technical interview for an enterprise job (continued)

Three days after the interview (the labor day weekend), I was offered the job. So, the hints I picked up are real, when they showed me around the office and introduced me to the potential peers after the technical interview. The offer was initially ~10K short to meet my current full compensation & ~5K below my current base, so I told my headhunter who relayed the good news.
The headhunter's account manager kept assuring me that they won't be able to offer more and insisted that he just signed up a professional with a 10K pay-cut. He said, and I quote, "people do that all the time." So I said, and I truly meant it, "I'll to have to decline the offer as it stands now." He didn't say anything and we bid adios . Next day, he called me. Obviously he picked up only part of the message (5k lower than my current base) and went on to bat for me. Appreciatively speaking, it worked, the client offered to match my current base. That did make me feel good and bad. "Good" in the sense that my skills and experience are truly appreciated at this new place, so my pay rate is rectified in more than one places. Sometimes I wondered whether my current "high" pay was only because my current employer was desperate in need of a systems engineer when they hired me on. "Bad" in the sense that their offer was such a low ball, so I'd expect an up-hill fight to get big raises in the future if I get in. Hope it was only because I am making too high a salary now (hmm, should I feel good about that?!)
Since the new place doesn't have ESPP, stock option, or bonus for that team, the improved offer was still a 5~10K pay-cut for me. Once I made that clear, the account manager again assured me that their client wouldn't be able to offer any more. Sure enough, the client rescinded the offer the next day. Later I learned from my source, that the hiring manager was offended, since my pay situation was not explained or presented clearly to him, thus he took that as a needy/greedy give-me-more-and-more request, taking advantage of his good faith effort to sweeten the offer last time.

Farewell group lunch at Pappadeaux

I attended a farewell group lunch today at Pappadeaux . The farewell is to a manager who was replaced. He moved down from MD to GA a year ago, after some sweet&heavy courting.

This is the first time I ever entered a Pappadeaux. It is trendy, expensive, crowded at 12:00pm-2:00pm. Feeling a bit cool, I noticed the sweat on several waiters' foreheads. Entrees started at $15 each. No free bread or butter while waiting. Half of us finished, while the other half waited over 45 minutes to get our plates.

I planned for an hour and ended up spending two hours there for a rather simple lunch. It is not like anybody ordered a full course of meals. Most ordered just a salad, a gumbo bowl, or a sea-food plate. Fortunately my boss sat next to me and we discussed some project priorities. So, I count that as 'working' to cut my lunch time back to an hour, the originally allocated time slot. It is Friday after all, who wants to start his/her weekend one hour late?

For a person who religiously brings brown-bag every day and often frets over a $12 dinner entree at one's favorite authentic ethnic restaurant, I ordered a fried shrimp & scallop lunch plate for $14.99. There's hardly anything you can order to get below that price anyway. I know some at the table earn much less than me and have much more obligations than me. Not sure how they feel about the price tag. Everybody looked and acted happy and cheerful.

Near the end of it, the waiter was about to get checks for everybody. The supervisor of the parting manager suddenly said, "let me pay for all." Joy and shriek across the tables. Many regret that they didn't order a lobster to-go :)

certification or a M.S./MBA

At work, a biz discussion turned into a chit-chat this morning. A bit of surprise to me, my fellow IS engineer has decided to give up his SCJP4 certification prep and started to prep for GMAT instead. Being a CCNP & MCSE, he came to a painful conclusion that the certification path is too tiresome since they expire (in real term, as well as fading in your mind) before you can use it for work or for job hunting.

Over years of turmoils about to pursue certifications or not, I total agree. Unfortunately, I have a MS in MIS from a prominent school. A few years later, I still don't see a door opened for me to the management track. So, I'd say MS doesn't work, since it labels you as a techie more than anything else. A techie needs something else to package/wrap/color himself or herself in order to impress your future employer that he/she is biz/management material. Recently, a few of my techie friends spent a lot (tuition/time/energy) to get their MBA. That seemed to have paid off. All found positions that a techie would never have dreamed of getting.

Employer questionnaire

While stir-frying long beans for dinner, I received a call from a recruiter named Jack. He told me that an employer wants an interview and wants me to fill out some simple Q/A. I could tell that he was disappointed that I was not as excited as he was. Plainly, I asked him to send it my way via email then back to cooking. Barely in time to save my stir-fry long beans from burning into dark sticks.

Not sure why he just sent an email saying the same thing w/o any interaction from me. Human nature, or occupational hazard? After dinner, I retreated to my study and checked my inbox. It turned out that the Q/A is not for HR, but simple technical questions regarding Linux/Solaris operating systems. I answered them. To be sure, I googled to double check myself, before I shoot it back to the recruiter.

Three thoughts:

• If I know where/how to find the info and can use the info properly, would it be enough ?
• I am certified on both Linux and Solaris and have years of professional experience with them. However, I haven't touched either for a year. Who am I to remember three -v is needed to get the most verbose output from openSSH? Is this a sign that I should run away from this employer if this is his/her expectation?
• If I do a 'man ssh' on my Linux Desktop to get that the exact answer is '-vvv' instead of 'a few -v' I initially wrote down, am I cheating ?