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Alas, all interviews aren’t what they might have been in a different set of circumstances, are they? What is the hallmark of a technoidiot in the workplace? A person forced to ask you what your certifications are because they can’t engage in any meaningful conversation capable of assessing a persons skill level. Having numerous certifications and seeing the skill level of others with the same certifications leads me to a single thought. The MAIN thing they’re good for is generating revenue for vendors and test centers. I have yet to see a certification produce anyone with real time skills, which continue to be primarily a function of experience. Or they ask you about specific RFC specs because they’re easy to obtain in list form and equally inconsequential when you have to tear down the network and rebuild it from scratch. Then there is the obtuse portly server moron who wants to ask you some question and then says you got it wrong because he doesn’t understand the scope of the answer; such as the fact that not all SQL product lines are written by Microsoft and the word “Federation” does not refer to every collective of SQL servers on the face of the Earth. Likewise, the contention that a “net use” command in conjunction with a UNC performed at a prompt doesn’t map a drive but a right click of a mouse is effective toward that end … can I get a DUH ! Getting “hired by the team” is just another way to say “the boss is incompetent” as she sits contemplating her dysfunctional citrix install with a dull blank stare from her office in the tower. Too bad savant can’t be used to describe your submarginal prowess, which appears par for the course. When the team is doing the hiring they should recognize skills when they see them — or at least conduct an interview with ONE person who understands the concept and can go for more than 3 minutes … Should have worn my yarmulke. Things may have gone better. Luckily for me most other companies do understand the interview! |
Archive for June, 2009
Interviewing … it’s a learned behavior
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009The ‘good old boy’ system is alive and well in South Carolina
Monday, June 29th, 2009
The New York Times quoted republican state representative Nikki Haley on June 28, 2009 who said:
“South Carolina cannot afford to go back to the good old boy system that so badly serves the taxpayers and undermines our government.”
This may appear as a touch of feminist coming out in me but I just could not agree more.
We have others stating how they need Mr. Sanford “out” and are pressing for his resignation due to his recent personal issues which have been draped across the press for the past week or so.
Ousting Mr. Sanford only to replace him with another who is just as controversial … only in different areas — achieves nothing in the conservative reform of the government of the state. We need new people with a new spin on government who aren’t out to do favors for favors in return and practice this cronyism which has been so prevalent in the politics of the past and present.
I am not interested in the personal lives of the people voters place into the governmental matrix.
I am interested in the concepts of creating wasteful monsters like state employment systems, state retirement systems which can take your money without your permission, ridiculous insurance monopolies, judge appointments made to repay political favors, and the vast array of other goings on appearing in recent iterations.
I’m just saying that I agree that significant change is past due.
HIV/AIDS Case Counts Grow in the Southeast
Sunday, June 28th, 2009
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HIV and AIDS remain the plague of the century — with mounting new infections and statistics indicating the Southeast becoming a leader in the concentration of cases.
The stigma of having acquired the virus is resulting in a trend for late detection, often happening after the victim has developed a full-blown infection. This, coupled with a more limited access to care and provider competence statistics indicating where effective treatment may be had is making the situation worse.
Then there is the decline in the availability of public transit so people without vehicles of their own may readily travel to physician offices. This has been a particularly hot topic in the region in which I live and the fact that there are fewer physicians regionally who manage HIV patients hasn’t helped the situation either.
The resounding tragedy of the plight of the HIV/AIDS patient is the sheer number of cases since regions other than the Southeast are also affected with high numbers of cases and fewer therapeutic resources to go around. The sad fact also is many simply choose not to know their HIV status to maintain some grip on denial.
Luckily, I didn’t have that luxury because my physician slid the test in on me unrequested in a battery of various other tests during a physical.
Abstinence? What Abstinence?
Given the fact that the single most effective means of preventing virus transmission is avoiding it’s vectors — and the two most common vectors being sexual transmission and needle sharing … with congenital infection a sad third — we are not getting through to some that limiting sex partners is efficacious in prevention.
In fact, a man I once knew fairly well said in no uncertain terms that he felt AIDS will never go away because he and others like him would never stop having unprotected sex with multiple partners. He added that he had sex as many as 6 or 7 times daily averaging that many different partners as well. His tone was one of defiant resolve and I had absolutely no reason to doubt his position whatsoever.
What part of “don’t have casual sex just because it may be available” is difficult to understand about the transmission of this virus anyway? Perhaps it’s just raging hormones, but more of the intravenous drug abusers seem to be getting the message regarding the dangers of sharing needles than are the promiscuous with the message of avoiding casual sexual encounters. Even the elderly in assisted living facilities are becoming infected which became a rather startling statistic later in the battle.
Naivety thy name is Dave
Protection they say. I use protection. Yes, this will go a long way towards preventing acquisition of the virus. However, the throes of passion don’t always provide the foresight and protection isn’t a hundred percent effective.
So now we have this mentality that HIV positive sex partners are simply a factor which may or may not be known and you just have to take your chances in this big game of orgasmic roulette.
Well no, I have a choice in the matter. I no longer circulate as a member of the ‘bent on intercourse’ lifestyle. I don’t try to date everyone I encounter (anymore). I don’t involve myself in the manipulations I invariably see during various social activities and I’m no longer looking for any partners, sexual or otherwise. I involve myself in relationships with people I get to know and allow them to get to know me. I’m through with the concept of being a mere ‘organ donor’ as I see that trend continue at various gatherings and fetes I attend periodically. I find intimacy so much more satisfying and longer lasting than my often overstated sexual prowess, anyway.
I still have fun and enjoy the company I keep. We’re just open, honest, and frank about our need to stay healthy and actively pursue that need along with all the others … you know, the whips, chains, ball-gags, handcuffs, whipped cream, extra batteries, etc.
Hopefully, this approach will spare me exposure to the continuing plague known as HIV/AIDS. I can’t speak for others but I don’t shun those who are infected with the virus. They are fellow human beings and are deserving of my compassion and it is here for them.
Pediatric cases not withstanding, we have to make our own choices and accept the consequences of our actions. We ultimately may either live (or die) as a result of them. Sometimes others who are innocent and unaware will live or die based on decisions we make.
Hope
HIV/AIDS isn’t as it was back when it was known as ‘GRID’ and first discovered in patient zero (→). We now know it to be a heterosexual scourge which doesn’t discriminate and remains a tough hand to be dealt and an even tougher one to play should you contract it and end up one of the unlucky ones who either aren’t immune or cannot continue to thrive in the presence of the virus on drug therapy as do some individuals.
Luckily, ongoing research has led to many advances in treatment and our understanding of this fragile but deadly virus. Hopefully, the mechanisms by which it evades the immune system and mutates will become fully understood and new treatments will continue to become available; but I fear that there is no definitive cure in sight during my lifetime.
Email, Your Life, and Your Career
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
So you’re seeing someone outside your relationship and have this overwhelming need to make your feelings known in no uncertain terms. You consider yourself fairly technically savvy and see no reason why email isn’t the perfect vehicle with which to play sweet melodies on the heartstrings between the two of you.
You have an anonymous account and you’re 200 pages into your magnum opus of love to the object of your illicit affections. By the way, you have a high profile job with immense responsibilities, a good pay check, and lofty career aspirations for the future.
STOP. In the world of the internet you need to exercise caution and restraint when it comes to voicing that which is in your soul (or craw … whatever, depending on the situation) PARTICULARLY if you’re in that backbiting, sycophant laden, palm greasing entity known as ‘state government’ where people smile at you and betray you in the same minute.
Betrayal? Just who gets betrayed when a person pursues another outside the family for amorous concerns and just how deep does treachery go in the midst of new found feelings placed in words sent with the click of a ‘Send’ button? Also, who is to know what was sent to whom, and when and where or why?
So the torrid facts are harvested by some trusted person and sent to a reporter who publishes the blow by blow (sic) in your local newspaper. The local television reporters naturally want to mind your personal business as well with the embarrassing excerpts causing red faced reporters nationwide who blush while reading your accumen d’amore — you go viral on the internet — and now everybody knows just how cuddly, wayward, and irresponsible you can be. So romantic.
However, this is not particularly conducive to the previously mentioned career ambitions, is it?
Before getting busted again in the future, you might consider:
- Many employers monitor email
- Social engineers can gain access to machines in various ways
- Storing your passwords on web based email accounts is folly for this reason alone
- You are at work to work and shouldn’t mix work and play because it’s dangerous
- Email messages may exist for decades on numerous backups and may surface anytime after they are sent or saved as drafts
- If you don’t control the server you don’t control what it contains
- If you don’t want people to read it you shouldn’t write it
- If you’re in love, fine and dandy; just remember that part of your life is work life, not love life
- Don’t embarass yourself, your family, friends, coworkers, or significant others with sloppily handled personal affairs made public
- Don’t give your enemies the satisfaction or the fodder of your personal foibles in relationships
- Too many people enjoy too much gossip way too often and I suspect consuming grits as the likely culpret given the Southern propensity for uninformed discussion regarding others
Personally, I view the inability of the local media to handle a story and move on a flaw in their skills. The very nature of ‘news’ is that it is ‘new information’ yet we get to rehash the same stuff over and over until not only is it stale; but has devolved to bad taste and tabloid quality content. No wonder the newspapers are in decline and may vanish from the face of the Earth.
Passages
Friday, June 26th, 2009Well we’ve recently witnessed the passing of Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett, and just yesterday Michael Jackson; with all of whom I was famililar via their work and at each one I have poked a little fun in the past.
All in all, they had their moments at the top — suffered a decline and departed at another place in life, somewhat less than their initial place in the scheme of stellar existence, much like the rest of us in our times and places.
Like the Youngbloods sang during my childhood so long ago:
“We are but a moments sunlight fading in the grass …”
We’re born, we grow, we live, we procreate, we die. Such is the circle of life which has continued for millenia. Some of us make our marks on this world. Some of us live in obscurity.
Regardless, we only get a short time here so it’s important to try and be good to one another and help each other out along the way when we can.
Rest in peace, Ed, Farrah, and Michael.
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China: Oppression, Suppression, Repression of a People with Software
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
China has enacted an order for personal computers to ship with web content filters which has been met with complaints from trade officals in the United States.
This rule takes effect on July 1, 2009 and has been placed as a restriction designed to cultivate morals in their citizens. In actuality it is censorship of the world wide web to keep the Chinese from accessing the ideas available there.
The only thing that can really be said about the farce of this “Green Dam-Youth Escort” package and the facade under which it is being implemented is:
What can be said for a country which has a history of murdering it’s citizens, forced sterilizations, and morally reprehensible conduct culminating in the elimination of human rights and oppression of the masses for the benefit of the scant few who have the audacity to call themselves ‘leadership’.
Until such time as the people assume control of their government and loose the failed political model of Mao Tse Tung there is nothing but continued oppression in their miserable trod upon futures.
The Youth League faction and Shanghai clique are a failures as leaders in the most populated country in the world.
In Memory of the Persian Angel of Freedom
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
Neda Soltan was an Iranian woman who sought to make her staunch resistance to injustice known in the protest marches of Iran after a hotly contested election for President of that country.
The victim of a bullet which was caught on video as it struck her; she is now a hastily buried martyr who was not afforded the honor of a proper funeral for fear of mass demonstrations and subsequent reprisals by the ruling Islamic regime.
She was not some vehement activist bent on subversion, but had started attending the mass protests because of the outrage she felt as the result of the election outcome which is widely viewed as skewed due to a failure to count many of the votes and/or other acts of omission or commission by the voting officials who appear to have intentionally slanted the results in favor of the incumbent candidate. This has enraged a large section of the populace who have began a massive protest against oppression.
Neda Soltan is said to have become “one of the pillars of this movement now,” and images of her and her tragic death populate the web sites of the world in a solidarity of sorts denouncing repression, election tampering, and murder of the citizens by government operatives seeking to retain control of the country.
All mosques were given direct orders from the government barring them from holding any memorial services for Neda Soltan and her family was threatened with grave consequences if anyone gathered to mourn her, said Soona Samsami, executive director of the Women’s Freedom Forum.
Will it ever be that religion will separate itself from it’s need to operate a totalitarian government and confine itself to spirituality and those venues where it is meant to be celebrated by the faithful?
Like Torquemada, Hitler, Stalin, Ceausescu, and Saloth Sar, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will some day answer for his earthly works before the White Throne. Will the Persians who seek freedom in their native land be permitted to survive until then?