et alii*Step V.2
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
"Surprisingly Well"
So it's been like six weeks since I posted anything. All that reading last year got me out of the habit. Which I've said before.
I went back and read the last post. Some how I'm always surprised at a past post. I mean it seems familiar but it still hardly seems like me for some reason. I did notice I use the word "any" too much. Anyway. Any case. boooo. So I'll try and avoid that.
When I last wrote I had just lost my job of over a year. I was kind of in shock but rather confident I would, within weeks, have a new job. Well I didn't even start seriously fixing up my resume and posting it out to sites until mid-march. And as I had assumed I would I had a few interviews and was working by April 1st. But maybe that's getting ahead of myself.
I got an email from an Indian fellow (I have nothing against Indians) list a big giant skill table asking number-of-years-experience. I was pretty sure it was spam. And I was annoyed I had to turn on HTML email. But I filled it out and sent it anyway. Then I got a call from the Indian guy asking further questions. I was confident in my interviewing skills at this point so I must have the right things. I got a call from a woman in a city about 30 miles away.
She asked me some things and asked me to come in to meet in person. Which I did. It was rather obvious from the start she knew very little of what she was talking about. She kept asking very specific questions about Outlook. Connecting to calendars and whatever. And asking about working in a team. I kept telling her I could learn; I knew some things but not everything about Outlook. By the time I left she sounded very pessimistic about my prospects. This was on a Friday.
The following Thursday I hadn't heard anything one way or the other about the job or from her. And I had been called in the mean time about another job significantly closer to where I live.
This was a "desktop analyst" position. What the fuck does that mean?! Since it didn't have "help desk" in the name I was cautiously optimistic. I went in, met the guys, and started answering their questions.
As unhappy as I was at apple I did learn a lot. My judgments probably clouded but that was most probably the best interview I have done to date. I was things like "a customer calls up and says I can't print this document...what do you do?".
So I list the things I would ask such as:
I think I came up with more than that actually. And I think the two interviewers were impressed. They also gave me some other sample questions about outlook not working any whatever. Which I answered with an equal amount of thoroughness. Again, my judgment is clouded but I think they were impressed.
One thing I think I've learned about interviews, if they take a really long it's probably either really good or really bad. I think mine was quite good (clocking in at around 90 minutes). As instructed I tried to call the recruiter back to let him know I was done with the interview. No sooner was I pulling out of the parking lot I get a call from the first recruiter from last Friday. She says, based pretty much entirely on my references (she could only contact two of the three) that I had the job if I wanted.
Ok so there's my choices. A "desktop analyst" which apparently code for "help desk" at $18/hour or a much more hands-on, which I prefer, position at $22/hour. So of course I took the latter.
In fact it was support for PCs down at the state capital. Which is downtown, naturally. And required dressing up a lot more than I am accustomed. So I spent $300+ on new close. And another $85 on a month pass of the light rail system. Unfortunately my transition from unemployment to employment wasn't going that smoothly.
Ok I was tired. I had to get up at 5am to catch a 6:30am light rail. And I seemed to always have to go to the bathroom. And my insoles of my shoes were worn down to nothing and my feet were killing me. All these are stupid excuses, I realize this. I was still under the impression maybe, just maybe, employers give people a chance to adjust to a new environment, new people, finding their way around different parts of new buildings. You know, a chance to get their bearings.
But that would be wrong. With no warnings of any kind I was summarily dismissed. Perhaps if I had mentioned my attempted transition and that I would buying new insoles eventually. But I didn't. I didn't think it was necessary either. Two days? Who ever heard of that?
In any case (do'h!) lesson learned. When starting a serious job like that, even if it is moving monitors from one end of a building to another, get your shit together!
The prior job, the one I had for a year at AT&T, allowed me to develop certain bad habits. So this dismissal was the slap-in-the-face I really needed. It also knocked the wind out of my self-confidence.
I've probably mentioned this before but I realized when I first started working I was starting relatively late and therefore needed to play some catch-up in my employment lessons learned. As it turns out this realization had made a midly fast learner when it comes to these lessons. How can I say that when I was summarily dismissed in two days? For one thing the guy-in-charge kept asking me how I was doing if I was ok. How I was to get "your job is in danger" from such questions I didn't know. But I know now. If the guy-in-charge, or any manager type for that matter, is spending a lot of attention on you it's not a good sign. Even if the attention is merely statements like "I hope you're doing well. I realize we just threw you in. Normally new employees don't do anything the first day." See that seems friendly and concerned to me. A good manager. In fact it's execu-speak for "you're one lazy son-of-bitch". Who would have guessed?
That was two weeks ago. My self-confidence has recovered a bit since then and I have received a few more calls. One in particular closer to my house. Another phone company as a matter of fact. It's a significant pay cut and I'm way over-qualified. But physical activity is obviously what I need. So if it's offered I'll take it. And to say I'll be over-prepared this time would be putting it mildly. And the interviewer knew I was over-qualified. Once she saw my resume she called back and asked if I was sure I wanted it and seemed to want assurance I would in fact stay on from the whole contract (the end of June or so).
See this is the bullshit game you gotta play. What was I gonna say? If something from twice the money comes up that looks ideal and permanent I WON'T take it? Of course not. Also the contract on her end could end at any time. I know the game now though. She needed to hear something specific from that she could relay to her client. I get it. So I said I take my commitments very seriously. If you want me for two months that's how long you will have me. That was the right answer.
She knows it's a game. I know it's game. We all know it's a bullshit game. Right? That said I will do whatever I can to honor my word on this. If I get a better offer after I've started this job I will make every effort to fulfill the contract. And if it's really that great of an offer I can always ask her to release me. Also the newer recruiter should hopefully see the value I put on my word. I mean I leave the current job for a better paying one the recruiter for the newer one should also realize what my commitment is exactly and that I could leave him at any moment for an even greater paying job. At least, that's the way I'm playing it out in my head.
This is all academic anyway. I don't even have this stupid job I'm over-qualified for yet. Though one of my references did email me to say I would probably get it. Even if I do get it is there any guarantee I'll get an even better offer in the next couple of months? No.
So I got this latest offer on Monday. I haven't heard anything one way or another from the recruiter. I was hoping to start this Monday. So there at least three possibilities: I didn't get the job, I'll never hear from the recruiter. Do'h! She's waiting until the last second, I'll be sent the paper work for a drug test tomorrow or Friday and told to hurry up and get it done. Or last maybe I'll just start mid-week next week or a week from Monday. That'd be annoying. Very annoying. Is it really that difficult to get these decisions together.
The only other thing of note is that from some reason I have been playing very few games. PC games anyway. The local CompUSA (along with a lot of other branches) is closing up shop so I got Gears of War quite cheap ($50 with tax). So I started playing that quite a lot. But why did I stop with the WoW? Probably good I did, but still. I don't know. I feel I'm in some kind of transitional state. Or something.
Gears of War is awesome by the way. I'm finally learning the game pad. It was quite a learning curve to transition from keyboard/mouse. I'm thinking of doing a Gears of War review-for-PC-geeks type article. Eventually.
Also I stated a subscription to Netflix. Figured I had some TV shows to get caught up on. And since I have the time why not? Right? So far I watched this little anime called Samurai Champloo. Only 26 or so episodes long. It was pretty good, though not the ending I was expecting.
I also bought a new MP3/video player. That I will also leave to another day and time.
And also I did starting reading The Stand by Stephen King. I've been slacking for a while on reading it. Even though it's really, REALLY good. The acclaim for it is not exaggerated. It is 1,100+ pages though. That's kind of a mountain even for me.
So that's my status of now: you know, surprisingly well. ¶ 10:35 AM 0 Comments
So it's been like six weeks since I posted anything. All that reading last year got me out of the habit. Which I've said before.
I went back and read the last post. Some how I'm always surprised at a past post. I mean it seems familiar but it still hardly seems like me for some reason. I did notice I use the word "any" too much. Anyway. Any case. boooo. So I'll try and avoid that.
When I last wrote I had just lost my job of over a year. I was kind of in shock but rather confident I would, within weeks, have a new job. Well I didn't even start seriously fixing up my resume and posting it out to sites until mid-march. And as I had assumed I would I had a few interviews and was working by April 1st. But maybe that's getting ahead of myself.
I got an email from an Indian fellow (I have nothing against Indians) list a big giant skill table asking number-of-years-experience. I was pretty sure it was spam. And I was annoyed I had to turn on HTML email. But I filled it out and sent it anyway. Then I got a call from the Indian guy asking further questions. I was confident in my interviewing skills at this point so I must have the right things. I got a call from a woman in a city about 30 miles away.
She asked me some things and asked me to come in to meet in person. Which I did. It was rather obvious from the start she knew very little of what she was talking about. She kept asking very specific questions about Outlook. Connecting to calendars and whatever. And asking about working in a team. I kept telling her I could learn; I knew some things but not everything about Outlook. By the time I left she sounded very pessimistic about my prospects. This was on a Friday.
The following Thursday I hadn't heard anything one way or the other about the job or from her. And I had been called in the mean time about another job significantly closer to where I live.
This was a "desktop analyst" position. What the fuck does that mean?! Since it didn't have "help desk" in the name I was cautiously optimistic. I went in, met the guys, and started answering their questions.
As unhappy as I was at apple I did learn a lot. My judgments probably clouded but that was most probably the best interview I have done to date. I was things like "a customer calls up and says I can't print this document...what do you do?".
So I list the things I would ask such as:
- Any error messages?
- How long has it been this way?
- Is anyone else in the office having the same issue?
- Can you print from any other application?
- If it's a network printer do any other network apps work?
- If it's USB is it plugged in?
- Is it turned on?
- Are any lights flashing? Errors on the LCD screen of the printer?
I think I came up with more than that actually. And I think the two interviewers were impressed. They also gave me some other sample questions about outlook not working any whatever. Which I answered with an equal amount of thoroughness. Again, my judgment is clouded but I think they were impressed.
One thing I think I've learned about interviews, if they take a really long it's probably either really good or really bad. I think mine was quite good (clocking in at around 90 minutes). As instructed I tried to call the recruiter back to let him know I was done with the interview. No sooner was I pulling out of the parking lot I get a call from the first recruiter from last Friday. She says, based pretty much entirely on my references (she could only contact two of the three) that I had the job if I wanted.
Ok so there's my choices. A "desktop analyst" which apparently code for "help desk" at $18/hour or a much more hands-on, which I prefer, position at $22/hour. So of course I took the latter.
In fact it was support for PCs down at the state capital. Which is downtown, naturally. And required dressing up a lot more than I am accustomed. So I spent $300+ on new close. And another $85 on a month pass of the light rail system. Unfortunately my transition from unemployment to employment wasn't going that smoothly.
Ok I was tired. I had to get up at 5am to catch a 6:30am light rail. And I seemed to always have to go to the bathroom. And my insoles of my shoes were worn down to nothing and my feet were killing me. All these are stupid excuses, I realize this. I was still under the impression maybe, just maybe, employers give people a chance to adjust to a new environment, new people, finding their way around different parts of new buildings. You know, a chance to get their bearings.
But that would be wrong. With no warnings of any kind I was summarily dismissed. Perhaps if I had mentioned my attempted transition and that I would buying new insoles eventually. But I didn't. I didn't think it was necessary either. Two days? Who ever heard of that?
In any case (do'h!) lesson learned. When starting a serious job like that, even if it is moving monitors from one end of a building to another, get your shit together!
The prior job, the one I had for a year at AT&T, allowed me to develop certain bad habits. So this dismissal was the slap-in-the-face I really needed. It also knocked the wind out of my self-confidence.
I've probably mentioned this before but I realized when I first started working I was starting relatively late and therefore needed to play some catch-up in my employment lessons learned. As it turns out this realization had made a midly fast learner when it comes to these lessons. How can I say that when I was summarily dismissed in two days? For one thing the guy-in-charge kept asking me how I was doing if I was ok. How I was to get "your job is in danger" from such questions I didn't know. But I know now. If the guy-in-charge, or any manager type for that matter, is spending a lot of attention on you it's not a good sign. Even if the attention is merely statements like "I hope you're doing well. I realize we just threw you in. Normally new employees don't do anything the first day." See that seems friendly and concerned to me. A good manager. In fact it's execu-speak for "you're one lazy son-of-bitch". Who would have guessed?
That was two weeks ago. My self-confidence has recovered a bit since then and I have received a few more calls. One in particular closer to my house. Another phone company as a matter of fact. It's a significant pay cut and I'm way over-qualified. But physical activity is obviously what I need. So if it's offered I'll take it. And to say I'll be over-prepared this time would be putting it mildly. And the interviewer knew I was over-qualified. Once she saw my resume she called back and asked if I was sure I wanted it and seemed to want assurance I would in fact stay on from the whole contract (the end of June or so).
See this is the bullshit game you gotta play. What was I gonna say? If something from twice the money comes up that looks ideal and permanent I WON'T take it? Of course not. Also the contract on her end could end at any time. I know the game now though. She needed to hear something specific from that she could relay to her client. I get it. So I said I take my commitments very seriously. If you want me for two months that's how long you will have me. That was the right answer.
She knows it's a game. I know it's game. We all know it's a bullshit game. Right? That said I will do whatever I can to honor my word on this. If I get a better offer after I've started this job I will make every effort to fulfill the contract. And if it's really that great of an offer I can always ask her to release me. Also the newer recruiter should hopefully see the value I put on my word. I mean I leave the current job for a better paying one the recruiter for the newer one should also realize what my commitment is exactly and that I could leave him at any moment for an even greater paying job. At least, that's the way I'm playing it out in my head.
This is all academic anyway. I don't even have this stupid job I'm over-qualified for yet. Though one of my references did email me to say I would probably get it. Even if I do get it is there any guarantee I'll get an even better offer in the next couple of months? No.
So I got this latest offer on Monday. I haven't heard anything one way or another from the recruiter. I was hoping to start this Monday. So there at least three possibilities: I didn't get the job, I'll never hear from the recruiter. Do'h! She's waiting until the last second, I'll be sent the paper work for a drug test tomorrow or Friday and told to hurry up and get it done. Or last maybe I'll just start mid-week next week or a week from Monday. That'd be annoying. Very annoying. Is it really that difficult to get these decisions together.
The only other thing of note is that from some reason I have been playing very few games. PC games anyway. The local CompUSA (along with a lot of other branches) is closing up shop so I got Gears of War quite cheap ($50 with tax). So I started playing that quite a lot. But why did I stop with the WoW? Probably good I did, but still. I don't know. I feel I'm in some kind of transitional state. Or something.
Gears of War is awesome by the way. I'm finally learning the game pad. It was quite a learning curve to transition from keyboard/mouse. I'm thinking of doing a Gears of War review-for-PC-geeks type article. Eventually.
Also I stated a subscription to Netflix. Figured I had some TV shows to get caught up on. And since I have the time why not? Right? So far I watched this little anime called Samurai Champloo. Only 26 or so episodes long. It was pretty good, though not the ending I was expecting.
I also bought a new MP3/video player. That I will also leave to another day and time.
And also I did starting reading The Stand by Stephen King. I've been slacking for a while on reading it. Even though it's really, REALLY good. The acclaim for it is not exaggerated. It is 1,100+ pages though. That's kind of a mountain even for me.
So that's my status of now: you know, surprisingly well. ¶ 10:35 AM 0 Comments
