Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips The second major explanation of what “not a good fit” means. Now for the second explanation (the first was in the immediately preceding post). This explanation is a bit more complex. Basically, it is the interviewing organization is mismanaged, a.k.a., they don’t know what they are doing. The interviewing organization is overworked. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The first explanation of what “not a good fit means.” I apply for a job. I interview face-t0-face with a team of persons. Several days later I receive the form email stating, “sorry, you are not a good fit.” What does that mean? I have two main explanations. This post will give […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I emphasize fundamentals in my work. One such fundamental is the old cliche about planning and working (see title). I find it still applies—even with “new” methods like Agile. Plan your work, work your plan I heard that a lot in the 1980s. I find it to be one of those things […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we are stuck with a bad customer. We still choose how we live and work. Alright, our customer is bad. They gripe all the time, show no appreciation for our efforts. They are, however, our customer and they pay our bills. So now what? We will: work everyday work smart have […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I repeat an old, old story. Does it illustrate the power of collaboration or is it just another old, silly story that we tell children to have them behave? The old story… There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Ignorance is often bliss. Ignorance of culture has kept me from trouble many times in my life. I guess this is an advantage of being a nerd. I remember as a kid other kids walking up to me and, with their most earnest face, saying, I dare ya’ They were really serious […]

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by Dwayne Phillips People ask questions about what they understand. Their questions tell you about them, not about the stated subject of the conversation. A few years ago in the last century, I once interviewed for an engineering job. At the time I had a BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering. The […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes citizens of the U.S. working for the U.S. become separated from the rest of the citizenry at everyone’s loss. Recently, heads of agencies of the U.S. Intelligence Community met to discuss the types of things they discuss in public. Several of them lamented the protests of many citizens against their efforts […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I post a piece I wrote 20 years ago on a nagging attribute many of us science and engineering types possess. It happened again the other day at work. Members of my technical group were discussing the possible movement of people within our organization. We all agreed that we did not want […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Efficiency (let’s call it hyper efficiency) is abounding. Maybe it isn’t always good. Amazon delivers wonderful cloud computing with their Amazon Web Services (AWS). They have found a way to activate virtual computers on demand, run them, deactivate them, and start over again. They have rooms of real computers that they share […]

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