This will, sadly, sound racist
but at the large telecoms company I worked at, the three African employees were a law unto themselves.
People were employed as programmers - how good the interview process was was revealed when I started interviewing people and - shock horror - gave technical interviews for the first time.
Before that they would presumably let people in who *said* they could code. This led to the employment of many misfits - of all ethnical backgrounds, it must be said. But the Africans took the biscuit.
J was an African woman in her late thirties. She commuted to the office, which was about 70 miles out of London, from London. The fact that she couldn't get a contract nearer to home should have raised alarm bells.
Somehow she got away with coming in at 11 and leaving at 4. Every day. Now, I wouldn't have a problem with that. In fact, I tried to sort out local accommodation and schooling for her kids for her. But she Could Not Code.
She literally didn't know how VB worked, and Visual Basic isn't exactly rocket science. You could explain to her what to do, nay write the code out for her, and she's still be staring at the screen 2 hours later. She also asked me to buy a domain name and some hosting for her. I did, at cost - i.e. I made nothing out of it - and she refused to pay the full price. So I lost out big style. First time in 20 years I swore at a colleague in an office. She went off to work at the BBC I believe...
Then there was S. I think he could code, none of us knew - as he was continually in meetings. Only he wasn't - he had invented all of them. Genius in a way, I must admit.
Saving the best till last, there was Arnold. I'd looked at Arnold's cv and advised against employing him - too many roles, in too many places, in too short periods of time. I was ignored - but had the last laugh.
Arnold arrived, and started telling us all implausible tales of how he re-wrote operating systems in his lunch hour, that sort of thing. Still, he was welcomed in and seemed a nice enough guy, although quick to moan, which is generally unforgiveable when you're the newest on the team, doubly so when you're working in an incredibly laid-back pressure-free environment.
Others managing Arnold seemed to smell trouble, but he successfully demo'd his work to some customers, and all appeared well. Until he went on leave, and his work was studied.
He'd invented the lot. The "demo" was basically functionality-free - it just made the user *think* that something was happening. It wasn't - it was all faked. Genius, of a kind, again, but it left everyone else in the shit.

I know that these examples plus the old 419 scams are scant reason to tar an entire continent with the same brush (and in fact, I've worked with some brilliant South Africans in the past) but it hasn't left a great impression on me, I must say. Cultural differences I can accept but scamming and lying is a universal language and not one which can be looked over because of someone's origins. Still, will give benefit of the doubt as always in the future, and judge on who people are not where they come from - hard though sometimes, isn't it ?
( I_Was_Mordred, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 12:33, 6 replies)

Sorry... It does sound racist, and it is racist.
I don't want this to look like I'm flaming you, but your denial of racism at the start got me going. The ethnicity of the people about whom you write is utterly irrelevant: there's no reason to add it. If someone's a twat, then that's fair enough. Adding "African" as a prefix does nothing except draw a link between being African and being a twat.

So why did you add it? What the fucking Jesus makes you think it's relevant?

You've probably already clicked "ignore" by now, so I'll stop.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 13:37, closed)

Good point about relevance
Enzyme - I think it's just because in over 20 years of working with people of all backgrounds, I've yet to come across such as a trio of scammers as I described. Is the fact they are African somehow to do with it ? I don't know, but I tend to think so. I think it is a cultural thing. So that makes me a racist, I imagine. Because I wouldn't be making the same distinction if they all had, for example, a moustache or black hair or liked the Eagles. It's not the physical attribute of their skin colour that was possibly responsible for their behaviour.

Does my comment mean I wouldn't employ or befriend or talk to someone if they were African ? Does it arse.

When I was a lad, apartheid was still very much alive and kicking and I was convinced - until they released Mandela - that there would be a civil war in South Africa between the whites and the blacks, and in my childhood / young adulthood I thought that if such a thing came to pass, I would be there, fighting on the side of the blacks.
( I_Was_Mordred, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 15:06, closed)

...
Fo'sho'. Still, I can't see anything cultural about being unable to do your job. And I'd have similar reservations about someone prefixing the word "genius" with the word "African".

Please note, too, that my having slight worries about your post doesn't imply that I have worries about you. I think that there are certain traps that are just there to be walked into, and walking into them needn't be culpable.

PS - I was a bit ranty, wasn't I?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 15:33, closed)

That was racist.
I mean, I'd imagine they all had hair and two eyes each. You didn't point those facts out. So why point out their race?
(Musuko, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 18:25, closed)

..Um...
Enz, Isnt that a fucking gollywog i see on your sig?
(Phlash, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 19:15, closed)

Was there

any need for the 'f' word there?

So uncouth!


(Kip, Tue 29 Jan 2008, 10:50, closed)