2011: The end is near

I can’t let 2011 get away without Dave Barry’s annual Year in Review. He has the knack of putting everything into perspective.

“Zombies on crack”, “rat mucus” and “hyperpartisan gasbaggery”. Yep—that pretty much sums it up.

And even though 2012 is a presidential election year and thus by definition starts out in the hole, I hope it’s a happy and healthy one for you.

Recruiters 24

Oddly enough, considering it’s “The Holidays”, I’ve had rather a flurry of recruitment activity this month. There are a couple that I’m quite interested in, a couple that would be okay, and several that, well, let’s just say that there’s not a bargepole long enough for me to touch them with.

There was the wireless voice communications company that focuses on hospital settings. In speaking with the recruiter I had the usual “what-are-you-looking-for”/”what-are-you-offering” dance.

Why is it that companies can’t do their work and determine what the job is worth to them and be done with it?

Anyhow, it turns out that my expectation was just beyond what they want to pay (“though not by much”), so I was surprised to have the recruiter contact me within a day for a phone interview with the hiring manager. To cut this saga short, I spoke with her on the phone and went in for an on-site interview; but I didn’t think it was a good match. Their technology isn’t particularly interesting, its application is limited, and I don’t see it being a stepping stone to something I really want.

Plus—they’re cheap.

So I wasn’t crushed when I got the “we’ve decided to pursue other candidates that more closely match our needs” email.

However, it’s interesting that the job was posted again this week, so I guess their “other candidates” were more in the realm of wish than reality.

The other one that I decided to swing wide of was a start-up in Emeryville (as lousy a commute from Sunnyvale as it’s possible to have), with a technology that I personally find really annoying whenever I encounter it. But there’s a connection to France and I thought it might be worth a shot, in case there’s some flexibility with the commute.

But a phone conversation with the hiring manager disabused me of all interest.

First—more than half her questions were around how I’ve handled various situations involving conflict. Now, a couple of questions on those lines is quite in order; but her coming back again and again threw up more red flags than the game in The Longest Yard.

Then she informed me that they have weekly calls with the development team in Paris. Because the Paris wi-fi is unreliable, they use Skype; and to save money they limit the number of ports, so everyone on the call from the Bay Area has to be in the office. No calling in from home.

It was clear to me that there’s some serious dysfunction in a group of fewer than 80 employees worldwide and that all the flexibility is expected to be unidirectional: employee to employer.

I brought up the conflict with the external recruiter, who professed herself astonished to hear about it, because she knew nothing.

I myself in turn was surprised to be told that the hiring manager had passed on me because of my “lack of experience working with remote development teams”—since for the last three years that’s precisely what I’ve been doing. Moreover, I’ve worked for and with French companies and have considerable experience with the, ah, culture.

It was because I questioned what’s up with the conflict questions.

Well—I’m holding out hope for a couple of opportunities. One would be really good, a company that really does respect its employees. The other is on the “best companies to work for” lists, but that remains to be seen.

Let’s hope the New Year brings one of these home, early on.

Bookkeeping 3

In my post yesterday I mentioned B. Dalton Bookseller, the progenitor of Barnes and Noble. You used to find a B. Dalton at every mall in America, along with a Kay Jeweler and a Victoria’s Secret. Eventually they were absorbed into B&N because the big box concept of quantity over quality overtook the book world.

But I was disabused of the notion that B. Dalton was a suitable recipient of my literacy dollars back in the 80s after this experience:

At the time I was working in the film industry, in what is known as creative affairs—the unit where stories (“properties”) are evaluated and developed for production. One of my clients, who was also teaching a course in script development for UCLA Extension, suggested that Jules Verne’s Michael Strogoff was something I might want to pursue as a mini-series.

Well, he was right—it’s quite the swash-buckling story, vast in scope, visual, complex, great characters. And mini-series were big then, and the Soviet Union was opening up as a shooting location.

But I first had to read it.

Now, recall—this was pre-Internet. No Amazon, no ABE Books. I had no idea that the book was out of print, I just knew it wasn’t at the LA Public Library branch near me in Playa del Rey, so I went to the B. Dalton shop in Westchester.

I couldn’t find it—in fact, I couldn’t find 20,000 Leagues under the Sea or Journey to the Center of the Earth or Around the World in 80 Days. I looked in the Fiction section, in Science Fiction and in Classics. Nada.

So I went to the guy at the cash register and said I was looking for books by Jules Verne. He directed me to the woman out in the stacks as being the resource on inventory. I asked her, “Have you no Jules Verne?”

She got this puzzled look on her face and replied, “Is that a title?”

Unlike the blonde cashier at B&N earlier this month, this chick was the supposed book expert, so from that point on I never took the chain seriously.

I lucked out and found a paperback of Michael Strogoff at a used book shop in Santa Monica. It’s a great read and I recommend it heartily. You can get a free download for Kindle from Amazon, if you’re interested. It’s kind of satisfying that it’s survived and B. Dalton hasn’t.

Bookkeeping 2

A couple of Saturdays ago I was in the Barnes and Noble store in Campbell, Calif. That’s where my non-fiction book discussion group meets; otherwise I’d be unlikely to go there, since B&N has always struck me as the heir-on-steroids to B. Dalton Bookseller: the literary equivalent of Burger King.

I was early for the meet-up, so I spent some time in the magazine section. Eventually I picked up three: The Economist, Shambhala Sun and WWII History. The latter has a photo of Winston Churchill in uniform on the cover.

As the blonde at the cash register (and, yes, she was a blonde, in her early 20s) rang up my purchases, she commented, “Oh—he looks jolly!”

I glanced at Churchill and agreed, “I guess he does.”

There was a pause, and then she asked, “Who is he?”

“Winston Churchill. Prime Minister of Britain during World War II.”

(I debated whether to explain what World War II was, but decided against it. The meet-up was about to begin and I never know whether to date the war from the Japanese incursion into Manchuria, the Munich Conference or the invasion of Poland.)

I thought I was being neutral, but she felt obliged to explain to me that “I’m more people smart than book smart.” And then, “I like people better than books.”

Naturally, the thought occurred to me that in that case she might have chosen a different retail field. But I reckoned that, after all—they had her at the cash register, and she seemed proficient at operating it. She wasn’t on the floor making reading recommendations.

Still—it does encapsulate why I’ve never cottoned to B&N.

If the Nativity were today...

...this is how it might go:

(Thanks, & Merry Christmas, to the Pundit's Apprentice!)

Non-Handel on the holidays

Okay—a somewhat different “Hallelujah”, but sentiments not entirely out of bounds in the holidays:

Free hugs. In a shopping street.

Handel on the hols, Part 4

Here’s another “Hallelujah” flash mob for your holiday enjoyment—this time at a food court at a Canadian shopping mall.

I love watching the faces of the shoppers as they realize what’s happening around them. You just feel the spirits lightening.

Handel on the hols, Part 3

And another take on “Hallelujah”—this time by a high school choir of “silent” monks.

This one hasn’t the professional videography of the others I’ve shared this week, & is marred by the cackling laugh of someone in the audience (possibly the cameraman). & I have a quibble about the breaking up of “ever”.

But, really—stunning execution on the part of the students—I don’t know what school, but well done, guys!

Working holidays

Last Friday the place where I’m getting post-surgical physical therapy was holding its holiday party. They were actually closing the office at 1300 for the potluck and white elephant exchange, so the therapy sessions were running at quite a good clip as we approached the noon hour.

But it got me thinking, as I was being simultaneously iced and electrocuted (okay, undergoing "electrical stimulation" therapy), about Office Parties I Have Known.

Way, way back, during the Reagan Administration, I worked for one of the major aerospace companies in an office at a satellite site. Meaning, an office building on Century Boulevard; not one of the self-contained highly-secured plants. We had one security guard, Fred, at a beat-up old desk as you came off the elevator.

Well, it was the tradition of the folks in that group to have a holiday party the last day before year-end shutdown, including potluck and white elephant exchange. and for the occasion, my boss got a special dispensation from Fred to bring in a bottle of booze to spike the punch.

(The next year, when we moved to the big plant, this was out of the question. Although at that site I simultaneously realized why we had year-end shutdown and wondered why they’d stick at a bit of rum to go in the punch: from about mid-December on, you waded through six-packs of empty beer bottles in the assembly-line workers parking area, which made you think about how many electronic parts weren’t clearing QC. I reckon that we shut down just to save on the reworks.)

(And yes—line workers had to park in a different area from white-collar types. Farther away. Your car had a windshield sticker—either green square or red triangle—depending on your status. Parking in the wrong area had serious consequences.)

That was a great party; people brought in all kinds of food and some of the white elephants had been in the group longer than many employees. It was all quite jolly, and something I’ve not experienced much of since.

At HBO people were way too cool and hip to engage in such frivolity. The managed healthcare company in DC—well, hard to be jolly when everyone’s sitting on pokers.

The telecoms company just had the corporate extravaganzas, in both Northern Virginia and Wales. In all fairness, I’m not sure that the Brits have full grasp of “potluck”—you may have had to have been exposed to Midwestern Methodist gatherings in some way to get it. But that doesn’t explain the dearth on this side of the Pond.

(We did have department-sponsored “morale” events. Lord knows we needed them, not that they worked. Oh—one year the department paid for a dim sum lunch. Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like fried chicken feet and pork buns, let me tell you.)

However, one year I stumbled into the party held by the training group, and that harkened back to my aerospace experience. There was a bottle of bubbly, Christmas crackers (with everyone wearing the paper hats and sharing the corny jokes) and that general air of family geniality.

I’m not at all surprised that there was nothing on either a corporate or department level at the enterprise software company. I always pictured the CEO of the multi-billion megalith echoing Scrooge, calling Christmas “a poor excuse to pick a man’s pocket every 25^th of December”, and this definitely filtered down through the corporate culture.

At the SaaS company, you’d have thought there’d be quite the holiday gathering, but there wasn’t. I mean—there were only about 80 people on site and everyone pretty much knew everyone else, and mostly got along. And we had company-sponsored things like barbecues at other times. But there didn’t seem to be much interest in the hols. Our “official” event, dinner at the Reston Hyatt, was thrown together by the CEO’s admin in a matter of days (and she did a bang-up job of it); but it just speaks to the lack of enthusiasm.

(There was a cube-decorating contest. That’s as close as we got.)

My employer in Seattle—well, they went through the motions. But I never felt there was any warmth in it.

Now—there is one exception to this litany of holiday humbuggery: the small systems integrator where I worked in RTP. My editor and I threw together an evening event—caterer, flowers, must have been booze although I don’t recall it. The location was the apartment clubhouse of one of our tech support guys. Everyone dressed up, including the warehouse workers. One of them brought in a boom box (it was 1992), and we danced to it. Allison and I put together little gift boxes that people received (which included $25 AmEx gift certificates). It was like…Christmas.

Where I am now, they had a potluck on Friday. By 1000 the aroma of fried chicken permeated the entire floor. But of course, when the time came I was in PT. So I don’t know what the actual event was like.

Handel on the hols, Part 2

A friend brought this to my attention last year: Random Acts of Culture seeded the shoppers at the former Wanamaker’s flagship store with members of the Opera Company of Philadelphia and let loose with the “Hallelujah” chorus.

If I thought a flash mob would show up and break out into “Hallelujah”, I might even venture out into a Macy’s

Crank up the volume and enjoy.

Cat's in the cradle

I don't know that this picture, making the rounds, needs any explanation. Especially not if you're acquainted in any way with a cat:

Handel on the hols, Part 1

I myself never tire of Messiah. It never fails to lift my spirits, & I’m of the opinion that there is no such thing of a surfeit of the oratorio, particularly “Hallelujah” chorus.

So this year I’m sharing various versions with you. First up: a presentation by the Kuinerrarmiut Elitnaurviat 5^th grade class, of Quinhagak, Alaska.

This is how much I love this: I’m not going to quibble about the use of apostrophes in the plurals of kings and lords.

Crank up the volume and enjoy.

Gifts galore, Pt. 2

I’ll get around to other seasonal posts, but this topic came my way and I thought I’d pass it on in time for anyone who finds it useful to act upon it.

It’s a passive-aggressive giving guide.

Now, I’m completely aware that the world doesn’t need any more mean-spiritedness or bloody-mindedness than already exists. In the halls of Congress alone we have sufficient of both, combined with pettiness on an imperial scale, to wrap around the equator 16 times. With enough left over to tie a fancy bow stretching across Africa.

Still, like picturing yourself bitch-slapping a colleague or showing up at your high school reunion claiming to be the inventor of Post-its®, thinking about giving some of these gifts (as appropriate) can be a refreshing interlude in this whole holiday whirl.

Gifts galore

Apologies to one and all—I’m behind my time in sharing Dave Barry’s Gift Guide, without which there cannot be said to be actual, you know, Christmas.

This year—well, I just cannot decide between the Toad Purse and the Martha Stewart Animated Snake Wreath.

What to do, what to do?

Streets of seals

Cute alert: 

HuffPost reports a New Zealand woman found a baby seal in her house, and has pix of the pinniped to prove it.

What I want to know, however, is what is that blue metal mechanical thing on the sofa with it?

Workplace notes

This came to me via a "humor" list at work.

I was pretty sure it didn't originate within the corporation (it didn't), as it bespeaks an attention to detail in the written word as opposed to the transmitted one.

If it had been me, I'd have objected to the surfeit of exclamation points.

Order in the court

As another indicator that the court system is as much about idiocy as justice, here’s the story of a convicted kidnapper suing his hostage victims for breach of contract. Jesse Dimmick is claiming that Jared and Lindsay Rowley broke their promise to hide him as he was fleeing police.

The alleged promise was made while Dimmick was holding a gun, and he’s seeking damages of $235,000.

Plus legal fees, I’m betting.

Dimmick, BTW, is serving an 11-year sentence for that particular incident, so there’s no legal doubt that he was committing a felony at gunpoint at the time of his eliciting the purported oral agreement.

File it under “America, gonif!”

Healthy it ain't

The business unit at the company where I formerly worked, which had been described to me as “like a really well-funded start-up” at my interview, has closed down, and most of the people I worked with have been laid off.

The corporation has essentially decided to get out of the healthcare systems business. They’re in the process of offloading the remainder of their enterprise clinical systems into a joint venture with an established healthcare systems firm (one that has figured out how to make money in this arena); the consumer side had been left to atrophy about 18 months ago.

I don’t have any figures, but it’s my sense that the BU didn’t make any money in the five or so years of its existence. And after a while someone in corporate finance is going to notice that.

The thing that got me about the consumer unit (where I was a very bad fit) was that they’d commit to building applications based not on market research but on vague “strategic” partnerships committed to by the BU senior management (now “retired”) or because someone glib had a flea in his/her ear and convinced someone else it would be cool. The prevailing approach was, “let’s build it and; figure out how to make money later.”

Their foundational consumer product, a personal healthcare record (PHR) platform, has never made money. And when even Google backs out of that market, you know there’s probably not a way to make money out of it.

Anyway, that’s not what I want to consider today. It’s how the BU handled the internal announcement. And by “handled” I mean “bungled”. A colleague and erstwhile office mate told me what happened.

On Wednesday the entire group was called to a meeting. People knew something was up because there’d been a lot of new people in for repeated meetings with closed conference room blinds. So they figured there would be some announcement.

However, at the last minute, a subset of the group got meeting updates directing them to a conference room in a different building. These were the “saved”. My colleague, BW, was in the latter group, but he didn’t get the update, so he showed up at the “damned” meeting, with his coffee and laptop.

An HR rep called him out of the gathering for a word—and would he collect his gear? Outside the room, she asked if he’d not got an update? Because this meeting was being “repurposed”. She sent him back to his office, where he waited, wondering what was going on.

Fifteen minutes later, the “damned” having been informed that Friday would be their last day, she was back to walk him over to the “saved” meeting. But by that time that one, too, was over.

It’s not at all on the same scale, but while BW was describing the events of Wednesday, I was reminded of the selection process at Auschwitz: whether you were directed “rechts” or “links” determined whether you lived (for a while) or died.

I know that it was the BU HR that set this up, because corporate HR runs things like Prussian Uhlans. I also know that both those in the saved and the damned groups were stunned by it all, especially the timing. As one of the latter said on her Facebook page: "Merry fucking Christmas".

As for me, I’m feeling…well, not schadenfreude, but perhaps relief, and a validation of my decision to leave that job when I did. Had I not walked away I’d have had 18 months more of wondering what the hell I was supposed to be doing, and that’s just not for me.

And there I’d be, laid off, in Seattle, having to figure things out in a very bad place.

(BTW: if anyone ever describes a company to you as "like a really well-funded start-up", run.)

Rat race & human race

Two stories from NPR today that are worth thinking about:

Researchers have discovered that a freed lab rat is concerned about a fellow rodent caught in a trap. So much so that the former will labor hard to get its cage mate out of the trap.

And here’s the thing—given the choice of two traps, one with a pal and the other with a cache of highly-prized chocolate, the free rat will still liberate its mate, as well as the chocs…and then share the treat.

Meanwhile, back in the human cage, Republican pols are still decrying the “millionaire” tax as a terrible burden on business owners’ ability to create jobs. Only an NPR reporter was unable to get any of the decriers to cough up someone to support their claim.

She did, however, get several business owners who said that the tax does not figure large in their plans to hire staff. And when approached by the reporter with this contradiction to his mantra of not taxing business, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) tush-tushed her, “Those I would say were exceptions to the rule.”

And back to standing tall against any measure that would help out the American people, or even the majority of his constituents.

I suppose the argument could be made that the ’Pubs are in fact looking after their cage mates, but only the ones who have already shared the treats with them.

But even so, I think this time the score is Lab Rats: 1; Human Beings: 0.

Surgical strike Pt Last (I hope)

Last Friday I had my follow-up appointment with Arrogant Jerk, MD, the surgeon who performed the arthroscopy on my knees.

Keeping in mind that this sports medicine practice is like the assembly line at Ford, and that all my interactions with everyone there (except with the MRI tech) has had all the warmth and humanity of installing an engine block, I was a little surprised to find that they had no record of the appointment that had been on the schedule for weeks.

But, rather than lose the fee from my insurance, they let me in and left me in the sports hell examination room. (Truly I say unto you: there was nothing to read in that room except Sports Illustrated, ESPN Magazine and the sports section from that day’s Mercury-News.) And they left me there to wait for 25 minutes to fit me in between the transmission and the drive train.

AJ, MD’s assistant didn’t have my chart—she commented on that as she scribbled down notes what was operated on, meds, etc. When AJMD finally came in, he did have a folder in hand; I wondered if he picked up someone else’s chart on the way in, just to make it look good, as a prop.

His greeting was, “No hugs or kisses today—I’m sick.”

Euw.

He took a cursory look at my knees and basically cut me loose—if there are no issues I don’t have to see him again. And I’m not planning on having issues. Because every time I see this guy (except when I’m sedated) he creeps me out.

So, I continue with the exercises my physical therapist gave me and wait to make sure all the bills clear my insurance.

Serpents of the season

Well, I was being sardonic when I referred to the holiday season and then directed your attention to the recent stories about cobras in the tax office and the windshield viper (sorry, couldn’t help myself)—the water moccasin that appeared on the windscreen of a family’s car as they were going at speed on a highway.

But it turns out there really are ophidian aspects of the holidays this year: at least two families (one in Idaho and the other in North Carolina) have hit the wires because their Christmas tree ornaments included…a snake.

I see a trend developing.

Pearl Harbor 70 years on

Today marks the 70^th anniversary of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. It might be appropriate to pause in your holiday activities and think of the thousands men and women at Ground Zero in 1941, as well as the millions who took on the fight against fascism.

In this past year the final known living soldiers of World War I died, and the survivors of Pearl Harbor are also dying off. The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association holds its last gathering today; then it will disband. Its members are too old and frail to travel to meeting places.

These days we know what it’s like to wake up one beautiful, clear day and discover your world crashing down without warning. For our generation it was buildings collapsing, not battleships sinking.

The Pearl Harbor generation has carried these memories for 70 years. I hope many were able to transmit them—to families or historians—so that they are not lost to the future.

Bonfire of the vanities

No doubt you’ve heard the news of what’s being called the costliest car crash ever: a 14-vehicle crash on a highway in Japan. It involved varying degrees of destruction of eight Ferraris, three Benzes and a Lamborghini.

Evidently there was this convoy of high-end cars headed to a meeting of sports car enthusiasts in Hiroshima when the driver of one of the Ferraris tried to change lanes. He crashed into the median barrier and spun out across the highway. No human fatalities, but a lot of damaged egos, and I’m guessing some car insurance execs are not looking forward to a happy year end.

I like the way the spokesman for the traffic police referred to the drivers, aged 37 to 60: “A gathering of narcissists.” I’m betting that they are also all male.

Evidently there were also a couple of Toyotas in the mash-up. Probably collateral damage.

Sunnyvale sites & sights Part 1

I like walking around my Sunnyvale neighborhood. Within a mile or so of my place there are Latino, Indian, Korean and other ethnic markets, seriously low-rent trailer parks and even a few remnants of the orchards that used to be here before it was Silicon Central.

The area is strictly lower- and middle-class cheek-by-jowl, although many of the unremarkable 50s to 70s ranch houses fetch well over $700K. (Apparently we're in the Cupertino school district, which adds substantial kick to your property value.)

The houses are largely cookie-cutter, but I find that the front yards are indeed individual.

I was walking past one such when I realized there was quite the lawn ornament:

And if you'll look closely at the plant on the left, you'll see that there is more to the defensive system than just the knight:

All plastic, of course--this is the Silicon Valley.

But I'd certainly like to meet the owners.

More snakes alive

As we enter the season of Advent, let me just say this: nothing says “holiday spirit” like letting loose a few score poisonous snakes in a tax office to protest officials demanding bribes, as reported in the Telegraph.

The story itself is weird enough; what makes it really striking (so to speak) is the video. I’m not quite understanding why there are still people in the office—I would certainly have beat feet at the first sign of a snake head. And I’m also unclear about the tactics of flapping cloths at the snakes.

I have to say that I see a lot of what we in the software business call “applications” for cobras: IRS offices; the DMV; shopping at Walmart (if you’ve run out of pepper spray). Don’t like the review your boss gave you? Drop a few snakes in her cube. Unhappy with the tip a diner left? Add a little “something” to his credit card receipt.

Why—Congress alone would be worth an entire colony of cobras.

Truly, the world would work a lot better if people packed poisonous reptiles.

And, as long as I’m on a slither, so to speak, the Telegraph has further video of a family jaunt that suddenly included a water moccasin popping out of the windscreen wiper vent.

What I don’t get is that they continue driving for so long after the snake appeared.