IT Insights Blog — Employment

Every U.S. IT Insights Blog reader within the sound of our keyboard has doubtless already completed and filed his or her federal income tax return. It would be plain irresponsible, after all, to wait until the last second to square things up with Uncle Sam. No doubt if we were to drive past the local post office after 11 p.m. tonight, there would not at all be an unusually long queue of vehicles waiting to use the all-hours mail drop to be assured of getting an April 15 postmark.

Fairly often in life, most people end up in this or that situation where they feel at least a little bit overwhelmed and usually a lot underqualified. As the philosopher David Byrne described it, "You may find yourself in a beautiful house / With a beautiful wife / And you may ask yourself, 'Well / How did I get here?" Oh, yeah. It can be a little freaky. As Byrne suggests, "You may tell yourself / 'This is not my beautiful house!' / And you may tell yourself / 'This is not my beautiful wife!' "

When discussing the overall state of information security, it's commonplace to suggest that everyone is at risk, and that hackers will eventually manage to get past anything put in place to stop them. Commentators frequently assert that the question is not whether this or that business or organization will be hacked, but when the hack will occur. It's a gloomy worldview that sometimes feels not just pessimistic, but wholly defeatist, in a "What's the use in even trying" sort of way.

There was a big scare in the pancake community earlier this year when International House of Pancakes announced that it had decided to officially change its name to International House of Burgers, making a one-consonant transition from IHOP to IHOB. Rarely has a single letter generated so thunderous an outbreak of hysteria and consternation. A month later, the IHOP braintrust was all, "J/K, LOL, U ppl R so fragile and unequipped to deal with our hilarious marketing stunt."

Every certification training course we sell here at TestOut Continuing Education is on some level a BOGO. That's "buy one, get one," for those of you not totally in the know about discount shopping parlance. It's not a perfect comparison, but it's close. That's because when you train with TestOut, you have the option to get not one, but two certifications at the end of each course. One is a professional credential from CompTIA, Microsoft, or Cisco.