job thing, maybe

There's always BART... live in Pittsburg (or Richmond, haha), then take the BART train to SF.

But the cost of a house is also 4x. That's the thing that people have to understand when they look at, for example, labor costs in India. A guy from there told me that you can buy a decent lunch for under a Dollar including a beverage. Even here in Sacramento it's about 10dB more. Ok, Jim would now say that it's 20dB more in Phoenix :-)))

When our church tried to hire the first youth pastor many years ago he was from Ohio. It plain didn't work. They were unable to make it work between the proceeds from selling their house over there to getting into a decent place here on a pastor's salary (because he already had a larger family).

T'is the American way. Love it. When friends in Europe asked how our contracts look like I answered that there usually is none if you are an employee. Jaws dropped. Then I said that a significant part of the pay over here is often in stock options and that their value down the road could be anywhere between zilch and "the sky is the limit". The folks almost dropped their coffee mugs :-)

The native n'awlins accent is, if anything, slightly Brooklyn... not a trace of Southern influence. My starter wife was a Cajun, and that's distinct, also not southern. Roughly Baton Rouge north, the accent starts to sound southern. Or just past the eastern city limits, right across the Rigolets, is gulf coast Mississippi, with a serious twang.

I escaped (well, actually, I was fired) with a pretty-much neutral American accent, although I reserve the right to use useful constructions like "ain't" and "you all", the 2nd person plural which spoken English sorely needs.

John

John,

I think that you're the only one, here, that is taking this seriously. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Of course, you are correct. I, too, would halt the interview immediately if an applicant started out by saying, "What's in it for me?"

Regards, Bob

Two thngs: 1. Where were you when i needed you 13 years ago. I can equal Pete but i am only 120 miles way, i can come in to do testing and training.

I normally charge $130/hr from the government, and we charge for working, not talking (except when it's part of the job). I will give you a deal at $80/hr, since I don't get to keep all the $130. But I can only work part-time, since I plan on visiting Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Miller (Armed Service Chairman?). We need to convince them to upgrade the equipments for our Marines, since WIn95 and NT40 are going out of services. DC is too expensive, but I can do SF. I live next to the largest Marine Base in SC.

Indeed. Over here you really need a lawyer to check employment contracts. I've never had a contract which is really up to date with the latest changes in the law.

Virtually nobody has employment contracts here, with the exception of high-up CEOs maybe, and members of labor unions who work under a blanket contract. Hiring is often a rather informal process ("sounds good, let's try it"), and under California law an employee can be dismissed at any time for any or no reason. Discharged employees receive state-funded unemployment compensation unless discharged "for cause", namely for a gross infraction. Simple incompetance is not "cause."

John

Otis Street (Mr. Larkin's office) is not exactly close to the Bart station on Market Street. I can fly in (commuter flight) for an hour and express bus (30 minutes) to Mission Street faster than from Richmond. Or, there are nice apartments on the water front, underlooking the bottom of the Bay Bridge.

One thing that has driven SF real estate pricing (and no doubt that of other urban centers) is that nowadays many women are making big bucks, often more than their spouses. So one $80K household income becomes $160K, and they bid for housing against everyone else. Not to mention the married lawyers and doctors, $250K+250K. The true secret to success is to marry a woman with a good job.

About 5 blocks, with a couple of good coffee places on the way. And lots of, um, urban interest.

Hell, some people have to walk almost that far in a Silicon Valley company parking lot.

Transfer to the Muni Metro on rainy days, and get within a block.

I used to Bart from SF to Fremont every day, when I loved (haha, typo, I meant "lived"!) across the street from Mission Dolores. It wasn't bad... you can read, work, or sleep on Bart if it's not peak rush.

John

Yep. In biz lingo this is called "at will". Which goes both ways, meaning the employee can waltz in one morning and simply quit. Or simply not show up anymore. I had that happen with a tech once, couldn't believe he would throw away an excellent career opportunity this easy. Tried my best to talk him into wising up but it didn't work.

At my first job we had to design the product and then the test set and procedures for that same product. Most of the engineers didn't like that

We usually do. One guy will typically design the electronics, program the FPGA, write the firmware, design the test set, and write the test program and the test procedure. That guy is often me. It would be good to get a test engineer involved, both to share the workload and to keep us on our toes.

We've also thought of hiring a programmer, but that's just too frightening a concept.

John

Why? Aren't you the FPGA programmer?

An experienced test engineer might be a worthwhile acquisition. However, I think its a good idea for design engineers to rotate through test engineering duties. It gives them an awareness of design weaknesses and provides feedback for process improvement.

Needless to say, one doesn't assign the same engineer to design and test one product or component.

Actually, I've never got around to learning the Xilinx tools. I just draw the logic I want on a piece of paper and give it to someone else to implement, either one of my guys here or a couple of consultants. Seems to work.

John

At such moments a contract is very usefull to prevent people from taking steps they may regret later. Besides, the "you're fired!" sword of Damocles sometimes makes it difficult to deal with US companies. Nobody dares to make a decision. Everything even silly things a tech over here can decide for himself seems to go through endless committies and meetings so apparently in the end no one can be traced / blamed / fired if something goes wrong.

Strange. My experience with British and French companies is the exact opposite... they take forever to get anything done. The "I can't be fired" attitude is hardly conducive to responsible behavior. The guys we work with in Ireland are pretty good; you can have a 10-minute teleconference with them and get things decided. Limited statistics, I admit. The US aerospace companies are amazing; almost everybody is competant, decisive, and nice.

No sane employer would fire people who make good decisions. And no sane employer would expect anyone to be right 100% of the time. And no sane employer would *not* fire an incurable screwup.

Job mobility, one consequence of layoffs and firings, breaks up the static friction in the system and lets people find better fits to their skills. Being fired from the Chief Engineer position of a pretty big company was the best thing that ever happened to me, and the reason I own my own company now.

John