Okay, everyone pity me. For four weeks I've been struggling to find work, to pass out resumes, to network.
In the past 24 hours I've gotten one volunteer opportunity, two freelance pricing requests, and two face-to-face interview appointments. Okay, I appreciate it, but... could the universe like, you know, space it out a little?
In the past 24 hours I've gotten one volunteer opportunity, two freelance pricing requests, and two face-to-face interview appointments. Okay, I appreciate it, but... could the universe like, you know, space it out a little?
The U-6 is defined as the "Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers. Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule."
That number, of which I am part, currently stands at 17.5%
That number, of which I am part, currently stands at 17.5%
Suspect everything
Nov. 10th, 2009 10:33 amBrad DeLong comments on the 9.5% growth reported in the third quarter, along with a 13.6% growth in productivity and a 7.1% drop in labor costs:
I note with amusement that DeLong, who also hosted Shrillblog, where those driven into unholy madness by the malevolence, mendacity, incompetence and disconnection from reality that has characterized the right wing of American politics for the past nine years can ululate in psychotic shrillness at the cold, uncaring stars, has chosen to rename his blog, "Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles."
Back in the 1930s there was a Polish Marxist economist, Michel Kalecki, who argued that recessions were functional for the ruling class and for capitalism because they created excess supply of labor, forced workers to work harder to keep their jobs, and so produced a rise in the rate of relative surplus-value.I feel like I'm living in Michel Kalecki's universe nowadays.
For thirty years, ever since I got into this business, I have been mocking Michel Kalecki. I have been pointing out that recessions see a much sharper fall in profits than in wages. I have been saying that the pace of work slows in recessions--that employers are more concerned with keeping valuable employees in their value chains than using a temporary high level of unemployment to squeeze greater work effort out of their workers.
I don't think that I can mock Michel Kalecki any more, ever again.
I note with amusement that DeLong, who also hosted Shrillblog, where those driven into unholy madness by the malevolence, mendacity, incompetence and disconnection from reality that has characterized the right wing of American politics for the past nine years can ululate in psychotic shrillness at the cold, uncaring stars, has chosen to rename his blog, "Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles."
Schedule Games.
Oct. 18th, 2009 11:09 amGreat Caesar's Ghost, I think this woman had hidden cameras watching the PMs at ${UNSPECIFIED_FORMER_EMPLOYERS}
Check this out: Schedule Games. Start at the bottom. "Schedule Chicken," "Hope Is Our Most Important Strategy," "Pants on Fire," "Schedule == Commitment," and "The Schedule Tool Is Always Right," are so painfully familiar they're giving me flashbacks.
Check this out: Schedule Games. Start at the bottom. "Schedule Chicken," "Hope Is Our Most Important Strategy," "Pants on Fire," "Schedule == Commitment," and "The Schedule Tool Is Always Right," are so painfully familiar they're giving me flashbacks.
This morning, after dropping the kids off at school and running supplies up to Omaha for her interviews at Casual Connect, I got home and tweaked the hell out of my resume before heading up to Bellevue for the Monster.com quarterly "Job Fair," this time held at the Bellevue Hilton South.
What a goddamned waste of my fucking time. There were exactly 19 open booths. Three of them offered job training, four of them were for recruiters, and five of them were for people seeking "franchisees" or "affiliates": "We'll set you up as an independent financial advisor / sales manager / tutor / real estate agent!" That left seven legitimate ones, and, like, Target was looking for managers, as was The Dollar Tree stores (payday loans? really?), and PetSmart. I still gave them all my resume.
The only legitimate contact I had was with a local non-profit, which had had the same freakin' job up on its job board for three months, a perfect fit for my skillset, and yet no action. I asked about it and the woman said, "Well, that just means the manager isn't really under any pressure to fill the position, so although he asked for the job listing he hasn't moved on any of the resumes he's gotten. But I'll make sure your resume gets sent to our IT guy, just to make sure." And she took it, and I'll send her a thank-you not tomorrow.
To make matters worse, after this I stopped by a local Starbucks and ran into an unnamed executive from a former, unnamed employer who had been forced out of his position due to a financial scandal that made former unnamed employer look bad to Wall Street and beat the hell out of stock I had. I felt like some glad-handing politician shaking his hand and talking up old times. It would seem he's doing well. We exchanged cards. He was talking with some startup junkie about a new web-based venture, and said startup junkie gave me great advice about where to look for job openings in the area.
I was so depressed after that.
On the way home I bought razor blades.
What a goddamned waste of my fucking time. There were exactly 19 open booths. Three of them offered job training, four of them were for recruiters, and five of them were for people seeking "franchisees" or "affiliates": "We'll set you up as an independent financial advisor / sales manager / tutor / real estate agent!" That left seven legitimate ones, and, like, Target was looking for managers, as was The Dollar Tree stores (payday loans? really?), and PetSmart. I still gave them all my resume.
The only legitimate contact I had was with a local non-profit, which had had the same freakin' job up on its job board for three months, a perfect fit for my skillset, and yet no action. I asked about it and the woman said, "Well, that just means the manager isn't really under any pressure to fill the position, so although he asked for the job listing he hasn't moved on any of the resumes he's gotten. But I'll make sure your resume gets sent to our IT guy, just to make sure." And she took it, and I'll send her a thank-you not tomorrow.
To make matters worse, after this I stopped by a local Starbucks and ran into an unnamed executive from a former, unnamed employer who had been forced out of his position due to a financial scandal that made former unnamed employer look bad to Wall Street and beat the hell out of stock I had. I felt like some glad-handing politician shaking his hand and talking up old times. It would seem he's doing well. We exchanged cards. He was talking with some startup junkie about a new web-based venture, and said startup junkie gave me great advice about where to look for job openings in the area.
I was so depressed after that.
On the way home I bought razor blades.
Dammit, what is going on this week? I've had two interviews already, but open recs are few and far between. Is it the four-day week, or what? So far, the only openings I've seen are at MSNBC and the City of Auburn positions, and the Auburn one is a .NET position, and I'm getting mixed signals from MSNBC as to whether or not they want an experienced developer or some wet-behind-the-ears intern.
Grr... And some recruiter called me yesterday asking me if I've heard about ${ETHICS_VIOLATION}. I said I'd already gone through the process. She was actually quite sympathetic-- they're having a lot of trouble finding someone willing to sit on the massive buttplug of their corporate reputation.
Grr... And some recruiter called me yesterday asking me if I've heard about ${ETHICS_VIOLATION}. I said I'd already gone through the process. She was actually quite sympathetic-- they're having a lot of trouble finding someone willing to sit on the massive buttplug of their corporate reputation.
Two interviews today, and I'm wiped out.
Jun. 29th, 2009 03:55 pmI had two job interviews today. The first was with an advertising agency that is putting together a very rapid development site for one of their clients, and needs someone who can write Django fast enough to wrangle together all of the details of of a couple of inbound feeds into displayable objects. It's all back-end stuff, no GIMP-Fu needed sad to say, but it's definitely among the high-water of the kinds of development I do well and would like to be doing. And they seemed to like me.
The other interview-- not so much. Although I read the job description and it seemed to say "Web Developer Wanted," and they read my resume which screames web developer and thought I was a good fit for the role, what they really wanted was a marketer and marketing manager who specialized in search engine optimization and cross-site promotion, rather than a Rails developer.
Funny story: I've already worked for this guy. In 1993. I was temping at the time, and he needed a bunch of data entry people for an emergency calculation over a fraud case they were tracking. Very strange.
I got home and there was a box on the doorstep! I took it inside and eagerly anticipated assembling my new fan into my old laptop-- only to see, after it was open, that this was the replacement paring knife from OXO for the one we'd broken a few weeks ago. Ah, well.
And now I am completely exhausted. I'm going to take a nap.
The other interview-- not so much. Although I read the job description and it seemed to say "Web Developer Wanted," and they read my resume which screames web developer and thought I was a good fit for the role, what they really wanted was a marketer and marketing manager who specialized in search engine optimization and cross-site promotion, rather than a Rails developer.
Funny story: I've already worked for this guy. In 1993. I was temping at the time, and he needed a bunch of data entry people for an emergency calculation over a fraud case they were tracking. Very strange.
I got home and there was a box on the doorstep! I took it inside and eagerly anticipated assembling my new fan into my old laptop-- only to see, after it was open, that this was the replacement paring knife from OXO for the one we'd broken a few weeks ago. Ah, well.
And now I am completely exhausted. I'm going to take a nap.
On the job search front...
Jun. 26th, 2009 02:19 pmThe phone screen today has pushed over into a face-to-face on Monday. Even better, a random resume sent out a week ago has now come back with a second face-to-face on Monday. Well, this should be interesting. That's five interviews booked in one week.
Good grief, something has to come out of all this activity!
Good grief, something has to come out of all this activity!
Do Not Mock Your Potential Employers
Jun. 26th, 2009 10:51 amOkay, I shouldn't do this, because it's wrong of me. I've been interviewing with ad agencies. I like that kind of business, with its pressures and innovations. One of the lesser houses I came across (at which I did not interview, nor did I submit a resume') was looking for "Web developers" but it's clear from the job description that what they want are graphic designers. In the job pitch, the recruiter wrote (all typos in the original):
Dudes.
As an ad Firm, creativity is key, so dazzel us. … We will be reviewing this weekend and getting responses out to 2-3 candidates by MOnday for project starts early nexy week.Okay, that kind of bad grammar and misspelling is appropriate for a blog post, not a job opening.
Dudes.
Life Laid Bare
Jun. 25th, 2009 11:25 pmI had a face-to-face interview today. That was interesting. It's one of those super-secret startups, and unlike the last one, it seems to be in a quest for a monetization strategy. The amount of detail the interviewer had searched for on me was quiet extensive, almost alarmingly so; I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but I was. It's one of those "your life laid bare" moments, and although my life now is sedate and ordinary, once upon a time it was not so, and extensive searching will show up all kinds of bad habits once upon a time. And I've had longer than most of y'all to accrete a record of bad habits. I might be interested in them, they seem to have a cool product, but I'm not sure, with the girls at the age they're at now, if I'm ready to be putting in 12 hours days once more. I did that at Spry, and for a brief while at Isilon, but Kouryou-chan and Yamaraashi-chan are not quite self-maintaining yet. Besides, I like hanging out with my family.
One of the two I had earlier this week was very weird. The recruiter had a lot of questions about HTTP headers, especially those concerned with caching. To my thinking, that's not something you know, that's something you know where to look up, and then you segment your application server appropriately so that dynamic material is not cached, and static material is (a) cached and (b) served out a lightweight media server like NGINX or THTTPD. If you need your developers thinking about caching as they develop, it's either something you need right now (in which case, as a "long-established internet service" you're way behind) or something is exceptionally wrong about your architecture and you need help.
Still, that's the third interview this week. I got a callback on one of them; they want to do a face-to-face next Thursday, so that's good news. Also, tomorrow I have a phone conference with an ad agency, one of those places that has a lot of brilliant graphic designers and flash developers, but now needs more back-end work for their social-media aware clients. I think that would be a great fit for me: different clients every once in awhile, high pressure but with a financial backstop to alleviate the fear of collapse, and a variety of projects I can put my mind toward.
Also found one more resume' to send out today. That makes five resumes and four interviews. Well, good. I qualify for Unemployment Insurance for another week.
And curse Omaha for finishing Plants Vs. Zombies. Now that she's done, I've installed it on my desktop and that's got to be one of the most addictive little games I've ever seen. "Casual" gaming my left bollock.
One of the two I had earlier this week was very weird. The recruiter had a lot of questions about HTTP headers, especially those concerned with caching. To my thinking, that's not something you know, that's something you know where to look up, and then you segment your application server appropriately so that dynamic material is not cached, and static material is (a) cached and (b) served out a lightweight media server like NGINX or THTTPD. If you need your developers thinking about caching as they develop, it's either something you need right now (in which case, as a "long-established internet service" you're way behind) or something is exceptionally wrong about your architecture and you need help.
Still, that's the third interview this week. I got a callback on one of them; they want to do a face-to-face next Thursday, so that's good news. Also, tomorrow I have a phone conference with an ad agency, one of those places that has a lot of brilliant graphic designers and flash developers, but now needs more back-end work for their social-media aware clients. I think that would be a great fit for me: different clients every once in awhile, high pressure but with a financial backstop to alleviate the fear of collapse, and a variety of projects I can put my mind toward.
Also found one more resume' to send out today. That makes five resumes and four interviews. Well, good. I qualify for Unemployment Insurance for another week.
And curse Omaha for finishing Plants Vs. Zombies. Now that she's done, I've installed it on my desktop and that's got to be one of the most addictive little games I've ever seen. "Casual" gaming my left bollock.
Question about job searching...
Jun. 19th, 2009 10:06 amI sent a thank-you note to one group with which I interviewed, and they sent back a note saying sorry, they've filled the position they wanted with someone else. Which was very disappointing, as that was the startup I really wanted to work with.
I sent back a response thanking the HR person for telling me, and added, "Could you tell me what, if anything, led you away from me as a candidate?"
Is that appropriate? Have I burned a bridge?
I sent back a response thanking the HR person for telling me, and added, "Could you tell me what, if anything, led you away from me as a candidate?"
Is that appropriate? Have I burned a bridge?
Quick question...
Jun. 16th, 2009 09:16 amSo, in order to facilitate my job search, alongside my resume I've put up my portfolio. Looking through it, I can't decide what my career has been like. Quite obviously, my "professional" career has been all about functional websites and intranet applications, but there's a lot of ad-hockery in there, don't you think?
Had an interview today...
Jun. 9th, 2009 10:51 pmI had an interview this morning. Two hours with a seriously stealthy start-up that's looking for, get this, employee #4. They have a talented Rails guy working the data model and back-end, and they need someone with some front-end experience who's comfortable hacking back-end as needed. I met all three other guys: the business guy, the Subject Matter Expert, and the programmer, and all were really excellent folks. The product is something I could really believe in, unlike ${ETHICS_VIOLATION} and ${DUBIOUS_ETHICS}.
The most interesting part of the interview was where I pulled out my current freelance job and was able to show the components: the front-end, the back-end, the relatively simple data model, and the unit testing facility.
I hope I get this one. I really do. Because it looked good on paper, and it was a great push forward. It's in Rails, but I can live with that. It'll be the smallest start-up I've ever joined.
Tried making halibut and steak shish-kebabs for dinner. Those were pretty yummy, too. Spent all evening working for the freelance job because this morning and part of the afternoon was taken up with the interview, and I had to run Omaha and Kouryou-chan to dance class, and there was a ton of other material to take care of in the daytime.
The most interesting part of the interview was where I pulled out my current freelance job and was able to show the components: the front-end, the back-end, the relatively simple data model, and the unit testing facility.
I hope I get this one. I really do. Because it looked good on paper, and it was a great push forward. It's in Rails, but I can live with that. It'll be the smallest start-up I've ever joined.
Tried making halibut and steak shish-kebabs for dinner. Those were pretty yummy, too. Spent all evening working for the freelance job because this morning and part of the afternoon was taken up with the interview, and I had to run Omaha and Kouryou-chan to dance class, and there was a ton of other material to take care of in the daytime.
${ETHICS_VIOLATION} and I agreed that I would not be a good candidate for their team going forward. It was easier than I expected to tell them so.
I received just about the weirdest telephone job interview I've had in a long time. It was specifically for a "CSS Programmer," and that was quite literally what the interviewer wanted. I got the impression she was reading off a list of requirements from another team, but list of questions were extremely CSS specific: doing positioning, color control, IE6 hacks, and nothing else. Nothing about Javascript, or DHTML semantics, or XHTML versus HTML, or Doctypes, or any of that stuff. Forget about back-end stuff.
That's like trying to hire a guy who's fixing your house by saying you don't need him to know any carpentry, but he has to be an expert hammerer. He'll just do what the carpenter says.
On further reflection, I suppose such a position is possible, but you'd better have a ton of pages that need stylin'. And if you do, then you're an incompetent boob who hasn't learned the power of Sass, Grid960, or CleverCSS.
That's like trying to hire a guy who's fixing your house by saying you don't need him to know any carpentry, but he has to be an expert hammerer. He'll just do what the carpenter says.
On further reflection, I suppose such a position is possible, but you'd better have a ton of pages that need stylin'. And if you do, then you're an incompetent boob who hasn't learned the power of Sass, Grid960, or CleverCSS.
Dilemmas, dilemmas...
Jun. 1st, 2009 02:42 pmWhoa. Now this would be cool: I just submitted a resume' to join the web development team for transit.metrokc.gov.
I'd kinda have to join a union, though.
Also submitted a web developer resume to Eddie Bauer. Haven't heard back from that one guy; I hope the Perl job's not a lost cause. Pickings are getting slim on the job boards, two today notwithstanding.
And how adult am I if I want one of these?
I'd kinda have to join a union, though.
Also submitted a web developer resume to Eddie Bauer. Haven't heard back from that one guy; I hope the Perl job's not a lost cause. Pickings are getting slim on the job boards, two today notwithstanding.
And how adult am I if I want one of these?
The view from our recession
May. 29th, 2009 09:44 pm
The Landing at Renton
Renton tentatively opened up a big area between I-405 and one of the Boeing Commercial Airliner plants, which had for years been little more than an abandoned manufacturing wasteland, for commercial development. The first two big buy-ins were from a Frys Electronics and a Lowe's Hardware. Then a Target and a Joe's Sports Equipment big-box opened up across the street.
Bouyed by this success, Renton opened up The Landing, which has a multi-screen theater, an LA Fitness, and four full blocks of smaller retail space.
Well, the Joe's is going out of business, the LA Fitness isn't doing too well, and the smaller retail space is completely unused. There's more retail square footage per capita in the United States than anywhere else in the world, and apparently most retailers don't believe that we need more of it, not down in blue-collar Renton.
Nissan gone down.
The Nissan dealership in my town has been hurting for a while. The cars were all gone a few weeks ago, and now the service bays are shut down. Another major contributor to Burien's economy, fallen silent.
I get some funny calls sometimes
May. 29th, 2009 02:08 pmThis morning I had an interview with an HR guy for a small start-up that needs a three month contractual geek who can wind his way around an upgrade from a primitive, CGI-based Apache/modperl to an Apache2/modperl2 infrastructure. It looked like a really interesting job, but his wires were crossed and although I got to meet with him, he would have to reschedule to talk to the engineers, who were all out of town today.
However, he sounded modestly positive, so maybe I shouldn't fret so much.
Anyway, as I was taking the elevator down, my phone rang. It was another recruiter, and he said he had "an interesting Apache and Perl job in Bellevue."
I had to laugh and say, "[REDACTED], right? I just finished an interview with them."
The trick is to stay way ahead of the curve.
However, he sounded modestly positive, so maybe I shouldn't fret so much.
Anyway, as I was taking the elevator down, my phone rang. It was another recruiter, and he said he had "an interesting Apache and Perl job in Bellevue."
I had to laugh and say, "[REDACTED], right? I just finished an interview with them."
The trick is to stay way ahead of the curve.
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