Photographs and Citizens

In light of today's terror attacks in Jerusalem, a few thoughts have been occupying some of my headspace and I decided to share them here.

1. Photographs of the dead:
I was involved in a debate today regarding whether or not it was appropriate to share scene-of-the-crime photographs of those murdered in the attack in order to raise awareness of the "realness" of the issue and open the eyes of the people who read headlines that make the aggressors sound like victims. I believe that to do this is very much not ok and is extremely disrespectful to the victims and their families to use the photos as such a prop. An argument I heard was that the "other side" uses this tactic very successfully and maybe it's about time we show some pictures too and garner sympathy to our plight. Excuse me if I'm wrong but to me that's like saying "Hey, that guy who robbed a bank was never caught and stole a million dollars, therefore a good way to make a million dollars is to rob a bank". It's wrong, and the victims deserve better.

2. Citizenship status of the terrorists:
I'm not exactly sure what is to be gained by pointing out that the terrorist today were full blown citizens of Israel. It's not news to me that there are Arabs who are citizens of this country, and that they have every right afforded to the Jewish citizens. Knowing that the terrorists today were citizens doesn't make me more worried about a terror attack because these ones are living among us. To me, that's old news and if I'm more vigilant tomorrow than I am today, it's because an attack happened, not because it happened at the hands of an Arab citizen.

A Little Bit More About My Job

So, I work in software testing, which means that I work very closely with programmers to help find areas that have issues and tidy up weak areas in the code before it gets release to the main site where our users interact with the site (that's a teeny tiny nutshell of what I do).

I've been working in this field now since February of 2010 and have progressed through several different companies, growing my resume and my skill set. My last place of employment in Pittsburgh taught me a lot of what I know today. However I wasn't really all that happy there due to some issues I had with the company at a fundamental level. When I realized I wanted to leave my job and look for something else my wife and I decided that it was time to stop postponing our desire to make aliyah and so we moved here in the summer. I had not started a job search at all before we came here, although NBN got me in touch with several people in my field and I spoke to many of them while weighing my options of where to move and how to approach searching for a job in the field.

Thankfully I only ended up going on interviews at two companies before landing my job. The first one would've probably been an OK fit for a year or two, but the long term potential wasn't really there and it was not the type of project I would've really thrived in. I was considering broadening my search to include other fields outside of my expertise.

Then, on a whim, I posted on a FaceBook group that I was looking for a job in QA and would love a referral if anyone knew of any companies with openings. Within a few minutes I got a reply from someone in the group that their company was hiring for QA, and to send her my resume. I sent it to her almost immediately and within an hour I had an interview scheduled for the very next day. The first interview went extremely well and first thing the next morning I sent an email thanking them for having me in and letting them know that I was definitely interested in pursuing this job further. They called me again almost immediately after sending that email and asked me to come back that same day to meet with HR. I came back in and had another great meeting and when I left they told me that they were 99% sure they were going to hire but that the CEO meets with all potential new hires before they bring anyone on board. However, he was on vacation until the following week so I'd have to wait.

Needless to say, that meeting went very well as well and I began working there less than two weeks after my initial interview and under three months from my aliyah date.

I've now been with the company for almost three months and they have not only told me that they really think I was an excellent hire, but they've promoted me to be a team leader and have given me a lot of confidence and compliments.