Not a man-bites-dog story

No, it’s a bear-bites-dog story. Followed by a woman-clocks-bear-in-the-snoot-to-save-dachshund story.

Evidently bears eat a rounded diet that includes berries & beagles; or, at least, in the absence of the former they go for the latter.

But since it now has a sore nose, this particular bear may move on to bratwurst & buns. Or maybe couscous & cupcakes.

Speaking in tongues

Another from the “America, goniff” files: there’s another New Yorker to make the Twitterati giggle. Based on his attempts to speak Spanish to his constituents, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has inspired a faux-Spanglish-tweeting web presence. Se llama El Bloombito.

El B evidently was born of the Hurricane Irene communications blitz; Bloomberg doesn’t seem to have discovered Rosetta Stone. Or Berlitz.

But I still hold dear my Bronx Zoo Cobra, who—while not as verbose as Bloombito—knows how to deliver a punch line.

Constructive time waster

In case you’re feeling too productive, I give you this vocabulary quiz.

Betcha can’t do just one.

Jury duty 2.0

Another one for the “America, gonif!” file: a juror in a Texas civil case has been cited for contempt because he tried to “friend” the defendant on Facebook last month. She reported him to the court and he was booted off the jury.

Jurors had been instructed not to discuss the case with either humans or social media; but that was apparently more than Jonathan Hudson, 22, could bear.

It wasn’t enough that he tried to friend her; after she ratted him out he still tried to hook up with her.

I’m guessing she’s a looker.

Sadly, though, I’m betting this is a harbinger of things to come. Not just people Tweeting from the jury room or sending 43 Facebook status updates from the courtroom; but people thinking of jury duty as a prime opportunity to hit on trial figures.

You thought the O.J. trial was a circus...

Recruiters 21

For those of you who think I might be exaggerating the ignorance  illiteracy of the recruiters I’ve encountered, let me just present the latest email I’ve received:

For the record, my name is not San. Perhaps she thought she was addressing the entire greater San Francisco Bay area. Or was giving me a Japanese honorific. While omitting my actual, you know, name.

I’ve never heard of bluewolf™, so I hardly see how it could be the nation’s leading technology consulting firm. I’m thinking IBM or Booz Allen Hamilton or even Comsys would rank higher than this bluewolf™ crowd.

Charlotte apparently thinks that use of UPPER CASE, bold typeface & exclamation points! will further her cause. (The frightening thing is that it may do that for some people.)

The job itself wasn’t a match, so no surprise there.

I just wish these people would hire someone who knows about setting up mass emails, & think about the use of text enhancement.

The earth moved visibly

As follow-up to the Big One in the Washington-Richmond corridor, I give you some photos of the damage sustained during the earthquake.

Warning: photos may be disturbing.

Or not.

The agile corporation

Yesterday I spent nearly four hours interviewing for a product manager position with an unnamed big fat global enterprise software company. The business unit in question is security management, which is a field I’m very interested in. And, while there are a lot of security software companies out there, it’s been my experience that if you don’t already work in that field, they aren’t interested in talking to you. So I was quite pleased when their recruiter reached out to me back in early July.

I had the screening call with the hiring manager in mid-July, and had completely forgot about it when she contacted me two weeks ago to say she wanted me to come into their corporate HQ for an in-person interview this week. (I’d originally been told that this would take place a couple of weeks after the first contact.)

Well, okay—I prepared a 15-minute presentation on a product I’ve managed, read up to the extent possible on access and identity management, dragged out my black interview suit, etc.

On-site I spoke with a group manager, the hiring manager, a principal product manager and a dev manager. I gave my presentation on my current product, carrying on with a paper print-out when PowerPoint went belly-up on me. I fielded all questions, asked ones as perspicacious as I could and got email addresses for thank-you notes.

And when I asked the hiring manager what the time frame was for actually, you know, hiring, she told me, “Around two to three months.”

(Keep in mind that she has had two openings in a group of three since May.)

’Scuse me? Two to three months from this point?

No—two to three months from the offer being made and accepted.

It seems that “everything has to go up for Larry’s signature.”

Meaning that in a corporation of roughly 100,000 employees, the CEO needs to be consulted for every hiring.

Jeez Louise.

The earth moved

For my friends on the East Coast, especially D.C., skreeky feeling, isn’t it?

Doesn’t seem fair that you should get both hurricanes &earthquakes. But then you have all those Congressmorons overturning the laws of nature, so perhaps not surprising.

Degrees of value

Some interesting stats on the best-paying college degrees. Here’s a hint: none of them encompasses the Liberal Arts.

Now, I don’t know the source of this list, but after having been in the computer software and telecommunications fields for the past 17 years, I really have to question the placement of computer science and computer engineering in the running.

I suppose that, in comparison to degrees in psychology or Renaissance art history, CS and CE grads do pretty well. But it’s been my observation that—of the ten jobs ranked here, those two are the ones that can be (and in fact are being) shipped overseas. Or given to holders of H-1B visas imported by large corporations for the same purpose that 150 years ago the railroads brought over Chinese and Irish laborers.

So I’m not sure how long those degrees will hold value in our economy.

Welcome to my world.

A sport we can all get behind

I don’t know why this wasn’t on at least three of the 17 ESPN channels, but the 2011 Mobile Phone-Throwing Championships were held yesterday in Savonlinna, Finland.

And, as should surprise no one, the Finnish team swept most of the events. Nokia, after all, is probably the only Finnish brand pretty much known everywhere in the world. And--unlike Motorola—Nokia cell phones actually seem to last.

Now, I really wish there was more information on these events. Like—is a smartphone any better for tossing than a clamshell? Is there a technique that works more effectively than others? What kind of training to contestants have to undergo? Are there product endorsement opportunities?

And what the hell constitute “aesthetics and creative choreographics?”

The only video I could find is from four years ago and is really low-quality. So, ESPN? Get on it!