Other then a 10 minute power failure last night around 9pm and the sound of heavy wind outside, hurricane Sandy has been pretty tame for me in Montreal.
But I know the HMCS Moncton is out in the Atlantic with the 8 metre swells. After what happened to the HMS Bounty yesterday I am worried for my daughter, but no news is good news.
It's not over yet, the wild winds and rain are still going to affect us for a day or two.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Friday, October 26, 2012
The blame game!
A few days ago I blogged about interviews I was doing for internship positions. I mentioned we contacted the school to ask why applicants registered for winter 2013 classes were applying for Winter 2013 internship.
She suggested that perhaps we'd made an offer to a student who was waiting for a work permit and that immigration Canada has been really slow!!! Yeah she blamed the government!!! I'm not sure how that applied to the Jewish kid that grew up DDO who was the one who suggested to us a part-time work schedule.
So tally, for the internship position in winter 2013, from this particular university, I got 4 applicants. Three of the 4 applicants were registered for Winter 2013 courses. The one we interviewed was registered for 3 courses one registered with 4 didn't meet GPA requirements, and the other registered for 6. Two of the 4 applicants mentioned on their CV they wanted a summer job. The one good applicant I lost to another department. I can live with that better then with the quality of their candidates.
I dunno what it is about this university. It's an excellent school, but this pushy candidate lost his chance for an interview. We had another student a few years ago from that school that we terminated 2 months into an 8 month internship, because he just wasn't doing much work at all. Besides that he was creepy, he was spending part of the day staring at his female supervisor. So we put a 30" LCD to use as a barrier. That didn't deter him, he's just roll his chair back and still stare. He spent way too much time surfing the net, in particular the situation in the Gaza strip, so the last month he didn't even have internet access and still that didn't make him more productive.
She suggested that perhaps we'd made an offer to a student who was waiting for a work permit and that immigration Canada has been really slow!!! Yeah she blamed the government!!! I'm not sure how that applied to the Jewish kid that grew up DDO who was the one who suggested to us a part-time work schedule.
So tally, for the internship position in winter 2013, from this particular university, I got 4 applicants. Three of the 4 applicants were registered for Winter 2013 courses. The one we interviewed was registered for 3 courses one registered with 4 didn't meet GPA requirements, and the other registered for 6. Two of the 4 applicants mentioned on their CV they wanted a summer job. The one good applicant I lost to another department. I can live with that better then with the quality of their candidates.
I dunno what it is about this university. It's an excellent school, but this pushy candidate lost his chance for an interview. We had another student a few years ago from that school that we terminated 2 months into an 8 month internship, because he just wasn't doing much work at all. Besides that he was creepy, he was spending part of the day staring at his female supervisor. So we put a 30" LCD to use as a barrier. That didn't deter him, he's just roll his chair back and still stare. He spent way too much time surfing the net, in particular the situation in the Gaza strip, so the last month he didn't even have internet access and still that didn't make him more productive.
I wonder how many people are waiting in line...
to purchase Wind8ws. I do know that I can't access the Dell site for drivers this morning and I can't help but wonder if it's related to the release of Wind8ws? I can access the HP and Lenovo sites for drivers no problems.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Ah the help you get.....
Today one of my colleagues came to ask me for my opinion on what system we should order that will ship to us with Wind8ws. This will help us testing some of the features of Wind8ws in a machine that fully supports it. Originally he wanted to buy a machine in the Inspiron line but I suggested we go instead with a PC in the Optiplex line, like the 3100. That it would be in similar price range but more the type of PC our customers use.
He was unsure the PC had the features he wanted and chatted live with someone from Dell. She assured him this machine was not UEFI. So he came to see me rather defeated. Personally I thought the chat person just didn't know much about the machine she's selling. The previous generation Optiplex we have in the lab is actually UEFI. I doubt they would go backwards.
He was unsure the PC had the features he wanted and chatted live with someone from Dell. She assured him this machine was not UEFI. So he came to see me rather defeated. Personally I thought the chat person just didn't know much about the machine she's selling. The previous generation Optiplex we have in the lab is actually UEFI. I doubt they would go backwards.
A rant about a nasty internship student coordinator.
I was ranting about Universities and student candidates for internship yesterday and reading yesterday's entry might put you in context for this rant.
I seem to remember getting a larger selection of candidates and from many more universities in the past. Some of is is that the reputation of the company I work for in some circles leaves a lot to be desired so some students just won't apply with us. Some universities burned their own bridges.
One stage coordinator decided at some point that she was going to teach me a lesson and decided that I was banned from hiring students from her university for 2 years until I resolved some 'issues' in my team. She figured that my colleagues would still hire. However from that point on, we stopped hiring candidates for that position from that school since I was banned from hiring none of us were hiring. It was probably the last straw as it was already a major inconvenience to hire their students because they were 2 hours outside Montreal and we had to interview them on the university campus.
My boss didn't feel I had done anything wrong, since a large percentage of the problems this university's stage coordinator had with 'me' were really issues she had with the internship position itself. I also suspect she was unclear on the concept of what engineers do.
She complained that it wasn't up to her students to do technicians work. Did she really expect students with 6 courses in engineering to be able to do development? My boss, who was formerly an engineering student told this woman, that he would have gladly mopped the floors in an engineering firm just to see how the company worked when he was attending university!
She complained that students were coming in at 7am and that I wasn't in before 10am and they had no one around to help them out. That one was resolved easily. Students are no longer allowed flex time or to choose their own schedule. They get their immediate supervisors schedule imposed on them or my schedule imposed on them. Exceptions are made if the student has courses and must leave by 4pm. They are allowed to come in at 8 on those days. I found this complaint beyond stupid. Until that point students could choose their own work schedule like any other Matrox employee but because some were too immature to take advantage of the opportunity, it's not longer offered. People who don't want to work generally choose the schedule that overlaps the least possible with the boss to do the least possible. New employees can no longer ever chose their work schedule.
Another complaint she had was that I wasn't FRIENDLY ENOUGH. That unlike a colleague I had not taken my students out for a beer!! The said colleague at the time was only a few years older then the students and often went for a beer after work. Unlike me who went home to 2 children, and really did not socialize with co-workers ever. My boss said that he was just as quiet and introverted as me and he didn't socialize either with employees and that the role of a boss is to lead work, not to be friends! This stage coordinator was doing her students no favours by letting them think it was ok to expect their BOSS to be their friend. It can happen but it's very rare.
Another complaint was that even when I was present I was too busy and could not give enough hand holding to the students, and that they all answered to me. My boss told her that he had absolutely swamped me with work and it was amazing that I managed it that well. That unfortunately between layoffs and departures I was the only person with the knowledge to help the students with the tasks they were doing and that yes people at work are BUSY!!!
She tried to make it sound like I was a horrible boss and while she did a number on me, she attacked me and said things that no professional should ever say in a professional meeting. I was so upset, that my boss and the HR person of the time also scheduled to have a meeting with her about my case. Of course neither HR girl or my boss were attacked personally so they could defend me rationally. After the person finished her attack the HR person said that I'd been at the company for 10 years and had had at least 200 students/permanent employees go through my department, and there was never a complaint made to HR by anyone who's worked for me.
In fact my company did nothing to resolve 'my problems' because they didn't deem they were 'my problems'. I took out the one positive criticism, that I needed to share the knowledge with my team and made modifications. It's helpful if I don't have all the students answer directly to me. But as soon as I get someone up to speed on a project and it works well with the students, the person leaves and I'm back to square one again.
I know it was one particularly bitchy student from that school, who complained about me. The coordinator claimed the last 6 students that worked for me complained, but she just warped the data. Sure the students will all say that the stage is a technician level stage, because it is. It's not a complaint for most it's just the honest truth.
She said the students didn't like their experience so they didn't' come back for a second stage. As far as I know out of the 6, 4 came back for a 2nd stage, including the one who complained, so yeah they were all really traumatized!! Three of them hated me so much that when they were doing their 2nd stage, they all stopped in at my desk to say hello, some more then once!
The bitchy student was a diva. On the first day when I tried to explain to her what I expected her to do, she cut me mid instructions to tell me it wasn't how you did it. So I asked her how many years experience she had in testing display drivers. She said none, so I continued and finished explaining what the job she was expected to do. After that day, she did the bare minimum of work. I'd never seen a girl who multitasked so poorly. She did very little and I'm not sure she realized that she wasn't with us to teach us things but to learn from us.
Out of the three students I had those 4 months, she was the least productive, spent too much time on the phone chastising her little sister and she was by far the most mouthy. So when I did her evaluation at the end of the stage I did them honestly and hers sucked. Something she didn't appreciate when she realized she had the worst evaluation of them all.
Maybe she or their stage coordinator thought they would rid my company of the bad seed [me] but I think this student and her coordinator might have been hit with a rude awakening. Just because Ms Diva was a gifted student in imaging, didn't mean that she could tell me or my team what to do or decide how the job was going to be done, a job she knew nothing about and had no experience doing. When you're a student intern, you aren't given the role of the company's president, unless maybe if your dad is the owner and hers was not!!!!
I seem to remember getting a larger selection of candidates and from many more universities in the past. Some of is is that the reputation of the company I work for in some circles leaves a lot to be desired so some students just won't apply with us. Some universities burned their own bridges.
One stage coordinator decided at some point that she was going to teach me a lesson and decided that I was banned from hiring students from her university for 2 years until I resolved some 'issues' in my team. She figured that my colleagues would still hire. However from that point on, we stopped hiring candidates for that position from that school since I was banned from hiring none of us were hiring. It was probably the last straw as it was already a major inconvenience to hire their students because they were 2 hours outside Montreal and we had to interview them on the university campus.
My boss didn't feel I had done anything wrong, since a large percentage of the problems this university's stage coordinator had with 'me' were really issues she had with the internship position itself. I also suspect she was unclear on the concept of what engineers do.
She complained that it wasn't up to her students to do technicians work. Did she really expect students with 6 courses in engineering to be able to do development? My boss, who was formerly an engineering student told this woman, that he would have gladly mopped the floors in an engineering firm just to see how the company worked when he was attending university!
She complained that students were coming in at 7am and that I wasn't in before 10am and they had no one around to help them out. That one was resolved easily. Students are no longer allowed flex time or to choose their own schedule. They get their immediate supervisors schedule imposed on them or my schedule imposed on them. Exceptions are made if the student has courses and must leave by 4pm. They are allowed to come in at 8 on those days. I found this complaint beyond stupid. Until that point students could choose their own work schedule like any other Matrox employee but because some were too immature to take advantage of the opportunity, it's not longer offered. People who don't want to work generally choose the schedule that overlaps the least possible with the boss to do the least possible. New employees can no longer ever chose their work schedule.
Another complaint she had was that I wasn't FRIENDLY ENOUGH. That unlike a colleague I had not taken my students out for a beer!! The said colleague at the time was only a few years older then the students and often went for a beer after work. Unlike me who went home to 2 children, and really did not socialize with co-workers ever. My boss said that he was just as quiet and introverted as me and he didn't socialize either with employees and that the role of a boss is to lead work, not to be friends! This stage coordinator was doing her students no favours by letting them think it was ok to expect their BOSS to be their friend. It can happen but it's very rare.
Another complaint was that even when I was present I was too busy and could not give enough hand holding to the students, and that they all answered to me. My boss told her that he had absolutely swamped me with work and it was amazing that I managed it that well. That unfortunately between layoffs and departures I was the only person with the knowledge to help the students with the tasks they were doing and that yes people at work are BUSY!!!
She tried to make it sound like I was a horrible boss and while she did a number on me, she attacked me and said things that no professional should ever say in a professional meeting. I was so upset, that my boss and the HR person of the time also scheduled to have a meeting with her about my case. Of course neither HR girl or my boss were attacked personally so they could defend me rationally. After the person finished her attack the HR person said that I'd been at the company for 10 years and had had at least 200 students/permanent employees go through my department, and there was never a complaint made to HR by anyone who's worked for me.
In fact my company did nothing to resolve 'my problems' because they didn't deem they were 'my problems'. I took out the one positive criticism, that I needed to share the knowledge with my team and made modifications. It's helpful if I don't have all the students answer directly to me. But as soon as I get someone up to speed on a project and it works well with the students, the person leaves and I'm back to square one again.
I know it was one particularly bitchy student from that school, who complained about me. The coordinator claimed the last 6 students that worked for me complained, but she just warped the data. Sure the students will all say that the stage is a technician level stage, because it is. It's not a complaint for most it's just the honest truth.
She said the students didn't like their experience so they didn't' come back for a second stage. As far as I know out of the 6, 4 came back for a 2nd stage, including the one who complained, so yeah they were all really traumatized!! Three of them hated me so much that when they were doing their 2nd stage, they all stopped in at my desk to say hello, some more then once!
The bitchy student was a diva. On the first day when I tried to explain to her what I expected her to do, she cut me mid instructions to tell me it wasn't how you did it. So I asked her how many years experience she had in testing display drivers. She said none, so I continued and finished explaining what the job she was expected to do. After that day, she did the bare minimum of work. I'd never seen a girl who multitasked so poorly. She did very little and I'm not sure she realized that she wasn't with us to teach us things but to learn from us.
Out of the three students I had those 4 months, she was the least productive, spent too much time on the phone chastising her little sister and she was by far the most mouthy. So when I did her evaluation at the end of the stage I did them honestly and hers sucked. Something she didn't appreciate when she realized she had the worst evaluation of them all.
Maybe she or their stage coordinator thought they would rid my company of the bad seed [me] but I think this student and her coordinator might have been hit with a rude awakening. Just because Ms Diva was a gifted student in imaging, didn't mean that she could tell me or my team what to do or decide how the job was going to be done, a job she knew nothing about and had no experience doing. When you're a student intern, you aren't given the role of the company's president, unless maybe if your dad is the owner and hers was not!!!!
Monday, October 22, 2012
Some candidates don't deserve consideration
As usual every 4 months I interview a slew of candidates for internship. As per company policy I can only hire students who have a minimum of 2.6/4.0 or 2.9/4.3 GPA. I also put in the job description that we only consider students from first or second year into their Bachelors degree. The main reason is, often if they are 3rd or 4th year, they have had enough programming classes to be able to work on small development projects, but I have no such work to offer them. I've often hired students, that after 2 weeks of doing testing, come to see us and want to do 'development'. When you tell there there is none in their job, they stay pissed off and do the least possible the rest of the workterm. First and second year students don't have enough experience to expect development jobs and overall tend to be a better fit in my team.
The worst internship to fill is the winter one, that goes from January to April. The easiest to fill is the summer internship, From May to August where I get too many good candidates for the few jobs I have. To give you an example, currently I have 6 positions to fill and I got 15 applicants. I had to brush off 5 candidates because they did not meet GPA requirements, despite the fact that on our job description, it clearly states the minimum GPA we accept. For a summer internship I could get 100-150 resumes for the same 6 positions. [Then I screen via GPA and if they have finished more then 2 full years of University]
Since I had 10 candidates left after screening, I just chose to interview all of them. Generally I don't spend much time reading cover letters as the majority quote at least 1 paragraph from our corporate website which tells me very little about them. The resume itself I skim through to get a sense of prior jobs and experiences. Generally though I base my selection of candidates on candid responses in interviews and not much on their writings.
The first candidate we interviewed apparently seemed surprised that we were interviewing for winter semester, and was looking more for a summer job. I'm not sure why I would interview students for summer in OCTOBER!!!! Then just to make things interesting he proposed a schedule of the hours he could work on 3 days a week!!! I'm not sure how I can use a student that comes 3 hours here and 4 hours there. I can use a student like that AFTER they have been with us full time for 4 months and were exceptional in anticipating the jobs needing to be done.
I thought I had just run into a clueless postulant. I wasn't so lucky. Today I got 2 more resumes from this particular university, and when I was looking for the students GPA, I realized both students were registered for winter classes according to their transcript. One clearly say they want a winter internship, but I'm not sure how this applicant would manage it if they are registered in no less then 6 classes in Winter 2013. The other had no cover letter, and in really small print on their resume said they were looking for Summer internship.
I was so disappointed that I asked my HR person to contact the schools internship coordinator and ask why students with a full course load are applying for internship positions. These are not part-time jobs after school hours. This is a full-time position between 9-5pm, 5 days a week. I have no interest in wasting time to see a student who I cannot hire full time for Winter 2013.
I can hear someone argue with me that I'm being inflexible. Perhaps, but the internship I have to offer is in quality assurance. It is of utmost importance that the candidate knows the difference between a failure and a success. If a candidate cannot follow simple instructions, how can I trust them to put quality into a product in a timely fashion?
The worst internship to fill is the winter one, that goes from January to April. The easiest to fill is the summer internship, From May to August where I get too many good candidates for the few jobs I have. To give you an example, currently I have 6 positions to fill and I got 15 applicants. I had to brush off 5 candidates because they did not meet GPA requirements, despite the fact that on our job description, it clearly states the minimum GPA we accept. For a summer internship I could get 100-150 resumes for the same 6 positions. [Then I screen via GPA and if they have finished more then 2 full years of University]
Since I had 10 candidates left after screening, I just chose to interview all of them. Generally I don't spend much time reading cover letters as the majority quote at least 1 paragraph from our corporate website which tells me very little about them. The resume itself I skim through to get a sense of prior jobs and experiences. Generally though I base my selection of candidates on candid responses in interviews and not much on their writings.
The first candidate we interviewed apparently seemed surprised that we were interviewing for winter semester, and was looking more for a summer job. I'm not sure why I would interview students for summer in OCTOBER!!!! Then just to make things interesting he proposed a schedule of the hours he could work on 3 days a week!!! I'm not sure how I can use a student that comes 3 hours here and 4 hours there. I can use a student like that AFTER they have been with us full time for 4 months and were exceptional in anticipating the jobs needing to be done.
I thought I had just run into a clueless postulant. I wasn't so lucky. Today I got 2 more resumes from this particular university, and when I was looking for the students GPA, I realized both students were registered for winter classes according to their transcript. One clearly say they want a winter internship, but I'm not sure how this applicant would manage it if they are registered in no less then 6 classes in Winter 2013. The other had no cover letter, and in really small print on their resume said they were looking for Summer internship.
I was so disappointed that I asked my HR person to contact the schools internship coordinator and ask why students with a full course load are applying for internship positions. These are not part-time jobs after school hours. This is a full-time position between 9-5pm, 5 days a week. I have no interest in wasting time to see a student who I cannot hire full time for Winter 2013.
I can hear someone argue with me that I'm being inflexible. Perhaps, but the internship I have to offer is in quality assurance. It is of utmost importance that the candidate knows the difference between a failure and a success. If a candidate cannot follow simple instructions, how can I trust them to put quality into a product in a timely fashion?
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Saturday, October 20, 2012
More photos along the Lachine canal
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| Lighthouse in Lachine |
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| Fall colours at waterfront at bird sanctuary in Lasalle |
Friday, October 19, 2012
It's always something.....
For the past week or so I've had my little finger and ring finger of the left hand all numb and it was getting worse. This time it's not related to my truck. As best as I understand it, the ulnar nerve is pinched somewhere, more likely at the elbow. Oh and the ulnar nerve is what makes the elbow have a 'funny bone'. That electrical sensation is your ulnar nerve.
The sucky part is that I sleep on that arm, elbow bent, so I have to stop it to heal and I also drive my car with my left hand only, since I learned to drive stick shift originally.
I'm trying to keep my arm from being bent as much as possible, I'm hoping it will help
The sucky part is that I sleep on that arm, elbow bent, so I have to stop it to heal and I also drive my car with my left hand only, since I learned to drive stick shift originally.
I'm trying to keep my arm from being bent as much as possible, I'm hoping it will help
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Lasalle Drive-in
Yesterday when driving around the Lachine Canal we stopped at the Lasalle Drive-in, located on Lasalle blvd, corner Champlain, right in front of Police Station 13.
I had a French fry and my friend I had a French fry, Gyro and soda. My fries were kick ass. They also offer sea salt on the tables. The restaurant staff was friendly, the service was quick and the place was clean. They are right on the water front and if we hadn't been so cold from hanging around the waterfront we might have sat outside to look at the view.
I'd go back any day. Only down side is that they are a cash only business.
I had a French fry and my friend I had a French fry, Gyro and soda. My fries were kick ass. They also offer sea salt on the tables. The restaurant staff was friendly, the service was quick and the place was clean. They are right on the water front and if we hadn't been so cold from hanging around the waterfront we might have sat outside to look at the view.
I'd go back any day. Only down side is that they are a cash only business.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Windows 8 - and PC desktops
Apparently I'm not the only one who sees that Wind8ws might be a nightmare for those who are going to use a desktop computer as opposed to a tablet or a smartphone.
I've been using versions of Windows since 1992. I hate the double desktop, makes it non-intuitive for someone who just needs to get email and work on documents. This article is from experts and what they have to say about Wind8ws
I had said that I doubted OEMs would be very keen. It seems HP and Lenovo are going full speed but Dell is not so much. Dell seems to want to stick to windows 7 as its shipping OS on most machines for a little while longer.
I've been using versions of Windows since 1992. I hate the double desktop, makes it non-intuitive for someone who just needs to get email and work on documents. This article is from experts and what they have to say about Wind8ws
I had said that I doubted OEMs would be very keen. It seems HP and Lenovo are going full speed but Dell is not so much. Dell seems to want to stick to windows 7 as its shipping OS on most machines for a little while longer.
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