[tluyben2]

Hi Walter, nice to see you again; another (similar to last time) interview process, another discussion here :) Not sure which country you are from, assuming US here; seems your experiences, again, vary wildly from what I see here. The refusal to study this useless stuff upfront had absolutely no baring on their 'refusal of whatever' on the workfloor or 'winging things at work'; employees should refuse things that are a waste of time in my company and they should explain why. If they do that with this 'pre-interview studying', I like them more than the ones who cram all to please the interviewer and show their willingness to do whatever they are told. I think that might be Dutch attitude though so not saying right or wrong here. I think, considering your previous responses that you mean it more subtly as well though.

[WalterBright]

> absolutely no baring

That's not been my experience. I've seen a strong correlation.

> show their willingness to do whatever they are told

I don't think it's the same thing. I've told many of the people I've worked for that what they asked me to do was a waste of their resources. One told me "do it 'cuz I'm the boss and I say so" to which I replied "at the salary you're paying me, I feel obliged to tell you that what you're asking will never work". :-)

Nevertheless, if you know upfront that at a job interview you will be asked certain questions, and you choose to go to the job interview, it seems bizarre to not come prepared. Why bother?

[tluyben2]

> That's not been my experience. I've seen a strong correlation.

Like said, might be culture or maybe I have been lucky.

In my country (I haven't lived there for a while so might've changed but I don't think so) and my company we were not so salary obsessed, so 'at the salary you pay me' is a phrase used never in our office of few 100 colleagues. If you make 5 or 9 figures a year; if the boss tells me 'do it cuz i'm the boss' I'm not doing it if it's a stupid idea and I expect that from my colleagues even if I outrank them technically.

So still thinking it's culture as well; here you cannot fire people easily; you have to make a dossier (with obvious mistakes/flaws etc) and go to a judge and then pay them a few months. So there needs to be much more of a trust relation than master/slave relation imho. Note that we only needed that twice when the employees where watching/downloading pr0n all day. One was a junior designer and the other a phone support employee for our cms.

Edit: btw, i'm not saying I like that system per-se; in some countries (like Spain) it goes too far and you won't hire people because you can't fire them, but in NL I had no actively sabotaging people (you can't fire me so I do just enough); quite the opposite, while in Spain I meet too many of them.

[WalterBright]

I don't know if it's a culture thing or not, but if I'm paid low I expect I am being paid to do what I'm told, but if I'm paid high I expect that I am being paid for my expertise, and that includes advising the boss. (It's not about being obsessed with salary.)

None of this should be construed as a master/slave relationship.

For an analogy, if I go to McDonald's I am not interested in the opinions of the cashier, I just want to pay the money and get the burger. If I'm going to an expensive restaurant, I'm interested in the opinions of the waiter about what to order - that's part of what I'm paying for.