Drinkable Chicken

The Underworked American: Children are exceptions to the country’s work ethic. Yeah, no kidding. There is so much I could say about this…

I’m not sure if the “American work ethic” is so much better than the European one, though. Or at it applies at all here. If this was a matter of work ethic, you’d think that Americans would instill these values into their children. On average, this just doesn’t happen. The general consensus seems to be that it’s OK for kids to be lazy (or to have other vices, for which plenty of excuses are conjured up… but I won’t go into that right now).

The fact that Americans have to work more than Europeans, probably has to do with the way worker movements evolved. In most European countries, these movements fought for better worker rights. In the US, such movements were much weaker or non-existent, so as a result, Europeans tend to have more paid holidays, better unemployment compensation, etc. I think the current situation has more to do with that, than that Americans *like* to work hard.

By contrast, in Asian countries like Japan and Korea, working hard is generally considered “good” and admirable. Over here in the US, the feelings seem to be more mixed. Long work days are just something you have to put up with (mostly because you have no other choice). You can brag about it, but who really is envious?

On a side note, the article claims that “the average American gets only four weeks of paid leave a year”. Who actually gets that? I don’t think I know of a single person here who does. From what I have seen, you should be glad to get any paid vacation at all. But then again I’m in Florida; maybe the situation is better up north or in California.

(Also, I’m not sure about the lengths of the school weeks described here… 60 hours in Sweden? I’ll have to ask around to check if that is true…)

[Disclaimer: The above is simply based on what I've seen and experienced here in the US. And, I'm sure you like to work hard and your kid does too. Great! But I'm talking about the average American here. :-)]

Starting immediately, I am available for part-time or full-time work! Yay! ;-) I’ll repeat last December’s post here, since it still applies. (Resume has been updated since then.)

What are good places nowadays to look for work, if you’re a somewhat experienced Python developer? I mean, aside from the obvious places to look, like the Python Job Board.

Are sites like Monster and Dice still good ways to find work? Are there new players on the field? I haven’t had to look for work in a while, so I’m kind of out of touch.

Any suggestions are welcome… ^_^

Good developers might not need a resume, but I probably do. Here’s the current version.

I am not looking for a job at the moment (although not averse to finding a gig that I would really *enjoy* working on!), so this is a good time to take a critical look at the resume. The last time I solicited comments from readers was in 2003. It’s probably time for another overhaul. My job history may not have changed much, but there are parts that are much less relevant than five years ago. For example, I should probably remove ASP and VBScript. I did work with those, but that was back in 2000, and I have no intention of going back and taking up these “skills” again… so they’re really just dead weight.

Comments are welcome. Obviously I already know that I should trim the fat, but I would be very interested in any other tips.

Also, are sites like LinkedIn useful in any way? I’ve been avoiding such sites, but maybe I’m just stubborn.

For some reason, there’s a shortage of Nintendo DS Lites, at least around here (Florida, Gainesville area). It’s a bit odd… it’s mid-January, not Christmas or something.

Fortunately, thanks to iTrackr, I figured out that the local Target had them, so I landed me a black one. (OK, so that was the only color they had in stock… :-)

Disclaimer: It so happens that I work for iTrackr! ^_^' That doesn’t mean it’s not useful though…