Diary of a Network Geek

I know this will sound nationalistic, and, as one UK ex-pat coworker termed it “jingoistic”, but I believe in American Jobs for American Workers.

That may not make me popular with some folks, even in IT, but, that’s okay.
Why am I on my teeny, tiny political soapbox today?  Why else?  An article on Slashdot about a US worker filing a lawsuit against Infosys, an Indian search firm, for ignoring her many, very relevant qualifications and submitting an Indian, who was less qualified, for the same job.  That’s discrimination.  And, it’s illegal.
I hope she takes them too the cleaners.

Look, I know it’s not always a popular position, but when I hear about how many people are unemployed and then I hear how we need to raise H1B1 caps and import more of our workforce, something doesn’t sound right to me.  Seriously, hire your out-of-work fellow citizens before hiring someone who’s been brought in from another country.  But, first, make sure that they’re qualified.  If, and only if, there really, truly isn’t someone from your own country who’s qualified, or who could be relatively easily trained to do that job, then, look at foreigners.
The fiscal blood-letting has got to stop sooner or later.
And, if you’re a “C”-level executive?  Maybe it’s time to think about smaller profit margins and a more reasonable salaries and bonuses.  How much is really enough?  How many have to starve just so you can have one more vacation that you spend on your cell phone anyway?

Something’s got to change.

Oh, God, how I hate interviewing…

But, it’s a requirement for change, so I do it. Well, both interviews I had this week went well. The first was with a search firm and was on Tuesday. It was fairly standard. They mainly had found someone with all the right buzzwords on his resume. (That was me, incidentally.) They ran me through the standard questions about where I’d been, what I’d done and why I was looking to leave. Then, they gave me the info about the job, as they understood it. And, too, they let me know about the environment and the person I was interviewing with, so I could guage my answers and so on. Standard stuff.

The second interview was with the actual job and was yesterday afternoon. I met with three people in IT. One was the person who I’d actually report to and the other two were people I’d interface with. One of them was a manager who was originally from Scotland and he was a hoot. He had a bit of an accent, but was easily understandable and was full of life and fun. Really, all the people there seemed really happy and in fairly good moods. I can’t say where it is just yet, but it’s an oil-related business that deals with ocean-based vessels and platforms. Very interesting stuff. And, their main headquarters are just a few miles away. My commute would be like 5 minutes, or less. Pretty good for Houston.
There is a bit of travel involved, and there would probably be international travel, which could be fun. But, they’re pretty tight on salary, so we’ll see what my headhunter can do for me. Of course, my resume reads like their job description and I know that the headhunter had someone in from San Antonio, so I think they might be flexible. I mean, how many guys can there be in Houston that have 10+ years experience with Novell and have Linux experience, too? Not many.

In any case, I think I made a favorable impression, so now it’s a waiting game. I’ll keep you posted!