>> Given that we were discussing my next career move, don't you think if
>> she knew who I need to speak to, she might have mentioned this exact
>> fact?
>
> Not necessarily.  In fact, if she were to get a referral bonus, I'd
> expect her not to tell you, but to take your info and submit it
> internally herself.

Well, she didn't offer to do that either. She just said "you should 
totally apply here".

>> I assumed it's just that I'm not worth hiring...
>
> We've talked about this before, Andy.  If you go through the front door,
> you're on the same level as everyone else applying for the job.  One way
> to get an advantage - and to show initiative - is to find other ways to
> get your info in front of the hiring manager.

Given that I don't even really understand the correct procedure for 
getting in the front door, it seems unlikely that I'd succeed trying to 
talk my way in through the back. And, at the end of the day, if I'm not 
worth hiring, they aren't going to hire me, no matter what I do.

>>> You know someone at Unisys, you said.
>>
>> I don't think I did...
>
> Um, not the person that you above said "I don't think she knows anybody
> in a hiring position."?

No. Network Rail.

> What do you /like/ doing?  You might be surprised at what people will
> actually pay for.

Nobody is going to pay me to write a ray-tracer. Because, as cool as 
that is, it's a solved problem. Similarly, nobody is going to pay me to 
sit around playing with compression algorithms or designing weak ciphers 
or generating pretty pictures from sound signals or... you know what? 
These things are all very cool, but none of them actually generate 
money. What people /actually/ want is somebody who can migrate their SQL 
Server database to Oracle, or find a way to run a legacy MS-DOS program 
on a shiny new server farm, or something like that.

>> If I can't convince anybody to hire me to write Java (pro tip: Java is
>> popular), then nobody is ever going to hire me to write Haskell.
>
> Wrong, wrong, wrong.  If you're competent in Haskell and that's what
> they're looking for, then being one of a smaller number of developers who
> write in a language that they're using is far, far better than being one
> of the billion people (yes, hyperbole, but there are a /lot/ of Java
> programmers out there) who can write code in Java.

It puts me in a smaller pool of employees, but it also puts them in a 
smaller pool of employers.

>>> If the language were that unpopular, it would cease to exist.
>>
>> For twenty years, it /was/ that unpopular.
>
> Yet it still exists.

See, the thing is, when you're not making a product for profit, it 
doesn't /matter/ whether it's popular or not. It doesn't /need/ to be 
popular in order to exist.

>> Sure, but nobody works for AT&T or Facebook. (Actually, given our
>> earlier discussion, I wouldn't /want/ to work for Facebook...)
>
> "Nobody works for AT&T or Facebook" - are you /serious/?  AT&T is one of
> the larger companies in the world.  Facebook has a fairly significant
> sized staff.  Those server rooms don't take care of themselves, and
> people don't do it for no pay.
>
> AT&T:  https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:T
>
> Number of employees:  252,330
>
> Facebook:  https://www.google.com/finance?q=fb
>
> Number of employees:  3,539
>
> Far from "nobody".

OK, so let me get this straight: Out of all the people IN THE ENTIRE 
WORLD, only three thousand of them work for Facebook? And only a quarter 
of a million of them work for AT&T? Yeah, those are some huge percentages...

>> I'm not arguing that liking your job isn't a good thing. I'm arguing
>> that it isn't a common thing.
>
> I've worked in companies with 200 employees and companies with 250,000
> employees.  Most of the people I have known in those companies have liked
> their jobs.

> But all the people I know in the UK also seem to really enjoy what they
> do.  Now I don't know everyone in the UK, probably not even enough to
> constitute a statistical sample - but of the ones I know, you're the only
> one who actively /hates/ his job.

I guess when The Bangles sang "Manic Monday", nobody could relate to 
waking up on Monday morning and dreading going to work, which explains 
why the song sold to well.

>>>> You say "adwords", but I've yet to see it...
>>>
>>> m-/
>>>
>>> Do you use an ad blocker?
>>
>> Not until recently.
>
> Then you must not use Google a lot.  Oh, wait....

Alternatively, maybe there aren't many adverts actually related to 
"transfinite cardinal numbers" or something...

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