Comments Opened

I've opened up the blog for comments.  Google's settings are not quite as granular as I would like, but we'll try it and see how it goes.  Moderation is turned on for now, so be patient.  I'll process comments as quickly as possible.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The race to the bottom

We abhor the temporary IT staffing model common today; the prospective staff are sought on a last-minute basis filtered by misconfigured, mindless Applicant Tracking Systems hired by recruiters largely innocent of IT knowledge treated as virtual slaves by client companies frequently dismissed when they cannot conjure miracles frequently dismissed on a whim, or by mismanagement discarded, often with little or no notice, after the assignment treated with no regard for their well-being This cruel system corrupts clients makes the hapless staffers cynical and mistrustful provides poor matches between jobs and prospects incentivises dishonesty on all sides clouds and confuses the market wastes tremendous amounts of money and time .  This pernicious, awful system is slowly breaking down with time, and is sustained only because of power imbalances , inertia and indolence. Granted, there are still a few conscientious companies and people working in the staf...
Keep reading

The Job Hunt, part IIa: Employee job hunt

Employee job hunts are different from contractor job hunts.  Prospective employees have a far better chance of actually realizing the single paragraph description of what they will do than contractors.  Most employers vastly prefer to have employees in critical development and coordination roles, since there are few restrictions on how the employees are to be managed.  They can be told in detail what to do, when to get it done and how to do it.  The employer does not have to think or prepare as much. W-2 contractors are usually wanna-be employees, and so follow the same rules as employees. Once a person seeking an employee role is done updating the resume and uploading it to the various job boards, then the optimum path is to create job alerts on all the boards and harvest the results via e-mail.  I also recommend at least weekly manual searches of each job board with various search strings to possibly catch jobs missed.  Apply to every job you might b...
Keep reading

Moving to Austin? Consider these points before committing to the move ...

This is the very last post I will make as a resident of Austin, TX. It wasn't so long ago that Austin, TX was the best place in the USA to be a high-tech worker. There were (and still are) plenty of jobs, great music, lots to do, and a good, central location in the best State in the Union. Now, however, there are mounting clouds on the horizon. I now have four days left here, and I wanted to share my perspective and give some hopefully valuable advice to people moving to Austin. People considering a move to the area might want to think very carefully, do a lot of research, and perhaps choose one of the exurbs surrounding Austin (Hutto, Bastrop, San Marcos, etc.) since the cost of living is much lower and there are fewer of the irritants and dangers described below. IMHO, urban Austin and its suburbs are poor bets, especially for family-oriented people, and I voted with my feet - I just sold my home, and leave forever next week. I lived in Austin for 40 years, and saw quite a bit o...
Keep reading