Tag: career

The reasoning should work both ways


When you want to take a vacation, your company may ask, "Could you move your vacation to another date? Now's not a good time for you to be out of the office." When you tender your resignation, your company may ask, "Can you give us more time before your last day? Now's a really inconvenient … Continue reading The reasoning should work both ways →

The absurdness of executive pay


Uwe E. Reinhardt, of Princeton University, published a well-written article on executive pay in the New York Times. It demolishes the common rationalizations about high executive pay, with gusto. Money quote: Now, to apply this demand-supply framework to an understanding of executive compensation in the real world, economists go on to make two crucial assumptions. … Continue reading The absurdness of executive pay →

Principles


"Principles only mean something if you stick by them when they are inconvenient." — Laine Hanson (Joan Allen) from "The Contender"

New Year’s Resolutions


In 2009, I want to... Become more familiar with Plone and Zope. Heretofore, I've read, experimented, attended a Bootcamp, and attended a conference. I now want to become nuts-and-bolts familiar with them, so that I intuitively understand their internals. (Well, OK, so that I start to intuitively understand their internals.) This will come from touching many … Continue reading New Year’s Resolutions →

The secret of older workers


I've read many articles about older workers. They cover different age segments (those in their 40s, 50s, 60s), situations (employed, laid off, retired, wanting a career change, etc.), sides of the generational divide, task at hand (résumé updating, job hunting, layoff survival, accepting a new manager,etc.), and mental landscape (logical analysis, emotional impact, etc.). On the … Continue reading The secret of older workers →

I haven’t accomplished anything in my job yet


I've been at my current job for about 3.5 months. I'm involved in a lot of things, and I think I have a good rep at work. But, I haven't actually shipped anything yet! I can't point to anything visible outside of the company and say, "I did that." I am indeed working on some … Continue reading I haven’t accomplished anything in my job yet →

“Excellent communication skills” are a joke


I'm writing a job description for a new opening in my team.  While reviewing a draft, I realized that one of the requirements was meaningless, and bordered on being silly. Why do job qualifications list, "excellent communication skills?" This knee-jerk requirement is in every description I see.  And I'm guilty of putting it in my JD's over … Continue reading “Excellent communication skills” are a joke →

TrenchMice gets snuffed


We pulled the plug on TrenchMice yesterday.  It had plateaued in traffic, and wasn't able to break through to the next level of readership. New features or different marketing efforts resulted in only temporary traffic spikes, followed by a return to the plateau. The cost for the servers wouldn't be a large financial drain in and … Continue reading TrenchMice gets snuffed →