Last week, I used GMail from a computer that allowed all the adverts from Google. So I’ve read around 50 emails which exposed me to maybe 250 adverts. To my surprise I ended up clicking on probably 15 links that were interesting to me. The interesting bit is that the links were not related to the content of the email, but somehow the datamining that Google does, payed off because the links were interesting to me. After around 3 years of using Gmail, Google Reader and all the other services it seems that I am a very open book to them. I was trying to anonymize my broswer habits using different Firefox extensions but I am not sure it’s worth the effort anymore. As long as I am using Google Reader and Notebook, I have a cookie from Google for as long as the session is open. For the time being the cookie is sweet and I will enable the adverts in Gmail. I am not sure if in the long run I am at ease with this “lack of privacy”. I know it was my choice and in my case an educated one.
This post should be in romanian, because it has to do with the romanian daily reality. I choose to write it in english to keep some sort of order in the blog.
Around 2 weeks ago I went for an interview to a top 5 bank here for middle management position. The interview went more than ok, I asked for a certain amount of money, the interviewer was relatively ok with the amount. 4 days later I am getting a call from the interviewer in which he said to me that I am the person for the job, but he can not offer me more than 85% of the amount I requested. Next day I accepted the offer, and the interviewer told me that he needs to have this amount approved by a VP because my sallary is bigger than their approved sallary grid.
They called me to the office next monday at 11 to sign the papers. I was there and after 30 minutes discussion between the interviewer and the HR department I was told to come back at 16:30 the same day because the papers weren’t ready. Knowing the way things are here I suggested to them that I should come back next morning at 9, which I did.
So tuesday I met with a HR person which presented to me all the papers except the sallary which still wasn’t approved at this stage. She told me that by the end of the day, she should have the approval and she will call me to establish a meeting next day for signing the employment papers. Tuesday around 7PM she called, told me that the sallary is not approved yet but she will call me when it is ready, for me to come and sign the papers.
One week later I got a call from the interviewer asking me to meet him next day to discuss the offer. So I met him this morning in his office and he told me that the initial money weren’t approved by the VP and offered me 60% of the initial amount that I requested. I declined the offer politely.
End of the public service announcement.
PS I still have to figure out if I am allowed to make all the names public or not.
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