urge to kill... rising...

[rone]

*sigh* I thought that this might be a little too cryptic to be posted without further explanation.  First, i have never contacted Taos in my life.  Ergo, this is unsolicited e-mail, and sent specifically to the e-mail address in my online résumé.  In and of itself, unsolicited e-mail asking me if i'm interested in a job is not a big deal.  However, this is not that; rather, they're "inviting" me to what amounts to a glorified sales pitch, and they have the gall to tell me how to dress, were i inclined to attend.  They aren't specifically interested in me, or have a job for me in mind; they just want another hot body to listen to their spiel.  In addition, i failed to account for the fact that many of you probably aren't familiar with Taos Mountain's reputation as a body shop that farms out techies willy-nilly, overcharging companies and passing on too little of that money to the employee.  I hold them in high contempt.

Some of you might want to say that i asked to be pissed off even more by looking at the Evite link instead of merely trashing the message.  To those of you, i respond, "So what's your fucking point?"

---

Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 11:54:29 -0800
Message-ID: <28557894.1169754869108.JavaMail.evite@www15>
From: Taos Mountain Inc <info@evite.com>
Reply-To: Taos Mountain Inc <j--c--@taos.com>
To: "rone+resume051701@ennui.org" <rone+resume051701@ennui.org>
Subject: Taos Mountain Inc has sent you an Evite Invitation

Taos Mountain Inc has invited you to
You are invited to "Taos Open house Event: New Year. New Career!" by
Taos Mountain Inc.

<div>Invitation from J-- C--, IT Recruiter & Resource Manager at
Taos Mountain Inc. RSVP.</div><br />

Click below to visit Evite for more information about the event and
also to RSVP.

{copy URL, paste into browser}

Hello!

You've been invited by J-- C--, IT Recruiter & Resource Manager, to a Taos Open House Event on Wednesday, January 31st at 5:30 pm.

The event includes a special presentation from our CEO, Ric Urrutia, and our COO, Coco Brown, who will be talking about Taos's vision for growth in 2007.  You will also get to meet with members of our management team, internal recruiting staff, account managers and senior technical staff.

RSVP and learn about exciting opportunities with the name plates of the Silicon Valley and how Taos can support you in making your career goals a reality!

We look forward to meeting you and working with you in 2007!

• Please send a copy of your resume to J-- at j--c--@taos.com and be prepared to tell us more about yourself!
• Food and beverages will be provided.
• Dress is Business Casual.

See you there!

Comments

[palecur.livejournal.com]

Hmm, tell me more. They have a solid reputation for running Compleat Asshole attack interviews, and I get a really skeezy vibe from them in terms of work environment -- I don't trust their whole 'We have laundry and cots and showers and food on site, why would you want to go home and have a life?' approach, and in general they feel very much like a pre-dot-bomb company in how they throw money around (and in their unrealistic stock valuation), but I hadn't heard anything about evil, per se, and I'm curious.

[eagle]

The really skeezy vibe from the work environment is part of it. They are explicitly family-unfriendly (although at least they do tell people that up-front), which translates directly into "life outside of work" unfriendly. My tolerance for that is much lower than it used to be. I would not trust them as employers because of this. Employers who don't care about work/life balance are bad news.

On top of that, what they've done with Usenet has some really negative aspects that they don't seem willing or able to face up to. They're the single largest source of Usenet spam, for instance, and don't respond to abuse complaints at all. They mix their proprietary web forums with Usenet groups and use one to pull people into the other. That sort of typical corporate thing, for which I have little tolerance in general and even less when it affects something that I personally care about.

They're also deep into the "keep everything we do close to the vest" mindset, which is quite common in the commercial software industry, but is also a show-stopper for me personally.