Classical seasoning

Okay, look, I am of the opinion that a little Vivaldi goes a long way. There was a while, back in the last century, when it seemed like every time you turned around, there was another bleeding season coming down the classical airwaves.

However, I did find this kind of amusing. Yes, they have quite the schtick going, and one of them literally lies down on the job for a while. But still.

Also, it makes a nice change from ice bucket challenges.

Neither wit nor wisdom; not by half

As I was saying yesterday, there is no end to the credulity and idiocy of people with Internet connectivity, especially those on social media.

For example, this has been making the rounds since the news of Robin Williams committing suicide last week (frequently accompanied by solemn virtual nods and "so true"), and it just makes me want to kick someone:

Honestly, people: stringing together a few disjointed platitudes and tacking on the name of a Chinese philosopher constitutes neither wisdom nor kindness. And these particular platitudes are just fatheaded. 

Depression has nothing to do with living in the past. Living in the future may or may not involve some degree of anxiety. And living in the present can include dealing with all manner of shit, with no peace in sight.

As for Lao Tzu being responsible for this pernicious codswallop, show some respect.

Outrage, disgust and satire

Oh, I suppose it was inevitable: Facebook is testing the concept of adding a label to links to “stories” from The Onion. The label says “[satire]”. Because, as you may have noticed, people latch on to outrageously ridiculous headlines and pass them on with their own expressions of outrage and disgust at how it’s possible such outrageous and disgusting things are allowed to happen.

I’m pretty sure that they rarely even read the accompanying story. But then it might have words containing more than two syllables. Like “syllables”. Which would only confuse them further.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out, because I’m not at all convinced that the kinds of people who pull the trigger on such stories as “Obama to Cut Costs by Packing Lunch Every Day for U.S. Populace”, or “Fan at Indians Game Upset to Find Someone Else in his Section” have any notion of what satire is. And don’t get me started on irony.

I do cut some slack on confusion that might be generated by the site’s business headlines. Because it seems entirely probable that “T.J. Maxx Job Application Just Asks Prospective Employees How Much They Plan to Shoplift” and that “GlaxoSmithKline Releases New Drug to Treat People Who Just Feel Sort of Weird Sometimes”. In fact, I expect to see commercials for the latter any time now, with the voice over intoning, “Ask your doctor if Blifistix is right for you.”

Also, I’m betting that people are already contacting Frito-Lay in response to this one: “Frito-Lay Contest Offers Consumers Chance to Appear in Upcoming Bag of SunChips”.

The reason I think this is that I’ve seen these sorts of waves of ravening outraged and disgusted responses to every badly-written whack-job “statement” that someone Photoshops about [insert tech giant or tech giant executive here].

For example, a few months ago this popped up on Facebook:

I swear the response was the profanity-strewn badly-spelled virtual version of “Liberty Leading the People”. This was one early exchange that came across my bows:

I pointed out that this sort of hoax would be more impressive if the perp had spelled “campaign” correctly, and got the order of “pending further investigation” right. Frankly, it gives Zuckerberg a bad name. I know he dropped out of Harvard and all, but he should get credit for at least knowing how to run spellcheck.

(I did rather enjoy the presumption of Facebook’s legal department issuing “laws, though.)

Well, my point here is that labeling stuff from The Onion as satire is both futile and inadequate, when people raise their pitchforks at things like a Zuckerberg ukase on cleaning up Facebook; or healthcare death panels. The company doesn’t have enough employees or a clever enough algorithm to be able to sift through all the bogus crap out there.

Meanwhile, here’s The Onion’s response:

That one was a no-brainer.

Dairy intake

Okay, we’re headed into the dog days, so I thought, well, time for something animal-related that’s just plain funny.

First off, I give you Bob and Dice, two cats who like yoghurt.

Bob just goes for it, possibly thinking that there’s enough for both of them. Dice is not having that, and Bob doesn’t seem to figure out what’s happening.

Perhaps he’s used to it; although he looks rather befuddled. At least there’s no fur flying.

And then we have Daisy and Cooper, two dogs who obviously like McDonald’s ice cream. If you can watch this without cracking up, you need to have your sourpuss intake adjusted.

At first I felt sorry for Cooper, because he shows such anxious longing, it was just heart wrenching. Then he went into action.

Actually, I had to watch it a couple of times, because I think he shot into hyperdrive, and I wasn’t sure what I’d just seen.

It’s videos like these that make me think the whole Internet is worth it.

Gratitude Monday: Smokey all around me

It’s Gratitude Monday. I was going to post about something else, but then yesterday I was doing my rather pathetic intervals around the 'hood and all of a sudden NPR’s Linda Wertheimer was interviewing Smokey Robinson.

Whereupon I swear the early morning Valley they call Silicon overcast just disappeared, and I decided to layer in three extra spurts of jogging, just because I was awash with energy and joy.

The occasion of the interview was Robinson’s upcoming release of an album that revisits some of his great songs, with him singing duets with the likes of Mary J. Blige, James Taylor and Elton John. (It's out as of Wednesday.) Yeah—Elton and Smokey singing “Tracks of My Tears”:

But the interview itself is just wonderful. The man is more than a living legend; he’s living history—and future-history-in-process. Oh, yeah—Diana Ross? One of the “fifty groups just in our neighborhood”. How about the more than 4000 songs he’s written? Anyone else worried that Universal/Comcast has them all stashed away in their soul-crushing corporate dragon-hoard depths? And—you want to keep your singing voice for decades? Forget the hot tea with lemon and honey, baby; practice yoga. It’s all connected.

Well, apologies to any early risers in Sunnyvale yesterday, who were greeted on their paper-fetching run by the sight of a middle-aged redheaded chick boogying past their rancher with fingers snapping and hips swinging. Because Smokey and Steven Tyler singing “You Really Got a Hold on Me” is my new jam.

For which I am deeply grateful.

Ah, romance...

A Facebook friend recently reported that a (male) work colleague posted this notice to the company “marketplace” email alias: “I am looking for an empty ring box. Preferably one from a high end jeweler such as Tiffany’s. Willing to trade for it or purchase it for the right cost.”

Well, whaddaya gonna say? Oh, shoot, let me take a swag at it.

First, If I had such a brand-name box that I wanted to offload, I don’t think I’d “trade” for it with a guy who clearly thinks nothing of passing off mutton dressed as lamb. I’d insist on cash, and I’d run any bills through a counterfeit-checking process.

Plus, does "trade" mean he thinks you'll swap Cartier for Kay? Who would want to do that, and why?

I also wonder what the “right” cost would be to such a person?

If I were management in this company, I’d start taking inventory of capital equipment. He obviously has an extremely well-developed sense of entitlement, as well as an ingrained belief that he’s one really slick fellow. Just sayin’.

Moreover, I’m sorry for the woman who’s been in a relationship with him long enough to prompt him to pop the question using a ring of falsified provenance. What kinds of nickel-plated lies has he been feeding her?

Finally, let me just point out: nothing says true love like a cheap ring in a Fred box.

Not.

Hey there, lonely girl

As if dealing with recruiter-morons who drive you crazy with their gabbling ignorance and incompetency isn’t enough tsuris in the World o’ Tech, now I have Google passing judgment on my life. And finding it wanting.

I was trying rather lackadaisically to build out a Google+ profile for the account associated with this blog. (Oh, like you don’t have multiple Gmail accounts? I’ve got one for each one of my personalities. At least, all the ones I know about. So far.) Really, the only reason I was doing it was to see if I could then determine who gives a post a +1, because the blogging platform tells you someone has, but not who.

Well, to set up your Google+ frisnic, Google demands that you tell them about everyone you could possibly connect with electronically, so they can bombard them with invitations to join [person] on Google+! Which I ignored.

  

Then it insists on you plugging into a bunch of interests, so it can bombard you with “suggestions similar to left-handed quilters of copper pipe-warmers using only blue star-shaped patchwork” opportunities.

I ignored that, too.

Thereupon Google+ informed me that I must be lonely, because I wasn’t ratting out anyone to join the cult. No, seriously—they said, “You might be lonely”.

And you can see which way they want you to turn by which button looks greyed out and which is bright blue with bold type.

Look—subtlety obviously doesn’t pay off in this game.

Well, I clicked on the sad little lonely choice, whereupon they gave me one last chance to “be awesome”.

(Like, how are you supposed to be awesome after they've already branded you as lame?)

That was where I cancelled out of the operation.

And as for using the “L” word, Google: Harsh, dudes. Way harsh.

Recruiters 38

I may have found a way of stemming the tsunami of spamming from Indian contract recruiters. They find your CV on a job board and send you “excellent opportunity with our direct client”, for underpaid contract jobs that are not “in your wheelhouse” (as they say here in the Valley they call Silicon), and frequently are in other states.

For example:

Or:

(I am not a software developer, systems engineer or program manager. And I reside in a specific part of California.)

Apparently there are no maps of the United States in South Asia.

Now, what is frequently absent from these emails is an option to be removed from their database. As:

In fact, I have received multiple emails in the same day for the same contract job from this Somasoft crowd. Even multiple emails in the same day for the same contract job from the same recruiter.

You’ll notice, by the way, that this particular recruiter shows a San José phone number. But he’s actually located in Bangalore; they almost always are. They use IP phones.

Anyway, I tried replying asking to be removed from their data base, whereupon Ram resent the solicitation, but this time with the unsubscribe link. However, two days later I was getting multiple emails in the same day for the same contract job; some from the same recruiter.

So I dug a little on their website. And—in addition to the usual claptrap about how great they are (an Elite Oracle Global Partner), there were two people listed in their “management” page. One, the CEO, is in India (quelle surprise); the other, their director of business development, lists both his email address and a phone number.

So I forwarded him all four emails I got that second time around and said I did not appreciate being spammed by his recruiters after I’d used their unsubscribe function.

(Although I’ve noticed that a lot of the unsubscribe or remove links on these South Asian emails resolve to the same URL, so I wonder whether it has any use at all.)

The pattern seems to be that the emails stop for a while, but then start up again. Evidently these people have the attention span of a goldfish. So I just keep sending them to the business development guy. However, now that I found the CEO's address, he's getting them, too. Maybe that'll work.

Put your lips together...and blow

Wow—Lauren Bacall has died, aged 89. And it’s the end of the era of the class act.

Bacall was one of the most commanding presences you’ll ever see on the screen. I’m frankly not all that wild about To Have and Have Not, but there’s no question at all about her holding her own against Bogie, even with their age difference and his screen experience. And, of course, they carried that chemistry through The Big Sleep, which is about as noir as you get.

But maybe my favorite Bacall film is How to Marry a Millionaire. It’s one of those movies I can watch over and over, not least because Marilyn Monroe in glasses is a hoot and a half. But Bacall’s Schatze, the model behind the grand strategy to marry really big money, really runs the show.

That sultry demeanor, piercing gaze and husky voice went with her throughout her career. She made a wildly despicable matriarch in Appointment with Death, and was a fine Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler in the film of one of my favorite children’s books.

Look, I even sat through The Mirror Has Two Faces because of her. Even though I didn’t believe for a New York minute that she could have produced a daughter like Barbra Streisand.

Perhaps more than anything, Bacall was a classy broad, and you just can’t say that about many women today, either on or off the screen. The Beyond just got much more interesting.

Recruiters 37

When you’re engaged in a job search in the technology field, you face a particular set of obstacles: the never-ending waves of job-shops who work the industry like locusts sweeping across fields of wheat.

There are a number of factors at work here: first off, the client companies—which include Yahoo, Cisco, Microsoft and a lot of other big names—can save money short-term by laying off full-time employees (FTEs), with their attendant benefit expense, and replacing them with contract workers who can be hired and fired interchangeably.

(It’s not that you have much security as a FTE—most corporations hire you at-will, which means they can let you go pretty quickly if they need to show some cost savings to balance out their executive bonuses. Think of the difference this way: FTE is indentured servitude; contracting is chattel slavery. You never make enough to get ahead, much less build financial security.)

It used to be that contractors were hired essentially on a project basis: a company needed extra help to complete a specific project by a certain date, so it brought on extra staff to get the job done. When mission was accomplished, the contractors left. These days, however, contractors are brought on board to do ongoing jobs, like software testing, network engineering, administrative support, etc. All jobs that should be fully integrated with an organization’s long-term goals and corporate ethos. But you’re treated as “other”, while expected to display all the enthusiasm of someone fully vested in the outcome.

Another factor is that the client companies put out their requirements to multiple vendors, who compete with one another to grab up the same talent pool, but also to do the job at the lowest cost to the client, and therefore to the lowest pay for the actual worker. Cisco, Adobe, Google—they don’t really care so much about the quality of the contractor as they do about filling the slot at the lowest hourly rate.

(They also limit the number of hours the contractor can bill for—40 hours per week at whatever miniscule hourly rate is agreed; but, like Walmart, they expect the contractors to work off the clock and are outraged if you explain to them that they themselves placed the limit on your hours and once that limit is reached they have the choice of paying you for the excess or wait to talk to you next week when the clock resets.)

For example, I’ve received multiple vendor come-ons for a couple of product marketing positions at Adobe (some of them multiple emails from the same recruiter at the same company; they’re not big on attention to detail). Their cookie-cutter emails all instruct you to state your rate, but that’s pointless, because they’re going to pay some percentage of the rate they’ve negotiated with the client company, so I always just ask what they’re paying. On the Adobe job their rates varied by $12 per hour. I’m pretty sure Adobe was offering them a single rate—so whoever supplied the selected candidate was going to get $X. But some of them were obviously going to keep more of that rate than others.

The vast preponderance of these vendors are run and staffed by South Asians. The emails have US addresses, and the caller ID shows various US area codes. But the recruiters are in India or Pakistan, and they’re using IP phones. One way you can confirm this is that the “excellent opportunity with our direct client” is frequently in another state—I’ve been solicited for contract jobs in Michigan, Kentucky, Texas, Minnesota, New York and North Carolina. Evidently there are no maps of the US available in Bangalore.

(I’d comment on the fact that the “excellent opportunities” are also often for developer, QA, systems engineer and other completely inappropriate positions, but the home-grown varieties of recruiters also data mine résumés for key words and blast out their emails without thought to the fact that having the words “project” and “manager” somewhere in your CV does not mean you’re a hardcore implementation program manager. But at least they know the difference between California and New York.)

As for meeting the requirements of the client company’s job description—actually, these Indian recruiters would put forward a plate of succotash if it somehow passed the interview with the customer. (Which, in some cases, is entirely possible.) And they’d offer it help getting an H1b visa to get the job.

Oh—and many of these companies are 8A-certified by the Federal government. Those who’ve ever worked in the Federal contracting space know what that means: they get to jump to the front of the queue when it comes to consideration, on account of them being “socially and economically disadvantaged” businesses.

So welcome to the world of opportunity and innovation here in the Valley they call Silicon. Good luck.