User:Woozle/archive/Antirez

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Woozle's Anti-Résumé

This is the unvarnished, "too much information" version of my job skills and relevant experience. For a more presentable version, see Woozle's Official Glossy Brochure.

Skills

• Reasonably strong VB6 and VBA (as of Access 97), but nothing more recent.
  • Designed/wrote store-item topic-assignment utility for vbz.net in VB6
  • Co-designed/wrote shipping calendar application for Carrier Transicold in VB6
  • Co-designed/co-wrote system for exchanging data between ancient mainframe business system and MS Access and SQL Server
  • Designed/wrote complete catalog and order management system in Access 97 (vbz.net)
• I used to be pretty good at C++, though I was never very fast with it.
  • Used MSVC to create program for analysis of images in custom format (had to convert to DIBs for Windows), in dead-end little $5/hour job at UGA
  • Used Borland C++ Builder to write fire-truck testing utility and partly finish configurator application
• Turbo/Borland Pascal was my main language from approximately 1987 - 1991
  • Wrote neural network simulator, including a DOS-based graphical front end, at Duke in 1990-1 (source code now missing :-P)
  • Wrote all sorts of little utilities which I now can't remember, including one for synchronizing my at-work and at-home files via floppy disk
  • Wrote program for analysis of agricultural data at UGA (dead-end $5/hour job)

Work Experience

• Suspicious-looking long gap in significant employment from 1992-97
• Survivor of 4 contract terminations:
  • 1990-1: Duke University Humanities Computing Facility:
    • researched artificial neural networks under Dr. Frank Borchardt.
    • Developed graphical neural network simulation software, using Borland Pascal 7.0 and running mostly under DOS (though I used Windows 3.0 for multitasking while developing).
    • Put too much priority on creating and exploring original solutions, and thus failed to produce expected results in a timely way
  • 1992-7: Several failed attempts to start a business, in the absence of any market for non-degreed programmers in Athens
  • 1998: Overpaid ($35/hour, with lots of overtime x1.5) as C++ programmer for Pierce Manufacturing, Inc. in Appleton, WI; wrote a useful diagnostic utility but never completed main assignment, a "configurator" program for their then-new CPU-controlled line of fire trucks.
  • 1999-2001: Similarly overpaid ($33/hr, but no overtime), upon returning home to Athens, to do database work in Visual Basic 6 and MS Access for Carrier Transicold. This actually worked out pretty well, though I started to feel conflicted about spending time at Carrier, where I often wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing, versus going back to the home office, where there was always a mountain of work to be attacked. Ultimately, however, it was decisions at the top level of management having absolutely nothing to do with me (as far as I've been able to determine; it was apparently one of many short-term cost-cutting measures) that led to my contract being abruptly terminated in June, 2001.
    • Performed Y2k remediation and revamping (migration from Access 95 to Access 97) on a handful of front-office applications
    • Co-designed/wrote shipping calendar application (VB6)
  • 2003mar29 - 2003sep23: Worked for Carrier again, this time even more overpaid at about $60/hour, to design and implement improvements to some of the applications I had co-written earlier, including the assembly-line unit tracker. Contract was again abruptly terminated for much the same reasons. As far as I know, the IT people at Carrier (specifically Ed and Lynn) were happy with my work and annoyed that the termination was done without allowing time for work in progress to be satisfactorily wrapped up.

Education

• Learned my first programming language (at age 8), FOCAL, on a PDP8/L; never quite got the hang of writing useful programs because I was confused about how the line-numbering worked
• Had the opportunity, in 1975, to work with what was then a very advanced computer, a Tektronix graphics workstation; spent most of the time making pretty designs on the pen plotter. (I still have them, but can never find them when I'm actually looking for them.)
• Left high school after 11th grade
• Got into college largely through nepotism
• Left college after 3 notably unsuccessful semesters

Work Philosophy

I don't like working in offices, especially if there is no window to the outside. At one of the places I worked, windows were seemingly given out as prizes to indicate status; this sort of behavior is indicative of a deeply hierarchical corporation with poor communication between levels (and hence between departments not otherwise connected) and is often accompanied by a "strong-man" approach to office organization. Me no like.

I hate it when people avoid doing something because it might leave them vulnerable to criticism later on, even if their best judgement is that it would be the right thing to do. An office manager, given this document, might well avoid hiring me solely because (in the event that there was ever any problem with me as an employee) someone might point to the document and say "How could you possibly think that hiring this person was a good idea?", which would be a highly credible accusation and might well hurt their standing in the company. In an environment where this kind of self-preservative thinking is required for survival, anything unusual tends to be grounds for criticism... and I am unusual.

I don't like dress codes. I prefer to wear jeans, sometimes with a few holes in them (though if employed at a decent salary I tend to go clothes-shopping more frequently, so holes are less likely to happen), and flip-flops, even in the dead of winter (sometimes I will wear socks if it gets really cold). In the past I have adhered to dress codes, but for all the good it has done me I think it was probably wasted effort and I don't plan to bother with it in future. I'm not interested in working in situations where "it is more important to look good than it is to feel good".

In the past I have relocated temporarily (up to a year or so) for contract work, but at the present I can't really do that. I tend to place higher priority on living in a place I like versus having the "ideal job"; really, I don't think there is an "ideal job" for me, at least as long as it involves working for someone else. I would have to have a much more significant reputation (as opposed to my current reputation, which is negligible) of some kind in order to get paid to do the sort of work I would really like to do.

Nonetheless, once I actually get past the barrier of convincing a total stranger that they want to hire me, I tend to get along well with co-workers, even people known for being difficult to get along with (Yes! A positive statement in the Anti-résumé!). The only times I really have trouble dealing with people as individuals is when:

• ...someone repeatedly acts like they're going to do something and then doesn't. On at least one occasion when a project was in trouble (in part because of such inactivity) I sent email to the project stakeholders explaining that there were severe problems, being very specific about what was wrong without saying who was at fault (I prefer to let people see the data and draw their own conclusions).
• ...people insist on following rules and forms rather than having an understanding of the reasons why things are done the way they are. Sometimes it's not important to know why the rules are there, but when rules both run contrary to common sense and have a significant negative impact on my ability to do my job, I start to have issues with just following them blindly. If it's broken, it may need fixing.

I don't play politics. I'm a "team player" in (what I see as) the positive sense -- my work doesn't have to be important, or visible, or even used in the final product, as long as we're all working together to achieve a goal -- but not in the sense which is often used as an excuse to get employees to cover up poor attitudes or significant mistakes.

I habitually avoid saying anything harsh to anyone, though, so I generally get along with people even if I don't like their style (as above).

I also tend to get good job performance reviews, as I'm relatively uninterested in the various social interactions which are often the cause of wasted work time, and I hate leaving things unfinished or with known flaws. (I can be perfectionistic at times, though I am quite moderate compared to some.)

I'm also lately noticing a particular pattern of communication problems. In much the same way as I may miss instructions from other people, they often seem to miss crucial instructions from me. I'm not sure why this is, but it seems to be because I am always trying so hard to remain low-key and not annoy or stress anyone that I don't put any emotional emphasis on important information, even when such information is truly crucial and will cause a lot of trouble if the recipient doesn't handle the information properly (e.g. by putting a task on higher priority or getting it done within a certain time).

Job-Hunting

I really really hate job-hunting, especially when you get to the part where you have to talk to people. As I'm typing this, I'm still half-expecting a call which should have come at about 9:30; it is now 10:03 and I don't think it's going to happen, but it might, and whether or not it does I will probably not be good for much of anything for the rest of the day. When I'm mentally keyed-up enough to be prepared to talk about job skills, I'm too keyed-up to focus on anything. My only consolation is that knowing how much I hate the process, I'll be almost glad to be turned down so I don't have to do an interview (and go to an office, and everything that goes along with that).