Mad City Broadband Less Pleasant Than Waterboarding.

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently accepted a new job. With that new job came the opportunity to lease a new office downtown. And lease one I did! It's in an interesting old building just a block off of the capitol square. It is infinitely better than any of the soul-sucking cubicle farms in the standard office parks out there in sprawlsville.

So, why am I pissed off? Mad City Broadband. For those who might not know what I'm talking about, Mad City Broadband is our "Municipal WiFi" network. What it really is, is some sort of terrible joke.

Being on a budget, as anyone involved with a small business should be, this service is appealing based on advertised cost and promised bandwidth. Since my new office contains just one employee (me) it seemed like the perfect solution. Wrong. I quickly learned that "speeds up to 1mb/sec" really means you're gonna spend a lot of time wishing you had a phone line and a 14.4kbps modem.

A week has gone by since I've subscribed to their service and it is still unusable. This is perplexing as I'm able to receive near-perfect signal strength. Instead of using the service that I paid for, I'm forced to pirate a nearby open access point with half the signal strength and 50X the performance. MCB assures me they are working on the issue. Every day they say "This is a new technology, please be patient." Today I called AT&T to come and set up DSL. It's a shame though, as I was hoping to use this alternative instead of one of the big guys.

Does anyone in town actually have good results with Mad City Broadband? I'm pretty sure city government bought into this thing with the idea that it would add to Madison's appeal as a tech center. Unfortunately, it fails in that respect.

Happy New Year....

And with that, a new start! It's been a while since my last post. There's a bunch of reasons for that, though the main one involves my former company letting me go right before Christmas after over three years of service. Such compassion! I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the way the staff is consistently treated by management. Basically, working for my former boss was reminiscent of going to the dentist for a root canal; over and over and over. Kind of like a morbid version of Bill Murray's Ground Hog's Day movie.

It's awful when that begins to happen. You wake up every day dreading an encounter with your boss. If she's in a good mood, the day will be manic. If she has a sour disposition, which more often was the case, it is impossible to do anything right. She's insulting, demeaning, and treats the staff as if they are children. She'd overhear a bit of employee to employee banter, and then start sending Instant Messages telling everyone to "shut up and get to work". She really enjoyed fabricating disparaging, factually inaccurate stories about her staff too. What's kind of frightening is that she actually believed her own made up stories!

So...enough of that. The new job is fantastic. I get to work with some really cool, professional folks who understand how to interact with people. It's almost like I've just been liberated after spending the last 3 years in one of Kim Jong Il's labor camps!

So...look for new posts soon! That is, if you are still reading this blog after my 3 month absence.

Sometimes Clients Can Be Just as Annoying...

So we had set up 4 interviews this week for a couple of great candidates.

What happened?

Once client overslept and was 45 minutes late for the interview.

Another client forgot and kept our candidates waiting in a lobby for over an hour.

Must be the full moon.

More later...

Woodchipper? Say what?

Ring. Ring. "Hello, Consulting Company, Senior Recruiter speaking, how can I help you?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm having trouble with a wood-chipper I just bought. Can you send a consultant over?"

(Laughs)"Uh...wood-chipper? Sorry sir, we're an information technology company".

"A what company? Can you send someone or not?"

"Sorry sir, wood chipper maintenance is not one of our offerings."

"Oh, I got your number from the yellow pages...sorry."


Well, that was in interesting phone call. I'm a bit flummoxed as to exactly how this person found us in the yellow pages and thought we could help him out with that wood-chipper!

Good stuff though.

Thank God today is Friday!

Liars, Cheaters, and Scoundrels

If you have a felony conviction, or a few dozen, there are jobs where your charge is not directly relevant to the position, and by all means, you should be able to work. You know what jobs you shouldn't apply for. Mr. multiple counts of possessing child pornography....I will not be placing you at a hospital with children. Please don't even attempt to apply to my job when you know it is not a good match. I will find your history and I will tell you "absolutely not" as I did yesterday.
Mr. multiple counts of forgery and theft...same goes for you. I can't believe you thought my background check wouldn't catch your felony convictions. I told you three times that this position required a criminal background check and you told me three times that you had no felony convictions. You think crossing a state line will obscure your conviction?
Fun day yesterday.
Should go ahead and warn those who enjoy an occasional or frequent illicit drug....when we have a position requiring pre-employment drug screening, that drug use WILL show up. Please don't waste my time with your stories of glaucoma at 30. My MRO doctor will check your legitimate prescriptions and know if you're as stoned as the villan in the courtyard.

E-Mail Snippet of The Day

In the course of my day I receive many emails from third party companies offering their candidates for my open job orders. It annoys me greatly since I usually include text in my job ads specifically requesting that third party companies do not contact me.

Today I received a special email from a company that I've never dealt with. The subject line read:

Subject: FILL MY HOT OPENING- Oracle SCM - technical in Denver CO for 3 Month Extendable


Now, this email is special. FILL MY HOT OPENING. What? Did this come from a porn site? Nope. Though it served to get my attention and entertain the whole office, it certainly doesn't encourage me to do business with you.

Come on guys, you can do better!

Thanks for the laughs.

How about listening to your voice mail messages?

What is it about cell phone caller ID that makes people do stupid things? Is it really too hard to actually listen to your voice mail before blindly calling back the number of our office and blurting out "Yeah, someone called me from this number?"

Oh! Yeah! I know just who called you! Even though I don't know who the hell you are. We have multiple recruiters making many calls per day.

You really must be special to think that what you just did endears you to those attempting to employ you. Great first impression, super attention to detail and excellent planning skills.

But thanks, I really enjoy having to ask who you are, and then talking to everyone in the office to find out who actually called you. You wasted my time. NO JOB FOR YOU!