I guess it was only a matter of time before someone realized that if you can make fake breasts out of silicone, why not make a whole woman? I’ve heard about Real Dolls [NOT work-safe!] for a few years now, but didn’t know how insane things had gotten until someone pointed me to a recent …
Mike sent me an excellent pictorial description of how most of the companies I’ve worked for operate. It applies particularly well to my current company…
Important lessons about work and life from open source and blogging (and Paul Graham): What Business Can Learn from Open Source. The atmosphere of the average workplace is to productivity what flames painted on the side of a car are to speed. And it’s not just the way offices look that’s bleak. The way people …
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I recently started a new job at VIEO, Inc., as a Java Server Engineer, which is part of the reason I haven’t posted anything in a long time. Another part of the reason is that I’m still working for Newisys, too.
My company is planning to release the Java-based hardware design verification environment I created over the last year and a half under an open source license. We’ve been calling it JavaDV internally, but figure we’ll have to pick a new name so that Sun doesn’t jump all over us for infringing on their aggressively protected …
I recently discovered that Google has an open position called Best-Practices Engineer in Mountain View, CA. “Pick me, pick me!” Barring that, I’d happily settle for Internal Applications Java Engineer, or even plain old server-side Java engineer.
A co-worker (fortunately not in HR) was kind enough to provide a set of employee retention guidelines. Most are already widely used in the industry, though a company that can wield them all is truly fearsome. As any half-decent HR course will teach you, branding will not actually keep cows, err, “employees” from wandering off. …
A co-worker formulated an excellent fiscal and tactical analysis of the company’s mandatory vacation plan: My first reaction to this was, “Vacation? Who needs it? Working here is like a vacation!” That wore off rather quickly. My second reaction was to scan Yahoo Finance. I found this: XYZ – Analyst Sam Gladstone of JP Morgan …
“Due to on-going cost control meaures,” our CEO informed the company on Friday, we have to use 40 hours of accrued vacation this quarter (which is already half over). Wow, and here I thought it was upsetting before our acquisition when our 2 weeks of annual vacation expired at the end of the year. Well, …