I'm unemployed again. I was fraudulently accused of sexual harassment for saying hello to a girl, after she gave contradictory verbal and nonverbal signals. Initially, she was friendly. Then, she said she wanted me to go away, but her body language was still friendly. I decided to do the opposite of my normal approach, and persist being friendly. I was careful to be super-polite.
However, her boss screamed "**SEXUAL HARASSMENT!!**" and I was kicked out of the building. I was offered the opportunity to work from home, but I was too angry over the incident to be productive.
I'm unemployed again. I live in New York City. Previously, I accidentally posted my real name on my blog because I was stressed out. I prefer to blog anonymously, but I'm open to serious interviews if you're looking for a programmer in NYC. Recently, I've been enjoying working with PHP/LAMP/WAMP, but I've also done a lot of C++/MFC in the past. Most people are looking for .NET experience or more hardcore LAMP experience.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Unemployed Again
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9 comments:
Learn Java + Flex/Blaze DS. Its popular to make enterprise systems using those.
The problem is that I need actual work experience. Learning it on my own doesn't count from an HR screening.
Why not develop a board game based on what you have taught us all here? You could call it "Bailout". Put the those math skills to work!
Keep your head up fsk, its the challenges that make the man, and how he over comes them. I tell you this,I haven't been on for a while because of my own troubles....but you must know that I read your blog because I find you an inspiration.
Thank you for all you have taught me!!! Fritz
I hope you find an even better job next time. I hope your computer and math skills and common sense are rewarded as much as they should be. Maybe in your next job, you will meet other libertarian(s) and agorist trading/business partners.
Very sorry to hear.
Yes, be very careful about using your name online.
Get out of NYC. Unless you're writing software for the financial industry, you don't want to be there. (Too expensive, and not enough real programmer jobs.)
Seattle is good, Austin is good, the bay area might be good.
Might be a good idea to learn Cocoa / Objective-C. You could probably be self supporting if you wrote an iPhone application. The mac is ascendent, as is the iPhone, and so this would be a good direction to go.
Don't spend time on Java, or C++ or Windows. I mean if you get a great job or whatever ,fine, but these are not fun environments and they are not the ascendent technologies now.
LAMP is great if you're going to be building online systems. If that's the case, learning erlang would be a good idea. Simply knowing erlang without any job experience should get you big bonus points with anyone with a clue.
Also, NEVER, and I mean NEVER, deal with HR people where they are "screening" you. They are clueless and incompetent, and going thru them is a waste of time. I've got oodles of experience, know just about every language, am super qualified, etc, and I still get screened out by those idiots (well, I did when I still talked to them) for asinine things. (Like writing Java code that talked to an Oracle 8 database, an HR idiot actually said "this client is looking for Oracle 9 experience.")
Get on linked in. Get on whatever business networking site you want. Facebook? Whatever. Build up your links of friends and people you know. Everyone you have ever worked with that you respect, make them a friend... then network thru there to find hiring managers and CEOs to get jobs from. I'm constantly getting asked if I know someone for position X or who has skills Y. Build your network then work it, and also, go do networking.
If there are statup events in your area and you want to work for a startup, go to them, and then add the people you meet at them as friends in your network. Figure out what area you want to work in and then go to the meetings / SIGs, etc.
I bet there's an excellent Mac developers group in New York.
If you build something in a new technology and can demo it in an interview and show them the code, then it doesn't matter that you weren't paid to build it. (Such things only matter to HR idiots, and we're not talking to them, right?)
Engineers respect people who learn new technologies, and your ability to problem solve is far more important than whether you know a particular language. Hell, from reading your blog postings, if I had an open position I'd be trying to talk you into coming-- simply due to your ability to think critically. Your programming style and languages can be fixed, critical thinking can't be taught, I don't think.
Ok, some HR people are cool, and you will end up dealing with them as they lead you to meetings or whatever. Sometimes you find an HR person who realizes they don't know technology and thus can't screen.... after awhile you can tell the difference right away, so networking wtih HR people isn't always a lost cause. Maybe asking them how the know whether a candidate is a good fit or not is a good way to tell-- if they say they look to see if they have the right technology experience, then they are idiots...
But figure out where you want to be, the kind of job you want, and then go find the people who are hiring for that, the people who would be your manager or co-worker, and get to know them.
It sounds harder than it is... its just a different way of going about it, its more active and not as passive as searching listings...
But the extra secret advantage of this way is that you find the really good jobs. The good jobs get filled via networking. The jobs where tehy are looking for commodity "human resources" are the ones that end up in listings...
You have excellent writings. Keep going same bold way to explore our society. Try to sleep as you can.
I have also bipolar mental disorder for 15 years. It's not so bad illness. I have been working as a financial manager over 10 years after graduation. Lithium medicine may be good for you as you have bipolar disorder, but I am not a psychiatry.
Greetings from Scandinavia!
Lithium is literally poison. You should stop taking it if you can.
Moving out of NYC is not an option for me right now. I'm looking to explore "profit via blog" instead of software engineering. I'm not ready to fully abandon software engineering yet. I'm going to look for whatever scraps I can in NYC. I only need one employer with a clue.
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