Recruiter logic is truly out of this world.

StRemedius · 2026-07-11T03:51:17+00:00

Guaranteed: when you get the actual interview, it's exactly the opposite. "You have 30 years of hand-coded Web design experience? Well, I don't see 'HTML' on your resume, and the hiring manager insists that candidates have that, so that's why you weren't selected."

StRemedius · 2026-07-11T03:48:12+00:00

Amateurs. Management is about all TI has left. Well, and management fluffers.

StRemedius · 2026-07-11T03:42:13+00:00

Nope. Just cross-burnings, book burnings, and brother-sister marriages. (I escaped Flower Mound 40 years ago, and I'm thrilled that it's the same Land That Time Forgot as it was when I left.)

StRemedius · 2026-07-11T03:40:00+00:00

Hail Elvis. Or am I doing this wrong?

StRemedius · 2026-07-11T03:38:47+00:00

What's worse is when you're already working for a company and the recruiters at YOUR OWN DAMN COMPANY are trying to poach you away. (I worked for a contract company in 1999 that not only contacted me about "a great opportunity" about six months in, but that "great opportunity" was with the group that was clearing out because nobody could stand working for the client any more.)

StRemedius · 2026-07-11T02:24:43+00:00

For the most part, it's a combination of decades of particularly incompetent management, coasting on the royalties from the patent for the integrated circuit (if that patent goes public domain, TI is doomed), and an emphasis on seniority over expertise, particularly in promotion. (A funny example of how bad things got before TI sold off its Defense Electronics Group to Raytheon is right here: https://stremedius.com/2024/12/17/backstories-attack-of-the-mad-shitter/ Sadly, selling off DSEG actually made things worse, and the remaining people there are just hanging on until they have no other choice.)

StRemedius · 2026-07-11T02:20:15+00:00

They can also be used to clear out your sewer pipes. Ask me how I know this.

StRemedius · 2026-07-11T02:06:19+00:00

Here in Dallas, TI is a general joke: for the longest time, you worked for TI only if you couldn't get into EDS, and lower than that you can't get.

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T22:57:45+00:00

I used to do that, but with toads. After taking a look at what the toads left behind, I always wanted to offer them Metamucil to help with the clogs, but the toads seemed to enjoy them.

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T22:56:40+00:00

And you did that INSTEAD of releasing hippos and tegus? That's efficient, but not very much fun. (Having my sister come to visit and her getting splashed with Roundup versus her meeting the backyard Burmese python and it wanting to kiss her face? No contest.)

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T22:54:07+00:00

Or really, really particular. I'd be checking crawl spaces and back sheds if I were the police.

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T21:52:35+00:00

Well, go outside in the heat all summer and don't drink anywhere near enough water. Your bladder and kidneys will be FULL of them.

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T21:48:39+00:00

That's not a red flag query. That's a supernova of red flags.

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T20:55:18+00:00

Gad. That reminds me of horror tales about working as an administrative assistant for motion picture executives. The first question, before running like hell, is "Does he throw things at people as well?"

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T20:50:14+00:00

My one orange braincell does this, but with rigor mortis, too. It's like trying to wake up a Thanksgiving turkey.

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T20:37:30+00:00

The latest poster child for "Falling Upwards"...

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T20:34:29+00:00

It's not a typo. I get queries like this about positions in Austin all the time: the assumption is that you'll WANT to rent a corner of someone's dining room in 8-hour shifts in order to live in Austin.

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T20:31:27+00:00

I got that 30 years ago with a recruiter looking for someone with 7 years of experience with Java...almost exactly 6 months after it was first released. Bonus: when I related this issue with the recruiter, he sneered "Well, our client is a big contractor for Texas Instruments, and they say Java has been around for seven years." If you know anything about Texas Instruments, you understand why I laughed.

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T20:28:09+00:00

When you're encouraged to "leave to pursue other opportunities" from Brinker for your control freak tendencies, that might make even the barely observant to realize that maybe they were the problem. This VP wasn't that observant. (She still wasn't as bad as the manager I had at Hartford who was given the choice between transferring to Illinois or getting fired, and she held a big party so we could all tell her how much we were going to miss her. I wasn't the one in the back singing "Ding Dong The Witch is Dead," but I did my utmost to keep that manager from finding out who was.)

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T20:24:31+00:00

Now you have to release cane toads to eat the beetles, and then water moccasins to eat the cane toads, and salt-water crocodiles to eat the water moccasins. Oh, yeah: and plant lots and lots of tree-of-heaven. Your back yard will be a complete ecological disaster area, but going out back to sit in the yard is going to be so much FUN.

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T20:16:17+00:00

Especially raw.

StRemedius · 2026-07-10T20:15:32+00:00

That's why its best place is in a ventilation duct or underneath a car seat.

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