When we last heard from the hero of this tale , he was patiently awaiting the call from the head hunter. "I should know by Tues evening or Wed morning about interviews," he said to me. Translation: I knew i wasn't going to hear jack until fri.
Today at 1pm this joker called me up. Wanted me to interview tomorrow @ 830am. That's less than 24 hours notice for an interview. The problem with that is that i have a doctors appointment from 9-10am which means i can't do the interview until after. Realistically it would be 1130am at the earliest that i could actually be there (it's appx 30 min away) and that includes hauling ass. So the guy tells me that he'll call me back later with a time that i can work with better. It's now 11pm and i never heard a peep from him for the rest of the day. Thanks. Real classy.
How much is it to ask for 24 hours notice? Companies can take their sweet time making decisions on whether or not they want to decide as to when they'll have a meeting about the decision to set the date that they want to decide on interview dates. In the meantime, people like me are supposed to drop everything and run and get punished for having prior commitments. They have no idea what my doctors appointment is about and it's honestly none of their business. It's called courtesy. Anything less than 24 hours and you're setting people up to fail. How am i supposed to properly prepare for an interview with < 24 hours? Banking an awful lot on me having proper preparation for the interview!
So....
Tonight i got home from work and there were to messages on the answering machine. Some head hunter from the 412 area code (Pennsylvania) called about a job. I wanted to punch her in her face when i heard the message. My name is Sean. It's NOT pronounced "SEEN". Got it? Why are you even bothering to call people when you can't pronounce their name? Not only is that annoying but i find that highly rude. I understand butchering last names. That's why you apologize for it and ask for proper pronunciation. It's called courtesy.
And so continues my stint of being "Professionally Unemployed"....
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Yet Another Head Hunter Bytes The Dust
I was recently contacted by yet another head hunter. Phone contact went well and i got the honor of going to meet the guy face to face. As i think back on this experience, i can't help but laugh. I laugh and shake my head at the same time.
The head hunter i met admitted right away that he knew next to nothing about computers and "is happy when it just works". Oh great. How am i supposed to tell this guy that i'm a viable candidate when he doesn't know wtf i'm even talking about?
I knew i was in for a world of pain just based on the job description. Here are some highlights:
IT Network Technician
Duties:
5. Provide user training, including e-mail, Outlook, MS Word, MS Excel, Company internal programs and general Windows 95/98.
7. Present professional image at all times.
8. Follow procedures and rules in company employee manual.
9. Communicate effectively, both written and verbal.
10. Demonstrate professional attitude when approaching work assignments.
11. Promote positive, self-motivated atmosphere, promoting a team environment.
12. Maintain helpful, friendly attitude while always keeping internal and external customer service in mind.
Specifications:
2. Possess high level of self-motivation.
Physical/Mental Requirements:
1. Prolonged sitting.
2. Extended periods of computer use and keyboarding.
4. Understanding vague and implicit instructions.
5. Emotional stability and personal maturity.
For the love of all that is holy, what kind of person are they looking for??? The head hunter and i are hoping that the windoze 95/98 is a mistake!!! What little technical stuff they have listed relates to desktop support and NOT networking. Why for he love of Xenu is this listed as an IT Network Technician? Imagine what a Cisco-guru would say if they saw this description!
So when i met the head hunter the other day, i pretty much destroyed him. Poor guy. He had no idea what hit him. After about 5 minutes of me asking for more specifics followed by "i don't know" i threw in the towel. I came out swinging and wound up squaring off with the equipment manager of the grade school kick ball team. It was bad. Poor guy looked like a deer in headlights when i got on a tangent about the pros and cons of open source solutions vs the standard M$ suite of headaches. At least he didn't pull out the generic 5 questions that they seem to ALWAYS ask. "How much experience do you have with TCP/IP?" On more than one occasion i've laughed out loud on the phone when they ask that one because of how vague it is and they have NEVER been able to elaborate.
After a couple minutes of him turning pale and having a blank expression on his face i brought the conversation back to something that he can understand. Soft skills they call them. The job description is essentially looking for someone who can spell IBM and can play nicely with others. Personal maturity... yeah count me out right there! ;) I eventually took pity on the guy because he normally staffs skilled tradesmen and similar people. I took the time to explain a few concepts with examples so he could begin to grasp what i was saying. For example, when i mentioned open source he said he had no idea. I mentioned Firefox and all of a sudden he now has something familiar to him that he can relate to. *Sigh*
When i walked out of the meeting/interview/whatever, i was grinning from ear to ear. I know he's going to get me an interview with this company. I know i'm going to go to the interview and come out swinging which is what i do best. I'm going to sell myself and not short change my knowledge. I'm going to get turned down for someone who is cheaper and less experienced because they're going to view me as someone who will want to reinvent the wheel. I'm comfortable with this. They are going to say they want experience but they really want someone they can mold into their backwards and half-assed ways. Thus i will continue my current run of being "professionally unemployed". :)
*Sigh* (again)
I guess you had to be there....
The head hunter i met admitted right away that he knew next to nothing about computers and "is happy when it just works". Oh great. How am i supposed to tell this guy that i'm a viable candidate when he doesn't know wtf i'm even talking about?
I knew i was in for a world of pain just based on the job description. Here are some highlights:
IT Network Technician
Duties:
5. Provide user training, including e-mail, Outlook, MS Word, MS Excel, Company internal programs and general Windows 95/98.
7. Present professional image at all times.
8. Follow procedures and rules in company employee manual.
9. Communicate effectively, both written and verbal.
10. Demonstrate professional attitude when approaching work assignments.
11. Promote positive, self-motivated atmosphere, promoting a team environment.
12. Maintain helpful, friendly attitude while always keeping internal and external customer service in mind.
Specifications:
2. Possess high level of self-motivation.
Physical/Mental Requirements:
1. Prolonged sitting.
2. Extended periods of computer use and keyboarding.
4. Understanding vague and implicit instructions.
5. Emotional stability and personal maturity.
For the love of all that is holy, what kind of person are they looking for??? The head hunter and i are hoping that the windoze 95/98 is a mistake!!! What little technical stuff they have listed relates to desktop support and NOT networking. Why for he love of Xenu is this listed as an IT Network Technician? Imagine what a Cisco-guru would say if they saw this description!
So when i met the head hunter the other day, i pretty much destroyed him. Poor guy. He had no idea what hit him. After about 5 minutes of me asking for more specifics followed by "i don't know" i threw in the towel. I came out swinging and wound up squaring off with the equipment manager of the grade school kick ball team. It was bad. Poor guy looked like a deer in headlights when i got on a tangent about the pros and cons of open source solutions vs the standard M$ suite of headaches. At least he didn't pull out the generic 5 questions that they seem to ALWAYS ask. "How much experience do you have with TCP/IP?" On more than one occasion i've laughed out loud on the phone when they ask that one because of how vague it is and they have NEVER been able to elaborate.
After a couple minutes of him turning pale and having a blank expression on his face i brought the conversation back to something that he can understand. Soft skills they call them. The job description is essentially looking for someone who can spell IBM and can play nicely with others. Personal maturity... yeah count me out right there! ;) I eventually took pity on the guy because he normally staffs skilled tradesmen and similar people. I took the time to explain a few concepts with examples so he could begin to grasp what i was saying. For example, when i mentioned open source he said he had no idea. I mentioned Firefox and all of a sudden he now has something familiar to him that he can relate to. *Sigh*
When i walked out of the meeting/interview/whatever, i was grinning from ear to ear. I know he's going to get me an interview with this company. I know i'm going to go to the interview and come out swinging which is what i do best. I'm going to sell myself and not short change my knowledge. I'm going to get turned down for someone who is cheaper and less experienced because they're going to view me as someone who will want to reinvent the wheel. I'm comfortable with this. They are going to say they want experience but they really want someone they can mold into their backwards and half-assed ways. Thus i will continue my current run of being "professionally unemployed". :)
*Sigh* (again)
I guess you had to be there....
Friday, February 29, 2008
One in 100 US adults behind bars
According to recent news article the United States:
More than one in 100 adults are now behind bars in the United States, home to the world's largest penal population, with a startling one in nine young black men incarcerated, a study has shown.
The prison and jail population rose by 25,000 to 2.3 million last year, out of a US adult population of 230 million, bringing the incarceration rate to one in 99.1 for the first time in US history, the Pew Center on the States said.
By comparison, China, with a population of one billion people, was second in the world with 1.5 million inmates, followed by Russia with 890,000 people in the slammer, the study said.
America also has the dubious distinction of leading the planet in the rate of incarceration, which is higher than nations like South Africa and Iran, the study said.
(continued...)This is obviously a subject i'm very passionate about. A friend of mine and i talked about this briefly and he questioned what the results would be if you exclude all "white" people. Sad but true.
What bothers me the most about this is how do we as Americans allow this to happen? Are we so blinded by fear that we believe "criminal" is an ax wielding maniac who is going to loot and pillage because they've been convicted of a crime? Have we bought into the whole "lock them up and throw away the key" mentality that we would rather live in a police state than actually show empathy towards a fellow human?
This being an election year, one of the reoccurring issues is how a candidate deals with crime. Candidates will bend over backwards in local elections to demonstrate that they are "tough" on crime. Heaven forbid if they ever showed any leniency in the past. Ironically, these are the same people that we as citizens will be begging for leniency from if/when we find ourselves caught within the judicial system.
What's most disturbing about this news is that it reflects our society today. As wide spread as the results of this study have been, I have seen no attempts to put it in context. How exactly has the US gotten to this point? It's not as though we collectively locked up that large of a portion of our population over night. The reality is that these results took years to attain. An undeniably large factor in these total incarceration numbers is the Federal Sentencing Guidelines which have recently been recently overturned. The fact that one in 100 US adults is currently behind bars has been over 20 years in the making.
My biggest fear is that people will be too shortsighted to truly grasp the bigger picture. The knee jerk reaction that we collectively have is "we should do something about this." The problem is, in a couple days we will watch the news and hear about how a young black male shot someone while robbing a liquor store and only received 18 months in jail despite their history of being violent. The belief that this "menace" should be "locked up in order to make our streets safe" becomes everyones new attitude. Never once is it mentioned that this alleged menace has a history of substance abuse, physical/sexual/psychological abuse, and that this individuals father is currently incarcerated for 10 years for possession with intent to distribute (drug dealing) courtesy of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
After reading the article in question, I ask that you ask yourself why these numbers are so steep. As frightening as they are, now I ask that you consider the number of people that are on extended supervision (parole, probation, work release, or pending trial/conviction/sentencing).
Do the math.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Advertisements
Yep, i sold out. Thought i'd give it a shot to have an ad on my page to see what happens. This is currently an experiment of mine. Since i know virtually nothing about online advertising, costs, compensation, rates, etc this will be a learning experience. Any/all ads will be removed if enough people complain or if they become intrusive to my content.
With that being said, let the games begin!
With that being said, let the games begin!
Alive.... Barely
My last posting consisted of me complaining about my wisdom tooth. Well it wound up just being an infection and was treated accordingly with antibiotics. Dodged a major bullet there!
I have had to pull my Radeon 9700 Pro card out of my box and insert a Radeon 9200. The fan was dieing and was waking me up. You can only punch your case so many times before you break something important! The 9200 is only analog and so i can only have one monitor plugged in whereas the 9700 had both DVI and analog. Pretty sure the PSU i had was junk too. Figuring out which fan was bad took me almost 2 weeks and i still have a feeling my case fan is on it's last legs. Argh!
On Jan 17th i posted that i had tendinitis in my right elbow. This is apparently incorrect. For the past month i have been treated for it and the pain has not gotten better. I would even go as far as to say that it's worse now than it was a month ago.
The physical therapist i have been seeing via work-mens comp has done the usual heat/ice packs with no success. I have done the recommended stretches and exercises with no measurable success. Needless to say, this is not good. Originally we thought it was in my elbow because that's where the pain was. After a couple weeks we narrowed it down to my bicep because that seems to be the very beginning of the pain. Pretty much it starts with a dull tightness/ache in my bicep and goes to shooting pain in my elbow and upper forearm. Nice.
(As part of my rehab, i have been attempting to cut back my interwebz use/abuse hoping that the down time will help.)
Tomorrow it's back to the doctor for a follow up so i can tell him that i've made virtually no progress. Can you tell i'm nervous?
All projects are currently on hold while i deal with this issue. My search for a windoze SFTP server is on the back burner for now, although during this down time i have gotten some advice for which client i should use. I have a new strategy for the job hunt now courtesy of yPerr but alas i can't mentally commit myself to this while dealing with the current stresses of my arm and family stuff. My search for spare cd-rom drive (i swear i saw one the other week) for my linux box is on the back burner because i'm honestly too lazy. If/when i find a spare drive, I'm kissing Fedora good bye (again) and debating on Debian or Ubuntu (yes i know the similarity but i'm not a fan-boy). Figuring out WTF is going on with the gas mileage is not on the back burner. In fact, it is becoming my primary obsession these days. More to come on the topic of my car on a later date.
Being on light duty at work sucks. I get to sit in the office and answer the phone when people call in sick. That's it. Oh yeah, i get to read the comics too. Ugh. That means no chance at picking up extra hours/$ and i continue to barely get by.
Yay for the announcement of upcoming Terminator movies!!! :) http://www.realmovienews.com/news/1478
Sleep sounds like a good idea right about now.
I have had to pull my Radeon 9700 Pro card out of my box and insert a Radeon 9200. The fan was dieing and was waking me up. You can only punch your case so many times before you break something important! The 9200 is only analog and so i can only have one monitor plugged in whereas the 9700 had both DVI and analog. Pretty sure the PSU i had was junk too. Figuring out which fan was bad took me almost 2 weeks and i still have a feeling my case fan is on it's last legs. Argh!
On Jan 17th i posted that i had tendinitis in my right elbow. This is apparently incorrect. For the past month i have been treated for it and the pain has not gotten better. I would even go as far as to say that it's worse now than it was a month ago.
The physical therapist i have been seeing via work-mens comp has done the usual heat/ice packs with no success. I have done the recommended stretches and exercises with no measurable success. Needless to say, this is not good. Originally we thought it was in my elbow because that's where the pain was. After a couple weeks we narrowed it down to my bicep because that seems to be the very beginning of the pain. Pretty much it starts with a dull tightness/ache in my bicep and goes to shooting pain in my elbow and upper forearm. Nice.
(As part of my rehab, i have been attempting to cut back my interwebz use/abuse hoping that the down time will help.)
Tomorrow it's back to the doctor for a follow up so i can tell him that i've made virtually no progress. Can you tell i'm nervous?
All projects are currently on hold while i deal with this issue. My search for a windoze SFTP server is on the back burner for now, although during this down time i have gotten some advice for which client i should use. I have a new strategy for the job hunt now courtesy of yPerr but alas i can't mentally commit myself to this while dealing with the current stresses of my arm and family stuff. My search for spare cd-rom drive (i swear i saw one the other week) for my linux box is on the back burner because i'm honestly too lazy. If/when i find a spare drive, I'm kissing Fedora good bye (again) and debating on Debian or Ubuntu (yes i know the similarity but i'm not a fan-boy). Figuring out WTF is going on with the gas mileage is not on the back burner. In fact, it is becoming my primary obsession these days. More to come on the topic of my car on a later date.
Being on light duty at work sucks. I get to sit in the office and answer the phone when people call in sick. That's it. Oh yeah, i get to read the comics too. Ugh. That means no chance at picking up extra hours/$ and i continue to barely get by.
Yay for the announcement of upcoming Terminator movies!!! :) http://www.realmovienews.com/news/1478
Sleep sounds like a good idea right about now.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Ouch!
Wisdom tooth HURTS. This after being sick all last week. Yay. Another bill for me to try to pay off with my lack-of-a-real-job.
When it rains, it pours it seems....
When it rains, it pours it seems....
Thursday, January 17, 2008
ARGH!!!
In the past week:
-Got rejected for a job that i truly believed i had in the bag.
-Tendinitis kicked into full effect in my right elbow (thus typing is bad and downright painful for me)
-Did a self-diagnosis on my tendinitis because i've got no prospect of having the $ for a doctor visit let alone insurance
-Offered to do "charity" work on a laptop for a friend of a friend. Apparently when you do something voluntarily and for free, people think they have grounds to be demanding and picky. This of course coincides with them being very demanding of your free time. No good deed goes unpunished it seems.
-Tangled with another laptop at the same time for a friend's ex. Not getting paid a whole lot but then i don't mind in this case because there's 100% trust in my assessment of the situation. Oddly enough, this is the one that is the least stressful for me.
-Accepted the fact that paying $1200 in order to get a part time job that pays $7.50 is just stupid.
-Consistently gone to sleep after 4am and had people wonder why i have trouble getting up at 10am.
-Completely dropped the ball on my friends bday. All we wound up doing was going out for dinner after work and didn't even have the $ to buy him a beer.
-Done nothing around the house since sun evening. Dishes, vacuuming, laundry, cat litter, sweeping, and random cleaning are severely behind schedule.
ARGH!!!!!!!
-Got rejected for a job that i truly believed i had in the bag.
-Tendinitis kicked into full effect in my right elbow (thus typing is bad and downright painful for me)
-Did a self-diagnosis on my tendinitis because i've got no prospect of having the $ for a doctor visit let alone insurance
-Offered to do "charity" work on a laptop for a friend of a friend. Apparently when you do something voluntarily and for free, people think they have grounds to be demanding and picky. This of course coincides with them being very demanding of your free time. No good deed goes unpunished it seems.
-Tangled with another laptop at the same time for a friend's ex. Not getting paid a whole lot but then i don't mind in this case because there's 100% trust in my assessment of the situation. Oddly enough, this is the one that is the least stressful for me.
-Accepted the fact that paying $1200 in order to get a part time job that pays $7.50 is just stupid.
-Consistently gone to sleep after 4am and had people wonder why i have trouble getting up at 10am.
-Completely dropped the ball on my friends bday. All we wound up doing was going out for dinner after work and didn't even have the $ to buy him a beer.
-Done nothing around the house since sun evening. Dishes, vacuuming, laundry, cat litter, sweeping, and random cleaning are severely behind schedule.
ARGH!!!!!!!
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
FTP server on a winXP box
This weekend i started investigating in my free time what my options were for setting up an FTP server on my winXP box. After asking a few others that have more experience with this, i was given the following options:
Cerberus: http://www.cerberusftp.com/
FileZilla:http://filezilla-project.org/
SSHWindows:
http://www.digitalmediaminute.com/article/1487/setting-up-a-sftp-server-on-windows
Serv-U: http://www.serv-u.com/
Madsonclan.net
I consider myself an experienced user of FTP clients and my current favorite is FileZilla. The goal of this project is to find an SFTP server which i can run successfully on my box whenever i want to share media upon request and at the same time be easy to administer. My biggest concerns are SFTP vs FTP, ease of use, "footprint", and bandwidth capping. I'm sure most applications will meet my criteria but this is still what i will be judging them on.
My first trial has been with FileZilla and the results were mixed. Obviously needed to forward the necessary ports and the setup seemed fairly simple. The documentation provided by Madsonclan.net was especially helpful in helping me understand what was going on as i kept clicking NEXT. Using my friend as a guinea pig, I determined that this test was a failure. Eventually he was able to connect but could neither view nor upload to the shared folder. Furthermore, he was only able to connect using FTP and not SFTP. Documentation about FileZilla Server has been vague as to whether it can truly support SFTP but it appears that is not the case. Our first couple of attempts were unsuccessful because i needed to open the proper port (21) in the Windows Firewall. Once the ports were open, he told me his client said he was connected (verified by the server GUI showing that he was connected).
So.... close.... but.... so.... far....
Before i move on from FileZilla to another app, i intend to figure out why he couldn't see anything in the directory let alone upload to it. No sense in trying to tackle this problem while i'm learning my way around yet another new application, right? This sounds like a file permission issue but the account has all of the necessary permissions for that directory. Why does it still sound like a permissions problem then and why do i have a feeling i'm close? About 10 minutes after testing was concluded (i was hungry), i came up with a couple ideas.
During the next testing round i need to remember to check the folder permissions (right click -> properties -> sharing -> share this folder).
Testing is complete for the moment and now it's time to get my quality killing time in. Updates to follow each round so stay tuned!!!
Cerberus: http://www.cerberusftp.com/
FileZilla:http://filezilla-project.org/
SSHWindows:
http://www.digitalmediaminute
Serv-U: http://www.serv-u.com/
Madsonclan.net
I consider myself an experienced user of FTP clients and my current favorite is FileZilla. The goal of this project is to find an SFTP server which i can run successfully on my box whenever i want to share media upon request and at the same time be easy to administer. My biggest concerns are SFTP vs FTP, ease of use, "footprint", and bandwidth capping. I'm sure most applications will meet my criteria but this is still what i will be judging them on.
My first trial has been with FileZilla and the results were mixed. Obviously needed to forward the necessary ports and the setup seemed fairly simple. The documentation provided by Madsonclan.net was especially helpful in helping me understand what was going on as i kept clicking NEXT. Using my friend as a guinea pig, I determined that this test was a failure. Eventually he was able to connect but could neither view nor upload to the shared folder. Furthermore, he was only able to connect using FTP and not SFTP. Documentation about FileZilla Server has been vague as to whether it can truly support SFTP but it appears that is not the case. Our first couple of attempts were unsuccessful because i needed to open the proper port (21) in the Windows Firewall. Once the ports were open, he told me his client said he was connected (verified by the server GUI showing that he was connected).
So.... close.... but.... so.... far....
Before i move on from FileZilla to another app, i intend to figure out why he couldn't see anything in the directory let alone upload to it. No sense in trying to tackle this problem while i'm learning my way around yet another new application, right? This sounds like a file permission issue but the account has all of the necessary permissions for that directory. Why does it still sound like a permissions problem then and why do i have a feeling i'm close? About 10 minutes after testing was concluded (i was hungry), i came up with a couple ideas.
During the next testing round i need to remember to check the folder permissions (right click -> properties -> sharing -> share this folder).
Testing is complete for the moment and now it's time to get my quality killing time in. Updates to follow each round so stay tuned!!!
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Most Listend To Music (2007)
The list is essentially complete. There will eventually be a brief commentary on why i picked each track to symbolize this past year. These are the songs that i found myself listening to a lot in 2007 and thus they are now the soundtrack of the year for myself.
In no particular order:
Sinead O'Connor - The Foggy Dew
Blaggards - Drunken Sailor
Dropkick Murphy's - Flannigans Ball
Dropkick Murphy's - State of Massachusetts
Apoptygma Berzerk - Cambodia
Apoptygma Berzerk - In This Together
Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down
Reese Witherspoon (Walk The Line Soundtrack) - Wildwood Flower
Bad Religion - Beyond Electric Dreams
Messiah - Temple of Dreams
Misfits - Mars Attacks
Misfits - Dig Up Her Bones
Alice In Chains - Would
Tears For Fears - Shout
Anthrax - Riding Shotgun
Anthrax - Burst
Chuck Berry - Brown Eyed Handsome Man
Iron Maiden - Caught Somewhere In Time
Vas - The Inward Coil
If you're interested in hearing any/all of these songs then contact me and i can make them available to you.
(more to come...)
In no particular order:
Sinead O'Connor - The Foggy Dew
Blaggards - Drunken Sailor
Dropkick Murphy's - Flannigans Ball
Dropkick Murphy's - State of Massachusetts
Apoptygma Berzerk - Cambodia
Apoptygma Berzerk - In This Together
Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down
Reese Witherspoon (Walk The Line Soundtrack) - Wildwood Flower
Bad Religion - Beyond Electric Dreams
Messiah - Temple of Dreams
Misfits - Mars Attacks
Misfits - Dig Up Her Bones
Alice In Chains - Would
Tears For Fears - Shout
Anthrax - Riding Shotgun
Anthrax - Burst
Chuck Berry - Brown Eyed Handsome Man
Iron Maiden - Caught Somewhere In Time
Vas - The Inward Coil
If you're interested in hearing any/all of these songs then contact me and i can make them available to you.
(more to come...)
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Happy New Years!
It appears that 2008 has arrived and there's no turning back. May it be peaceful and safe for us all. Damn... It's an election year officially. Well it can't hurt to keep our fingers crossed just in case, right? :)
Coming soon: songs of 2007 mix from yours truly.
Coming soon: songs of 2007 mix from yours truly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)