Cambridge (UK) engineer seeking job and home in Cambridge

It's so miserable here this week I may have to watch the tsunami news to remind me there are people with bigger housing problems than me.

;-(

Interestingly, dating services don't work very well. If two peoples' objective profiles are matched - height, weight, careers, interests, all that usual stuff - it doesn't at all indicate that anything will click when they meet. It's far more effective to let them just sniff one anothers' used t-shirts; HLA antigen matches (or, actually, mismatches) are what makes for romance.

John

There's bound to be a range. Other aspects of 'life' in Cambridge UK are good, even if your accommodation is not so good.

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The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
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Here we go...

Yes, men are not selective in this matter as having sex with *any* women will pretty much increase the probability of maximising the numbers of their genes. For women, they get pregnant for 9 months, so they can't maximise by numbers by such a technique, they have to be very selective to quality.

Evolution is a maximising game.

"That which is mostly observer, is that which replicates the most".

As in the women case, i.e. there are always males willing to have sex so they can be very choosy, the glut of engineers means agencies and companies can be very chossy.

Oh, as far as women go "all one hopes for" is that she is not fat. Thats an absolute no no by my book.

Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk

SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture, Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

Afraid I'm not employing! And I'm sick of CVs.

I'd forgotten they were a bit snotty. I got some CVs from them a few months ago and they were all pretty upmarket. The best CVs I got, in terms of long-term potential, were from Positive Selection in Norwich; might be worth giving them a go.

At least you're never short of a take-away..

Surprising; maybe real incomes have dropped. I was in your position from about '82 till about '95. I don't think I was ever once short of money; sometimes you'd spend money just for the sake of it, even in the early 90's (the last major bust before 2001).

I wouldn't go to Milton itself - Milton Rd south of the Science Pk. Apart from anything else, you're within half a mile of a landfill, not to mention a sewage works.

Cheers

Rick

A 90% devaluation?? That'd certainly do the trick! :-) BTW, how much is a 'benchmark' Starbucks cappuccino in Switzerland these days?

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"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

I referred to common courtesy. Women _will_ notice a smile vanishing quickly: it shows you are only nice and friendly when you want something and not as a matter of course. Besides it indicates you place no other value on them as a human being.

There is a kind of karma working: if you treat people rudely, they will moan about it to friends and it will probably backfire on you. One ex boss left a trail of pissed of people in his wake, eventually nobody would do business with him and he went bust. For my own part, if I ever employed people I would give job agencies very short shrift.

Being choosy is one thing, being snotty is another.

Someone said "commerce makes prostitutes of us all". In which case agents are pimps getting rich off us bitches.

Well not grossly obese as I've seen in the USA, but I've seen some plump girls with nice curves, nice personality, nice mind etc and some slim girls with none of those.

Call me mister choosy if you will, but my list of absolute no-nos includes

Mental illness, genetic defects, infectious diseases, beer belly, flab. Compulsive drinking / shopping / smoking / nagging / eating / dieting / cleaning / anything. Drama queens / proper little madams / snotty bags / drug users / religious or political extremists / new agers / swingers / married or spoken for.

Cut the choice down a lot I find!

Yes, that was the word I was going to use.

Thanks for the tip.

Yes, splendid substantial eats to be had on Mill Rd. The Curry Queen for instance.

Well, that is for a part time job. On average I bring in significantly more but I took that job to guarantee food and rent. Many people prefer to see regular wage slips than irregular contract invoices. Hence I currently do

1.5 jobs. It also leaves me free during the day to do the contract work.

I'm not short either, but I do save as much as I can for the eventual house purchase. I make a point of living within my income not savings, that's all.

I used to work by the Science Park. Sometimes one did have to close the windows! :-)

You wont get many applicants. Seriously. Agencies are the focal point for both employer and employee. Its just the way things are done in this market, today. Sure, on occasions you might be lucky with a direct application, but this not normal, in my view.

The last one cuts the choice down to zero. Females are *always* already taken. You *have* to steal them off someone else.

Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk

SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture, Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

While some areas up north are grim, there are big plusses I live above the marina in Sunderland, own a business on the innovation park which takes a maximum of 10 mins to drive to- the countryside is only 1/2 hour away, and London is only 45 mins by plane (airport 40 mins away) or

2Hrs 45 by HST- I know from bitter experience it can (and frequently does) take longer to travel to the city from kent. The cost of living is much lower, houses and entertainments are cheaper (except the university places around Durham and the yuppy{do they still exist} parts of newcastle) which more than offsets the lower wages people get The people have a Can Do attitude and they work hard and party harder. but enough rambling- if you look at any town you can identify the shit holes- there are areas of london and cambridge which represent the worst dregs of life- steer clear its simple enough- I moved north for university and stayed- I am now proclaimed a plastic Mackem- at least people have time for you if you make an effort to talk to them. Down side like today its 'Kin freezing- polar bears seen heading south!

Good luck on your quest Regards Anthony

Agencies seem to be another hurdle in the way then.

Originally you just had to persuade an employer you was worth their time. I don't find that too difficult.

Now you have to persuade an agent you are worth their time.

I wish some geeks would set up an automated system that registered people's profiles of what they can offer and correlate them with what profiles were wanted. The system would then return a list of best matches. Current systems seem to just look for buzzwords in CVs, they do not know about skill ratings.

Attractive people are taken most of the time. There's always plenty of unattractive people who are not taken. But they were not a choice in the first place eh?

Damn my own integrity for closing this option.

Hmm, that people to vacancy correlating system might also correlate people to people.

It would replace the world's human dating/job agencies with one automated matching system.

I'd like to name it Robopimp but it might offend the prudish.. :-)

If global warming continues then the Pennine and highland real estate might go up.

The fens might _become_ a marina.

Thanks for the intel.

Heavy drinkers?

Indeed. I was wondering where to find a town where affordable was not synonymous with shit hole.

In London, everywhere is very expensive even the holes.

Cambridge is so bad that they give grants to vital but underpaid personnel like teachers and nurses. Unfortunately being a resident for over a decade doesn't get any aid. :-(

It doesn't really help, since if people can afford more the prices just rise to make it as difficult as before.

What is a Mackem?

Cold here too.

Thanks. Let me know if you know someone who needs a techy up there.

"John Larkin" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

That's because they are very primitive. They just have a few dozen tick boxes.

One survey found that agencies would often just send back whoever lived nearest to you (ignoring everything else) or send you matches that lived all over the place.

I think it does maximise the chances.

It will cut out the bulk of people who you expressly do not want.

Such as obese, smokers, shopaholics etc.

I find that hard to believe. Where did you read it.

If it is true, maybe the system would sift out people you wouldn't get on with for sure, then send you scratch-n-sniff cards for the shortlisted candidates.

Maybe it does play a part in long term bonding, but the sense of smell has declined over time. We hardly have any sense of smell compared with most animals.

However, some people do have smells even I can detect. One girl I met smelt very strongly of sweat, but clean so not as bad as it sounds. OTOH, one of my geeky workmates often smells of sweat, but rancidly. I'll have to politely suggest he bathe more often.

They can be, but on average, if you have enough experience in the right areas, they can fall over backwards to help you.

I agree that this does happen, but for me its only happened a few times.

Yep.

I get a feeling that maybe, your CV isn't putting you in the best light. Despite some qualms expressed in this NG on my English skills, I am actually rather good at CV's. Overall, agencies show an amazing amount of respect for mine. If you want, you could email me yours and I could give a second opinion on it.

Indeed.

I suffer no such moral dilemma. The only issues that worry me is about how large is the dude that I have to steal them from. That's what guilt is all about. Acknowledgment of the consequences of ones actions, e.g.

Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk

SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture, Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

Okay well don't bandy it about the place (I like to hide my true identity!) but you can find my CV at :

Personally my greatest concern is the number of employers and their short duration. I'm sure people assume the worst, and assume this is because I don't stick around long.

Well, I have a good explanation for all departures and interviewers accept them. (generally if someone is a flibbertigibbet and lying it then it does show through).

The frustrating thing about this career is getting a solid foothold. Allbite were run by an intolerable crook (his co-director packed it in after one year, I endured it for two!). Arcam seemed a lovely stable company, right up to the day it sacked an eight of its workforce (so no complaints against me personally!). Prior Scientific have very little skills in the way of how to plan and run a software project so that if the main engineer leaves then his successor finish the project.

I expect you will give me an opinion unclouded by a desire not to be hurtful - this is a good thing because that's exactly the opinion employers / agents form. I don't think they have the spine to say "no, you look hard to sell because of this that and the other" which might upset some people.

Ho hum, life does throw things at people. No use complaining, nobody cares, just have to deal with it.

Do have a browse around my site, might give you an idea of my geeky interests. The computer-in-FPGA is the most complicated project so far, and the most fun!

Cheers, K.

The

If it's any consolation, once EU engineering jobs move here to the US they are on a fast track back out to India. The process and thinking appears to go like this:

1. We (US corporation) acquire company A in EU for some juicy nugget of IP, slice of goodwill, or maybe just a customer list they own. Marketing and distribution arms of the EU company are clearly deadwood, not part of our global strategy, and they're offered internal recruitment (maybe) or laid off.
2. We try to write translation firmware to integrate their products with ours. During this process we need their engineers to be working fulltime over there in sunny Europe. However, it quickly becomes apparent that it is less trouble to redesign the EU subsidiary's 10 flash-micro-based products to be compatible with our 5,000-item mask-ROM-and-ASIC product line than it is to build shims between our protocols and theirs.
3. Management says "Well, these products were always being managed non-domestically, so whether in Europe or India it will be no more difficult to manage them. They all need major firmware rewrites. All the US engineers are fully loaded already, and the EU engineers are expensive and don't have experience with our protocols anyway. Let's give the porting job to our Indian or Chinese subsidiaries".

I have no idea, sorry. From the exclusive locations, I guess it'll be quite expensive. say 4 USD ?

Rene

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Not too bad, then. I'll have to look up the Swissie/Pound rate in tomorrow's FT. Last time I looked it was about 2.60. Nice that you've stayed out of the Union, BTW; most sensible. Look what's happening in Austria. :-(

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"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.