Congress Threatens to Leave D.C. Unless New Capitol is Built

"How many times can you put a fresh coat of paint over an old, broken-down horse?" asked Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), co-chair of the Senate Relocation Subcommittee. "We need a building that befits our status as the nation's number-one democratically elected legislative body. And if D.C. isn't willing to provide that, I can think of plenty of other cities that would be more than happy to."

  

IT Workers' Skills Tested

C&W is among a growing number of companies that are presenting employees—both new hires and long-standing company fixtures—with such lists of mandatory tests.... [Y]ou have five months to complete them all. Oh, and you'd best make time to complete them after work hours. After all, there's actual work to be done from 9 to 5 (or 6 or 7).

OK, let's review the assumptions they make here:

1. Workers all need to have the same set of skills
2. Technical people are strongly motivated by money
3. The ability to pass tests of this kind corellates to job competency
4. Technical people are motivated by competing with one another
5. Employee growth should be mandated, controlled, and measured

Do I have comments about these assumptions? You bet I do!

1. Workers all need to have the same set of skills

Anyone who's read Peopleware will understand that all workers don't need all skills. I have a strong intermediate knowledge of SQL, and when I'm working on a SQL problem, my skills ramp up. In a team environment, I might well hand all of the SQL work off to the SQL expert and call it good. I have very little interest in expanding my SQL knowledge any further and to force me to learn without a compelling reason would just frustrate me. Everyone's different.

2. Technical people are strongly motivated by money

Geeks are primarily motivated by cool technologies, difficult (but not impossible) challenges, and fun toys. We tend to be introverts and as such usually aren't strongly externally motivated.

3. The ability to pass tests of this kind corellates to job competency

I test well. I got my first Microsoft certification in 1996. I spent about 4 hours going through the study guide the night before and brushed up mostly on the technical details they considered important, but which had never come up in real life. Result? Passed with flying colors. Result? Something new for my resume, that's all.

When I worked at Microsoft, I never heard a single word about certification. Programmers and their managers couldn't have cared less. I took a fair number of the internal courses for fun, but until I applied it to my work, no one cared.

The two key concepts: (a) "for fun" and (b) "applied it to my work".

4. Technical people are motivated by competing with one another

You want to build a team that works well together on projects, not a group of individuals that competes against one another on tasks that have essentially nothing to do with their work. That said, training up on different technologies can really help build up team skills and morale, but you need to do it as a team, and for a very good and specific reason. Then the different individuals can follow their individual interests within a technology and share their findings with the team.

5. Employee growth should be mandated, controlled, and measured

I grow my skills when I need to for a project or when I'm excited about a technology. There are times when there's nothing I'd rather do in the evening than read a book about Zope, or PostgreSQL. Other times, I'd rather be at Milo or Ella's ballgame. It makes sense, after we learn something, we need to integrate that knowledge into what we knew before. Learn then digest, learn then digest. Don't make me learn the things that you think are important at the pace that you consider appropriate.

via (permalinkless) [H]

  

Money on the wire

My mother's completing her real estate transaction today -- the homestead's about to be sold. Because of the arcana of Section 1031 exchanges, she needed to borrow cash to consumate the deal. Yes, she's the seller, not the buyer! We do crazy things to defer taxes.

She asked me to lend her some money. As a compliant and loving son, I immediately agreed. Easy, right? Go to my broker and wire it to her account. Wrong. No go. Since 9/11, they've clamped down on wire transfers. I can wire money just fine to my account, since it has my name on it, but I can't transfer it to my mom's account. And my broker, for some reason, can't cut a certified check. They'll give me a desk check, but it's hand-written and the banks want to hold those babies for a week, which won't help her this afternoon.

Compounding the complication: I need a cashier's check to buy the new car today. I had enough in my checking account for one of these transactions, but not both.

Reasoning that blood is thicker than used cars, I prioritized my Mom's money higher than the car. I made sure that they wouldn't put a hold on the funds at my Mom's bank, got the cashier's check for that, and made the deposit. Phew.

Now back to the brokerage and time to get some money wired into our checking account. This does not happen immediately, I learn. If you do it early enough, the funds should be there between 1 and 2pm Pacific Time. That cuts it close, but it could work.

They have a special form for everything, right? Not for wire transfers. They want you to write it out by hand:

"Please transfer xxx dollars from our joint brokerage account number xxxx to our joint checking account at xxx bank (routing number: xxx, account number: xxx)."

[Don't tell anyone, but I forged Sondra's signature on the form, since I needed both of them. I used a different pen, which is probably a dead giveaway. I do a good enough impression of Sondra's scrawly autograph that they took it.]

After I penned and forged the order, they fax it to their wire transfer department and make sure that everything looks good. Luckily it did.

Then I had to call the woman I'm buying the car from to reschedule our meeting time, since 2pm was before they guaranteed the funds would show up. I didn't have her phone number handy and she was scheduled to catch a ferry to Seattle in 20 minutes. I made a ton of calls from the brokerage, but Sondra wasn't answering, so I called Christopher and had him look the number up from the classified listing.

All tolled, this took me an hour and fifteen minutes (and I still need to get a cashier's check after 2). I spoke directly with five different people and they consulted at least four others to figure out how to make this work. And I was tremendously lucky since my bank and broker are in the same building and my mom's bank has a branch across the street. It would have taken much longer if my travel time had consisted of more than waiting for elevators and lights.

And guess what? With Paypal this would have taken about 5 minutes at my computer. I even considered using it, but they have been known to freeze accounts for transfers in the five figure range, which would have caused a bit of havoc.   

Jewish Conspiracy FAQ

2. How are Jews different from ordinary folks?

Although there are certainly individual variations, Jews are in general far superior in every way to their ary*n counterparts. Jews are more intelligent and enjoy a much higher level of cultural and moral character than mere "goyim." (All one has to do to confirm this is to examine the propaganda issued by ary*n organizations. They clearly state that we Jews, a tiny minority, have virtually taken over every major institution on the face of the earth. Although the ary*n attempts to put a different spin on it, their own words clearly indicate us to be superior.) In addition, there is truly no race more compassionate and generous than the Jew, whose charity and felicity are beyond reproach. (In contrast, the ary*n is a vile piker.)

Another area in which Jews excel is in planning and implementing long-term projects which literally span centuries. It is this ability (conspicuously absent in ary*ns) which is at the heart of the Conspiracy's continued success and ultimate victory.

Noble in character, steel-willed in nature, and successful in the extreme, the Jew rises far above the gutter "religion" and "culture" of the filthy ary*n race. In fact, Jews are the highest expression of life to be found on the face of the Earth. Ary*ns are little more than insects in comparison to the nearly God-like characteristics of their Jewish masters.

This led me to check out some domain names here are some that -- suspiciously -- are still available:

• internationaljewishconspiracy.com
• jewishworlddomination.com
• jewsruletheworld.com
• jewishmasters.com
• zionistmasters.com

Already taken domains include

• eldersofzion.com
• thechosenpeople.com (for sale -- of course -- for $10,000)

Here's the text from www.eldersofzion.com:

You would think that the secret cabal that rules the world would have a better web site, wouldn't you?

Click here to pose a question. (Rest assured that the Elders read all emails and respond promptly.)

via LGF