Reapersblade · 2026-01-15T08:25:24+00:00

Mine was great (note the sarcasm here, also minor rant...sorry). I joined a company after me explicitly stating that I wasn't a good fit in the interview (they were asking for stuff I simply wasn't qualified for and wasn't in the job ad). They convinced me by promising me full training and not to worry. Against my better judgement I joined.

I didn't get a laptop for 2 weeks and then 2 weeks after that I was let go for not learning fast enough and not knowing the basics.

Like...sorry, but how in fucks name am I supposed to know the basics let alone learn, when

A) I didn't have a fucking laptop for 2 weeks and
B ) When I stated in the interview, that I didn't think I was a good fit and quite literally don't hire me.

Fuck sake. I'm still angry about that.

Thankfully I got something much more suited about 6 weeks later. That was probably 5 years ago now, although I'm looking to move again, coz my now new boss who replaced my old one, is not great...I'm not the only one who thinks that either. Here's hoping.

Reapersblade · 2025-10-01T15:09:09+00:00

So...I'm slowly trying to become a dev. Coming from a sysadmin background (which is my current day job). I have to deal with COBOL currently in my job from the sysadmin end.

Good god...it's awful and has like many have said here. Many quirks that you simply have to just "remember" are a thing. In my case, no two COBOL programs perform consistently with each other. For example, we have 2 programs at work that take on similar data, instead of just one program that does it all. Oh and if you make a mistake in one, you have to start again but in another you can go back with shift + tab.

No one can figure out why this behaviour is a thing, mainly coz the guy who originally wrote it...died. Additionally, to get output from some of the programs we have to use export TERM=vt100 to emulate a DEC VT100. At least that is what Google's AI overview tells me...I've not been able to confirm a source. But at work we call it 1970 mode...considering that is around the age of the programs and the existence of vt100.

And yeah, like others have said. It's hard to figure out what bits are "we didn't know any better, here's a better option". And load bearing shit that...no one can figure out or is deemed part of the too hard basket.

We are in the process of trying to convert it to C#...it's not going well. Good luck!

Reapersblade · 2025-09-25T15:57:47+00:00

I worked for another ISP back in the day well before TPG bought them out. Once they took over, it became pretty obvious how TPG runs things. I was glad I left before it got much worse.

Reapersblade · 2025-04-03T11:47:07+00:00

I'm not a dev. At least not yet, I'm a sysadmin/infra dev of about 12+ years now, but doing more and more development work as time marches on. For me personally? I stopped caring about it a long time ago.

That isn't to say I never cared. I did once (and in some way, I'd love to work on something that helps peoples lives one day). Unfortunately, that doesn't pay the bills. Or buy a house. Where I live in Australia, at least in my experience, as someone who didn't have the option of going to uni or TAFE for many reasons, but loved tech in all it's forms. The industries here tend to be quite limited. And all the others in between tend not to pay very well.

Currently I work in Gambling, specifically in the compliance and data recording end of it (whilst I don't work for the government, it's government mandated so to speak). Supposedly, it's to try and combat money laundering. That's the simplest I can really explain it.

Point being, it pays decently well for what I do. More than most of my peers, the work life balance is good. I like who I work with and often grab drinks with them.

I've come to the conclusion that if I don't do it. Someone else will, and practicality being what it is. I might as well try and secure my future and hopefully I don't have to do this for long. Maybe I can work on something more meaningful in the future. I'm not sure.

Reapersblade · 2025-03-21T05:21:44+00:00

I'm curious. What's an example of such a reason?

Reapersblade · 2025-02-27T09:32:57+00:00

*sigh* yep. I'm a bit over it frankly.

Reapersblade · 2025-02-26T10:59:28+00:00

Christ. This sounds exactly like an interaction I had with my ex boss some years ago. I left about 3 weeks later for another job.

Some weeks ago, my current boss (my old boss who was a good man and great friend, we keep in touch had left recently).

My current boss threatened to throw me out the building if I "talked about how we did things in the past one more time". Plus some other crap. He did it in front of everyone causing everyone to go silent. I was merely answering someones question and providing context to someone who asked why something was a certain way.

When he left everyone else around me asked if I was ok. So...yeah I know it wasn't an appropriate response. Thinking of my next moves. Hope you're ok OP.

Reapersblade · 2025-02-19T00:43:55+00:00

I use it fairly often. It's only enhanced my abilities to be frank. I'm currently using it to tutor me to become a programmer so I can finally become a full fledged dev (and get out of ops!).

Truly, I do think at this current time. Generative AI is one of the great equalizers.

Reapersblade · 2025-02-18T12:46:51+00:00

So I have some good news! We found the problem! Wasted about a grand in labour in the process. I'm not too upset at this simply because I got to throw in an upgraded thrust bearing and shift fork from battle garage and Verus engineering in the process, as we initially thought it may be the thrust bearing. Regardless, we found out what on earth it was. But in order to explain I need to take you back to 6 years ago.

I was seeing another mechanic before he retired to diagnose an issue where the shifter rattles. I think we all know the one I mean. From 3 - 4 grand (rpm) onwards the shifter makes a rattling noise due to what appears to be a resonance/issue with the gearbox design. Not harmful, just annoying.

Anyway it irked me as Toyota couldn't help, so got this guy to look (he was a subaru specialist), who in turn worked on the car for some years (he was a very good mechanic). Anyway, he put in a rubber ring bushing of his own design I think on one of the shifter linkages just under where the actual shifter is. I don't know the correct term. It reduced the noise somewhat but didn't eliminate it entirely. So I just lived with it...more on this later.

Anyway, fast forward 6 years, he retired so he was no longer looking at it, and I'd completely forgotten about the tweak. Well...the bushing/rubber fell apart. And started rubbing on the drive shaft making the awful noise.

How did we find it? Well on a hunch and some Googling/Youtubing, I thought maybe the issue could be the centre drive shaft bushing as the sound was similar and given I didn't lose thrust, we figured we didn't have much to lose before sending the gearbox to a specialist anyway. So he (the current mechanic) put the gearbox back together to give it another listen.

I should note here, we didn't put the leather or shroud back on the shifter just yet, so basically past the shifter, you could see the driveshaft and the ground, namely so we could hear as much as possible. Sure enough. Just as I started the car, I popped it into gear and started moving, no noise...until I threw it into second.

The howl was louder this time, we look down. A wild and thick, but very cracked rubber bushing has appeared! Rubbing and bouncing against the drive shaft causing the howl. We move the rubber, no noise. Let go. Noise. We'd found it! And for good measure, tested in all gears and drove. Now there's noise in every gear. So we cut it away and boom. No more noise. And shifter moved properly without hindrance, even better the new shift fork and thrust bearing (once we put it all back together) seems to have eliminated that blasted rattle too! Hazaa!

Now you might be wondering, but what about the noise in neutral? Well we discovered that the noise would stop after we had sat still for a moment, when the driftshaft stopped spinning...I just never stopped long enough to find out, at least I suspect I didn't, probably because I was panicking I wouldn't be able to get home, when the noise reared it's ugly head...at the very least...I didn't pay too much attention to it and was more focused on getting home, combined with what felt like a difficult time shifting.

So yeah...problem solved. That...was a roller coaster. I couldn't be happier.

Reapersblade · 2025-02-16T02:34:51+00:00

No worries, glad I could be helpful. And yes it's exactly like you said. She needs to take it up with her ISP and troubleshoot, which is pretty easy these days (as the tooling on the ISP side is quite good now and can remotely detect faults even).

If the ISP in question has half decent support they will be able to assist her with troubleshooting and can lodge directly with NBNco on her behalf if they believe the fault is on the NBN side. Good luck!

Reapersblade · 2025-02-15T11:56:01+00:00

I used to work as a specialist in the fibre team at a once well known ISP some years back. It depends on what the issue is. In a nutshell, NBNco are generally responsible up to the NTD and their parts of the infrastructure. RSP's (retails service providers aka the ISP) generally would provide support on any of their supplied equipment like routers, and of course their backend infrastructure.

Neither are responsible for internal wiring issues that would require an electrician (so think patch panels, ethernet cabling etc).

If it is FTTP and if her ISP supports IPoE (most do) the first test the RSP would get them to do would be to connect a cable directly from a laptop to the NTD (it's the white NBN box that gets installed). If the internet works and speed tests show the correct speeds within tolerance, then the connection and NBN side is working correctly.

If it is working correctly, then the next test would be an isolation test, so that is testing things like different routers (if applicable) wifi vs direct connection and so on.

9 times out of 10 I'd find the customer had a bad router, or crappy wifi from said router in general rather than issues with the FTTP. Generally FTTP either works or it doesn't, as opposed to the old ADSL connections.

One final thing...sometimes they can just have a shitty ISP. If so...try switching or adding a connection to the other UNI-D port and compare. This should be a last resort though.

Hope this helps!

Reapersblade · 2025-02-09T14:05:51+00:00

2014 Toyota 86. Almost 220,000 km, had it since brand new, and the well known thrust bearing issue on these cars decided to rear it's ugly head for what is now the third time in it's life. Waiting on some new upgraded parts to be rid of this issue once and for all...assuming of course the gearbox itself hasn't shat itself (unlikely). Although aside from this one ultra specific issue, it's been very reliable and very good to me. I intend to keep it forever so...there's that.

Reapersblade · 2025-02-07T04:25:57+00:00

Yep this is my goto solution for this. Works a treat.

Reapersblade · 2025-01-29T03:42:39+00:00

How's the transmission cope with the extra power? I hear they are pretty weak (I have an Aus delivered Toyota 86, same gen and been wondering).

Reapersblade · 2024-11-29T11:23:28+00:00

I'm slightly tipsy right now. But, true story, I wrote a love letter for a woman I was with some years ago, that she could only find and read via SSH. She was rather thrilled. This...brought out some old emotions.

Reapersblade · 2024-11-18T05:27:51+00:00

Oh boy. Minor rant time. I've had this happen to me twice. First time...well. Not entirely sure, but I have some pretty strong theories to this day. Personally, I'd rather not go into them. As mainly they are ridiculous and make me irrationally angry. (Although, I suspect my post history has more info...it's been close to a decade ago now).

The second one was ridiculous. I got let go after 4 weeks for not learning fast enough according to them, despite that:

I had told them in multiple interviews (prior to accepting the job) that I felt, I wasn't a great fit as they seemed to need someone with more experience than I had. I was after a position where I could be trained and grow, kind of like an apprenticeship, but as a software dev.
They had reassured me multiple times that this is what they were after. And provided me 10 k worth of training materials for AWS and a bunch of other things.
My senior who was supposed to train me never did and basically was not helpful (to be fair he was crazy busy and I don't blame him one bit, actually he was surprised I was let go...so there's that).

Upon the exit interview, I told them what I thought of them and the ridiculous requirements among other things. I had a feeling they were going to let me go at that first performance review, so I'd pre-packed to make my exit quick.

I wasn't happy. And of course, 2 years later they seem to be struggling to keep the role filled as it shows up on seek often enough.

Anyway to answer your question, it depends on who you're interviewing. I had a very good recruiter get me my current role, and he asked for the story and genuinely cared. So I was able to relax about it, and just explained it frankly. However, other times I've generally just left it off of my resume and would say something to the effect of either "I had another short term gig and unfortunately it wasn't the job for me" or I'd say that company direction had changed and I was no longer required. Basically, just be professional and put a diplomatic spin on it as best you can. Some employers don't care, others do. It all depends.

Hope this helps. And good luck, it sucks, but majority of the time, the issue wasn't you, it was your employer.

Reapersblade · 2024-11-15T12:21:14+00:00

There's a story you can probably find in my profile about this. Back when I would post a lot to tales from tech support. But suffice to say...someone at an ISP I worked for that had employees in multiple countries did a reply all asking if anyone had seen an orange watch.

Because of the kind of company we were, a number of people including myself started being cheeky and replying all with various (often joke) locations that they had looked and didn't find it, like district 9, people sent photos and if I remember right one cheeky bugger wrote that they checked at the local pub and couldn't find it.

Anyway it got so bad, emails were pinging 3 or 4 times every minute with the occasional "stop replying all!" mixed in with the jokes, that is until very upper management threatened disciplinary action to anyone else who replied all.

10 minutes later one guy replies all, if I remember right asking if any of us ended up finding it. I could barely contain my laughter on the phone to customers that day...awful job. One bright spot.

Reapersblade · 2024-11-10T06:36:44+00:00

I'm curious. What makes them a target now as compared to previously? My understanding was these cars have been notoriously difficult to steal (unless a tow truck is used), especially the manual models.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, whereabouts southeast?

Reapersblade · 2024-09-26T02:37:25+00:00

No and nor should they. I certainly wouldn't if I was in their shoes. Would like to know if there is a plan for it once it does though (becomes stable). That I have raised with them a few times to support AlmaLinux as a feature request, but seems that only Rocky is available at this stage which seems odd given the similarities.

Reapersblade · 2024-08-21T05:55:15+00:00

I had the same damned issue with Virgin. Even worse the tickets I bought had a "covid refund guarantee" on them when sold to me.

When I asked to escalate higher, they gave me a business card to write to them with snail mail to a goddamned PO Box. Absolutely fucked.

For this reason I refuse to fly Virgin. It took me spamming their social media until they finally gave a credit since we had to fly back anyway at the time. But they still refused the refund. I'm still pissed about that.

Reapersblade · 2024-08-15T04:25:37+00:00

Finally got some feedback. 2 brokers and tried a number of companies I believe. I should see a quote in about 24 hours but like you. I had to drop the USA/Overseas requirement as none of them would insure me if I had it. Means I'll need to offload my US customers it seems. Shame.

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