Via Terry Labach’s quotation-of-the-day mailing list, I was amused by this report of some over-zelous layoffs at the Pickering A nuclear station in the UK:

“Personnel being laid off should not be assigned to work that is associated with a special safety system.”

— from a report by a line manager at the Pickering A nuclear power plant in Ontario. The report describes how, 14 minutes into a risky repair job, the staff performing the work were laid off. The workers began leaving the site and had to be asked back to tighten a plug they had loosened in the plant's radioactive-containment system.

Considering that it’s a nuclear plant, you would have figured that they would have thought that through. I suppose not ;).

I recently started a new freelance gig at Mercer Human Resource Consulting. I interviewed with them on Tuesday and started yesterday. It’s for at least four weeks, but could last up to a couple months — it all depends on how much the client wants to have implemented for Phase 2 (the “four weeks” comes into play if they opt for nothing, which I’m told is unlikely).

Mercer’s office is downtown, so the drive isn’t too bad. They’re in the Bank One Center which is approximately at Main St. & St. Paul. For the moment, I’m parking in the lots behind Plaza of the Americas, primarily because one of the lots takes credit cards (that way, I don’t need a wad of one-dollar bills to last me through the week). However, that lot isn’t very close by to the Bank One Center, so I have about a twelve minute walk over to the Bank One Center (which, other than the time it takes, I don’t really mind).

I’ll probably check out the lots on the walk back to my car one evening. With any luck, one of the smaller lots will have a reasonably priced monthly plan — that way, I won’t have to to worry about having enough greenbacks every day. I’m open to suggestions on any lots around that area; in particular, I’m looking for one that doesn’t often fill to capacity since even a monthly pass couldn’t help me there.

So far, the job is working out well. I’m in a cubicle, but it’s at the corner of a grid, so at least it’s a little quieter since people aren’t walking past it all the time. And, the desks all have Aeron chairs, though I still haven’t figured out how to get mine to tilt back properly (it’s not locked, but the tilting action is fairly firm and only tilts back a few degrees).

An unexpected perk is the soda machines in the break rooms — they don’t require any money (you just press the button and soda comes out). I’ve been making good use of that, though there are only so many cans of Caffeine Free Diet Coke you can drink in a day ;). The other sodas are Coke & Diet Coke, Dr Pepper & Diet Dr Pepper, Country Time Lemonade, Mountain Dew and Fanta. I suppose Diet Fanta would have been the icing on the cake, but you can’t have everything <g>.

Dave Suthibut is an unemployed San Fransisco resident. Sick of the way employers were treating job candidates in this economy, he decided to turn the tables and move forward as if it were 1998 once more:

Well, as one of those desperate job seekers who sent out thousands of resumes to jobs I felt I was qualified for — and who was treated with thinly veiled ennui by the few interviewers with whom I managed to gain face time — I finally decided enough was enough. […] If they were going to act arrogant and self-important, then I was going to respond in kind — by appplying to jobs using the most obnoxious, aggressive attitude I could muster. I decided to begin all email job inquiries by asking how much they were paying, and how many vacation days I would get. I also adopted a terse, blunt writing style that made it sound like I was doing employers a favor just by inquiring about the job. Bascially, I decided to act like a complete asshole, because, in my opinion, that's how many employers were (and still are) acting.

Courageous and hilarious? Yes — he even manages to muster the tone of Office Space’s Lumbergh at times. But is this a smart job-finding strategy? Hmm, I don’t think so ;). (via fuckthatjob)

It had crossed my mind that I could move to Irving, but I think I’ll stay in this area instead.

From time to time, Robert Reich (former Secretary of Labor for Clinton) has an opinion piece on the NPR show Marketplace.

During yesterday’s show, he commented on the usefulness grad degrees:

Applications to law schools, business schools, medical schools and Ph.D. programs continue to rise, but as commentator Robert Reich says, college grads may be making a big mistake. “If you think another degree is worth the extra cost because it will win you a better-paying job when the economy turns up, think again,” says Reich. Since the economy went sour, grad schools have been flooded, but demand for graduates has cooled. […]

The short summary really doesn’t describe his commentary very well, and the full audio version is similar but not exactly as the description would lead you to believe. (The description makes it seem like he’s saying that a low-end job is a better idea than going for a grad degree, but most of what he’s saying focuses on the current demand for grad degrees vs the demand for undergraduate degrees.)

Via Zeldman, Dan Benjamin talks about what it’s like to be unemployed and he describes it so aptly:

When you consume food, you do so not to enjoy it, but rather because your physical body requires it to create the energy you need to talk to recruiters, potential employers, go on interviews, read and post to the job-boards, or perform the work which generates the money you need to pay bills.

There is no rest, no breaks, no cigars, no enjoyment, no hanging-out, no weekend, there is only this: find a good job or project as soon as possible. […]

If this piece were made into one of those spoken-word songs, I wonder what music might be chosen to accompany it. Classical guitar, perhaps?

I have a several-day gig at Rapp Collins (in Irving) as an HTML Developer to cover for one of their regulars who is going on vacation (they found me through Monster). It’s not full time, but it’s a good start. For those who haven't heard of them, Yahoo provides this concise summary:

Rapp Collins Worldwide can rap about direct marketing better than most. One of the world’s largest direct response agencies, Rapp Collins Worldwide is a division of #3 advertising conglomerate Omnicom Group. Stan Rapp and Thomas L. Collins (widely credited with inventing direct marketing) founded the eponymous firm in 1965, capitalizing on the shift from mass marketing to individualized marketing (customer relationship management). Rapp Collins advises clients on sending marketing messages directly to customers via mail, telephone, TV, and the Internet. The company also tracks customer responses and recommends appropriate changes in marketing campaigns.

They tell me that they often hire freelancers full-time after a few gigs, so maybe something can work out here.

On the advice of a recruiter, I took the certification exam for HTML at Brainbench (Brainbench is an online tech-testing company). The test was 40 multiple-choice questions (three minutes allowed per question) and it took me about an hour.

The test was $50 but I passed! They don’t reveal the actual score and instead give an aggregate score out of 5.0. They rate 2.75 or higher as passing while 4.0 or higher is passing at the Mastrer Level. I scored 4.53, which I’m very pleased with.

However, I’m not sure about how to integrate this into my resume. I could add it to the Educaion section, I could add it as a bullet to the Profession Profile section, or I could add a separate Certifications section. Any suggestions there? And, if the latter (adding a Certifications section), where would you add that in relation to the other sections?

If you’re looking for an XHTML/HTML & CSS coder, I’ve recently revised my resume. I made the changes over the weekend and uploaded the new version to the various job sites (there’s a changelog at the bottom of this post).

I’m now current in: Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs, Flipdog, Dice, ComputerJobs, Techies and Dallas Morning News’ JobCenter. Am I missing any?

I made no major changes to my resume — most of the changes were rewordings or rephrasings:

• Changed the phone number listed to my cell phone to increase my availability to potential employers.
• Removed the “e-mail address” label in the header as it was obviously an e-mail address.
• Professional Profile section - Removed first bullet as it read too much like a press release.
• Professional Profile section - Reworded second bullet (well, it’s now the first bullet) to include the phrase “adhering to W3C-established web standards”
• Professional Profile section - Reworded thid bullet to make it read less like a press release.
• Professional Profile section - Rephrased “parallel and distributed computing” in third bullet to “distributed and grid computing” for buzzword compliance (HHOS).
• Revised wording to read “usability metrics” instead of “usability-driven mindset”.
• Renamed “Computer Experience and Proficiency” section to simply “Skills”.
• Renamed “Professional Experience” section to “Experience”.
• Reworded second bullet in Hybrid section of Experience to deemphasize my lack of enthusiam re: frames ;).

As mentioned on Salon, fuckthatjob.com lists overdemanding job postings found on job boards:

Fuckthatjob.com, currently making the rounds of the unemployed, provides a good window onto the dismal reality of the current tech job market. If one needed any proof, the jobs on the site — as well as interviews with several people now looking for work — indicate that we’re now in an employer-dominated labor market. Employers will ask for the world from their employees, and often they’ll come close to getting it, and for very little money. […]

In this sour economy, I found some of the postings rather amusing. Here’s one example from the Salon article:

Or there was a marketing firm in need of a “team player” to work as a copywriter. The applicant, who would be an unpaid intern, had to know HTML, Photoshop, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, PHP, JavaScript and “search engine optimization.” The company wanted this person to have four years of marketing experience, and work for about 20 hours a week. The position was perfect, the ad said, for people who had “a desire to keep their skills polished during a lapse in employment. In other words, if you haven’t been able to find a job and want to stay ‘in the marketing loop’, this is a great way to do so.” […]