Working for Hillary
Last year, I was interviewing for software jobs on the east coast, trying to relocate closer to family.
One of the interviews I did was with Hillary's campaign in Brooklyn. It was just a phone screener. They liked me. They wanted to bring me in for an in person interview.
But a few things just didn't feel right. First off, I was a Bernie supporter last fall already, and while I had a feeling Hillary was going to win the nomination, I could not go against my own ideals and work for Hillary... even though risk vs. reward, if she won, I could be on a fast track to work in her administration in pretty much any capacity I wanted.
But then there was also the $100k salary. Yes, I know, who wouldn't want to make $100k? But in Brooklyn? Why was Hillary throwing that much money down the drain? Why have your headquarters in one of the most expensive places in the country and NEED to pay your contract employees with no health benefits a 6 figure salary?
Even more surprising, no one on their software/IT staff had worked on a campaign before. They were very excited to interview me because I've worked and run a few and worked in Congress (decades ago). That did not sit well with me, either.
Ultimately, I just did not want to sell out my belief in Bernie for the hope of personal advancement in a possible Clinton administration.
And a few days ago, I was even kind of regretting that still, thinking Hillary should pull this thing off. Wouldn't that be cool, to get to help modernize government software?
But no, I'm so glad I went with my gut instinct. I never went for the in-person interview. And now we see the result. That would have been one bad damn gamble on my part.
Anyway, just jotting this down. As much for myself as anyone else. Obvs. I don't feel like writing for DailyKos anymore (since last May) and don't feel like sharing thoughts like this on Facebook to people who don't want to hear about it.
Comments
Kos and FB
Talk about two useless sites. FB is all about food, selfies, and babies. I've never seen so much self-promotion in my life. It is why I have two FB pages. One as dkmich and one in my real name. Trying to decide what to do with them is a dilemma. If my real me has to put up with their public preening, why do I have to put "me" on another page. Kos? That place is a big lie full of bullies. I will never me a member there unless and until they dump the gang moderation disquised as commuity moderation. With the likes of Kos, DEO, BBB, and the rest of the gang, I'd rather see food.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Ha ha, interesting perspective
Thanks for saying hi. And nice to hear, to be honest with you. Facebook I try to keep light and entertaining, even political stuff I try to put positive stuff up or something funny because not everyone wants to hear about it there.
dKos, holy shit, I really didn't realize how abusive it was until I finally left. I was on the defensive from the beginning over there because I posted a newsy, non-advocating diary about a 3rd party candidate. Oops. Apparently just reporting the news is advocating.
But I just kind of limited myself within those restrictions, and then there are more and more restrictions. Not sure which analogy is better, the one about the frog not jumping out of a pot slowly brought to a boil? Or a comparison to getting out of an abusive relationship and getting the hindsight to see crystal clear everything that was being done to you. Maybe both are apt comparisons?
Love ya, mean it
Grace Slick said it beautifully nearly 50 years ago:
It's tough not allowing yourself to be assimilated, but it's worth it in the long run. Congratulations on following your instincts and sense of ethics.
Thanks for letting me vent
I'm just grasping for a silver lining somewhere today. Guess I'll give myself a cookie for getting one right.. for once.
Mmm, cookie, not a bad idea.
Love ya, mean it
Your essay speaks to something important
The Clinton campaign and the leadership of the Democratic Party are not only objectionable ideologically, but they are unforgivably incompetent. Their IT people seem to be stupid beyond belief. The Podesta emails on Wikileaks revealed that Podesta's hacked email account was john.podesta@gmail.com and his password was p@sswOrd. In addition, he was fished and his IT people were too dumb to recognize an obvious fishing email so Podesta happily clicked on the link in the fishing email and informed the hackers of his new email password. The DNC emails released earlier in the campaign contained an email sent on a hacked account informing people that the old password had been changed and giving them the new password to use.
Tech incompetence
It's all of them. They do stuff that would make anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes in IT start screaming. Walking into a reddit sub thread to get people to try to break into your upgraded server?
Foreign policy, tech, campaigning, the list just goes on...
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
hey, a Bernie supporter with principles, go figure.
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties.. This...is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.--John Adams
They need to make security job #1 across the board
Spend less time putting together the dankest memes, and more on two factor authentication for all accounts at a bare minimum.
When I saw some of the cool memes and responses Clinton campaign were able to do with technology, I'll be honest, I was impressed and a little jealous that I didn't get to learn these technologies and experience working on a major party nominee campaign.
But yeah, um, none of that matters if your campaign chair's email get's hacked and it's trickled out destructively against you for weeks. Seriously, gmail has very secure options... if you bother to set them up.
Love ya, mean it