College Recruiting Fall Season

Our first college career fair of the Fall '08 season is next Thursday. Austin Industrial will have a booth at the University of Houston's Engineering Career Fair. If you are a college student majoring in Engineering or Construction Science, stop by our booth and say "hi". Go Coogs.

Don't subscribe to Town & Country Magazine

This has nothing to do with HR or Construction, but I wanted to share this information with you in case it saves you the hassle I went through. A year ago I wanted to order Harper's Bazaar magazine. I ordered a subscription online and then up came a pop-up offering a special deal on Town and Country Magazine. Of course, it's cheaper if you sign up for more than one year, but I selected 1 year only because I didn't know if I would like the magazine. I was happy with that decision, because I did not really care for it. I paid for the subscription at that time with my credit card. Then they sent an issue at the end of the year with a notice attached saying that they had signed me up for continuous service. I went to their website and submitted notification that I did not want continuous service. Then a couple weeks later they sent me an e-mail saying I was scheduled for continuous service, so I went online again and let them know AGAIN that I DID NOT WANT to continue receiving their magazine. Then a couple days ago they mailed me a letter and invoice saying that I had signed up for a subscription and requested to pay later and how astonished they were that I had not paid what I owed them. Incensed, I looked for a number to call them; there was none on the information they mailed to me. I had to go to their website and search for a customer service number. I finally found it (they don't make this easy- they try to make you submit questinons/comments online). So I called. They refused to connect me to the voicemail of the person who wrote me that rude and inaccurate letter. I told the customer service person that I had submitted two requests online stating that I did not want to continue receiving the magazine and then received a letter saying I owed them money anyway. She was arguing with me and said that she could see my requests and they said to cancel continuous service, but that was different than a request not to renew my subscription. Unbelievable! I will never buy their magazine again!!!

Yum

A couple fun pictures from our ice cream social.

Empty Nest Syndrome

I definitely have that empty nest syndrome. Austin Industrial's first Intern in our new Intern Development Program has completed his summer internship and gone back to school. Good luck Roberto; we'll miss you!

Welcome to Austin Industries

A big welcome to Rebecca, the new Recruiter at our sister company, Austin Bridge & Road. I'm looking forward to working with you! We'll definitely keep you busy. Congratulations on your new job!

HR Carnival

The 40th HR Carnival is up at McArthur's Rant. Check it out.

TWIC

I finally got my TWIC card. I received a phone message about a month ago that it was ready, but appointments were pretty booked until now. I picked it up this morning. It takes about 15 minutes. You wait 5 minutes for them to find the card, and then it takes at least 10 minutes for the card to be programmed. They send data to Washington to get the card programmed. You need to select a 6 to 8 digit pin number, so you might want to have one in mind ahead of time. Just like the DPS office, they have a knack for taking the ugliest pictures known to man.