Archive for the ‘employment’ Category

Another reason to avoid facebook and Cellphones

Posted: December 8, 2008 by datechguy in employment, opinion/news, tech
Tags: , ,

It occurs to me that with the combination of cell phones and facebook that this kind of thing likely happens a lot more than we think:

At the exact moment Jon Favreau is receiving high praise in pre-inaugural media puff pieces, the 27-year-old chief speechwriter for President-elect Barack Obama (not Jon Favreau, the Hollywood actor/ director) finds himself in a minor mess over a photo from a recent private party showing him groping the breast of a cardboard cutout of Hillary Rodham Clinton as an unnamed pal wearing an “Obama staff” T-shirt kisses and feeds her beer.

Instead of the liberal world where the press will protect an important Obama fellow from this stuff. (I’ll leave that argument for Violet and friends who won’t be surprised) today lets look at it in the real world.

First of all drunken idiots have been doing things since mead (which tastes awful in my opinion but these guys would disagree) was first created. It’s one of the reasons besides the fact that I’m cheap; I avoid drinking in public places. When you are drunk or stoned you are going to act like an idiot, when I act like an idiot I want to know I’m doing it.

Second of all in the age of the Cell phone and Facebook and e-mail a picture of you being a drunken idiot can not only be spread around the world in moments but might be on youtube forever (just do a search for star wars kid if you don’t believe me). The data may sit but it will be there.

Now imagine you are a HR person, if a candidate passes the first round of interviews I suspect a strong online search will take place. In this age of mandatory “sensitivity” and “sexual harassment” training, growing unemployment and lawsuits on demand are you going to risk a callback to the fellow in that drunken picture mooning the camera or that lady in that web video showing off her thong no matter how good their interview was? I think not.

And PLEASE don’t tell me it doesn’t matter. The 14 year old daughter of one of my oldest friends was talking to me a few days ago. She works in a local supermarket and the discussion of “Merry Christmas vs Happy Holidays” came up. She was told if she said “Merry Christmas” and someone complained, she would be fired. She also said that if she said “Happy Holidays” and someone complained, she would be fired. It was the complaint that mattered and with 100+ teens waiting to take her job she will wisely keep her mouth shut. If she can lose her job for that what do you think a nasty chat log or e-mailed photo will do?

And what if you ever are on the verge of fame of greatness? People will be looking for those photos and blogs will be looking for the hits, just ask Ace.

In the end the internet is like a tattoo it can be expensive and unavailing to try to get off once you are on. This guy has the right idea:

The only real solution, argues a hacker and security researcher who calls himself “Dead Addict,” is to not reveal your personal information in the first place.

That whole article is worth a read but remember this. Unless you were there you will likely never see your grandparents drunk, wild and idiotic even if they were party animals, but your grandchildren’s grandchildren will be able to watch you play “pull my finger” in a continuous loop forever.

Kudos and things to be thankful for

Posted: December 5, 2008 by datechguy in employment
Tags:

I’m been a tad depressing (well other than this post) but I do want to acknowledge a few things:

First of all when a friend of mine heard about our situation he insisted on having us over for thanksgiving. It was in incredible Thanksgiving and fun both socially and in terms of food, (but I was unable to get his CD drives to work, did share out the drive on the 2nd machine the next day as a temp work around.)

Second of all I rent out an apartment to a friend of mine. Been his landlord for 17 years. Every Christmas we discount his rent as a gift. When he showed up on at the house to pay the rent is insisted on paying the full amount , wouldn’t take no for an answer.

That’s just two examples there have been others as well, its nice to know your friends have your back when you need it.

How to kill your ego in 3 min.

Posted: December 5, 2008 by datechguy in employment
Tags:

If I ever become rich and successful this pair of e-mailed received 3 min apart will keep me humble, details removed to protect the innocent:

Sent 12/4/2008 2:38 p.m.:

We have reviewed your application and are very interested in speaking with you further about the position…

Sent 12/4/2008 2:41 p.m.:

Please disregard my last email. We are still reviewing your application and get back to you shortly.

Some things are just plain funny even when they happen to you.

A needed laugh but a good question

Posted: December 5, 2008 by datechguy in employment, Hiwired
Tags:

One of the pleasures of having a new blog is getting the initial comments meaning someone is bothering to read you.

One comment to this post got me actually laughing, I posted it to the chat room where a few of us former HiWired people hang out. I quote the question here:

I am not finding any other information about them going ‘belly up’. What is the source of your infirmation? (sic)

Considering I was one of the initial techs approached about the pilot program and was involved in it. I took the initial call. I was one of the initial techs hired and worked there the entire time the company was open, posted 1000+ posts on the company blog and was actually still on the phone with a customer when we closed and missed the initial message to shut down so you could say I took the last call too. I’d say I have some solid info.

However David’s question is a lot less funny when you check out google news. The first 5 days I checked every day for news of HiWired or Ctrl-Center or whatever closing and didn’t see a thing and frankly didn’t bother checking after that. But as I check today I STILL don’t see anything on the subject and the phone message as of two days ago suggests a service outage. As Limbaugh would say , zip, zero nada.

Maybe we aren’t a big enough company to matter with all the bad economic stuff going on, its pretty sad to go from the PC Mag editor’s choice to non-existence in the space of a year but you would think it would be mentioned SOMEWHERE.

I can say that the local Office Max had our product sold under their brand off the shelves by the 24th and the local Bj’s pulled it off by the 25th both are near the Unemployment office so I checked them out after I filed.

I still have no idea if the board plans on trying to salvage the name and the existing contracts, if they plan on going Indian, if they plan on selling the name to one of the contracts, if the banks owns the name or someone else. My inside info disappeared when the company did. I would think all of that was still possible, in fact I had wondered if they would simply re-organize and hire us back at a pay cut but I’ve heard nothing. Unfortunately for us but fortunately for the country we didn’t have high powered lobbyists to convince taxpayers to keep us afloat.

So I think it is pretty safe to say we are Kaput, but if anyone knows otherwise I’d be very interested.

Older Entries
Newer Entries