Humans Apparently Do not Exist

 This will be an extremely short rant.  We do our banking with a local Federal Credit union and have done so for 30+ years.  The other day I thought I needed an answer to a very simple questions.  I could not find it anywhere on their website.  AI could not provide me the answer.  So I called.  What do I get an IVR system.  No matter what I did I could not get a human on the phone.  I went back to their website and I thought I will engage with their chat bought.  I could not find my answer.  I asked to speak to a human.  The AI Bot give me the same 2 F'n phone numbers I have been calling.  I hit 0.  "Invalid option".  Speak to an agent?  Invalid option

I know from my experiences AI chat bots can offer some useful information.  Typically when I need human interaction I get connected to a human.  WTF bank!  Can you please put a path via chat or IVR to let me speak to a HUMAN.

Long and short of it is that I did not even need the information I was seeking.  Panic and frustration was unwarranted. 🤦

USPS Get your @%&& Together

 Numerous times our wonderful USPS delivers packages to our shared community set of mail boxes.  What the folks fail to realize is that the side they put packages in is larger than the side we take our packages out.

Take a look at these two photos.

I had to crush my fingers and use my keys to get this package out of our mail box.  My lovely wife has complained numerous times and shared photos very similar to these with USPS.  Unfortunately, it was my turn to experience this frustrating situation.

Anyone else have this problem?  Has anyone successfully convinced USPS that this is a problem?

Friendly complaints fall up deaf ears at USPS.  USPS please get your **** together and do better by your customers.

The Next Chapter

 This post will ultimately end in great news but permit me to share my experience.  This is likely a bit of a long rant until I get to the great news.

Empathy - In August my role was terminated at a dynamic startup led by great people.  I know these leaders well and they were having to make extremely tough decisions, which they should be commended for. I am glad I was not in their shoes. The CEO helped me change careers 25 years ago and hired me at 4 different companies.  I wish the company nothing but success.

Confusion - Jobless, I faced a huge internal and emotional debate.  Should I retire or continue to work?  I was leaning towards retirement because there is a tough IT market out there.  I became a Players Assistant at a local golf course, which would help me afford the sport that I love.  I work with some amazing people and I hope to continue this relationship.  I had resolved to myself that I had to retire

Anger - Next is the eye opener!!!  Paying for health insurance in the United States of America is astronomically expensive.  For two people we landed at around $1500 per month, through healthcare.gov only to learn that in 2026 this figure is expected to double.  Wow!  There is no way to live in retirement paying ~$40K/year for health insurance.  The insurance cost alone made me realize that it is not yet time to stop working.  This could be an entire rant by itself, but I shall spare you.

Turmoil - I applied for about 100 opportunities all potentially aligned to my skills and passions.  The software used to apply for these roles in some cases is absolutely atrocious.  With my 20+ years focusing on software testing this experience was tedious and even heart breaking at times.  I am going to call them out this time, but Workday’s ability to parse a resume accurately is not a good experience.  It was so bad that I stopped selecting that option and leveraged cut & paste into the forms.  Form field validation was also a negative experience.  Blocking an advancement in the flow because my first and last name was all in caps.  Wow!  Out of all of those applications I landed 2 interviews.  The people who interviewed me were great, but I was starting to lose faith.  Roughly 60% of the applications were rejected, stating they are going with another candidate.  The other 40% resulted in silence.

In addition to considering retirement, I am eligible for Medicare in January 2026.  Navigating government website implementations requires a Law Degree, a Phd in English, and at least a Masters in Computer Science.  Government websites are the definition of complexity and extremely poor quality.  Trying to get help via a phone call is also a nightmare.  The complexity is so real.  

I also chose to apply for unemployment.  That is another tragic tale of crappy implementations of software, poor quality, and over complication.  For example one week I applied to 8 jobs then the next week I applied to zero, because I was preparing with laser focus on upcoming interviews.  Even with the preparation I totally blew one of the interviews, but I learned.  I would not be paid for the week with zero applications.   The Texas Workforce commission seems to think all jobs are created equal.  The system would send me jobs that were  nowhere close to my experience.  Ugghhh!

During one of the interviews I found my slipping back in the habit of responding to a question without thorough and complete thought.  I did learn from this!

Grateful -  Over my career I now realize that I have been fortunate to meet so many people.  Colleagues and friends emerged selflessly to offer their support.  Thank you!

One of my mentors aligned me to a part time consulting opportunity, which truly helped us not go deep into our savings during this trying time.  

A friend helped me land the Players Assistant opportunity at a local golf course. 

One of my colleagues went to the moon for me, advocating that their company needed to fill a gap in their engineering practice.  Without this person I would not be able to make the announcement below.  

Former coworkers in the recruiting profession also went to bat for me.  Your expertise, your effort, and your guidance was appreciated.

One final note to everyone who gave words of encouragement or added an emoji to a statement made on LinkedIn.  You inspired me in many ways.   I was inspired to reread The Phoenix Project.  I am also reading “CTO The Toolbox” by Sergio Gago Huerta.  And I am excited to learn from a new book all testers and engineers should add to the library, “Taking Testing Seriously” by James Bach and Michael Bolton.  I was in a mental place where I had given up on looking for a job.  Reading these books got me re-engaged.

Blessed -  I am extremely happy to say I am not retiring.  Instead I am super excited to embark on a new adventure as a Senior Staff SEI Platform Lead (SEI = Software Engineering Intelligence) at Cloudera.  This role aligns perfectly to the things I have been learning over the past 5-7 years.  Interviewing with company leaders at Cloudera was amazing.  These were true dialogues.  They were transparent, which was refreshing.  I am excited to knock this opportunity out of the park.

One more time THANK YOU!  

To all of my friends and colleagues still looking for their next opportunity and adventure, please do not give up.  If I can help in any way contact me.  There is a path forward!

Evil People are Lurking

 It is hard to believe that my last musing was in 2020.  I have a ton on mind these days and need an outlet for expressing my thoughts so I am resurrecting this obscure little blog post.

Here is why I say "Evil People are Lurking".  I recently was suddenly pushed into the world of unemployment.  The state of how bad the tooling is for applying for jobs could be written in a book, but I want to share one mistake I inadvertently made.

Having applied to dozens of jobs I have been on pins and needles waiting for replies.  I got this very basic email about scheduling an interview.  I opened it!  As Pop Evil sings "Let the Chaos Reign!".  I now get dozens of emails daily of absolute bullshit.  It has become impossible to sift through the reality and the scammers.

In this day and age why can we not stop this random spamming.  My conclusion is that I opened pandora's box, and the evil people are now trying to do something nefarious.   

If anyone at all reads this, my lesson to you is do not open emails that are not clear as to the intent.  Good luck, because it is hard to discern the difference.  Protect yourselves as best as you can.

One other piece of advise is if you do become unemployed please think seriously about adding the #OpenToWork tag on your LinkedIn profile.  In this case people mean well, but you get a ton of people trying to sell you services (e.g. - resume optimization, career coaching).  I am unemployed and not likely to spend precious money on these services.

Enjoy the day!

If I Were President (Final Post)

Sadly, I have not posted since April.  I can adamantly say that I am going to stop this series. The primary reason is that I would not want the job of such a dysfunctional country.  Hopefully, I can pivot back to posting about fun things like poker, golf, puppies, or music.  Politics make me angry and I do not need anger in my life.

During this Covid-19 stay at home situation, it has become glaringly obvious to me that our two-party system is extremely flawed and enables polarization.  We will always be in the situation of having to choose the lesser of two evils.  We need to shift to a Preferential Voting strategy.  Do your homework if you want to know more.  Several states have shifted to this strategy.

I was playing golf last weekend. Two strangers, I played golf with brought up elections.  Their answer was to vote republican then we will figure things out.  To me, that is a clear signal of how divided we are.

I will restate that I have not voted for either of the two primary parties in the past 20 years.  Since I turned 18 years old and could vote I have voted in every election.  Bullwinkle the Moose will likely be my write-in candidate.  The sad news is that if I throw away my vote we will still have an incompetent leader elected as the POTUS.  Honestly, I am not sure what I am going to do, but I will vote.

The other thing that has me so disillusioned is declaring essentially declaring Marshall Law on cities that are lead by the opposite party.  Insanely poor leadership!

I am attempting to become more aware of Inclusion and Diversity.  I am reading some really thought-provoking books, White Fragility by Robin Deangelo and How to Be An Antiracist by Dr. Kendi.  I am almost done with White Fragility.  I think the biggest take away for me is that the game is rigged.  I used to equate the term White supremacy to organizations like KKK.  The book has made me realize it is much broader than that.  

White Fragility will be discussed this evening by a group of esteemed panelists at Southwestern University.

I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Kendi speak and I was inspired to read his book based on the dialog.

I committed to listening to some podcasts delivered by "people of color".  Unfortunately, my first podcast has me asking more questions.  I was listening to Friends Like Us podcast specifically episode called All that Disparity and Inequality.  I enjoyed the energy and the conversation, but Marina the host made a comment that the "White man is the Devil".  I can only hope that this generalization has more context related to one of the comedians' stand-ups.  I sent Marina an email, but sadly no reply.  Based on my reading this is probably a legit sentiment, but I personally do not find statements like that to add value to the conversation.  It is a polarizing statement.  I hope Marina responds to my email.  I could learn so much from her and her humorous friends.  I will continue to listen to the podcast because as the books above the conversation makes me think.  Update:  Since I posted this I watched some of Marina's comedy on YouTube.  She is hilarious!  

Then once again I was following some current events.  Once again the media does us a huge disservice when they reported the Memphis story where parents dropped off 300 children at a miniature golf course.  The photos I observed seem to imply that is was a racial issue.  This could be my bias showing through. I am trying to work on my biases, but my trust in the media is so low that I wanted to know more. 

Regardless, I will continue my learning journey.  I will do my best to assume positive intent on everything I watch, read, or listen to.  

If I were President (Covid-19 Part 2)

I never thought I would get anxiety going for groceries.  So much as changed in the past 45 days or so.  I thought I would write weekly and continue this post and share perspectives on some of the tough things in our world like abortion, immigration, and health insurance.  Now I am not sure I will ever get to those posts nor if I want to spend the time writing those posts.

What have I learned since Covid-19? 

I started watching a Netflix series called Dirty Money.  I honestly had no clue how fucking corrupt our world really is.  I suspect the series is relatively truthful, but I honestly do not know.  Just the thought of what some of these people do to make money is disturbing.  A co-worker called out I was not setting a great tone during a virtual happy hour.  He was right, but these acts are shocking.  The episode on Guardianship absolutely broke me.

We also watched another series called "Broken".  As a former Environmental Chemist, I was appalled by the business tactics represented in this series.  A great documentary series but again highlights the evil in our world today.

These documentaries set the stage.

The United States (maybe the world) is so polarized that I am not sure we will ever recover.  As of today, I have decided I must stop using Facebook so frequently.  I may look once a week to see positive things, but even the diverse people I call friends have so much angst.    Especially when it comes to politics.  Family members are not even willing to have a deep conversation on topics.  There is such an "I (we) are right" and "you (y' all) are wrong" mindset.  I deleted the Facebook app from my phone. I am considering the same action for Twitter and Slack.  The always-on aspect of the digital age is starting to take a toll on me.

Special interests, corruption, and pure greed rule the day.  When it comes to Congress passing bills there are always contingencies that have nothing to do with the problem at hand.  The attitude seems to be I will sign the bill if you do this for me.   Oh wait, then you need to do that too.

Our economic system appears to be so fragile.  I would never imagine a virus would bring a global economy to its knees in such short order.  Our world is made up of monopoly money and we simply grab another game set to increase the amount.  Our daughter lost her first job that she absolutely loved.  She is heartbroken and so are we.  Millions of people are now unemployed and there is no money to support them all.  I am blessed to still be employed, but I am not happy.  Some talented people are now struggling to find their next opportunity.  Again this breaks my heart because they are great people.  I would like to try something new, but fear gets in the way.  Will we have good insurance to support our illnesses and age?  Will taking the risk of change generate enough income to at least sustain what we do today?  Probably a third of the retirement savings vanished.  I am afraid to look.  I would love to retire in 10 years, but I do not see it happening.  Under the current conditions, there is most likely a higher probability I will not make it to retirement.

People are hungry and some are unable to get food.  Covid-19 has exposed how vulnerable the food supply chain truly is.  I am eating less healthy than I should.  I used to walk at least 4 days per week, but now the motivation is hard to muster and I am lucky to go twice per week.  When I do go for a walk I hope I do not encounter other humans.  I do not like wearing a mask.  I do say good morning or Hi when I encounter others.

I am trying to remain positive, but when I glance at the future the only choices I see are not good.  I used to view politicians as role models and today they are the total opposite.  Social media and the general media cannot be trusted.  We are left to our own processing of data to form any sense of the madness.  What fucking sources do we trust?  I trust none of them. 

At the end of the day, I know what I stand for and what I have accomplished in life.  I am proud of these accomplishments and the family we have fostered.  I feel I could go on and on and on.  I will end with this.  Everyone should do at least one kind thing a day. 

I am starting to get lost.

If I Were President ( COVID-19 )

Based on my outline of topics this was certainly not present in the draft outline.  The first guide to all of the people is to be safe and respectful of others.

As President, the first thing to do is to assemble the most brilliant doctors and scientists to develop the right strategy for our country.  Based on limited reading this did not appear to happen.

In general, I struggle with the First Amendment as it pertains to potential national emergencies.  As the COVID-19 news broke there seemed to be so much misleading information in haste to get the news out.  The public seems confused and that should not happen.  The other negative is immediately the blame game emerged.  Depending on the media source there was finger-pointing at both primary parties.  I support the First Amendment, but I would welcome the opportunity to go back in time when facts and integrity were foundational to the news we receive.  Despite the news source, the facts should be the facts.  Speculation and sensationalism bring little value when we are facing a global problem.  I am truly perplexed on how a President, Government, or Society can correct this news ship.  I will have to come back to this concern in a future post.

For the past few months, I have been diligently studying resiliency as applied to software.  The one primary lesson for me is that in order to get a deep understanding of an incident is we must be blameless.  The term blameless seems to have become a cliche, but it is really true.  COVID-19 is an international incident and the world should inspect deeply all of the things that have emerged.  I thought humans were naturally resilient, but human factors are as complex as our biological chemistry.  It is perplexing that many times the first thing that happens is to blame.  We should form a strategy to mitigate the problem, then analyzing deeply what happened and what could change for the better.

I am puzzled by some of the human factors during this Global Incident.  Specifically the panic purchasing and the hoarding of goods.  This is a psyche that I do not understand.  Are we truly a global "me" society and not a "we" society.  I think this is the most disturbing aspect of the human factors influencing the COVID-19.  As a society are we going to instrument circuit breakers for groceries similar to the stock market.  I am going to have to talk with many people with varying views on this topic to better understand the psyche.  I am certain I have some sort of bias, but I am confident if I needed help some of my human networks would come to aid.  I hope those people who hoarded items, even fought over items, reflect on their actions.

If I were President, we would have to assemble strong business leaders to craft a strategy to help those who cannot work from home and temporarily would be without wages.  I would encourage businesses to continue to pay their employees so that we can survive this Pandemic. 

If I were President, I would have to thank everyone around the globe who is manning the hospitals.  Everyone who has chosen to self-quarantine.  All businesses that quickly took action with work from home policies to flatten the spread of this virus.  All of the experts who produced consumable data and facts that make sense.  All of the individuals who were disciplined and purchased what was needed.

Be kind to all!