some random thoughts....34 responses total.
I was checking on the status of some stuff I bought on the internet. Now-a-days they give you a FedEx tracking number and you can see where your order is at. The last known where-abouts of my package was: departed the Rialto, Ca sorting facility at 1:48PM 3Dec2003. I think it'd be cool if you could track your package down to the exact degree hour and minute. maybe even the avg. velocity and elevation.
Someone should make a nationwide Chinese fastfood franchise, where you could order your food in a drive-thru. A Turkish/Greek fastfood place would be a good idea too....
There are already quite a lot of Greek fast food joints, mostly specializing in gyros. I can't think of any that are nationally franchised.
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Somebody did try to create a chain of Chinese fast food restaurants a few years back, but it failed. Too many dishes which were also rather complicated compared to burgers. Actually there is some kind of Chinese thing in the Michigan Union food court, but I haven't wanted to try it.
I'm not sure a Chinese chain is necessary. Even without chains every town of any size seems to end up with at least one Chinese restaurant.
re #6: yeah, but some small town Chinese restaurants are pretty scary.. (but then so are quite a few big city ones, I guess.) On a related note: A couple of years ago the Thai government put money into developing a chain of Thai-food styled fast-food restaurants to be launched in the U.S. and Europe. I'm pretty sure the name of the chain was "Elephant Jump" but I never came across one. Has anyone ever seen an Elephant Jump? (I know, I know.. Not with those knees..) ( apparently I wasn't imagining Elephant Jump, though I've still never seen one..) http://www.springwise.com/newbusinessideas/2002/11/tabletop_tourist_board .html
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There are chains of Chinese fast food restaurants (Manchu Wok), but they're not good. I thought it was pretty funny when the one in Briarwood left the franchise. What did they rename it? Ming Wok. Probably only funny if you've watched enough Hong Kong historical martial arts movies and get the background.
Is that anything like a Ming vase?
I'd always thought the Ming Dynasty was the Mongols. I just learned I've been wrong: the Mongols formed the Yuan Dynasty, which was replaced by the Ming Dynasty.
Re resp:7: And in spite of all your experience with fast food chains, you would expect chain Chinese restaurants to be *less* scary? ;>
I forget what it's called (maybe Manchu Wok), but there's a Chinese fast food "restaurant" in the Ohio Turnpike rest area in Amherst (a few miles west of the 80/90 split), a couple bays over from Popeye's. . . .
Do British men still carry an umbrella while walking?
I think Panda House is a chain. I've seen a few of them in Michigan and one in Florida.
Re 14> And do they still wear the bowler hat?
There used to be a "Chinese fast food" restaurant in downtown Plymouth called Dynersty. I had heard that the first one had been in Ann Arbor. I always found it a convenient and inexpensive option when going for "take away" (as the Brits say). However, for some reason which I never heard, they closed down a year ago or so.
Atlanta or Atlantis -- the choice is yours!
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Re #11: Which was in turn overthrown by the Manchus, whose dynasty was called
the Ching.
Re #10: Less valuable, I think.
It sucks to be "not young" and wanting to be in IT. The only recourse is to be very lucky to find someone accepting the age condition, or start your own business. I've been in "my own business." It's not that great either.
What are you looking for in IT?
Stephen, you have found age to be an explicit factor preventing or limiting your attempts to move into IT work?
If they make it explicit, he can sue their butts off, so it probably isn't.
My use of "explicitly" was sloppy. What I'm trying to get at is that even if a potential employer doesn't specifically make age an issue which as you point out would open them to lawsuits, sno might still feel somehow that age was a factor. If he does or strongly suspects it was, I'm curious what gave that impression? In the current market, I would expect cost (in terms of expected salary) and skill set would be the main factors. There are lot of IT workers looking for work or switching career tracks right now.
From everything I've heard on the subject, age discrimination is rampant in IT hiring. Then the companies complain they're having trouble finding enough qualified workers and get the government to issue more H1B visas.
That's only because with age comes the experience to know how to demand a fair wage.
Heh.
Database development work is my primary desire. Programming is second on this list. Web Development third. Fourth would be network administration. I can't even get an interview. They see less than 3 years "on the job", observe I have had a 25 year career doing something else, and figure I'm a wannabe. I guess 20 years on Unix/Windows development is not enough if you were not doing it for pay or can carry a paper around saying you passed school. I continue to hope to find an opening where someone already on the inside can speak up for me. Enough whining. I'll figure something out.
Your problem is going to be getting past the secretaries that throw out resumes that don't match a strict reading of the qualifications. I was once told I couldn't be considered for a position because I was a few months short of their three-year experience requirement, even though I had related non-paid experience and other qualifications.
In this market, they're able to keep standards like that since they're going to get a lot of overqualified applicants for anything they post. It isn't unusual to get experienced programmers or sysadmins applying for positions doing desktop support right now. That'll change, but not right away.
If you want to work in IT, your best career move right now might be to move to India. :P
heh I am not sure , but pretty soon it may start to move out of India to countries like Phillipines .. better be there ahead of others :)
Before Y2K, IT employers had not qualms about not having a degree, but experience. Now, you need the degree. Can that be defacto age discrimination? In that an older worker did not have to complete college (or IT classes) to be hired by the likes of Ford.
You have several choices: