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Dale Worley at MIT responded to a posting in the QUALITY list recently... it
dovetails nicely with a references thread In TECHWR-L (The Techwriter's
List).. and helps me focus on some notes I made about my job and career....
But first I must declare my abject apologies for A) Crossposting in TECHWR-L
and Quality, and B) Responding to a posting in the middle of a thread without
lurking for a coupla days first... hey, I like this disorganization stuff....
Dale Writes--
>In article <Pine -dot- 3 -dot- 89 -dot- 1 -dot- 1 -dot- 9406221048 -dot- F28057-0100000 -at- yu1 -dot- yu -dot- edu> Daniel
Ritsma <r
> itsma -at- yu1 -dot- yu -dot- edu> writes:
>: If I *know* that I can get another job as good as this one, I have no
>: fear of telling the boss the truth. [...]
> That assumes, of course, that the employer offering the "job as good as
> this one" doesn't check references beyond verifying dates of employment
> and either doesn't ask "why did you leave your previous job" or else
>takes your reasons for doing so at face value.Most employment
> counsellors consider it a no-no to complain about a previous employer,
> and I suspect they have realistic reasons for this belief (bosses tend to
> select themselves from the kind of personality type that demands loyalty,
> even if they don't always behave in ways that encourage loyalty).
>>>>>Dale Worley Dept. of Math., MIT drw -at- math -dot- mit -dot- edu
>--
>For the man in the paddock whose duty it is to sweep up manure, the supreme
>terror is a world without horses. -- Henry Miller
_________________________ Benu Responds____________________<smirk>
In the last several days I have become certain that the kind of outfit I
wanna work with is gonna _like_ the negative references they'll get from my
old Mainframe boss (the miserable pogue). The outfit I wanna work for is
looking for people who
o Couldn't/Wouldn't perform exactly as told, or perform tasks _only_ as
prescribed
"We haven't got time or resources to do the project to the Level of
Quality you want, its just not efficient... we can automate many
processes to produce a level-of-quality that's good enough."
o Understand that the professional-comfort-differential between clerks and
machinists is much more than "Filecabinets don't blow up and fall
outta the sky when you fail."
o Argue with "Management" almost every step of the way that product
quality must be first-and-foremost in our profession (That goes for
machinists and techwriters and every other job I can think of).
o Get Po'd cos the contractor equivalent of "Union Rules" won't let us do
what needs doing (Thou shalt not do something which ye were not
explicitly hired to do
OR... "you weren't hired to make that kind of decision... Our Old Hands
are swamped as it is... if you started making decisions without
waiting for their approval, they'd go ballistic!")
I want my next hiring interviewer to have read and experienced what I have,
and wants someone who will bend "the rules" to get things done. ("You can't
go out and start yer own company!!!! Make money?!?!?! that only happens in
some runyonesque storybooks!")
Food for Thought...
<smile>
Dan BRINEGAR
Phoenix, AZ
HBDeBenu -at- aol -dot- com
"But, Sir! I didnt come here to _BE_ 22.9 percent casualties!"
