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10/01/2006: "colour me gobsmacked"

I will freely admit that I derive some satisfaction when I see a comment has been left under one of my posts. I like feedback (or haven't I hammered that into everyone's skull enough yet?). I guess it just helps me realize that people are out there reading, following along, dare I say even caring what goes on in my life.

That is, until the comment I got at this post. Truly, when I read that, the only phrase that could accurately describe what I was feeling was gobsmacked.

At first I thought John Orchard was actually being helpful, until I read the full comment. Here is this recruiter (and you all know how long a pole I like to keep such people at bay with) who SOMEHOW came across my blog, read enough to realize that I'm looking for work, and leave a comment. At first glance, how nice of him. On every subsequent glance, however, it's obvious that this is simply more comment spam.

Before I tear into him (I am under no illusion that he will be returning to check NFT ever again) I will give him the credit he deserves for posting under his own name, leaving his e-mail address, and his phone number. That shows that he's at least sincere, but as I'll show, he's also pretty lazy in his trolling for developers.

First, he's in Seattle. No problem there, but he's hoping that I'm in Seattle too. Hello? Did "Toronto" in the title not give you a hint? How about the HUGE maple leaf?

Second, he's obviously come to NFT once and never read another post previously. Why? He's looking for software developers, and I'm guessing pretty much everyone who reads NFT on a regular basis - whether you've met me or not - knows that I'm not a software developer, nor have I ever been. In fact, you could probably pretty easily figure out what I do for a living just using Google and the "site:" function.

Hmm... I guess those are the only two points against him, but that second one really irks me. I mean, good Lord, how much time and effort does this person spend trolling blogs looking for people who are looking for work, posting a comment (likely a standardized one that he just cuts and pastes), and repeating? I could maybe see doing that on one of the big blogging sites where you might be able to search for people's location and their profession (if they've filled out their profile thusly), but how on earth did he find NFT, squirreled away on littl' ol' Warpfish.com? (Jerry, if you're reading, I'd love to know how this guy came to NFT. A Google search? Under what terms?)

In case you're wondering, I'm not going to be calling him, or even dropping him an e-mail. It's not worth it. He obviously invested so little time in reaching out to me, I should just treat it like the rest of the comment spam I've had and delete it. The only thing stopping me is the incredible gall it oozes. Wow.

Replies: 4 Comments

on Sunday, October 1st, Jerry said

Kind of makes me wonder how he found NFT in the first place...

JGH

on Monday, October 2nd, Mike said

Well, for Seattle recruiters, Vancouver isn't that far away, so he's thinking if you're willing to come to Vancouver, you might be willing to come to Seattle.

Just speculating.

on Monday, October 2nd, roberthahn said

i bet if you pulled up the access logs, you could find out what terms he used to find your site -- assuming that he came right in from Google or something.

on Tuesday, October 31st, John Orchard said

Sorry, didn't mean to gobsmack you. In my defense and to satisfy your curiosities: I came to your site through a couple other blogs that appeared to link .NET developers together (starting with Microsoft's C#.NET blog community), I have worked with a couple great Canadian developers in the past so I wasn't scared off by the maple leaf.

I didn't mean to waste your time in reading my comment but you should probably also ease off a bit on the assumptions. I'm obviously following up or I wouldn't have been able to write this. I was genuinely trying to be helpful. I was hoping that you would "consider" working in Seattle (see earlier comment about the good Canadian's I've worked with in the past). While I didn't spend much time invesitgating exactly what you do and don't do for a living on this site, I spent the entire afternoon looking for sites just like this in hopes that I could network my way to a decent developer whether the people hosting the sites are developers or not. Most people know other people. I actually do type and don't use "canned" posts like you suggested. I assumed that a quick and simple open ended posting would be better than typing more details than necessary just to prove that I was human.

In the end, you mentioned how happy you were that someone actually took the time to find your site, post a comment, and maybe even offer assistance so maybe your response can shed some light on why you don't get more postings offering assistance and maybe even may shed light on why you are still looking for work. I'm not trying to be harsh, just pointing out what seems obvious to me.

Good luck in your search and I'll let you know if I come across your site in my future travels on the web so that you can make sure that it gets even less visibility than it does now by cutting those links. I still don't see why you would want to get less visibility to a site like this but hey, its your site.

John Orchard