This is a series I do over at Battlemouth and it fits perfectly here so I’ll be adding the posts here as well.

This one is definitely a rant. I like to keep my options open when it comes to work as I am sure most of us do. So I tend to send my resumes out and go on interviews and see what happens. What’s the worst that could happen? I don’t get the job. Not a huge deal right now. That being said let’s get into some examples.

#1. Last week I saw an ad for a company that was looking for a couple web designers. They’re local so I thought I’d send in my resume and portfolio just like they asked. This was last Monday. It’s now almost the end of the second week and I’ve heard nothing from the company. I sent a follow up email the other day just touching base with them and letting them know if they have any questions to feel free to call me, etc. Still nothing. A bit ridiculous if you ask me. If the position has been filled have the common courtesy to email the people who have contacted you and let them know. Not a hard thing to do and it takes about 2 minutes.

#2. At another site I work with I lead a team of people and send out one or two emails a week. You’d think that I’d hear back from the team with responses or at least something saying “I got the email, don’t have time to read it now but I will respond when I do read it over.” Yeah, no. Never happens. I literally had to send out a follow up email asking people to respond so I could make sure people are getting my emails. This is terribly sad.

What has happened to email? People just don’t use it anymore I guess? It’s discouraging when you’re trying to either contact someone, apply for a job or help run a website and noone gets back to you.

My message to you all: If someone send you an email do your level best to at least acknowledge them. It’ll make a world of difference in the end.

I’ve been able to meet a lot of great people of all walks of life and many of them I wanted to be able to share with the world. Enter The Fives. The Fives is project to help us all see that there is more to a person than just their appearance. No this isn’t just for geeks and tech junkies. It’s for everyone. You could be walking down the street and stop someone and ask them these 5 canned questions and go from there. I’ve been super excited about this project ever since I first heard about it and am stoked to be able to be a part of it.

Have skype?
Have ichat?
Have a webcam?

Then I definately think we should talk!

Feel free to comment here and I’ll be in touch ASAP!

Today I was going through my feeds and came across a post from Mashable! about a new program/startup called SocialU and how Mashable! readers were able to get some beta access to this shiny new toy. So me being attracted to all things shiny immediately went over and downloaded the program and attempted to wrap my head around it.

Initial thoughts? It’s heavy. I’m running a new mac book (blackbook) with the ram maxed, etc and it ran sluggishly. So right off the bat SocialU was starting to strike out. The create account interface was intuitive, I’ll give them that. So I went through the process of creating my account, confirmation and finally access! woohoo. So I then headed to my network area and checked out all the services they “support”. There was no way for me to add my username anywhere on them so how in gods name was I to be found on the networks? On top of that you earn “money” weekly to buy virtual goods with and the system also values your networth. I think I’ll pass on that epeen stroking contest.

Needless to say the UI doesn’t hold up either. It’s ugly. I’m sorry it just is. Being slammed by an entire right side of Ads is ridiculous. There are better ways to insert ads and obviously these folks have no fucking clue how to do it. The interface reminds me of late 90s geoshitties websites. I’m not a fan, can you tell?

I won’t be using this program ever again unless they clean up their act. Quite frankly it was one of the most pretentious and arrogance promoting programs I’ve ever downloaded.

SocialU: It’s all about You…that’s right. It’s all about me uninstalling you.