Tech Associates is recruiting for a ick/Unibasic/U2/uniVerse/Unidata
Programmer/Analyst for a client company growing 10% per year. Client is
looking for a minimum of three years hands-on
Pick/D3/uniVerse/U2/Unidata programming experience. Salary range is in
the $55,000 to $70,000 range. Reasonable interview and relocation
expenses paid. Must be currently a U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident
and be currently living in the U.S..

For consideration please E-Mail your MS Word or RTF resume'
to: tech (AT) charm (DOT) net.


Mike Sigman Tech Associates

Toll Free Voice 888-870-7212

tiacux wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, Mike, but isn't the U.S. a rather large place,
geographically speaking? You have any idea where (within a hundred
miles or so) this job is located?

--
frosty

Damn, three years experience to work into a job paying 55-70k. Some
people with 10+ years experience would salivate for that.

Seems to me it would be worth it to create a "Pick Farm" where high
school college students majoring in IT are groomed for such positions.
With a couple weeks intensive training out of school they can get a
decent job, serve as an apprentice of sorts for a couple years, then
take an exam to determine if they've earned that 3 year/55-70k
position. Along the way they can learn other skills to differentiate
themselves and maybe move into something more specialized. This would
sure bring some new blood into our market. It's better than sending
kids to the streets, not the college grind for kids not cut out for
that, and at the moment it may be a nice alternative to military
service.

Companies can pay some amount to send these kids to Jon Sisk or
Malcolm Bull, and give them a bonus for people that are actually hired
later. Along the way, this might be a good community service tax
deduction or a worthy use of the Ken Simms scholarship fund (no clue
if that even still exists).

Yeah, I know it's not a new idea but maybe now that it's an old idea
people won't be afraid of it cuz it's too new?

Ahh, if only the real world worked like this...
T
(gotta stop putting on these rosey glasses)

"tiacux" <tech (AT) charm (DOT) net> wrote:

Why wouldn't Raining Data be interested in this idea?

"Tony Gravagno" <g6q3x9lu53001 (AT) sneakemail (DOT) com.invalid> wrote

"Jeff Caspari" <FDFDFDFD (AT) sneakernet (DOT) com.invalid> wrote

THEY were, but nobody else was.

While Pick was still Pick, they offered a Certified Pick Professional
certificate intended to give "street credits" to those VARS/Dealers who
would take the time and effort to make sure their people were trained.

I believe at one time Jon Sisk offered the same kind of certification.

Nobody cared. Sales are made by salesmen. If you can sell snow to Eskimos,
do you really need a certificate in refrigerator repair?

Four times in my 35 years in programming has someone recruited me, come to
me and offered me a job. It wasn't because I'm pretty or that I have a
wonderful personality (though both those are true), but because of my rep.
Pick tried to use that rep and made me a teacher. They bought JES and
Associates to try to play off their rep. They offered training to build up
YOUR (not you personally, Jeff) reps with your dealers, but that died
quickly from lack of interest.


Mark Brown

My understanding was that Jon Sisk tried to spearhead a movement at Pick to
bring MV courses into colleges. Shortly after Gil's departure this venture
ended.

I never understood why this was not pursued. After all wouldn't it be those
people who are comfortable and familiar with the data model that would
become future developers and VARS?
Jeff

"Jeff Caspari" <FDFDFDFD (AT) sneakernet (DOT) com.invalid> wrote:
No immediate ROI. It's a plan that requires someone else (employers)
to justify the investment a couple years from now. There are too many
variables and no legal commitments. It's tough to prove a tangible
relationship between "more knowledge in the field" and "more income",
and conservative management needs more proof these days. PS was aware
of the need for this but didn't act on it. RD tried hard to do the
education thing as part of the PickAxe venture but they were unable to
get it off the ground.

This is another one of those things where people look to the DBMS
companies to make investments in the survival of the market, when it's
the lack of foresight of these same DBMS companies that's partially
responsible for the current condition. Further, it's that same view
(the DBMS vendors should be doing this) that helps to perpetuate the
situation - The DBMS vendors won't do it to create a future for their
products and the VARs won't invest in their own future either.
Someone needs to break the stalemate.

I just got off the phone with someone who, without knowing anything
about this thread (!), suggested (I'll paraphrase) that the Pick
market should sponsor a trade school which is co-funded by students,
vendors, continuing education grants and loans, and other sources.
More skilled people in the work force means companies won't leave
because they can't find talent, and that keeps income in our market in
terms of tools, support contracts, and service engagements.

T

Jeff Caspari wrote:

Okay. Time to pipe in here.

First off, Thanks, Tony for keeping my name alive.

To speak to a couple points brought up in this thread:

When we raised the $20m to buy Pick Systems out of OC Probate
Court in 2000, we were not aware (at least I wasn't) of the strings
that were attached to it. We learned quickly.

The Investors (Read: Astoria) had their own agenda for what
was to become of the company, once the merger with Omnis had
taken place and the experiments in force-mating the products
of the two companies had begun.

During those initial days before the real agendas became clear,
I initiated a program like the one described in this thread, in
conjunction with the University of New Orleans, where Gil had
recently lived and made broad contacts throughout the city.

We did more than just pay it lip service. We developed a plan and
a program wherein we could participate in the H1-B largesse of
the Government of the time, offering students low-or-no-cost
training at UNO facilities, with the school's participation
and promotion. We pitched our "Boot Camp" concept to the VAR's
and Recruiters in the Pick Space, the latter of whom showed
great interest. We managed to run a few of these sessions,
which I personally taught, before being shutdown by the factory,
for reasons I cannot go into without the possibility of legal
reprisal, but suffice it to say that it was not because it was
not a viable program with great potential.

It turns out that this was not part of the Big Picture View of
what Raining Data was to become. So, like so many things, it
quietly slipped off into obscurity. Kind of like the takeover
management team, but a little quicker.

So my team was relegated to running commercial courses and
building last-minute courses on the "new" products being
foist^H^H^H^H^H^hdeveloped for the customer base, like
MVDisast^H^H^H^H^Hesigner.

On Certification:

I came up with the idea for the Certified Pick Professional
program independently at JES, years before PS had any idea
of doing certification. Some old-timers will remember this,
and I was fortunate enough to enlist the support and help
of a number of other Pick notables (Hi Frosty!) who contributed
to the content of the tests and helped review the questions.

We tried to make an independent go of it, and I'd estimate
that about 800 people took the base exam over the several
years the program lasted. (About half of them passed.)

Some years later, PS came out with a "certification" of their
own. Out of curiosity, I attended one of these courses to see what
they had come up with. The materials for certification were
various installation guides for various flavors of Pick
platforms. That's it. Passing it certified that you had
read an Installation Guide.

Our baseline CPP certification covered a broad swath of
"Generic" Pick platforms, with sample questions extracted
from pretty much every component of the OS at the time.
We learned while developing this that Pick/BASIC warranted
its own, separate certification. We ended up offering three
different levels of certification. Eventually, interest
dried up to an occasional request for info and we quietly
retired it.

---

Raining Data still runs the courses I sold them five years ago.

It is not without irony that they still make more income from
the UniVerse and UniData courses I sold them than courses on
"Pick" platforms. But my (former) people are still employed,
and the materials we developed over 20 years still live on.

Jon Sisk

Just wanted to add that this is a very good idea (and WAS a very good idea
when it was around). As an example, I recently lost my job as a
PICK/UniVerse programmer for the very reason that the product was being
discontinued because the company couldn't find employees to develop it. (I
was the only one). This is in Southern Ontario, Canada, and I cannot find
any local companies that run anything MultiValue.

Much as I LOVE programming in PICK, and as much as I think MV it's a better
model than the relational one for business, I'm still just a lowly
programmer with no clout. So it looks like it's on to Oracle for me......

PS - Anyone know of any companies in SW Ontario looking for a PICK
programmer???

"Tony Gravagno" <g6q3x9lu53001 (AT) sneakemail (DOT) com.invalid> wrote

Hi

I know you said the person has to be a US citizen but I thought I would
post my details anyway.

Looks like you have a very interesting range of products.

Below are some of the areas of experience I have:

Industries:
- Electricity
- Dairy (thats cows not the corner stores)
- Retail
- Manufacturing
- Ecommerce
- Content management
- Hospitals
- Community Healthcare
- Ship Building
- Hotel Management

Skill Sets:
- 2 years Unidata exp
- 2 years Universe exp
- 4 years Revelation exp
- 6 years Advanced Revelation exp
- 2 years PHP exp
- 5 years SQL Server exp
- 5 years running a Software Development Company
- 1 year Costing exp
- 7 years Management exp
- 8 years Datawarehouse Development exp

MY Situation:
I currently live 2 hours North of Auckland New Zealand.
My wife and I have 3 girls (4, 10, 12)
To be honest the position sounds very interesting but I have more than
myself to
think of. The package would need to be attractuve to warrant moving my
family.
This may rule me out but hope this gives you something to think about.