Home > Uncategorized > 416 Random People with RoR on their resume + Reply All = Reverse Flash Mob

416 Random People with RoR on their resume + Reply All = Reverse Flash Mob

July 17th, 2008 Josh Leave a comment Go to comments

The awesomest thing ever happened to me today. I was apparently one of 416 lucky people who looked promising to a probably-clueless recruiter who’s looking to hire for a Ruby on Rails job.

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:57:59 -0500
From: “Pradipta [lastname]”
Subject: Ruby on Rails position…
To: [416 people]

I have a couple of Ruby on Rails position, wanted to know if you are interested?

Max [lastname]
Technical Recruiter

Of course, as the number of people on a thread increases, the chances that one of them will hit “reply all” approaches 1 asymptotically:

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:10:37 -0700
From: Zack [lastname]
To: [416 people]
Subject: Re: Ruby on Rails position…

What are the positions?

Which triggers the absolute inevitability that there will be follow-ups about how people should stop hitting “reply all.”

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:15:39 -0500
From: “Mark [lastname]”
To: “Zack [lastname]”
Cc: [416 people]
Subject: Re: Ruby on Rails position…

this is fun. it’s like a message thread i did not subscribe to. please no more ‘reply all’s. thanks.

Best Regards,

Mark [lastname]

This was amusing already. But then people started taking advantage of the fact that they had a list of 416 people who were ostensibly interested in Ruby on Rails, and started posting other job offers, conversing about who’s going to OSCON, and volunteering their efforts to remove bad email addresses from the list of 416 that the thread started with. It wasn’t long until people started suggesting that this be made into an actual email list.

It is such a fascinating thing to watch. It’s like a flash mob, except the surprise is on us, the mob participants. It’s like we were all beamed into the same virtual room by one single person who chose the group of us, and left us to figure out what to make of the situation. I can’t wait to see where this ends up.

Update (10:30pm, a scant 2.5 hours after the initial mail went out): there’s a Google Group now — they’re calling it Pradipta’s Rolodex, after the recruiter who emailed us all to begin with.

Update (1am): Pradipta’s Rolodex now has a logo — pretty hilarious.

Update (July 18, 10:40am): First off, sorry the blog was down for a while. I enabled caching (which isn’t enabled by default in Wordpress) so hopefully the site can handle the load now. Also, the real Pradipta has spoken up and apologized for the whole incident. Though I’d like to think that only the exceptionally grumpy among us are really all that upset.

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  1. Jason Morrison
    July 17th, 2008 at 21:27 | #1
    Reply | Quote

    Hello there, fellow PR member! This is amazingly entertaining. I should have been asleep an hour ago! Can’t wait to see where it goes.

  2. Hank
    July 17th, 2008 at 21:29 | #2
    Reply | Quote

    This is awesome. Don’t miss the google group!

    http://groups.google.com/group/pradiptas-rolodex

  3. Mark Lastname
    July 17th, 2008 at 21:30 | #3
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    Haha. It was fun. We have a Google Group now. :-)

  4. Austin Smith
    July 17th, 2008 at 21:34 | #4
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    I made this URL the homepage of the Google Group; hope that’s cool.

  5. Chris Lemcke
    July 17th, 2008 at 21:34 | #5
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    I, too, was on the Pra-dex list, and what a cool thing to see! I’m glad I decided to check my email when I did.

  6. Poutine
    July 17th, 2008 at 21:36 | #6
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    Yeah, this is pretty damn hilarious. Best spam I’ve had in a while. :)

  7. Roger Rohrbach
    July 17th, 2008 at 21:37 | #7
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    One wit among the recipients has created a Google Group called “Pradipta’s Rolodex,” to which all spammed are invited.

  8. Timothy Jones
    July 17th, 2008 at 21:43 | #8
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    I was one of the 416 on that posting… It was pretty fun. When you don’t live in one of the big tech cities, it’s easy to feel isolated, not going to conferences, not having killer user groups, not having any clueful employers….

    Then all of a sudden, THIS happens!
    Just goes to show that even incompetence can be helpful sometimes!

    See you on Pradipta"s Rolodex!

  9. chovy
    July 17th, 2008 at 22:12 | #9
    Reply | Quote

    Haven’t had this much fun online since the World Series playoff game when the IRC channel created the first “Screwing your team out of world series berth? Priceless” photo of that kid interfering with the last out for the Cubs, costing them the playoffs.

  10. Tamer Salama
    July 17th, 2008 at 22:30 | #10
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    I’m here as well.

    I’m all over the InternetS.

  11. Anders Conbere
    July 17th, 2008 at 23:22 | #11
    Reply | Quote

    Thank you so much for capturing the surprise and joy that this little gem was :)

  12. Ernie Oporto
    July 18th, 2008 at 02:10 | #12
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    My life was on a downward spiral. Then Pradipta’s Rolodex came along and changed everything! In just hours, I had 416 friends and millions in cash. Thanks, Pradipta!

  13. Taryn East
    July 18th, 2008 at 04:40 | #13
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    Agreed – most fun I’ve had from a cascading spam.

  14. MattKatz
    July 18th, 2008 at 04:44 | #14
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    Hadn’t other folks been spammed by prodigus tech before? I’ve gotten a couple of other emails like this, but never had the pleasure of meeting my compatriots.

  15. Taryn East
    July 18th, 2008 at 04:54 | #15
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    Actually, this was especially amusing for me as I just put a message out I was looking for a new gig. ;)
    I didn’t expect that big a response ;)

  16. Sarah
    July 18th, 2008 at 05:16 | #16
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    Whoo, I was one of the elite, what, bazillion on that email list? I just joined the Google Group.

  17. sean
    July 18th, 2008 at 05:41 | #17
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    truly epic. at first it read like a WoW forum thread but as people began to realize that it was mostly other coders they began to grasp the potential. Law of unintended consequences ftw!

  18. Gregory Foster
    July 18th, 2008 at 07:51 | #18
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    Thanks for blogging it. BTW, your ladybugs are hawt. Clicking them made me feel almost as dirty as hitting reply all.

  19. Chris Martin
    July 18th, 2008 at 08:03 | #19
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    I was on this failbot’s list too. As I was hitting reply all this morning to send him a “nice” message, I then saw the flood of emails from like minded developers.
    Hilarious.
    Another item on the long list of why I hate recruiters.

  20. Matt Brubeck
    July 21st, 2008 at 07:39 | #20
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    Wow! I was on the list, but I didn’t realize until the blog posts came how many people I knew (or knew of) were on there too. For example, this is my second random encounter with Andres Conbere, who I met once on the bus when he spotted me using my XO. And I had just recently started reading the Enfranchised Mind blog by fellow 416er Robert Fischer.

  21. No One
    July 23rd, 2008 at 08:21 | #21
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    You’re on StumbleUpon now…

  22. Matt Ellsworth
    July 24th, 2008 at 05:34 | #22
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    thats hillarious! It seems that it is a great thing that you guys all were able to get together.

  23. Surfer
    July 24th, 2008 at 16:52 | #23
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    Why 400 devs in the logo? Ah yes, the other 16 were actually women.

  24. Matt Brubeck
    July 30th, 2008 at 10:44 | #24
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    Apparently it could be worse.

  25. SurfMan
    July 9th, 2009 at 04:34 | #25
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    FAIL

    The group named pradiptas-rolodex has been removed because it violated Google’s Terms Of Service.

  1. July 18th, 2008 at 04:40 | #1
    More Light! More Light! :: More Horrible Recruiters
  2. July 19th, 2008 at 12:22 | #2
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