[ale] FW: linuxgruven

[Perry]

Effective this morning, operations in the Atlanta office (and every branch 
around the country) have been suspended.  It's a bummer.  I had just 
finished up the Linuxgruven tests on Friday (becoming the 16th person to 
pass those tests), read the /. article on Saturday, and everything is 
confirmed this morning.  I was going in to turn in my paperwork to begin 
the hiring process.  There goes my job, there goes the $3150 that I spent, 
there goes my certification.  Really sucks.  Now I have to go get the Sair 
certification and hope that I can find a job.

Pay checks for most of the employees bounced this past Friday.  Now they 
are all without jobs (5 or 6 here in Atlanta).  Now they have to find 
jobs.  Joke all you want about the company, but keep in mind that the 
employees are real people with real families and real bills just like the 
rest of you.  Now that they have essentially worked the past 3 weeks for 
free, who knows how they are going to pay bills, hopefully they have a 
decent savings account.

The material covered in the class was similar to what is test on the Sair 
Linux tests (www.linuxcertification.com).  The tests that Linuxgruven 
offered are supposedly a bit tougher and include a hands on portion 
requiring various tasks.  Naturally all of the information is online or in 
man pages or in books.  But, with the class you have an instructor teaching 
you things as you go along, which, IMO, is much easier than trying to learn 
out of a book on your own.  There was a lab where we had full reign on the 
computers and network, making it possible for people without multiple 
computers at home to learn how networking in Linux works.

I haven't decided what I'll do about the contract that I have that says 
upon completion of the certification I'll have a job.  I'm in an odd 
position, since I have the certification but never actually got a job.  I 
imagine that talking to a lawyer would be best, but I'm not sure I can 
afford one w/o an income.  We'll see.

IMHO, the company wasn't scamming people.  There were jobs, they did follow 
through with the training.  It was a matter of piss poor management which 
lead to this failure.  Their webpage indicates they are restructuring, who 
knows what that means.



-- perry

--
To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" in message body.