Wanted: Salespeople, Database administrator [open]

[Ingenious]

To whom it may concern,

Intrigue Industries is pleased to offer several new employment positions. We hope to fill these as soon as possible, so do not hesitate to apply. Individuals of any nationality are welcome to apply so long as they are not currently employed by any house or other form of nation-state.

Descriptions of the open positions may be found below.
______________________________________________________________________

Salesperson
Our new sales team will be paid on commission. Primary duties include wining and dining potential clients, maintaining business relationships, and developing leads for new clientèle.

Compensation:
50% of sales, plus bonuses at the discretion of the Board.

Benefits:

• Free room and board on Scrimshaw Station
  
• Basic healthcare package
  
• Annual two-week timeshare on OSC resort of your choice
  
• Premium transport insurance
  

______________________________________________________________________

Database Administrator
This individual will be responsible for maintaining our growing archives of data. Must have sound understanding of programming, system architectures, and database administration. Experience preferred.

Compensation:
$5,000,000 / week, plus quarterly bonuses.

Benefits:

• Free room and board on Scrimshaw Station
  
• Full premium healthcare package, with dental
  
• Transport insurance package, buy-in option
  

Signed,
Denny Lampkin
Managing Partner, Intrigue Industries

[Tiddles.]

Denny-sir!

You already know me, so I'll cut to the chase. Also I my head seems to be trying to screw itself off, which always puts me in a brief mood. Well, less verbose of a mood, but small victories add up, so let's take this one for a spin.

You already know I can deliver on my deals, and my policy towards House policy is best described... well let's see. Say as me waving at them as I fly through. Sounds about right. And I haven't had a good dental in months. What I do have is the platinum standard in Zoner dental, and it's just not the same. Still beats Junker dental hands down.

Where were we? Ah, Scrimshaw! Does "board" include these mixed drinks at the station bar I hear so much about? There's a study I read somewhere about how free food at the workplace is morivating and all, so think it through. And if you can't find the study, just call me up and I'll have one made. Conducted. Performed, actually. On myself.

Oh, if you want references, just call up Freeport IV, their NeuralNet uplink was acting out, I offered to help... well one thing led to another and now their database can do the Keseel Run in twelve nanosecs.

Call me up.

Tiddles out.

---

[Ingenious]

Hello again Tiddles,

First off, thanks for getting in touch. Your punctuality and attention to detail have not been overlooked by myself and the Board. As such, we'll make sure to pay the utmost attention to your remarks. "Board" does include liquor. Board of Directors indeed. You wouldn't be an effective agent of our organization if all of your basic needs were not looked after.

You seem to be confident in your qualifications as a database administrator. So why don't you show me what you know. Give me a practical example of an inner join query, and another of casting a variable. If you know what you're doing, I am sure the Board would opt to hire you.

Best regards,
Denny Lampkin

________________________________________________________________

To all others:
The positions remain open and unfilled.

[Tiddles.]

Allright, then.

Y'know Denny-sir, I just might be in love. Because finally, after all these years, someone recognizes recreational plastering as a basic human need. Which it totally is. Well okay, I'm not really in love, I actually require cleavage whenever considering such a commitment. Under a cute front. With a nice behind. Let's be honest, at best you'd strike two out of three. While I understand that should I be hired - and I so totally should be, by the way - you'll give me access to some impressive server racks, but that's just not the same. Maybe if you had a sister? Anyway.

Damn, I successfully confused myself again. That's the problem with asking me about tech stuff, I end up thinking about it and saying whatever. And more than the usual, too. Might want to invest in some heavy-duty dampening with my comms. Or you know what, I hear the Lane Hackers are selling some top-of-the-line semantic AIs, which could be rigged up to filter me out when I'm not on topic. That, or you'll end up enjoying my verbose awesomeness.

I'm telling you, Danny-sir, it's like Stockholm Syndrome all over again. Where were we, then? Back to tech stuff.

See, an inner join basically stitches two datasets together. Say you have a table of systems, and a more useful table of planets, and you want a table of, say, (system name, planet name) pairs. Then you'd do something like:

Code:

SELECT (Systems.Name, Planets.Name) FROM Systems INNER JOIN ON System.Id = Planets.SystemId

As far as casting goes - that's done to convert data from one type to another. Say if your table for planets has planetery mass as a text string (why? search me, probably because your previous DBA screwed up, really), then what you want to compute is the escape velocity for each planet, you'd do something somewhere along the lines of:

Code:

SELECT (Planets.Name, SQRT(2 * 6.67384 * CAST(Planet.Mass AS FLOAT) / Planet.Radius)) FROM Planets

To be fair, most database engines cast these things automagically, actual real-world casts are mostly about treating dates as strings and use the CONVERT keyword instead, but you did say cast, so that's what I went with here. Heh.

Tiddles out.

And actually, it's not a vector - so that should rightly be named "escape speed", well except that's less catchy.

---

[Ingenious]

Hello Tiddles,

After a few gin and tonics and some brief deliberation, it's been decided—you're hired. Please give me your SKYP-3 details and we can conference remotely.

Congratulations,
Denny Lampkin
Managing Partner, Intrigue Industries

_________________________________________

Still hiring salespersons.

[Tiddles.]

Now that's what I like to hear. Sent SKY/P3 comms over the secure link.

---

[Ingenious]

Hello,

We are still looking for salespeople. Do not hesitate to apply.

Best,
Denny Lampkin

[Ingenious]

Retransmitting. Thanks for your cooperation.
—DL