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June 21, 2005
Now Hiring
LinkedIn is a great concept for hiring through referrals, even referrals you never knew you could get. I decided to post the following opening on LinkedIn (also because the first month was free):
Title: CIO / Technology Director
Company: Colegio Interamericano
Type: Full-time
Experience: Associate to Mid/Senior level
Function: Information Technology
Industry: Primary/Secondary Education
Location: Guatemala City (Guatemala)
Salary: USD $20,000 + housing
Date Posted: May 26, 2005
K-12 School District of 1400 students and 150 employees seeks a CIO to manage IT Department and make all technology decisions. Technology department is 4 FTE, supports 250 devices, and manages 8 web/DB apps. Key technologies in use include Server 2003 AD, SQL Server, Basic PHP/Web authoring.2-4 years experience including IT project management required. English must be your first language, and rudimentary Spanish is helpful but not required. Applicants from IT departments, engineering, and management/IT consulting are preferred. Work experience in educational institutions is valued.
The school is an American School in Guatemala City, Guatemala (pop. 3M) where English is spoken 90% of the time. There is a vibrant social community of young American and Canadian teachers. Relocation benefits, full medical, and corporate housing with utilities are provided above salary. The $20,000 salary in the context of the local economy has the purchasing power of about $30,000 in most US cities. This is a one year contract, and should be viewed as a short-term international business experience.
I had the surprising experience of receiving applications from two CIOs of Fortune 500 companies, names you would definitely recognize (but I omit here). I emailed one and called the other wondering if it was some sort of mid-life crisis, and tried to politely inform them I thought they might be overqualified.
That's when the miscommunication became clear: They thought the compensation was monthly. I am a Dilbert cartoon.
Posted by Jeff at 05:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 17, 2005
Miscellaneous Pictures
Dinner at Ponza Verde for our 2-year anniversary.
The girls out at dinner
Old man twins - always a hit at parties
Sometimes I make Beck do someting dumb so I can take a picture. Then she gives me my favorite "I'm not amused" look.
Posted by Jeff at 09:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 15, 2005
Coffe Farm and Museum
This weekend we went to the Azotea Coffe Museum in Antigua. It was fascinating, and we couldn't believe that our group of friends had never heard of it before. It was a very well done museum, and I had no idea the coffee production process was so fascinating. Starbucks buys a lot of it's finest Arabian beans from this exact farm in Antigua (actually, all the best coffe in Guatemala is exported, so the stuff we drink here is fresh but not amazing).
If you've ever seen "fair trade coffee" or understand that debate, this is where it's origins are:
Although this side of the debate wasn't presented at the museum, I have previously heard a rumor that fair trade coffee is a case study in why you shouldn't screw with natural economics. The numbers in the graph above explain why people wanted to treat the original farms better (workers were complaining) - so they artificially added $.05 per dollar kickback to the producing farms. This fair and generous left-leaning philosophy's proponents were also environmentalists. The price tampering caused many more people to get into the coffee farming business in Guatemala. These people over-farmed the land and would slash-and-burn rainforrest to make new coffee farms. Oversupply then depressed base prices further.
Posted by Jeff at 08:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 13, 2005
Orchid Sanctuary
If you've seen the movie Adaptation, you know there's something extremely special about orchids. In Coban there is an orchid sanctuary that hosts rare orchids, some so uncommon that only 50 known specimins exist in the world. The national flower of Guatemala, the Monja Blanca, is a rare orchid that costs up to $600 to buy off the black market from an orchid hunter.
This one is very similar to the Monja Blanca.
Posted by Jeff at 08:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 03, 2005
Half Marathon
We ran the Coban International Half Marathon two weekends ago. It wasn't pretty, but the goal was to finish, and we're just happy to be done with the training schedule. Notwithstanding the altitude, it's a difficult half marathon because the majority of the course is hills.
So happy it's over
Crossing the finish line
I'm a multimedia teacher; I have the right to photoshop...
Posted by Jeff at 08:41 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack