Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit

“Software quality – as an industry we don’t half ship some rubbish, I’m doing my bit to make things better not worse.”

I’m considering adding this statement to my CV under a section entitled ‘Interests’. My aim is to make sure its not too dry, as CVs are wont to be, in the hope that a little appropriate humour might get remembered by the sort of people I want to work for. What do you think? Is this a good thing to say? Bad thing to say? Good thing in bad words? A bad thing in good words? Better ideas?

(also, anyone got any comment on whether that should be a comma or a semi-colon? Microsoft standard grammar says its a semi-colon but I never learned how to use them properly so I’m not sure whether I trust it)

12-Jul-2007: entry set ‘public’


Categories: Memories.

/ 11 Comments

11 comments

  1. boglin

    Semi-colon.

    Both halves of that are grammatically complete and could stand on their own, but the second is closely linked to the first. The punctuation mark could be replaced by a conjunction like ‘but’. Commas should only be used to separate items in a list, before a conjunction, or to separate out a less important bit in a sentence. :)

    Reply
      • kantti

        Rephrased: if you take the things on either side of the comma and look at them by themselves they still make sense. Therefore it shouldn’t be a comma. :)

        “Software quality – as an industry we don’t half ship some rubbish.”
        “I’m doing my bit to make things better not worse.”

        On the other hand, you wanted to have a comma not a period for a reason, which is that the two statements go together — so you use a semi-colon. :)

        Contrast with “I like to eat apples, oranges, and bananas” where the “oranges” and “and bananas” clearly can’t stand on their own, or this sentence, where “or this sentence” can’t stand on its own. I’ll stop now before I recurse any further. :)

        Disclaimer: I am not an English expert (IANAEE) and I am sure that Skitt’s law guarantees that this comment will contain a good six grammatical errors, four egregious misstatements of fact, and three spelling errors.

        Reply
  2. neilh

    Any ideas on how to word it without the arrogance?

    Bearing in mind it is something I *am* passionate about – in some ways I’m also using it as a filter to weed out employers who don’t have a sense of humour.

    Reply
  5. neilh

    Seems like you’re the kind of person I’d want to be employed by…someone with a sense of humour.

    Besides, I’m not sure arrogance is a problem when you’re talking about taking quality seriously.

    Reply
  6. neilh

    Kinda sounds like ‘I’m trying my best but its not working’ to me. Which isn’t the impression I want to give at all.

    Reply

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