Category: Working

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You know, I don’t think it’s that that people don’t want to work

I think it’s that people are sick and tired of the endless bullshit that comes from trying to get a job.

I’ve talked to people who’ve had five interviews and hadn’t met the hiring manager yet. There are others that say they’ve had to explain their technical chops to recruiters, and then to the company HR, and then got to a video interview composed of people from every department except the one that they were going to be working in. In that interview they got to re-explain their technical abilities to people who had no clue what the job title was.

I read of one programmer who asked, “Will I be interacting with the accounting department on this project?” When he was told, “No,” he followed up with, “Then why are two of the 5 interviewers in this room from accounting?

It’s not just about having to fill out a 50 page job application where your’e cutting a pasting everything from your resume into the prescribed little boxes. And then having to submit your resume with the 50 page application. It’s about the complete disrespect that’s shown during a phone interview or zoom interview by people not having read either of the documents.

Technical people tend to cut straight line to a solution and don’t waste a lot of time getting from point A to point B.

There are also a lot of HR and recruiters who play the whole bait and switch game. No I don’t want to accept a 6 month (onSite) contract on a technical support desk, when I applied for a programming position.

No I’m not interested in a salary that is half of what I stated that I needed, with the possibility of overtime.

I love that the recruiter told me, “You’ll be making your requested salary when you consider the OT.”  Uh no that’s not how it works. If the company decides to cut the OT then I’m not making enough to pay my bills. The recruiter said, “Oh you don’t have to worry about that! Most people complain that there’s too much OT and they have no time to do anything.”

The poor girl just didn’t understand that the company sounded like a shit show right from the start. Of course, the Corporate web site said, “We have a commitment to work life balance.” Uh Yeah! I can see that ever so clearly.

A buddy told me about an interviewer that couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to take a management slot instead of the position he’d applied for.

His answer was pretty straight forward. “I’ve done management, I want to spend time with my kids right now. I just want a job that pays the bills, is low stress, only has occasional overtime, and that I can go home at quitting time without worrying about people, resources, and budgets.”

The interviewer just couldn’t get it through her head. She literally kept talking in circles trying to get him to agree to take the management position. The kicker was that the management position only paid 2K per year more than the slot he applied for.

Eventually my buddy terminated the interview telling the interviewer that he was no longer interested in working for her company. She literally started screeching at him for wasting her time.

He told me it was one of those times when he missed the satisfaction of slamming the phone receiver down, especially since it was a zoom call. He substituted closing his laptop while she was berating him red-faced on the screen. He said it was strangely satisfying hearing her muffled screams from the closed laptop. He said he could have simply hit disconnect, but he really wanted to make the point, by closing the laptop screen she could see what was happening.

I’ll have to remember that for the future. I think my buddy may have come up with the phone slam equivalent for Zoom calls!

I’m still annoyed and amused by the hiring manager that pushed for a phone interview even though I told her I had a conflict because I was participating in an online collaboration meeting with my current employer. My participation was text chat only. She simply wouldn’t take “No” for an answer and I let her badger me into doing the interview. So during the call that she forced, She heard me typing a reply to one of my coworkers and immediately started yelling about how I wasn’t prepared for the interview and was obviously looking up information about the questions she was asking. I explained yet AGAIN that I was participating in a meeting and that I was answering a coworker’s question.

Nope! She went off on me and I thought, “I wouldn’t work for this person or her company! I’d rather stay right where I was. Better to drive daily 90 miles one way through LA traffic than to work for someone like her.”

I told her as politely as I could, “Goodbye,” and disconnected. She called me back telling me that it was unprofessional to hang up on her!  I was well past my boiling point, “I asked what part of goodbye didn’t you understand? What part of I’m not going to be screamed at by someone that I don’t know, don’t work for and have no desire to ever meet in person, don’t you get?” I repeated, “Good Bye” and disconnected a second time. She called back to continue berating me.

I remember sitting there wondering what the hell? I hung up, blocked the number and went back to my meeting.

Later in the day I wrote a letter to the HR department of her company. I called out her harassment and offered to send them my phone log as evidence of her repeated calls. I further requested that they flush my application, and resume from their system. I have not applied to that company in the 10 years since.

They’re 25 miles from my home. At the time I knew 2 of their VPs and one of them had walked my resume into the company. I told them both about my experience with this particular manager. As of now, I know absolutely no-one who works for this company. The VP who’d walked my resume in, had been promoted to Director, but left the company a year or two later saying the place had become a shit show of egos and political bullshit.

He’s at Microsoft now.

I’ve had a couple of interviews where a hiring manager was grilling me for proprietary information about a previous employer throughout the interview. They’ve both been Chinese and refused to give up on the subject. The employer they zero in on is a defense contractor I worked for 8 years ago. Any information I might have is long since irrelevant and none of their business in any case. I’m not going to divulge anything about that time in my life except the employment verification number for them to call.

What these people don’t seem to get is that when they get all demanding and particularly if they seem to posses information about the project or projects I worked on, I’m going to call the security number and report that they’re asking inappropriate questions and have details they shouldn’t have. I’ll let the security people deal with these Foreign Nationals asking about confidential projects.It’s no skin off my nose to drop a dime on them.

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Hey Apple, here’s a thought…

I saw that you were having some trouble getting people to come into the office.

It’s in The Wall Street Journal today.

You know what? I’d come into the office. I’d work for a reasonable salary, and not demand much of anything.

Give me some reasonable medical coverage, and enough cash after taxes to pay my bills and I’d be a happy camper. Put me in a cubicle and give me software to test. I’d keep my head down, do my job, and leave at the end of the day.

I’ve got 40 years of experience in technology. I’m not particularly political, (at least not at work,) I don’t give two shits about catching COVID, been there, done that.

I’m not interested in social justice, or trans rights, all I want is a job. In my view none of the politically charged stuff has a place in the workplace. That’s stuff that each employee can pursue in their personal time.

Oh I’ll be polite, I’ll be Politically Correct, I’ll listen to people decrying the injustices they’ve endured but I’m not going to comment or engage with it.

I’d come into work, do my job, and that’s it. I’m not interested in office politics or becoming management. I’ve done both, and am old enough now to recognize that neither is my cup of tea.

I’d like to just work in the trenches.

You’d know that if you’d ever bothered to respond to the multiple applications I’ve filled out seeking employment in my field with your company.

Honestly, my offer seems like a reasonable one. A trouble free employee who shows up on time, does their job, and collects their paycheck.

I have zero social media profiles except for this blog and LinkedIn. I’d not be Twittering, Facebooking, Instagramming, or posting on Tic Toc, during working hours.

Seems like that would be an employer’s dream.

Given that you’ve ignored my applications for years, I can only assume you’ve become far more interested in Social Justice Work than making reliable products and software.

Nonetheless, if you change your mind, fire off a comment to this post. I’m sure we could talk.

I’m even willing to relocate. Bear in mind, if you’d want me to move to Cupertino or Northern California it would affect my base pay requirement calculation. The rents up there are wicked high. One thing though, I’m white. Hiring me could negatively affect your diversity quota.

Just a thought Apple…

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Lately reading or watching the news feels like doom scrolling.

Doomscrolling or doomsurfing is the act of spending an excessive amount of screen time devoted to the absorption of negative news. – From Wikipedia

My Apple News application is configured to show me Science, Technology, and items related to mens health. I’ve blocked CNN, Breitbart, Mother Jones, MSNBC, Vanity Fair, The Rolling Stone, and a plethora of others.

Unfortunately, blocking these publications leaves a white square in my News feed telling me that I’ve blocked the publication and asking me if I’d like to read the article anyway.

Uh… Nope!

What I’d really like, is for the little white boxes to disappear too!

The actual publications that I read for news are more local publications from places that I’m interested in.

Think of it like reading the local news papers from various cities around the nation. The Idaho Statesman, The San Diego Times, The Lexington Herald, there are some Texas papers I’ll skim as well. (Before you ask, I can’t stomach the Los Angeles Times!)

I find that these publication are often a bit more hometown and they’re balanced between human interest stories, local events, and national news.

It’s nice to read about a community rallying behind their high school football team. Or that the local school baseball teams are having a car wash to raise money for a local charity.

I read one article about car washes, being coordinated so that for a period of six weekends, a patron could have their car washed by one of six local school teams and the proceeds would help a community center that had a fire.

It’s that kind of thing that makes the “Bad” news palatable.

It used to be that, only the most egregious faux pas of the D.C. elites would make it to these local papers.

The papers being local meant that the journalists writing for them, were interested in presenting the hard facts and then after the meat of the story perhaps they’d opine about how this, or that, might affect the local community.

I like that kind of reporting. The journalists know which side of their toast is buttered and aren’t necessarily attempting to grandstand to “Hit the big time”.

They’re locals, they’re interested in their town or state and their reporting reflects that.

The papers I mentioned weren’t generally bashing or praising former President Trump, nor have they been bashing or praising current President Biden. They are just reporting the facts. What did the President say, how might the policy affect their particular community.

I guess you’d call it “old school” journalism. Report the story, keep your bias to yourself, if you feel the need to express your opinion then do it on the Op Ed pages.

Lately though, it’s like all the news is just plain bad. Everywhere, (at least in all the papers I read or scan,) there’s almost nothing but bad news. Be it national events like Ukraine, gas prices, or baby formula. Or local reporting of shutdowns of businesses, construction sites, or oil drilling operations, the news is bad.

These local entities are still reporting how the various events are affecting the local community and they’re doing it in personal, first person interviews. Then they move on to the next story.

Stock Photo

The Father of 4 who lost his job because the business he worked at closed, and who said it didn’t really matter because he couldn’t afford the gas to get there anyway. There was a ray of light. He was interviewed in the process of roto-tilling what used to be his backyard and teaching his children to plant vegetables. His wife still had her job, he was staying home watching the kids, instead of paying for daycare. He’d decided that a productive family activity was to plant a vegetable garden. He was going to learn the art of canning later in the summer and fall.

The mother who drove 100 miles one way to stock up on baby formula. She brought light into the story because she shared what she had gotten with other mothers in town who were unable to find formula. She’d then started a formula bank at her church where she and other moms pooled their resources. She thanked the men in the community who were helping by buying a can of formula if they saw one during their daily commutes and dropping it by the church. She commented that many of the men helping out didn’t have children themselves.

The causes were the bad news, the balance was the journalist speaking with people in the community asking how they were adapting, then reporting that, as part of the human interest.

Yet even with the rays of light, the overall news is just bad.

On the one hand, I’d like to look away and just ignore it all. On the other hand I get curious about what’s happening outside my little mountain town.

So I open the News app, and alternately have my heart broken, or become enraged. Sometimes both at the same time.

I simply can’t reconcile that our leaders seem so out of touch, even when they must have the best information flooding into their ivory towers.

How can they apparently ignore the plight of so many who are struggling?

Why are the elites talking about “Taking Action” on issues that don’t directly address the issues that are first and foremost in people’s minds?

You know, minor things like;

Putting food on the table
Getting to and from work
Feeding the children and babies
Paying the mortgage

Right now, the vast majority of average folks don’t give a rats ass about trans-rights, gun control, racism, green energy, CRT, the latest Tic-Tok trend, Hollywood, or even COVID.

Notice, I said the majority… There will always be the few that are so narrowly focused on their cause, that they’ll refuse to see the bigger picture.

Average folks are focused on basic needs. Broadly speaking… A functioning economy.

That requires jobs, the ability to get to aforementioned job, and affordable basic staples in the store. Anything beyond that is un-necessary and complete bullshit.

The elites will no doubt be appalled to discover that all their grandiose “actions”, “plans”, or whatever don’t mean squat to folks just trying to get by.

I’ve got to stop looking at the news. It just makes me sad, and pisses me off!