My dad’s resume and skills from 1980 • Hacker News Board

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#231

Post by walshemj » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:07 PM UTC

Ultimatt wrote: post #213

astura wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in silicon valley startups, but not in most places. Honestly. >I used to work at Ball and was pushed out for complaining about every single face in every single meeting being white I doubt that's why you were "pushed out..." Or maybe "complaining" was not done in a constructive manner. (My uncle thinks he gets "pushed out" of all the jobs he's ever had because of some silly reason like this[1] but it's actually…

Silicone is the stuff of shower sealant and plastic surgery. Silicon is the thing embeded circuits are made of. FWIW. The idea of a silicone valley did make me smile though, thanks for that.

You might not know but that term is used (slightly jokingly) by the porn industry

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#232

Post by bdcravens » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:08 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #190

astura wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My college ID was also SSN. IIRC My husband's first military ID had his SSN on it too.

My first driver’s license had my SSN on it as my DL#.

Mine too (Oklahoma, 1998)

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#233

Post by jrumbut » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:09 PM UTC

m12k wrote: post #80

drmpeg wrote: post #64

Looks like his SSN is crossed out. I was cleaning out some junk in my house and found an old telephone directory from when I worked at a military contractor in the 80's. It had everyones SSN on it. Times have changed.

In the meantime a whole bunch of organizations started accepting 'usernames' as passwords

I don't think this should be voted down, the SSN was originally designed as a sort of username for tracking earnings, before anyone realized how important it would be to have a password.

An SSN was not designed to be a unique secret identifier held by every individual. But we have used it that way, and built a house of cards on it.

"In 1938, a leather factory in Lockport, New York attempted to capitalize on the excitement around the country’s newly-formed social insurance program by tucking duplicate Social Security cards into its wallets. Company vice president and treasurer Douglas Patterson thought it would be cute to use the actual Social Security number of his secretary, Hilda Schrader Whitcher.

Real Social Security cards had just begun circulating the year before, so many Americans were confused. Even though the display card was marked "specimen" and sold at Woolworth’s, more than 40,000 people adopted Hilda’s number as their own. According to the Social Security Administration, no fewer than 12 people were still using their Woolworth’s-issued SSN in 1977."

https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/26/3384416/social-security-n...

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#234

Post by _uhtu » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:10 PM UTC

booleandilemma wrote: post #214

Wow, a resume from an era when programming was a respectable job, instead of the circus of group interviews, take home tests, whiteboard tests, and non-stop emails from this new class of people whose sole job it is to find programmers jobs. Before hiring managers asked you if you’re familiar with agile, SOA, TDD, microservices, BDD, Domain Driven Design and that JavaScript framework that came out last year. What a di…

If tech was just look at a resume and decide to hire or not people would hate that even more than modern complicated forms of interviewing.

There's flaws in the ways a lot of companies hire, but the process has to be complicated when you get down to the numbers of how many people are for hire and how many are worth hiring.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#235

Post by ksherlock » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:10 PM UTC

Footkerchief wrote: post #221

uvee wrote: post #217

That font looks lovely, what would be closest alternative I could find today to make my editor look that way? Not even sure what I should be googling for.

Monospaced fonts, especially: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courier_(typeface)

It's not Courier, though. Similar, but the g and numerals are different.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#236

Post by TimTheTinker » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:12 PM UTC

MaggieL wrote: post #108

mbrock wrote: post #14

Contemporary programmer: spends a whole weekend tweaking CSS parameters, asking web forums for LaTeX templates, finding a cool fresh font pairing on Google Fonts. 1980s programmer: sits down at the typewriter and bangs out a fixed width table, finishes with a signature.

Real 1980s programmer: sits down at IBM 3278 mainframe terminal, edits resume into text file containing DCF/Script markup. Prints mailing copies on IBM 3800 laser printer using typewriter font, hoping operations staff running printer doesn't notice (unlikely considering speed printer runs at). --signed, real 1980s programmer (also 1970s programmer, 1990s programmer, 2000s programmer, 2010s programmer) current resume…

I can see why a real programmer might have favored the typewriter: computer time and printer ink (esp. laser) were expensive and normally reserved for business-related jobs.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#237

Post by ilaksh » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:13 PM UTC

zerr wrote: post #166

el_don_almighty wrote: post #120

Your dad was an American hero, please thank him for all his hard work on my behalf. Men like him built this country by living their lives and raising their children. I'm sure he wasn't perfect, but he's still your dad and I'm sorry you've moved him to a home. Please take good care of him.

Yes, that sounds strange to me - the family of two generations programmers can't afford in-house nursing? I can't imagine putting my parents or grannies in "home" unless I am really poor.

I am pretty sure my siblings may not appreciate my discussing our business in public, but just to be clear. My sister and I have been living in his house for the past six months in order to care for him. It had become increasingly difficult to feed or move him because of his dementia and things like compression fractures in his back. After I was unable to get him out of bed last week we decided we were no longer qualified or able to do it. The place he is in now has a lot of experience and it seems like they do not have difficulties. Also there is a bit of a community there which is good.

There is not enough money left over of my dad's to pay for two experienced people or actual nurses to be here for the amount of time needed and pay the mortgage at the same time. A few of his children have dedicated quite a lot of time or money, but for those helping and for others, money is usually already allocated to their own families.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#238

Post by copperx » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #70

ak39 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's more than the romance of the ink that is missed. One has lost the visual impact of all discards with the use of the virtual trashcan. The psychology of seeing or the stark visual impact of a trashcan filled to the brim with all the imperfect and therefore discarded attempts of one's creative effort is lost - almost forever. These were the metrics of effort now untenable in the virtual trashcan. Gone. Who kno…

I really have no idea what you're talking about. I absolutely hated paper. The inconvenience of wanting to add some content higher up the page and having to redo the whole page to achieve that was infuriating to me. I for one am quite pleased that I no longer have as many violent urges when I'm composing text.

Typewriters weren't the right tool for composing text, although there were some successful people that made it work, especially at offices or newspapers.

Knuth still does use a pencil and paper, as far as I know. He only types the manuscript in Emacs once he has composed it.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#239

Post by reachtarunhere » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

lev99 wrote: post #182

ObsoleteNerd wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, my resume to this day is still this style. I'm around 40, been in various forms of IT since end of high school. My resume has never been more than a bullet point list of my skills, and my experience. I've gotten almost every job I've applied for based on that + the interview. The few I haven't gotten, weren't because of the resume (I've always asked why, so I could improve).

If you get every job you ask for maybe you are aiming too low.

That's an interesting argument. I am just starting out as a fresh grad. I applied to three places and got into all three. I did pretty much the same things when trying to land up internships. Maybe, I should try being more ambitious.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#240

Post by swozey » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:20 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #218

Ultimatt wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicone is the stuff of shower sealant and plastic surgery. Silicon is the thing embeded circuits are made of. FWIW. The idea of a silicone valley did make me smile though, thanks for that.

I rely on auto correct/auto fill too much... On a related note... I hate that every time I put ID it gets "corrected" to "I'd."

It'd be nice if there were tailored dictionaries you could use in your spell checkers. Like injecting the Doctor/Lawyer/Engineer dictionary so that you don't sit there fighting with your phone to get some acronym to properly post.