I probably know more about finding a new job or recreating my career than anyone you know. Well, I have a cousin who has also been adaptable from being a musician in the Marines to working with cars and other occupations (in another country as well!) There are a lot of reasons you don't get a job, and it has nothing to do with whether you can do the job. A lot of prospective co-workers feel intimidated by someone like me competing against them for the next promotion. In my last few years in academia, I spent a lot of time being interviewed by faculty with inferior credentials, one which I remember saying the one way I could have written so many papers was shortchanging my students, which he would never do. Arrogant bastard! I just happen to have a prodigious work ethic and no social life. But he was already tenured and held the power to whether I would be offered a campus visit.
After I left academics unable to land a follow-up appointment, I had to struggle; some companies have a philosophy of hiring from within, meaning I would have to work my way up from an entry-level position. Professional recruiters don't trust academic computing experience and worried that I would grab the first chance I had to return to academia. Oh, they wouldn't tell me that--other recruiters would. You name it; in recessions I would cut my asking price, be willing to move, even accept a temp or lower-level DBA position.
I've written this one before: this one power-supply company in RI had recruited me for a full-time position. I accepted an offer from CSC Consulting's National Oracle Practice. I had been gun-shy about consulting since the 2000-2001 recession. My experience since then had been companies wouldn't keep you on the bench if you weren't billing. So I repeatedly asked my prospective boss about the pipeline. He swore up and down his DBA's were overly utilized. So after a temp gig (and this genius hired 2 more DBA's besides me), there were no long-term project roles out there; CSC Consulting's sales guys lost bid after bid after bid. The HR guys are warning me I'm in danger of getting laid off if I don't get my utilization rate up. Finally, a spot opens up for some Apps DBA work (which I had deep experience doing) with a project at a power supply company. This is like a gimme in golf; I mean, the company liked me enough to pursue a full-time hire just weeks earlier. Our project guys are telling me that the project is 2 weeks behind schedule because the client DBA hasn't patched anything. I'm being told to make my return flight arrangement over the Fourth of July weekend because there's a backlog of work to do. There's a team meeting just after my arrival; I get an enthusiastic reception. After the meeting, the account guy motions to me that we need to meet with the client DBA manager, strictly a courtesy, a formality. It's highly unusual; usually clients don't get involved in project staffing; of course, if a consultant doesn't work out (say, unprofessional behavior with a client), all it takes is a phone call or a threat not to approve work hours, and the consultant is gone. I know of one case where an Oakland city accountant, upset that Peoplesoft had lost the contract to Oracle, refused to meet with our HR functional consultant, which affect her ability to turn in deliverables, and she got walked off the project (and maybe lost her job). The informal courtesy call turned into a swerve qualification screen unlike I've ever seen before (and I had been through scores of screens: I'm being directly questioned over experience not on resume, e.g., my experience with Linux (a variant of Unix, which I had extensive experience in 4 major commercial variants (I've done a lot of Linux over the past decade and there are only highly nuanced distinctions, almost none of practical significance), data warehousing (no discussion of this topic). It was like the interview had been devised to exclude my resume. At one point, I finally brought up the Apps project and discussions of patching; the guy coldly cut me off, saying it was a lie; they were all caught up that morning. (At that point, I knew he was an outright liar, because I had just come out of a meeting where it was the biggest point of discussion. It was serious enough I was expected to be working the holiday. What I still don't know is why he was playing this game. Was it some passive-aggressive thing over my spurning their job opportunity?)
So after this screening of questions that seemed deliberately manipulated to exclude me, he tells the account managers that he has no use for my (12-year professional) DBA experience, that he would have to train me to get any use out of me, and he didn't have money to train CSC personnel. (I'm pissed off at this jerk, but as a professional, I have to maintain my composure. And the account guy doesn't even wait until I'm out of the room; he's apologetic for wasting his time in bring some obviously unsuitable consultant, that CSC would take the full hit for my time and expenses, etc. I mean, there were two jerks in the room who sorely deserved getting their asses kicked.) So now I have to cancel my hotel reservations, get a return flight to BWI (which meant waiting 5 hours in a sweltering Providence airport).
I got laid off shortly thereafter, and if you haven't heard this story before, take a wild guess what happened next. Yup, the power supply company recruiters want me. Not a chance in hell. You know, maybe if you guys had made it a nice engagement. In a sense it reminds me of a student project at grad school which my professor mishandled; my project presentation was subsequently sabotaged. So some time after the semester ended, an MBA student sharing my office (along with other DBA students) made it clear Ms. EC was personally interested in me. I don't really get this love/hate thing, but I've never been sexually attracted to jerks; she had burned her bridges.
So you're probably what all this storytelling has to do with anything. Kaepernick, the former SF quarterback, infamous for basically starting the NFL player protest thing over the national anthem, decided to opt out of his contract, and no other team to date has picked him up this season. So a number of "progressives" are crying foul, suggesting that NFL owners are blacklisting him. So a number of supporters are agitating for his hiring, pointing out that he has better experience and stats. I don't happen to share that assessment. His best season was 2012 where SF lost to the Ravens in the Super Bowl. The next year they lost the NFC championship. In 2014 they failed to make the playoffs, and in the last two years he basically lost the starting job as quarterback with sharply lower stats. He was a decent running quarterback with a good arm, but there is a reason he lost the starting job the last two years, why the 49ers had negotiated his contract down to a 2-year/1-year option. Among other things, he had become unhappy since Coach Harbaugh left after 2014, asking to be traded. I seriously doubt he would have opted out of his option year if he knew he would be the starter, and it would not help his negotiating position if he spent much of 2017 on the bench.
So now it's become a politically correct cause: if you don't hire Kaepernick, are you discriminating against him over his notorious anthem protests? I don't think so. But it's become an instant kerfuffle, e.g., when Green Bay star QB Aaron Rodgers went out with an injury, there was a lot of pressure on the head coach to hire Kaepernick vs. his less experienced backup quarterbacks. The coach justifiably points out that his backups know the offense better, etc.
I can't speak for head coaches, but Kaepernick would have had better opportunities if he had exhibited a more consistent performance and better attitude (e.g., requests to be traded). Running quarterbacks are like an injury waiting to happen and may not fit in a team's offense. And a backup quarterback thinking he should be the starter could trigger dissension and bad team morale.
I don't think for a second this is about the anthem protests. If anything, this season it's become ordinary. And some teams, like the old Oakland Raiders, had a reputation of hiring misfits who can bring it. Nothing sells like a winning record, and I have no doubt if an owner thought Kaepernick was the spark to take his team to the Super Bowl, they would hire him.
But really what ticked me off was Seahawk defensive end Michael Bennett, a fellow anthem protester, who seems to regard league employment of Kaepernick as a precondition to talks. He basically thinks Kaepernick is being blacklisted over the anthem.
Goodell reiterated Wednesday that the league does not intend to require players to stand for the anthem. But Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said last week he would not allow any player "being disrespectful to the flag" into a game.
"Even when you think about what Jerry Jones said, I think it's crazy," Bennett said. "I think it's inconsiderate of a person being a human being. It reminded me of the Dred Scott case — you're property, so you don't have the ability to be a person first. And I think that sends the wrong message to young kids and young people all across the world that your employer doesn't see you as a human being, it sees you as a piece of property.The Dallas Cowboys have a reputation for being America's team. Anthem protests have led to boycotts of the league (and I'm one of them); Jones had a right to enforce his players' contractual clauses, say abiding by the NFL's code of conduct; it can adversely affect team revenues. Just like I didn't have a right to act unprofessionally in response to that IT manager's provocative behavior discussed above, players don't have "rights" to engage in unsportsmanlike conduct, intimidate the referees, or treat their coach with disrespect. What the players do on the field reflects on the team and Jones doesn't want to condone disrespectful behavior. If he benches a player, he's not breaking a contract. If a player's performance doesn't cut it, he loses his spot. He's not a "slave"; he can find a construction job or whatever ex-football players do.
"If that's the case, I don't get it. I just don't get why you don't see them as human beings first."
Dred Scott: really? Nobody forced a Dallas Cowboy to sign with Jones. A contract binds both parties to an agreement. Jones is responsible for what his team does on the field. He's not dictating how his players vote or their rights to express opinions (provided they properly disclaim it reflects a position of the Cowboys). If you feel it's more important to disrespect the flag than to play on the field, you can do that and take responsibility for the consequence. Bennett doesn't like that idea, but his personal preferences are not the contract.
