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. More about this in Woozle at Pierce
  • 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) which 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)
  • 2003 (approx; need to check this): Worked for Carrier again, this time even more overpaid at about $60/hour, to help

Education

• Learned my first programming language, 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 Habits

I don't like working in offices. It's often difficult to listen to music without appearing stand-offish (i.e. by putting on headphones), and there is rarely (if ever) a piano in the lobby so I can play a little music when I need to refocus. 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 am more likely to buy a replacements before these become noticeable), and flip-flops, even in the dead of winter (sometimes I will wear socks if it gets really cold).

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 types I really can't stand are deadweights who repeatedly act like they're going to do something and then don't, although I'm such a habitual actor that they probably have no idea.