I have first hand experience in this so let me tell you why: because at big companies like Yahoo, 9 out of 10 of full-time telecommuters are unproductive. It's impossible to really coordinate with them. They're never available when you need them. They're always out shuttling their kids or whatever they do. They're not the heroic always-on rock stars like startups have. In other words, it's a privilege that is abused. Yahoo forcing people to come in to work to you know, work, is a good and clever way to get rid of those unproductive people. Right or wrong, doesn't matter, but I reckon the productivity is up over there.

I've been contacted by recruiters out of the blue on LinkedIn, gone through the interview process for the fabulous job they were peddling, and then not do well enough in the interview to get the job. The recruiter was warm and encouraging and friendly throughout the process... until I didn't get the job. Some dick behavior along with a "They found a substantially more qualified candidate" message. Wtf? Would it not be sufficient to just say "Unfortunately they have decided to move forward with another candidate." Was it really necessary to kick me while I was already down, disappointed I didn't get the job? Word to the wise: a recruiter finds you on Linkedin and is all friendly, it's not going to last. Like used car salesmen these people. Once you're no longer useful to you they'll discard you like you're trash.

How would you characterize your college experience? As you were so young it must have been difficult to engage in those crucial interactions with your peers outside of class, eg dinners out, parties where alcohol was involved, etc. Or were you more like the kid in the "Revenge of The Nerds" movie? ;-)

It used to be that you'd go in and you'd be asked to talk about the projects that are on your CV, talk about what challenges you faced and how you solved them, and you'd be asked some basic technical questions to confirm that you hadn't completely made it all up.

Now, nobody gives a crap about your CV. The last time I went through it, to be a PHP/MySQL developer, the tech lead or whatever came in without my resume in hand, gave a curt look and a limp handshake, and launched into it:

"I have 3 questions."

First off:

"Design a game of blackjack." with no further explanation. A silent stare as I asked for clarification. Okay you want me to give you an object model. Doing that.

Much pain later and condescension and derision later (yet in my opinion done well enough to be functional,) comes the second question with only 10 minutes in the hour remaining:

"Design an algorithm to efficiently sort a list of trillions of elements."

And I barely got off the ground on that one. Bounced some thoughts at him with the same derision and impatience in return. Needless to say I never got to hear what the third question was.

His colleagues were not much nicer. I didn't get the job, but fuck them. I wouldn't want to work with these miserable assholes anyway. As I was walked out I saw their big developer pit or whatever they call it, this nightmarish contraption with no privacy and all this agile frenzy going on. No windows, all artificial light in the middle of the day, these giant monitors mounted on walls showing the build status or whatever the fuck, this cheap synthetic carpet, not a single person smiling. I'm sure they are very productive and God bless em.

OTOH, yup, I'm still looking for full time work.

I''m so ronery, ronery!

The actor they got to play Kim Jong Un looks a helluvalot more serious and intimidating than the real guy.