Friday, September 28, 2007

TGIF, or something

My hour zero appears to have been taken from me. It seems that the time I get up now, at least two days out of the week, is plenty to get myself and my son out the door in time for him to visit his mother at work and me to catch the train (last night he was insisting I would fall off the train, hasn't happened yet), but it doesn't give me time for dilly-dallying personal projects. I'll have to see how the train goes Monday.

In other news, there's a Herfy's almost directly adjacent to the new office building. They don't do shakes, sadly, but I may still find it impossible to resist "forgetting" to bring a lunch on Monday. "Oops! Shucky-darns..."

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Finding a rhythm that works.

I have a little advice for anyone with a long commute. See if you can take a train. Did that this morning, it was comfy, it was stress-free.

If you're gonna take the train, plan on taking the one *before* the one you need, at least for the first few days. I discovered this morning that the train runs on time. I showed up 4 minutes after it was supposed to have been there, and there it wasn't.

If you're going to take a walk at noon to figure out your route to get the train home, don't wear a heavy leather jacket. It may be stylish but you'll be sweaty.

Taking the stairs everywhere (including up and down 5 stories) is healthful, but prepared to have an embarassing shortness of breath the first day you do it. Maybe the next day too. I'll let you know.
Back to work in a few. Thanks for reading!

Monday, September 24, 2007

First day of school!

Absolutely nothing to worry about. It's tomorrow morning, it's in Seattle (with the expected commute), and I'm plagued with self-doubt.

Yay!

Maybe more later when I get my break tomorrow. Peace OUT!

Friday, September 21, 2007

You thought I might make that longer post I hinted at?

This shows you weren't paying attention. Maybe I'll have time tonight. Depends on if I have a houseguest for any substantial time. I might be obligated to deliver pwnage and distract him from a close personal medical crisis.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

I have to keep behaving.

For fear the new gig doesn't work out and I have to crawl back on my belly.

Over the weekend I was an absolute beast to everyone and everything around me.. fortunately my son was with his grandparents, unfortunately my wife had to put up with me throwing fits when such tremendous indignities as the headset cord for my mp3 player being slightly tangled, or my dropping the lid to a bottle of gatorade.

Then monday night i got an email, my fears (not having all seven years they wanted for the background search) were put to rest by the headhunter.

For now I'm still feeling like a short-timer. Having to figure out what I put in my farewell letter. Still dealing with stunned reactions from people who I had neglected to tell I was leaving before.
Stay tuned for a possibly longer post tomorrow. It's always a possibility.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Senioritis

When you know you're leaving a job, sometimes it can be hard to focus. I'm still working my job, but I can't stop thinking on every call that soon I won't be the friendly face of XYZ Cellphone Company. Or friendly voice, either. I'll be the nervous newbie that I haven't truly been for more than two years. I won't know everything about everything we do. I won't be the guy who everyone asks for help. It's a bit like moving from one school to another.

I really do regard my work as education as much as anything. I learn new things, and that is as much a reward as any other part. More than the money I make from the work, possibly more than the thrill of having someone say "I talked to ten of your co-workers and you fixed it in two minutes. What the hell is with that?" It's stopped. I don't feel I have a huge amount more to learn where I am.

The interview was not like any I've had before. It had two parts, the first was a Socratic challenge of my knowledge, a senior technician asking me questions, letting me know the answers I didn't have, working to draw out what I know and figure out what I'd need to be taught. He was impressed with my troubleshooting skills but told me afterwards that I needed to study like crazy before the next time I tried to apply for a job like this.

The second part was a somewhat more conventional interview-by-committee, except the three department heads with whom I met took complete turns with me, allowing me to stay engaged and looking at one person until they were done with me, rather than darting my eyes nervously about the table as I am randomly barraged with questions from all directions. The questions went from the first panelist, who kept asking me to talk about my weaknesses. The second and third seemed interested in ruminations on how I feel about technical work, how training was done at previous jobs, and an admission that they were hiring people at an insane rate and weren't entirely sure how to train them all.

The workplace looks awesome. I can see a major sports stadium from the window there. They have a shower, leaving open the possibility of taking a nice healthy run or engaging in competitive sports in my lunch break, options available to me at my current work but something I wouldn't consider for fear of spending the balance of the day sweating and stinking at my co-workers. The desks I saw resembled cubicles, an upgrade from my current booth-style desk. The interviewers projected an aura of friendly familiarity, and any of them I would love to have as my boss in the near future. I don't actually know what team I'll be on, it appears that I'm up for two of them, a level one position where you take open cases and try to fix them or punt them to level two, and a open line team which takes the incoming calls from customers and either fixing them quickly or opening cases for one of the other teams.

Bless all of my readers, who easily number in the several, and I'll try to update a little more often.

If there is any work for me..

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

New headset?

Been locked out of posting at work and haven't had time at home for this blog...

This might change with MY NEW JOB! WHEUEUEUEUE!!!

I'm terrified. A little more money, lot more growth potential, I've got a ton of stuff to learn, and I've gotta commute to the middle of Seattle.