[gameprogrammer] Re: Fire on the first day?

Decided to reply to Paul's email as I total agree with him.
Communication is so damn important. Would you fire a graphics artist if
he didn't do exactly as you had in mind (and maybe didn't get
communicated over to him at the first talk).. I hope not.

As Paul said, sit down, go over some ideas and take it from there. Who
knows, you might come up with something together that is way better than
what you imagined.

Oh, and how would you feel if he (the programmer you are unsure about)
replied to your message on this mailing list? You might not have seen
any postings from him here but he might be reading the list. Guess he
and anyone in the company would feel unsure about how this is handled if
they saw this. I feel it was very wrong of you in the first place to
bring up such an important issue here, but that's my own opinion.

In anyway, good luck.

-Sam
http://www.SamuelNova.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: gameprogrammer-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:gameprogrammer-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul Smith
> Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 12:07 AM
> To: gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [gameprogrammer] Re: Fire on the first day?
> 
> 
> You flipping Americans!
> 
> The answer to what you should do is - use some teamwork!  
> You've employed a smart person as a graphics programmer and 
> on day one asked him to design a reasonably complex system 
> with no background to your project?  And based on his initial 
> response you're considering firing him?  In the Uk that would 
> be so ludicrous that I can't even concieve of it.
> 
> Here's what I'd do.  First, I'd appreciate that the guy is 
> intelligent (assuming you at least got that right) and I'd 
> work *with* him to get to the end goal I was after.  You have 
> some idea of how you want your explosion system to work.  So 
> why don't you actually ask for what you want?  Of course, you 
> think he has a good background in graphics, so make him feel 
> comfortable enough to discuss any ideas he has for 
> improvement with you.  Maybe sit down for 30 minutes together 
> and hash out how it's going to work.  Use some pen and paper 
> to draw some of what you want.
> 
> Ask for a simple prototype to be done by the end of the day 
> (making sure he understands that he only has to get something 
> working to demonstrate some progression, not that the entire 
> system is expected).  Gauge his progress throughout the day 
> by asking how it's going, showing that you're interested in 
> the explosion system rather than making it sound like you're 
> judging the guy.  When you see the prototype running, discuss 
> anything that seems different to how you imagined it.  
> Compliment him on anything he's done better than you expected 
> - comfortable employees work better I hear!
> 
> Now you'll have an idea of whether the guy is worth his salt 
> or not. But firing a guy on the first day based on an answer 
> to a tricky question that in all honesty I don't think you 
> should be expected to answer on day 1 in a new job sounds 
> totally ludicrous to me.
> 
> Of course, if you hired the guy with exactly this job in 
> mind, surely this kind of question belongs in the interview?
> 
> On 3/23/07, Kevin Jenkins <gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > I hired a graphics programmer for my 3D space game.  He 
> sounded smart 
> > in the interview and sounded like he had a good background. 
>  His first 
> > assignment was to develop an explosion system for a giant carrier.
> >
> > When pressed on how he would do this, he said he would 
> place explosion 
> > billboards randomly inside the bounding rectangle of the 
> carrier. When 
> > asked why this would work, he said it would work because my test 
> > carrier was a giant (hollow) rectangle.
> >
> > For those that don't know it, the bounding rectangle of an 
> object is 
> > the rectangle that encloses the maximum extents of the object, and 
> > unless the object really is a rectangle will have space 
> outside of the 
> > object too.
> >
> > My immediate reaction, and maybe I'm wrong, was that his 
> answer was so 
> > obviously wrong no graphics programmer could ever give it.  Even 
> > non-programmers should know better.  Did he actually think 
> our final 
> > art was going to be flying rectangles?  Or did just not 
> think things 
> > through?  Either way, I should just fire him immediately.
> >
> > On the other hand, I don't want to be an ogre that fires 
> someone just 
> > for asking a question. I always hated jobs where I had to 
> spend hours 
> > figuring stuff out because someone couldn't spare 5 minutes 
> to answer 
> > something.
> >
> > Firing now will cost $200 and the time I spent 
> interviewing.  Waiting 
> > will cost me $1000 and that time, but has a chance that he 
> will work 
> > out in the end.
> >
> > What should I do?
> >
> > ---------------------
> > To unsubscribe go to http://gameprogrammer.com/mailinglist.html
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> Paul Smith
> Computer programmer
> 
> paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 
> ---------------------
> To unsubscribe go to http://gameprogrammer.com/mailinglist.html
> 
> 


---------------------
To unsubscribe go to http://gameprogrammer.com/mailinglist.html

Other related posts: