As it turns out I’m not alone in my disdain for headhunters

I’ve been trying to find gainful employment in my field on a contract or more permanent basis.

The results of my efforts have been uniformly bad. 

In utter frustration, due to a recent interaction with a headhunter, I posed this query to Google,

Has anyone ever gotten a job through CyberCoders?

Apparently the answer is a resounding “NO!

There are a number of listings on Complaintsboard.com and Ripoffreport.com. All of these listings recount experiences exactly like mine.

Apply for a position through DICE, Monster, or Careerbuilder, where you match the posted requirements, then you’re forwarded to a CyberCoders website, or you’re contacted directly about the position by a CyberCoders Lead Recruiter, who says they need your resume in Word format.

Cybercoder1

In my case even though I’d sent a current copy of the resume with the application I just filled out, I got an email asking for resume and salary info again.

I figured, “Sure, the guy didn’t get the doc yet, Its processing through the company databases,” and I sent him the data again.

That was last Wednesday.  Which coincidently was also the last time that I heard from this asshole.

cybercoders2

Follow-up email was ignored. As of today May 1, I still haven’t heard anything for this so-called “lead recruiter”.

According to Complaintsboard & ripoffreport, this is the way these folks operate and have been operating like this for years. To what end, commenters on the sites only speculate.

What amazes and astounds me is that with all the government employment regulations we have, these cockroaches and others like them are still in business.

Here’s a link to the RipoffReport article

Did you notice that in the CyberCoders logo they say they’re a subsidiary of On Assignment? Going to their website isn’t very helpful either since the site is all about selling themselves to investors. But one thing that was interesting is that briefly there is a reference to another domain called Taleo.

200px Taleo Symbol

Turns out, that Taleo is owned now by Oracle. It is a Human Resource Management System, provided to clients via the net. Not terribly interesting until you think about it this way.

Putting your resume into ANY CyberCoder application means that your information is available to ALL CyberCoder recruiters everywhere. So why do the CyberCoder reps to keep asking for copies of your resume in Word format again and again?  Moreover why isn’t the resume popping up on recruiter desktops the moment that they enter a new job posting requiring a person with the right qualifications?

The answer may be that CyberCoders is EXACTLY what the ripoffreport article suggests.

They’re a “resume farming” company and they collect then sell resumes in bulk to recruiting firms or individuals.

immigrationstamp

To Recruiters, for the purposes of spamming companies that recruiting firms are attempting to do business with. To individuals from other countries that are trying to create credible job histories. I would guess that many of this latter group are H1B1 visa holders or seekers.

The most annoying thing is there is no way to validate an ad. Which means that anyone seeking a position is left jumping through hoops that are simply a complete waste of time.

The question then becomes in a shitty economy…

HOW THE HELL DO YOU FIND A NEW JOB?

This would be MY Mom too!

MovieTheater3Dglasses

I was spanked, I was swatted and once or twice is was slapped openhanded by my Mom for mouthing off. I’d say I deserved it.

I threw a punch at my Dad. He avoided it easily and punched me back. After I became an adult I realized and marveled at his restraint. He punched me with enough force that I was jarred, shocked, surprised, and knocked back. No real damage was done… But we had each other’s undivided attention.

I’d thrown the punch out of anger and frustration. (about what, I don’t recall.)  Dad wasn’t really hearing me, he was dismissing me without consideration.

Once we had each other’s attention… our relationship changed. We became more adult in our interactions. I was still wrong a lot of the time, I just wasn’t childishly wrong. The “wrongness” was lack of experience, not lack of logic.

spanking

That’s a really big difference for a young man. 

By todays standards my childhood was fraught with child abuse.

Mental image of my mom standing at a stove. “Honey don’t touch that cup it’s hot.”

Little hands reaching for her tea cup. “NO! you’ll burn yourself.”

Mommy sipping drink from cup then putting it further away.

Little hands reaching toward cup in it’s new location. “You’ll hurt yourself. I’m telling you it’s going to hurt…”

Cup moved again, Mommy looking at stove.  Little fingers goal achieved, making contact with hot cup… PAIN! it hurts! Crying begins.

Daddy comes in holding Coffee cup in big hands, “Whats happened?”

“He wouldn’t leave my tea alone and the cup was too hot for him.”

“Did you move it away from him?”

“Of course I did, but he wouldn’t stop.  The cup isn’t hot enough or full enough to hurt him. Maybe he’ll learn, better this than him ignoring me with the stove!”

“Um, Ok. Hey kiddo do you want daddy’s cup?”  Little hands tucked safely behind back.

“Let Daddy see your hands.” Little hands timidly reaching out. Daddy’s big hands inspecting fingers, then he kisses them and scoops me up, making funny noises on tummy with his mouth. Giggling… lesson learned.  “No really meant No”

Heck I was once spanked with a belt off the rack in a JCPenny’s.

Through it all,  I knew my parents loved me. Even when I tried to convince myself that I HATED them.

One thing my parents weren’t interested in was making a weak person. They wanted me to be strong and independent and somehow they managed to balance my independence with their wishes EVEN when I wasn’t going the way they’d have preferred.

Moral compass 120626

When I became an adult, they wanted my moral compass to always point North. Throughout my childhood that  compass was calibrated by whatever means was necessary and effective. (Sending me to my room was pointless… I had plenty of books and loved to read.)

They made sure I understood the difference between right and wrong, and more so, they made sure that I understood how to make the value judgements that allow me to evaluate a new situation and decide right from wrong in grey areas. (Something more of our politicians should have been taught.)

Even as an adult I’ll reach out to my parents for their opinion about those grey zones. My Mom and I often disagree, but we always come away from a discussion with insight.

Mom is very liberal and I’m obviously less so. Immigration reform for example can really get us both going. Her experience is different from mine because of where she lives. She looks at the issue through the lens of an educator and seeing children learning and discovering new things, and ultimately reaching their full potential.

Children don’t call her racist… they call her Teacher. Their parents call anyone who disagrees with allowing illegal immigrants to “Jump the line” Racist, to shut down any discussion of illegal behavior.

Mom and I had a “Spirited discussion” about it. She brought part of our family into it,  “Would you deport your nieces and nephews?”

“Uh nope, Mom they were born here as was their father and his parents immigrated legally and became citizens, just like our branches of the family did.” 

I think that’s when she realized it’s not about country of origin with me, its about responsibility, the manner in which you come to the country, and the choice between waiting your turn and not gaming the system and being an asshole. If I were to choose to immigrate to Germany, I’d go to the German consulate and ask how this is done. Then I’d follow the instructions and wait my turn.

I’d want to arrive in Germany with a clean slate and be welcomed as a German citizen when I’d passed all the requirements. It’s about honesty and integrity.

We don’t discuss immigration reform anymore EVER.

At least my Mom isn’t mad at me about it, and apparently doesn’t think I’m a monster anymore.

At the very least… She knows that her basic moral /ethical teachings stuck and, hopefully that is some consolation.


All of this is fresh in my mind because of the rioting in Baltimore last night.  

BaltimorePD

We watched the news with grim fascination. We saw the police and the protesters squaring off. We all saw how it would end, visions of the devastation wrought in Ferguson sprang unbidden into my mind’s eye.

The rocks & bottles started flying. 

Transfixed I watched and wondered how much of Baltimore would be sacrificed to the insanity of “Mob Justice”. The crowd fled before the SWAT team, they moved like a swarm into the CVS and a liquor store.

I reached for the TV remote, I had no desire to see what happened next.  Then, there was a sign that perhaps this might be different.

A yellow clad super hero streaked across my TV. Her hair flying back as she took charge of the person she was responsible for, and obviously loved.

 

Her phone in one hand, and her other hand grabbing her kid after she’d seen him throwing rocks at the police.

heromom

She could have been my Mom! She isn’t, but she was in full on Pissed-off MOM Mode!

Having been on the receiving end of that particular mode once or twice in my life (ahem), I cringed a bit.

I felt a bit of empathy for her son, he got what he deserved. I know that his punishment will be long, arduous, and will make an impression.  I wondered if he’d have preferred to be arrested by the police. In his position… I’m not sure where I come down. 

A friend suggested that maybe Moms dressed in yellow should be on patrol tonight with the police.

Moms Patrolling with switches tonight sounds like a rioters nightmare.

I hope she doesn’t get hauled in for child abuse by Child Protective Services.  She was smacking him in the face. Technically i think that counts as child abuse because you can’t hit your kid at all these days.

trashingpolicecar

I got me to thinking, if all kids today, had a little more of the hand of justice applied to their bottoms and a little less privilege, would there be rioting at all?

Meaning if there was more respect for authority; Parents, Teachers, Police, and kids knew there was a price for their misbehavior would they be more or less likely to even be in a situation other than a peaceful encounter with police on career day?

I guess I’m questioning if it’s a matter of escalation.

We acknowledge that we have bad guys. So we have police.

We acknowledge more bad guys, we add more cops quicker to anger and hotter tempered. We see more violent encounters, so we add more police who are younger and trained faster,  on & on till we’re here with Ferguson and Baltimore.

Could any or even, a lot of this have been avoided if parents hadn’t been intimidated into not disciplining their children by an agency (CPS) which calls any physical pain a crime?


baltimorecleanup

Another set of heros showed up in Baltimore this morning too.

The folks who just showed up and started cleaning up.

WOW! 

That was so heartwarming. They all said that the riots shouldn’t have happened.

One guy said something like “The children made a mess, it’s up to the adults to clear it up.”

That sums it up perfectly.

Looting and Riots don’t communicate a message they delay a solution, and double the work.

Cultural Context

caduceus

I am in the throes of my annual sinus infection. I thought I’d managed to avoid this year’s thrilling science experiment. I’m not that freakin lucky!

This one is worse than previous years and I’m on an antibiotic. Thus far pretty standard stuff.

Except that as I’ve gotten older I appear to be developing a sensitivity to some antibiotics.

I took the drug as prescribed on Friday.  After not sleeping and being in really serious pain.  (achey joints, cramping, all the long muscles hurting and a blinding headache.) Saturday morning, I called the pharmacy.

These symptoms were not present on Thursday, and only began to show up as Friday evening wore on. 

Things went down hill from there.

The pharmacist spoke English mostly. His accent is so heavy I could barely understand him.

He wasn’t listening to what I was saying. Then without thinking I used an American colloquialism “I feel like I’ve been in an auto accident

pharmacy

The pharmacist told me ”drink more water and eat something when you take the pill” which is exactly what he told me on Thursday, and exactly what is printed on the instructions for use.

It was only after I hung up that I realized he probably didn’t understand the americanism.

Depending on what shit hole 3rd world country he came from, it was likely that he didn’t have a car until he got here, and therefore wouldn’t have the common experience of being in an auto accident during the 60s, 70s, or 80s.

Come on… if you’re over a certain age, didn’t all your friends have at least one small accident? Didn’t their parents?

But if you were in a 3rd world country you probably didn’t have a car, and if you did you likely were never driving more than 40MPH because the roads were bad.

Given that, there was no common ground for him to compare to.

But there’s another issue that sometimes happens with 3rd world individuals in professional situations. They really don’t listen very well except to each other.

I suspect this is a vestige of the old caste systems and if someone came to America to break free of that system, they tend to be a little dismissive. It makes sense in a weird sort of way. You see similar effects with the “new rich” regardless of where someone comes from.

In technology development situations this can be a problem but it’s easily monitored and corrected. 

baddrugs

In a medical situation…

Theoretically it could be fatal.

For example, the symptoms I was complaining of are now reducing instead of increasing. The pain had become debilitating by last night. So this morning, I decided to forego the scheduled dose.

It’s been greater than 12 hours since I took the last antibiotic. I’m still weak, and achy, but I’m feeling much better than I did.

I still don’t trust my reaction times to be fast enough to handle driving, so I’m canceling my plans for the evening.  I’m waiting to have a chat with my doctor and from there we’ll decide how to proceed.

I’ve also started a journal that describes the issues I’ve had with various drugs. 

From here on out, I’m checking the list before I leave the Docs office.

Apparently, I can no longer rely on my local pharmacy for advice.

Ahhhh That’s nice… You could’a told me about it sooner!

I’m very fortunate to have some really smart friends.

Unfortunately, those same friends sometimes forget to share really important stuff.

So rather than complain about my friends lack of sharing… I’m going to share with you.

As I’ve written recently, ads, popups, and all the tracking crap on the internet has gotten completely out of control.  We’ve all told our browsers to block ads, popups, and everything else we can.

Blocking popups can sometimes be a problem because some sites actually use pop-ups in the way they were intended to be used, instead of as a means to display an ad for the latest dancing dildo from ronco.

Ads in general aren’t a big issue & I generally don’t mind seeing them. Until they become so intrusive that I can’t read the web page I want to read.

Its become insane, ads for everything I’ve EVER looked up are flashing around the perimeter of the page leaving me a 1 inch wide strip of text that I actually want to see.

Apple addresses this in part on iPad, iPhone, & Mac with their “reader” view. This strips everything out of the page and presents clean easily readable content. The problem is, I’ve not found a way to turn “reader” view on all the time by default.  (I’ve often thought that would be bliss.)

Adblockplus

So after yesterday’s post about the jpg that was nothing more than a link to a malware infested site.

A friend contacted me this morning and after several exchanges asked if there was a program like ADBlock for the Mac.

“ADBlock? What the hell is ADBlock?” I think to myself.  

BING Search ADBLOCK

Surf the web without annoying ads

D’OH!!!!!

Surprise, surprise surprise! They make a version for Safari!

“Damn straight, I want to download it!”

One simple manageable extension to safari and Bliss

It also displays how many ads it’s blocked per page. 

REALLY Breitbart, 17 ads on a single page? Do you think you’re being a little excessive???

While the application counts the ads… I don’t see them! 

Blessings to the folks at Adblock Plus!

To my friends using this application…

Speak up sooner!

You all know I run a very vanilla system but I do take a look at applications and stuff that you suggest…

I might think you don’t love me or something, you sadistic bastards!

Ok Folks… This Ain’t Rocket Science!

angrychimp

This is one clearly destined for the annals of “how to really piss off your customer

I’ve got someone for whom I put together a web site.

What I built is much nicer than the site they’d built using their web hosts “Web Design” package.

Honestly, the “web designer” used by their hosting site was barely functional. While it did produce a web site; Well you know the old saying about Shakespeare? The one  about 10,000 monkeys with typewriters and 1,000 years???

Lets just say what the web designer output was less than pretty. 

monkeyfangs

That my friend could make the site look decent at all is a tribute to a lot of patience and time spent on their part.

Had my friend NOT spent all that time and energy his website would have looked like a rabid, syphilitic, palsied, drunken howler monkey, on acid had cobbled together some HTML. Or the great technologist Hillary Clinton, whichever floats your boat.

But that’s not the worst of it.

confusedmonkey

See, my friend was paying for this… Where things turned due South was when we tried to upload the site I built, to his host.

Turns out that even though he “Upgraded” the web hosting service wouldn’t allow FTP access. Additionally, they provided no way at all to simply upload HTML files. He asked again, and again he upgraded his service giving them MORE money and still FTP was denied.

hillary

FTP is one of the basic underpinnings of the internet. Virtually every operating system has the ability to FTP built right in. You have to specifically block this ability. In most modern Operating Systems, FTP access is blocked by default by the manufacturer, but during installation there is usually some question about enabling it, and a couple of other things. Many average consumers answer “No” or they skip the question. This leaves the service? protocol? (I honestly forget which FTP is classified as,) turned off and thus doesn’t leave a security hole open. If the consumer find they need FTP later, they can enable it. Often, if the customer has purchased an FTP front-end package, (Something that pretties up the service) during installation of the package, FTP is enabled.

Then I tried talking to his hosting site, and WOW! What an unmitigated cluster fuck!

Gandalfclusterfuck

I could log into the site as my friend, but when I tried making changes, I was sent to another site, and another site.

I’m not just talking about different webpages here, I’m talking about entirely different web sites all of which you have to log onto independently.

I started out logging into something called OptimalWebhosting.com. But that wasn’t the real host, they were called Wild West something something.com

But they weren’t the actual web builder people, and the web builder people weren’t the security people, and at one point godaddy.com popped up performing some function.

As we tried dealing with these people it became clear that there was no single entity in absolute control of his domain name.

Since there were so many people with fingers in the pie, nailing someone down for answers, getting something fixed, or getting anyone to take responsibility for anything, proved impossible.

Famouslastwords

My friend said he was completely tired of dealing with these people.

I said, “I think I can help.

Famous last words!

I contacted my hosting service HostGator.com.

I’ve been very happy with them and their service over the past 3 years. In that time I’ve always been able to get ahold of someone that knew a lot more about some of this stuff than I do. I’ve always closed a chat, or hung up the phone thinking, “Dang! It’s really nice to talk to folks who are on the ball and have a ‘can do’ attitude.”

So I called them, I asked if my friend’s domain could be transferred to HostGator, how much, and how long?

The answer was, “Yes we can transfer the domain, it’ll cost $20 and once we have control of the domain name it usually takes only a few hours.”

I said, “Great! Clicked on the little transfer button, entered the domain name, and told my friend to authorize the transfer when he got an email about it.”

That was almost thirty days ago.

badserverroom

We went down the rabbit hole of politics, greed, stupidity, and really shitty corporate policy. 

Optimalwebhosting, A.K.A. Wild West Hosting, dragged its feet at every possible turn.

They refused to answer HostGator, they allowed transfer tokens to expire requiring that those tokens be recreated twice! They annoyed my friend and whined because he was leaving them, but wouldn’t expedite his leaving and wouldn’t correct the issue that was causing him to leave. 

They finally figured out that they wanted yet MORE money to provide FTP services that would allow him to upload a website. They also wanted to charge him by the web page!

So lets take a look at this business model shall we? 

14.95 Yearly domain registration.

75.00 Yearly hosting service using their web builder (rabid, syphilitic, palsied, drunken howler monkey, on acid, HTML code.)

25.00 to upgrade site to have more web pages. (YET MORE, rabid, syphilitic, palsied, drunken howler monkey, on acid, HTML code.)

Grand total… 114.95 to STILL have no ability to upload a custom site, and have crappy support spread across who knows how many different  companies.

Uh NO! This is not value for the money… this is death by a thousand cuts. This kind of billing structure makes you look like you’re running your business on retired or defective equipment that you’ve cobbled together out of dumpsters in Silicon Valley. 

As of today, it looks like the transfer may finally be nearing completion of ‘the domain transfer from hell’. I’m not holding my breath, I suspect that Wild West Hosting has something else up its collective sleeve. They’ve gotta have at least one more monkey wrench to toss into the works, it’s their nature.

Bottom line,

If you see Optimal Web Hosting, or Wild West Hosting offering really cheap domains and webhosting… 

RUN AWAY!