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Alright. This is going to be long and incoherent, so buckle up. This is how I lost my motivation to program or to do anything really.

Japan is apparently experiencing a shortage of skilled IT workers. They are conducting standardized IT skill tests in 7 Asian countries including mine. Very few people apply and fewer actually pass the exam. There are exams of different levels that gives you better roles in the IT industry as you pass them. For example, the level 2 or IT Fundamental Engineering Exam makes you an IT worker, level 3 = capable of working on your own...so on.
I passed level 1 and came in 3rd in my country (there were only 78 examinees lol). Level 2 had 2 parts. The theoretical mcq type exam in the morning and the programming mcq in the afternoon. They questions describe a scenario/problem, gives you code that solves it with some parts blanked out.

I passed the morning exam and not the afternoon. As a programmer I thought I'd be good at the afternoon exam as it involves actual code. Anyway, they give you 2 more chances to pass the afternoon exam, failing that, you'll have to take both of them the next time. Someone who has passed 1 part is called a half-passer and I was one.

A local company funded by both JICA and my government does the selection and training for the Japanese companies. To get in you have to pass a written exam(write code/pseudocode on paper) and pass the final interview in which there are 2 parts - technical interview and general interview.

I went as far as the interview. Didn't do too good in the technical interview. They asked me how would I find the lightest ball from 8 identical balls using a balance only twice. You guys probably already know the solution. I don't have much theoritical knowledge. I know how to write code and solve problems but don't know formal name of the problem or the algorithm.

On to the next interview. I see 2 Japanese interviewers and immediately blurt out konichiwa! The find it funny. Asked me about my education. Say they are very impressed that self taught and working. The local HR guy is not impressed. Asks me why I left university and why never tried again. Goes on about how the dean is his friend and universites are cheap. foryou.jpg

The real part. So they tell me that Japanese companies pay 250000/month, I will have to pay 60% income tax, pay for my own accommodation, food, transportation cost etc. Hella sweet deal. Living in Japan! But I couldn't get in because the visa is only given to engineers. Btw I'm not looking to invade Japan spread my shitskin seed and white genocide the japs. Just wanted to live in another country for a while and learn stuff from them.

I'll admit I am a little salty and probably will remain salty forever. But this made me lose all interest in programming. It's like I don't belong. A dropout like me should be doing something lowly. Maybe I should sell drugs or be a pimp or something.

But sometimes I get this short lived urge to make something brilliant and show them that people like me are capable of doing good things. Fuck, do I have daddy issues?

Comments
  • 1
    @norman70688 Not sure if you're being sarcastic. Japan is hiring people from developing countries. In recent years they hired 500000 IT workers from India alone. They plan to hire 2000 from my country in the next 2 years. There might be other ITPEC countries too. That's pretty diverse in my opinion. Seems weird to me that a country like Japan needs foreign programmers.
  • 0
    📌
  • 2
    @norman70688 Like when someone has to prove himself to an authority figure to feel worthwhile and tries to overcompensate? I could be wrong. Sorry this whole thing has me upside down. LOL
  • 1
    Daddy issues part got my attention. What the fuck is going on?
  • 3
    @AshesOfTheSun Weren't Japanese extremely hostile to foreigners except for tourists? Like if you work there then they will treat you no better than a slave and if by any chance you get mixed marriage then both of you will be treated like shit. You pay more for hookers if you are foreigner and so on.
  • 0
    @arraysstartat1 That's true. A gaijin will be treated as such. But people are there to work . They don't have to assimilate and get married. I guess it's just cheap labor. If I could find out which company they were hired by I might have a better explanation.
  • 0
    @grumpyoldaf Nothing sexual and no homo and probably misdiagnosis. Maybe I should get rid of that line to avoid confusion?
  • 1
    @AshesOfTheSun you probably should. That word seems so out of place. On the other hand, if you do actually have them, youre kinda fucked.
  • 1
    @grumpyoldaf It's too late. Cannot modify.
  • 1
    Google 'Edmund Hillary Fellowship New Zealand' and read up on it. May be something to look at if you are young and single. You don't have to be young and single, but I imagine it would make things simpler.
  • 3
    That trick question is hilarious. I would answer such a question with "2015". That's the year when Google abandoned stupid trick questions because they don't tell anything useful about the interviewee.
  • 2
    @Fast-Nop The answer they gave me was that you weigh 3 vs 3 marbles first. If they have the same weight then one of the remaining 2 balls is the one. So weight them and pick the lighter one. I thought it's pretty stupid because it depends on chance. What if the first six balls are not of the same weight? The. Then they'd be fucked. Of course I didn't want to argue and they were already on to another question. Another question they asked me was to identify a binary tree from 4 binary trees. I was getting frustrated because there was none but I thought I must not be looking carefully. Surely, they wouldn't trick me. Maybe they wanted me to explain the problem to them and show my communication skills. I am still not sure.
  • 1
    If the other balls are all the same weight the following is the solution:

    1) Weigh 3 v 3 with 2 left over
    2) If the scales are balanced, weigh the 2 left over by themselves to find the lightest. If the scales are not balanced, take the lighter set of 3 and take 2 of the 3 to weigh.
    3) If the scales tip towards one of the two you are weighing, take the lighter one, if the scales are balanced take the one you didn't weigh.
  • 0
    @Nanos I have several ideas but didn't get around to prepare a detailed plan. Also most of the time I cannot decide what to do as I am not sure whether they are actually useful or not.
  • 1
    @jolland That is actually a perfect solution. I could never come up with it. All I was thinking was do 4 v 4. But that will three steps...and my brain just froze.
  • 1
    @AshesOfTheSun Yeah, unfortunately it's the same as a lot of these trick questions in that you just need to find the extra dimension to get information from - in this case what you haven't weighed rather than just what you have.
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