Author: Elke Blinick

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Job Requirements

workreqIs HR actually a science? Or is it more like Project Management, where no public (federal, provincial, municipal) project ever comes in on time or budget. I took a random job requirement listing sample and looked at the specific requirements.

Job Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Management Systems, and Business Management, Statistics or equivalent work experience: Which means exactly what? 3 years of coding, report writing? Does a BCom count? How about an MBA or no degree, but coding experience (sort of like Bill Gates). Store manager for Staples?
• 3+ plus years of work experience programming, business intelligence report writing, report development tool usage and business requirements gathering: Ok, someone with actual coding skills, not just Word or the all-time favorites Excel and PowerPoint. Though programming in what?
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What do Russia, Saudi-Arabia and Canada have in common?

oil

Three countries, three continents. 143 million, 29 million, 35 million. Russia and Saudi Arabia have lots of tanks and aircraft. Canada has about 6+ that are combat ready, and they somewhere are in Iraq or Syria. Russia has many emigrants. The ones that now live in North America or Europe. Not so many, if any who actually want to immigrate to Russia (other than from the Stans). Same with Saudi Arabia. Canada has many people who want to come to Canada, despite our affliction called January and February. So what do we have in common? Oil. Lots of it. And that is about all we have in common.

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Testing, Testing, Testing

qa

“Problems flow from issues such as inadequate training for users and computer coding that isn’t a suitable match for the “discretion” required to manage complex Ontario Works, and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) files”

As in the product did not fit the need. The problem is that the real customer is not the Ontario government, but the end users who use a system on a daily basis.

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Programming Then and Now

  • Statement on line 4: ‘select’. Great for debugging. Code has about 400 lines. Some error statements are still as misleading or useless as WBT. Error was actually in line 187 where I forgot a ‘,’
  • Looking in all the wrong places when debugging. Nothing has changed
  • Need a beer to make your brain slow down? Way back then: 300 baud modem. Now: Customer help lines in wherever. After 1 (English) ,1,3,2,2,1. “Yes, the green power light is on”
  • Then Customer help lines: wait, wait, wait: help. Now: “we are experiencing a high volume of callers” Please call back never or be prepared to answer 25 questions to prove your are who you are and are not just calling because you love help lines

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Why are Leafs Losers?

leafs
No idea. I do not actually know much about ice hockey. But I grew up in a city that had more than 10 championships in the last 15 years. So ok it was in handball. No not that handball, the other handball, a sport that most North Americans relegate into the boccica ball category, way below curling. So let’s try soccer. Bayern Munich has pretty much owned the German championships for the last 40 years. Growing up I was Gerd Mueller and my best friend was Franz Beckenbauer. Women’s soccer was not a big thing. But that did not stop Bayern from winning.

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