Bad Things Happen To Stupid People

I got a post via a Victoria newsgroup:

Anyone know what's up with the CDI offices downtown?
They're clearing out, with desks & monitors going for cheap
(and, from the look of them, deservedly so).

CDI Kaput? Following in the footsteps of Computermaster and so many other technical "schools" in the region, CDI's Victoria "campus" has shut down. I went to the CDI site and looked up their British Columbia location. No longer was there a mention of the Victoria location. So, it appears there's a fire sale at their old offices: equipment, furniture, a diploma gestetner-- you name it. The rest of the branches are still alive from the looks of it. I don't know how the other branches conducted themselves, I only have experience from this branch.

There are two more IT technical boils in the city to be popped. One of them steals content and makes unpaid interns do janitorial duties instead of hone their trade. The other is run by a chimpanzee who didn't know how to turn on a computer, he tried to get a company I worked for build a site to steal financial data. When I saw this ape on the local news announcing a new program at his "college" my jaw dropped. I thought, "he's running a tech college?" This wasn't a case of the inmates running the asylum-- the bedpan was running the show.

Update: The chimp run tech college is closing too! No word as to the date for their clearance sale. Rest assured: I will gloat when the time comes. Do you want to be part of the fun? Here's a cache of the Bay Centre location's information. What I've been doing every couple of weeks, is calling them and asking when their stuff does on sale. So far, I've gotten a frustrated, "We don't know yet!" I can't help but feel it must be demoralizing for them to hear the buzzards circle. Try it, it's fun.

Our Organization Is Ready
Originally uploaded by dewolfe0001.

Back to the fire sale. Why such ichor towards CDI? Let me unspin a tale:

At this aforementioned company, I was able to rise from the rank of salesperson/designer to desginer. Our lead dweeb went out to try to snag the college to do their web design. Why would a school that trained a cadre of new designers need to hire a designer? GOOD QUESTION. Our dweeb came back after an hour or to announce. "They want me to teach their Perl course.... can someone teach it to me?" He wasn't joking. Even though he had a Perl book on his book shelf, he had never cracked it.

When it came time to teach, he would goad a twitchy guy who worked with him to develop sample code. The courses were weekly, he made up a lesson plan on the morning of the course and then pushed twitchy to write the code with 10-20 min. of warning. Oh yeah, that'd be solid code.

When students asked him questions in class that he didn't know the answer, he had favourte phrases:

* "What would you think could be the solution to that?"
* "If I tell you, then you'll know."
* "That's a Perl of great price."

The students liked him, because he challenged them. The college liked him because they didn't know he was full of crap. As he did this work through our company, the money went to our company then he got a cut. Towards the end of his tenture, the dweeb needed more money. He was getting hammered for not paying his taxes. Technically, they weren't his taxes. Years before, he needed a job and he didn't have a social security number so rather than wait, he made up a number and was lucky enough to get one that matched the SIN# checksum. Since then, he was using that SIN# on his taxes. So, the government pounded him for back taxes and started to guaransue his wages. Ever the weasel, he got some of his cheques directly from the college. The college was really comfy with separating hapless kids from their tuitions, so they didn't see a problem separating our company from its revenue.

Eventually, the dweeb fled the country to defraud people in new lands. He left behind students who needed to wrap up their course in mock Perl (mock in that they were they trying to learn Perl for real, but their teacher taught them nothing). He also left behind his "teacher's mug." This crappy mug that he got from the college in gratitude for his great service. Someone at our company found the mug while clearing stuff from the office. He took a hammer, a garbage basket and the mug. He shattered the mug over the garbage can (even while angry he was tidy) and proclaimed, "There's your fucking teacher's mug."

Would I hire a graduate from this college or one of the many colleges like it? Sure: as a janitor. Maybe even as a tire factory employee.
CDI Info on an MSN site (until it's spam bombed, right guy?) and here's someone's court battles vs. CDI.