category: the ongoing saga of my job

One Year In The "New" Job

(Despite the fact that my blog is still somewhat broken, design-wise, I'm going to post new entries, anyway. Hopefully I'll get things worked out soon.)

Yesterday was my one-year anniversary in Data Warehousing, and I'm not sure how to articulate how I feel about that. Actually, I'm not sure I even know how I feel myself.

I've learned so much in one year, definitely, but I often feel that a.) that's only because I came in knowing so little, and b.) I have a daunting amount yet to learn. When I started here, I had experience putzing around with MySQL and PHP, and had co-built the infamous Request Log Access Database with James. Since then, I've learned concepts that I didn't even know existed (like the concept of a Data Warehouse), and built up from there with technologies and applications and best practices.

Oftentimes, though, I feel like the youngest fairy godmother. I can't do anything totally awesome (yet), but I can do little helpful things. Which, to be fair to myself, is really selling myself short. I'm finally to a point where I can solve problems on my own, and actually discuss solutions with my supervisor and come up with valid and original ideas, and not have to go yell for help multiple times a day.

Seems like, whenever I blog about how I feel about work, it comes across as a major downer. Which it's not, really. I don't dislike my job. I like certain aspects of it a lot, although I do miss certain things from my old job(s).

I've come to realize that I miss having a "work spouse" in James, and having multiple work friends to shoot the shit with. I guess I just don't feel like I "click" with very many people at the new gig, although that's coming along slowly. I've never been one to make friends very quickly, as my drum corps buddies will confirm. It's awesome having Sheryl around now, though; she's the one person I feel like I can be completely free and open around, and not have to worry about making the wrong impression, or seeming unprofessional, or whatever my problem is.

So, after one year? Social skills still need some work. Technical skills seem to be progressing at a reasonable pace. Not planning to look for a new gig anytime soon (which is a definite improvement on my last place of employment, as I was trying to get out of there every year or so).

I finally have a real career track. Holy shit.

 

Sick Day

When writing about work, a good rule of thumb (it seems to me) is not to write anything you wouldn't want your supervisor — or *their* supervisor — to read. So, keeping my boss's boss in mind...

This morning, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror for a good two minutes straight, fighting with myself. I'd been having some gastrointestinal discomfort (read: poop cramps) all day Sunday, and they'd kept me up for part of the night into Monday morning. I'd finally gotten to a comfortable place in my sleep cycle when my alarm went off; I turned it off without hitting snooze, then realized what I'd done. But, in my half-asleep state, I didn't really care. I let myself drift back to sleep.

So, as I stood in front of the mirror, finally, I was already running late. Which is to say, later than usual. I was still mildly uncomfortable, and definitely still tired, and very much not ready to tackle a day of figuring out what questions to ask to learn a new technology (SSIS, for any geeks following along at home).

I made a decision: I went downstairs, booted up my computer, fired up my work webmail, and e-mailed my supervisor (and her supervisor, too, since I knew my supervisor was planning to be out of the office today) and said that I wasn't feeling well, and that I wouldn't be coming in today.

Then I went back to bed.

I drifted in and out of sleep for the next three hours, waiting for Aaron to wake up enough that I could tell him I'd called off of work. The UPS man woke us both up around 11am, at which point I told Aaron that I'd called in. He went back to sleep, then, and I got up.

My gastrointestinal discomfort had passed (so to speak) by 11:30, and I briefly considered going in to work for a half day. The prospect of another afternoon at home with my husband was too alluring, though; anyone who reads my blog regularly will likely know that Aaron works nights, so I only get to see him on the weekends, and for fifteen minutes after I get home from work on weekdays.

So, I stayed home. And I did have an enjoyable afternoon with Aaron, although I spent a lot of time mentally flogging myself for taking the day off of work when I probably certainly could have pushed through it.

The thing is? I didn't *have* to go and push through it. I have plenty of sick days to use — more than I'm used to having at my disposal. At my old job, I got five personal days (to be scheduled in advance) and five sick days (to be used as needed). For the whole year. End of story. Here, I still start with 40 hours sick time at the beginning of the year, to be used in half-day increments. Once I dip into those hours, though, I get eight more hours added onto my balance per month, to bring me back up to a max of 40 hours of usable sick time.

If I felt like my presence were necessary and vital — like, say, my supervisor's is — I'd feel more guilty for using this sick time for anything less than bronchitis. Truth be told, though, this under-experienced "piece of clay" is feeling a little overkneaded. I could really use some time to dig deeper into what I've learned so far, instead of switching to something completely new. At the same time, I really do want to learn SSIS, and now seems to be good timing for it, project-wise and personnel-wise.

I'm so, SO grateful for the opportunity to learn, basically, an entirely new skill for me: data warehousing. I'm glad to no longer be living paycheck to paycheck. I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. I just need to fix myself. I need to realign my brain to be more OK with the not-knowing.

No more sick days this year. I'll have them to burn, yes, but I won't. I won't do it.

 

Busted!

"Can I have a word with you?"

These are not the words anyone wants to hear from their supervisor at 9:00am. I'd come in late this morning (again), so I thought that maybe I was about to get a talking-to about my tendency to tardiness. My supervisor looked around for a private place to talk, then gestured me into the copy room.

Incidentally, most people seem to think that the copy room affords them some measure of privacy. As my cube is right next to the copy room, I can assert that it does not. Just because you can't see anyone else doesn't mean that your conversation isn't carrying out into the hallway.

In the copy room, my supervisor told me that there's a person or department who checks the internet for references to our company, and that I had blogged about it by name. At this point, my brain started whirling — I didn't talk smack about work, did I? — and I know that my eyes had to have been giant saucers of Oh-Shit-ness, because she kept a very amiable tone and tried to be reassuring and factual. She explained that the person who monitors the spider or search or proprietary whatever-it-is that finds mention of our company online noticed that a Toledo employee had written about the company.

(In my mind, the SWAT team from The Blues Brothers movie comes swarming down the sides of the pointy pink building I work in, as IS Security blares an alarm: WE HAVE A BLOGGER ON THE PREMISES.)

The problem was not that I had written about the company — I did not, in fact, talk any smack about my employer, as I value my job and know that the internet is a very visible and accessible place. The problem was that I posted my del.icio.us link about the company at 2:46 PM on a weekday. During work hours.

I was incredibly flustered. I explained to my supervisor that it was just one of those online bookmark sites, and I saw the article and posted it, and it automatically posted to my blog later, and I didn't think anything of it at the time. I'm sure I ran off at the mouth and sounded excessively nervous, because she calmly and kindly assured me that she didn't see it as a problem, but that I should keep in mind that blogging during office hours is against company policy.

That pretty much wrecked my flow for the rest of the day.

After I retired to my cube and got my heart out of my throat and back where it belonged, I started to wonder how they knew I had blogged during work hours. After all, my del.icio.us links don't display a timestamp, and the timestamp on my blog is 11:00pm, when the del.icio.us feed posts my daily links. All day, I was convinced that Security must have actually sought out my blog (hi, guys! *waves*) to see if I made any other references to the company, then found my Twitter posts throughout the day, and busted me on that. As it turns out, though, the timestamp for my del.icio.us link is right there in the RSS feed. So, nothing vindictive or borderline unfair was going on in Security. Just that one post.

Still, though, I'm going to lay low for a while, as far as internet at work is concerned.

 

Twitter Update (#927495803) Being pretty productive today. Am leading a training session for my team about the basics of MicroStrategy at 3:30. Basics? That I can do. read more...

 

My First Users Group Meeting

I think it's going to be an unusually early night for me, because it was an unusually early morning for me today. Before I crash, though, I did want to talk a little bit about the MicroStrategy Users Group Meeting that was the reason for my early morning. (Just in case you missed today's flurry of Twitter traffic.)

First, some backstory: I've been working with the MicroStrategy application for about eight months now. Before that, my only reporting experience was with MS Access, and I had no real Business Intelligence (BI) knowledge to speak of. Now, I'm finally to the point where I feel I can implement a simple project from start to finish on my own. Just about. So, I knew I wasn't going to get a whole lot out of today's presentations, from a technical standpoint, but I also knew it would be helpful to get an idea of how other companies are using the software and what's possible with it. Plus, despite the four hours in the car, I actually welcomed a chance to get paid to go someplace different and do something besides work at my desk and go to meetings.

There were three presentations: one about Supply Chain Management and BI, by an employee of Spartan Stores; one about using Narrowcast (a proprietary report distribution service), by an employee of Borders; and one about BI and Geography, by an employee of GM.

Frankly, I was surprised that such companies used this software. It's hard to get much info about MicroStrategy online, since the manuals and help files and training info is all copyrighted material. I guess I assumed that a lack of search hits — besides press releases, that is — meant that the platform wasn't popular. Apparently I was mistaken, as there were two dozen employees at our User Group meeting, representing eight or more companies, including the three listed above.

The Supply Chain presentation, while informative and interesting, was not something I could translate to my projects and experience at work. The Narrowcast presentation was more potentially useful, but since I'm not a Narrowcast expert, I could only take a few notes and hope that I can get my supervisor a copy of the presentation for later.

GM's presentation, while generally overarching and not technical, was eye-opening. The presenter basically listed all the things they track in their databases, mainly thanks to the technology of OnStar, coupled with a popular mapping software subscription service. We were proudly told that GM can pinpoint the location of a vehicle so closely as to identify its current parking space. We were told lots of things, most of which had little to do with possibilities for our own BI, and had instead to do with how much data GM has regarding its vehicles and business in general. Granted, we did see the ease with which this data can be aggregated into useful information via MicroStrategy. Mostly, though, our reactions were a combination of, "Wow, you can track how many times the car has cycled from a cold motor to a warm motor and back?" and, "So, you say only a court injunction can force you to disclose all this information you've collected?"

I did record audio of all three presentations with my digital point-and-shoot as a bit of an experiment; however, I think the experiment was a bit of a failure, as they're not entirely listenable. I might go through with my plan to tweak the audio a little and burn them to CD for my supervisor, since she couldn't make it to the meeting, but I'm not sure.

Either way, it won't happen tonight. I'm surprised I'm still awake, honestly. I don't generally get up before the sun. Not during Daylight Savings Time, anyway.

 

Little Bit of Everything

I don't do these massive update posts much anymore — I prefer to keep my blog entries on one topic at a time — but I figured I'd do one catch-up post, then maybe expound on parts of it later. So, working backwards from today...

Weighed in today at 196.5 lbs on my home scale — that's one and a half pounds away from my recent all-time low of 195 from May 2007. (Yep, I gained 15 pounds in six months, and it took me longer than that to lose it again.) It was a bit of a disappointment, then, to weigh in at my Weight Watchers meeting at 200.4 lbs, even after I had an ultra-light breakfast and didn't drink much water before the weigh-in. My mini-goal had been to weigh in under 200 pounds at the meeting. Oh, well — I guess I'll wait until next weigh-in to hit my mini-goal, and to reward myself with some shorts and dress pants and blouses that fit.

My supervisor asked me this morning if I'd like to attend a User Group meeting in Lansing (two hours away) this Thursday. Then she asked me if I could drive, since her car doesn't have air conditioning. D'oh! So, I'll be getting up at the buttcrack of dawn on Thursday, driving with my supervisor for two hours, attending four hours of Business Intelligence lectures and panels, then having lunch and driving two hours back. At least we don't have to work for the last couple hours of the day; basically, my day gets shifted forward by two hours.

I landed a freelance web design gig yesterday. Actually, I pretty much "landed" it last Wednesday, when he asked me if I do web design, but yesterday's client meeting was the first official sealing of our new business relationship. He's the resident conductor of a local orchestra, so I'm basically making him a PR tool, which is perfect work for me. I underpriced myself, as per usual, but I made sure to leave myself an out: a flat fee for the first 20 hours, then an hourly fee for the next 20, topping out at 40 hours. So, I won't have totally hosed myself.

This past weekend, Aaron and I went up to the Ann Arbor Art Fairs. Great time, as always. I took a few pictures (with the Holga, too, although I'll have to wait until those are developed to post them), and I bought one expensive thing and one not-so-expensive thing.

Oh, and I still need to get this blog moved to its new home on another web host, and not just because something's borked with my MT installation/upgrade (as you will have noticed if you tried to comment on a post lately — your comments ARE going through, I promise). I have until the end of August to get my stuff moved — which, incidentally, is also the deadline for getting my freelance site done. I'm going to be looking at some mighty busy evenings here. I'll need to carefully ration out my time.

And now I should get to bed, because I need to ready myself for my epic early-morning wakey-wakey in another day or so. I haven't gotten up at 5:30am since... um... well, it's been a while. Not counting jet lag in another timezone, of course.

 

Time Capsule: April 2005

Would you believe that I have old e-mails in my inbox dating back this far?

I've started on the quest for zero, and opted to go to the oldest first. Seems counter-intuitive, I know, but I know how I roll — most of it is probably to-do lists and music I wanted to remember to download, so all I'll need to do is consolidate everything into to-do lists, then do them.

This, though, was interesting: I had obviously intended to post this to my blog, and never got around to it. I didn't know it at the time, but this "process improvement" at my job at Sky was ultimately a precursor to me and James developing a full-blown Access database. That database was a pivotal part in both James and myself getting our current jobs; of this, I have no doubt.

Let's take a trip back, shall we, to the Loan Corrections Department of Sky Bank...

Fri, Apr 15, 2005 at 4:54 PM

I got to do some slightly more fun stuff than usual at work yesterday. We're working on process improvements for our department (i.e. figure out what's a pain in the butt and then figure out ways to fix it), and I volunteered my assistance for some Excel function fun. Granted, I never thought it was all that fun in CS 100, but anything that makes my brain work is keen by me these days. I had to figure out how to show time elapsed from when we log in a request to when it's completed, and it was harder than I'd thought. I had to convert date formats to text and all that jazz, then subtract and reformat the result. Took me a couple hours to troubleshoot, but it was worth it, getting to use my brain. Whee!

Actually using my brain at work. What a concept!

 

On The Not-So-New Job

I recently got some e-mails from my former Sky co-workers. Most of them, when they talked about their new jobs, made a point of mentioning that their new "work family" is nothing like the one they left behind. And that made me think about how, at my new job, I'm actually starting to feel like I belong.

I've spent over seven months in my "new" job, and I'm finally becoming a contributing member of the team. When I work on a project, I find myself asking more intelligent questions when I get stuck: instead of "How do I do this," it's more like, "I tried X, Y and Z thing, and I don't understand why it's still not giving me what I expected." I'm also much more comfortable just coming right out and saying, "I don't know enough to know what questions to ask; I just know it's not doing what it's supposed to be doing." Plus, it makes me feel better about myself when the person I ask doesn't have an immediate answer, and has to do a little research — makes me feel like I didn't miss something blatantly obvious.

One big thing that's made a difference is a slight change in management. The most senior member of the team was promoted to a managerial role, while our "real" supervisor's role was redefined as more planning and overall development of the data warehouse. So, our new manager actually got managerial training, and part of her job now is to touch base with each of us regularly, which makes my life a lot easier. Before, I was sitting isolated in my cube, physically removed from the rest of the team, feeling extremely awkward whenever I got confused (which was often) and decided to ask a question (which was not as often as it should have been). Now, I have half an hour every week carved out to talk to my manager about any questions I might have, either technically or overall. She also tries to make herself more available in general; before, she was constantly tied down with projects, and I felt guilty asking her questions, no matter how much she asserted that it was fine to interrupt her.

But more management changes are in the works. My "real" supervisor, the one who first interviewed me and who gave me the call that I got the job, has given his notice. He's taking a position at another local company, where he'll have more room for advancement, and I can appreciate the need for that. I certainly don't begrudge him his career move; I've heard it said that people these days will change jobs an average of every five years, so he's about due. His absence is going to make things interesting, though, as we might not have a replacement for several months, and my new manager will likely be taking over many of his roles... thus making her much less available again.

Apart from playing Musical Supervisors, I've also started feeling much more comfortable with my co-workers. I'm finally realizing that, hey, dumbass, you work in IT, where all the other geeks work. You will get along fine if you'll just TALK to these people. I've been working with more of them more closely, getting up-close and personal with people from QA and with the DBAs and with the BSGs and all the other alphabet soup who make up the long chain of people involved with an IS project. And these people are cool. They hack their iPods and run network cable through their houses and get off on having offsite backups of their personal files and photos. I can really talk to these people — I don't have to worry about them being overly judgemental, for the most part. I'm starting to get a feel for who's on my wavelength and who's just another stuffed shirt.

We had an ice cream social at work this afternoon, and that was some invaluable time spent. I got to know a couple of DBAs and QA folks a bit better, and learned a little bit about our unique brand of office politics. (No worries on the diet front, either — they had sugar-free, fat-free ice cream, supposedly, although it tasted too good to be both.)

So, about my job? It's going well. Better than it was. Three or four months ago, I was much less satisfied with my progress and my interaction with the team than I am now. Now, I'm feeling like I really am that malleable employee whom my boss wanted to mold into a skilled data warehouse engineer. I'm at least fitting into my groove better than before.

 

Take Your Place In The Circle Of Care

Just got done with my day and a half of corporate training: the Circle of Care. I could tell you all about it, but then I'd have to kill you, being that all my supplementary books and materials clearly state that the contents thereof are property of my employer, et cetera.

Instead, I'll give you a brief synopsis, which is all you really wanted, anyway:

1. Videos. Well-produced videos, at least. The characters in the vignettes remained constant throughout the various exercises (calming an upset customer, apologizing, et al.), and the scripts were written and executed well enough that we actually felt emotionally vested in the characters therein. When the clip about Saying Goodbye came up (we do have hospices in our business line), I was one of a few people in the room who got a little misty, but didn't want to admit it.
2. Singing and dancing. Seriously. I have a DVD with the music videos for the Original Version, Ballad, Pop, and Dance Mixes (of the Circle of Care song, that is). We were encouraged to sing along, and we danced in the center of the room — usually to the Dance version. Luckily, one of the more outgoing fellows that was in my Orientation group four months ago was also in my Circle of Care sessions, and he did the awesomest college-guy dances EVAR.
3. People Skills Review. Actually, some was review, and some was new ways of looking at the situations, and new acronyms to apply. I think we all know that, in order to sufficiently answer and soothe a seriously annoyed customer, you need to be calm yourself, and determine the problem, and paraphrase, and reassure, and all that sort of thing. I just got more and different ways to do that in this program.
4. Holy crap, there's a lot of people from Sky at my work! There were two in my training group these past two days, and we discussed others, and I went to lunch with a couple of them. I also learned some awesomely juicy news about the Huntington post-merger period.

And that's about all I've got for now. Except a bunch of booklets, two DVDs, a new mug, a teddy bear, a certificate of completion, a couple of new friends, a funky hat, a clown nose, and a new appreciation for my IT skills as a bringer of a more substantial salary than before.

Edit: The Hugging. OMG, how could I leave out the hugging? I may possibly have hugged more people today than I did at my own wedding. We learned all about different kinds of hugs, and I am now officially "Licensed to Hug."

Yup.

 

Business Trip #2

I'm carpooling with a co-worker to Chicago tomorrow for more software training. We're taking off in the early afternoon to battle the inclement weather, and so we don't have to drive too far in the dark. I haven't spent much quality time with this co-worker, so this will be a good opportunity for us to get to know each other. Hopefully, we'll still like each other by the time the week is over...

I'm really looking forward to the content of these classes, as my job really hinges on the subject: creating dashboards for business intelligence applications. Once I learn some of the finer points of creating dashboards with this software, I hope I'll be able to hit the ground running when I return to work next week. We'll see how that works out.

The Best Western where we're staying claims to have a 24-hour fitness center with treadmills and stationary bikes; I have every intention of taking advantage of that fitness center, especially since I didn't get to do so on my last trip (and in light of my underwhelming weight loss of late). Apart from that, I'm expecting less of the Best Western than I did of the Hampton Inn, just by virtue of the difference between franchises. I hope I'll be pleasantly surprised, but I'm not counting on it.

My travel buddy will be checking out a laptop from work, plus there's supposedly a Business Center at the hotel, so I may or may not end up blogging while I'm away. I'm honestly hoping to spend a good part of my evening free time on a treadmill, when I'm not eating or reading or (hopefully) hanging out with Timmay.

We're going to be staying one extra night so we won't have to drive four hours home on a Friday night after class. Saturday morning will be spent seeing the sights of Chicago, and we'll head home after lunch, arriving back in town around dinnertime.

This is shaping up to be a much different business trip than my last. Whether that's good, bad, or indifferent remains to be seen...

 

Business Trip #1

There may be few or no updates for the remainder of the week, as I will be in Columbus (Dublin) for MicroStrategy training. I'm sure the Hampton has a business center where I can check my e-mail and whatnot, but I'm not sure how much time I'll be able to spend on e-mail and keeping up with my RSS feeds, much less actually blogging.

Even though I'll be missing out on a grand total of 45 minutes (that's three days' worth) of Aaron time, I'll be hanging out with some old friends in the evenings, which is awesome. I know there are some people in the area that I'm not getting to meet up with, and I do apologize for that. Maybe next time... (And there probably WILL be a next time, with all the training I could potentially sign up for.)

I'm looking forward to learning more about the Business Intelligence software I've been using at work; I'm also looking forward to seeing old friends, and having a change of scenery. I'm not looking forward to being away from my Honey-Muffin on the Hallmark Holiday Valentine's Day, or really being away from him at all; and I'm not sure about making the 2½ hour drive to Columbus alone for the first time.

I'm a big girl. I can go on a big bad business trip by myself.

Right?

 

On How I Like The New Job

Everyone keeps asking me how I like my new job so far. Honestly, I think I'm still too new in the position to really have an opinion of the job yet. The novelty of some of the new changes has begun to wear off: I'm growing accustomed to a half-hour drive to work again; parking in the parking garage is no big deal; I'm becoming more familiar with everyone's different accents, and can understand people's speech more easily; not clocking in and out every day doesn't seem so weird; and the glass-walled elevator ride isn't quite so spectacular as it once seemed.

That said, there are some things that are still cool, and there are some things I've come to miss. I'm still taken by the view from the 12th floor, especially when I find myself in one of the conference rooms, staring out across the Maumee River (currently frozen and snow-covered) into the distance beyond. I still feel like I hit the lottery every time I get a paycheck; Aaron and I are working on evening out our bill-paying habits, now that I make more, but I still feel mighty WTF at my checking account balance most of the time (especially since we've paid off the Kia! w00t!). I still enjoy my daily walks down the Maumee, although I do miss walking in a more wooded setting, under a canopy of leaves (or at least branches) and on a dirt trail instead of pavement.

At the top of the list of things I miss, though, are my work friends. I miss them individually — James, Heather, Rob, Scott, and others — but I also miss just *having* work friends. Finally, after almost three months, I'm starting to get a little more than a "How are you?" from people in the pantry/kitchen area, but I still don't feel like there's anyone I really connect with. It'll take time.

Other things I miss: Having a window right by my cube. Squirrel-watching. Being ten or fifteen minutes from home. Being five minutes from my OB-GYN's office. Doing a slightly different job every two weeks. Having a grasp on my job and knowing just about everything I need to know to do it properly and efficiently. Generally knowing what I'm doing.

One thing I'm not sure if I'll like or not is business travel. I'll be traveling for software training twice in February, and probably more in the second quarter and beyond. I usually only get fifteen minutes of quality time with my husband every evening, between the time I get home and the time he leaves, and I'm not too keen on giving up those precious few minutes. I also don't have a wifi laptop (OK, I don't have a laptop at all), so unless I hang out in the hotel's Business Center for an hour or more every evening, I am *so* going to have internet withdrawal. I'm also just generally not cool with traveling solo; I prefer to have a partner in crime, just in case I lose my way or don't know what I'm doing or whatever. However... I might like it, especially since it'll be relatively infrequent. Change of scenery. Learn some stuff. See some friends (Columbus and Chicago in February! Locals, touch base with me and we'll meet up). We'll see.

So, that's a relatively neutral view on how the job is going so far. In a nutshell, I'm pretty ambivalent about it right now, but it has potential. I need time and knowledge in order to grow into the job, I think. It'll come. It'll click. I just need time, and the right attitude.

 

Christmas Eve

It's a very quiet day at the office; even more quiet than usual. It's Christmas Eve, and I think that half of the building (or more) took a personal holiday today. The parking garage seemed even more deserted today than on the day after Thanksgiving.

The person who can answer all the questions I have about the business intelligence application I've been trying to learn is finally back from maternity leave — a few days early, actually — so I at least won't be stuck all day with no one to answer my questions and nothing else to do. She's pretty busy, though, so it's not like she's at my disposal constantly, like the trainers in Loan Corrections were. I guess I'll only be stuck for part of the day with nothing else to do, then...

I'll get to leave an hour early at 3:30pm today, since it's the day before a holiday, which is a nice perk. Go home, open presents, have some dinner, make the traditional Christmas sausage cake (yes, it's really made of sausage, and it's really a cake — I think we've been over this before), and enjoy a quiet Christmas Eve with my husband (who has today off of work).

Tomorrow, we'll be going to Cleveland for Christmas Day. We'll be bringing sausage cake and the zucchini-chocolate cake I made last night, along with presents for everyone. We won't be bringing the new video camera, though; we decided that we really don't need to remember Christmas as is it now. Grammie's Alzheimer's is getting pretty pronounced these days, and Poppa's having a hard time getting around. Aunt Elaine can't make it to holidays at all, due to her own medical issues. Better to remember the earlier years of Elaine's Christmas cookies and Poppa being all sprightly and Grammie fussing in the kitchen... and Pete and his family always being late. :-)

 

Transferrable Skills

I've spent these first three weeks at my new job mainly trying to teach myself the reporting app we use. The person who would normally be my guru is still on maternity leave. Although I've picked up the basics, the finer points continue to elude me. I'm so close to understanding how the damn program works, but little things keep popping up and I have to wonder WHY can't I choose CensusSummary as my Source table OMG?!

Anyway.

There's a project in the early stages that I'm kind of being primed to work on. A division of the company wants to have a web-based dashboard, where they can see all their normally stodgy and numberiffic reports in an easy-to-read visual format. Awesome. Yesterday, we received a document from one of the end-users, giving us a detailed representation of what said end-users would like to see. I read the document, nodded to myself, and started sketching possibilities on a legal pad (without being asked — it's just how I do. I'm the thumbnail queen).

Not long after, I get a Microsoft Visio document via e-mail from my boss. It's his idea of how the dashboard could be laid out. He shows up in my cube shortly after the e-mail does, and I redirect him to my cute little tabbed-browsing concept piece. He says he likes mine better, and has me work up a mockup of my version of the dashboard.

That was most of my day today. And everyone seems to like the result so far.

Yay for my design skillz! As I told my boss, "You went and got me in my element!"

But wait. There's more.

Around 3pm today, I was approached yet again by my supervisor. It appears that there's a report that's been being delayed in our usual development process, and the internal customer needs the report shortly after month-end. Someone had suggested importing the data into Access and using its reporting tools. Just so happens that my boss just hired someone fresh from doing major Access reporting on a regular basis...

Got a sample report, got someone to help me connect to the database via ODBC, and got started. By quitting time, I had most of a report worked out. I'll have to work out a few details tomorrow. The boss caught me as I was getting my coat on, and I showed him what I had. He seemed to be genuinely impressed that I'd made that much progress already, and he made comment that I'm kind of saving the day. I don't know about that...

At any rate, I'm finally feeling like a contributor to the team, even if everyone might be going a little out of their way to let the new girl know she's doing a great job. I'll take it.

 

New Job, Week One

The first half of the week was spectacular. Getting to know a new job, new location, new people, new boss, new responsibilities. Realizing that this gig fits me like a glove. Or it will.

The second half of the week was filled with insecurity and frustration. Me and the help files and the books and the tutorials. I now know that there's a LOT that I don't know. Plus, most of the people I've met in my department seem on the surface to be stressed, self-absorbed and pessimistic in general. And overly absorbed in football. Today, I was starting to doubt whether I'd made the right decision in taking this job, honestly.

About five minutes before quitting time, my supervisor visited my cube and asked how I my first week had gone. I was pretty honest, telling him that I felt like I was going around in circles, and that I realize now that there's a lot that I don't know. He seemed to appreciate that, and told me that he has no expectations of me right now. I am to be a sponge, in his words. I mentioned that I have lots of questions, but feel uncomfortable interrupting other people's work to ask them, and he said that we'd make time early next week to sit down and discuss things. He also confirmed that, yes, this is only the second company I've worked for, and he affirmed that I'd come out the other side with a working knowledge of how the company and the data warehouse applications work.

That affirmation, while supportive, was also telling. The one person who can train me is on maternity leave, but I have the impression that he expects me to be up to speed on my own by the time she gets back.

This is daunting. Fun and new, yes, but still daunting.

 

No Preferences

"The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences," wrote the Third Ancestor, a.k.a. the Third Zen Patriarch of China (d. 606 AD), in a poem commonly known as The First Zen Poem. We discussed the verse at our Zen meeting last night. It's not saying that you shouldn't give a shit about anything; rather, it's suggesting that a fuller experience is possible if you don't prefer one outcome to another. As I understand it, anyway.

For example: today at work, I really didn't get much accomplished. My boss wants me to start on a test project, and I can barely grasp the first step of the process. Today was spent flailing about in an application with no one to help me: no helpful intern (who attends class Tuesdays and Thursdays), and no experienced mentor (who is on maternity leave).

My first inclination is to think that I had a shitty day. Why? Because I experienced frustration at not understanding, and because I got very little accomplished.

Still, why? Because I prefer to have a measurable and substantial work completed. Because I prefer to understand and be productive. If I allow myself to appreciate the frustration and the very basic learning experience as much as I would have appreciated a massively productive and enlightening work day, then the day becomes less shitty in retrospect.

One thing I can't let go of my preference for — or, rather, my aversion? Being tired. There's still stuff I need to do tonight before bed (like cleaning up for Saturday's "Diana's New Job Party," which may actually be relatively well-attended), and there are things I didn't even get to (like burning CDs for the sangha), and I don't like it. I get anxious and grumpy and irritable when I'm tired (who doesn't?), and I feel like I have to continue to be productive when I should just freaking go to bed already, and damn the consequences.

*sigh*

Off to clean the dining room table, and straighten and dust the living room before I crash out.

 

On The New Job

I'll bet you're all wondering how my first two days at the new job went. Well, wonder no more!

Yesterday was mainly Orientation: all about benefits and office tours and videos and fingerprints and forms and more videos and — OMG, I saw "W" from Good Eats (aka Vickie Eng) in one of my orientation videos! Squee!

Ahem. Anyway, yeah, orientation took up the vast majority of my Monday. I did spend about the last hour of my day actually in my department, being introduced to everyone, then reading some online training materials about the application I'll be using.

Some other randomness about my first day:

• I was so proud to have secured myself a parking spot in the really close parking garage. The attendant (an attendant in a parking garage?) directed me to park in a corner, by a wall, under a bulkhead. He had to direct me to help me get into the space, and I had to duck to get in and out of the car. And I had to have exact change for the SEVEN DOLLARS it cost to park there for the day. Lesson learned; the garage next door is only $3.
• The restaurant downstairs brings up sandwiches and salads to sell on the sixth floor eating area. I hadn't brought any lunch with me, since I didn't know if I'd have access to a refrigerator, so I bought a $3 tuna salad sandwich for lunch. It was quite good.
• My company pays for half of our parking costs, once our benefits officially kick in. So, after January 1, I'll only have to pay thirty-some dollars a month for parking, instead of $3 a day (roughly $70 a month).
• There's a fitness center on the first floor. It costs about $25 per month to use. They give you a locker, and they wash your gym clothes every week. Wow.

Today involved more reading of online training materials, learning about the company, and trying to develop a routine. I brought my small Hotei (Laughing Buddha) figurine from home, and brought my wall calendar and wedding picture from my box of stuff from my old job. My desk is at least starting to feel like my own space.

I'm discovering that I'm really a creature of habit, be that a good or bad thing. I'm entitled to two 15-minute breaks and a 45-minute lunch, but I'm not really used to taking breaks. I'm also not sure if eating at my desk is expected or OK or what, since we do have a "pantry" on our floor, with a fridge and a microwave. As far as what to do on my lunch break... I haven't been listening to my iPod, in favor of just walking around downtown, then walking down the riverside before going back to work. (I never realized that Toledo had such gorgeous views.) Today, I walked downstairs for my lunch walk instead of taking the elevator. All twelve floors. It really wasn't bad. I think I might make that part of my lunch routine. Still, I think I'd feel more comfortable if I had someone I could hang out with for a week or so, do the break and lunch thing with, and just kind of learn the social ropes.

Speaking of social, I never realized how the four-person cubes at my old job affected our interactions. The new person would meet at least one other person and get to feel comfortable with that person, and the cube walls were short enough to see over when standing or walking. At my new job, I have SO MUCH ROOM in my cube, it's indecent. I'm all crammed into one corner of it, though, just because I'm not used to having so much room to spread out. The walls are tall enough that I can't see when people walk by, except maybe the tops of their heads, with makes it a challenge to socialize. It's just little old me with my back to the cube door, reading my training materials and hoping to get up to speed. People have stopped in to say hello and welcome, but I can count the visits on one hand. I'll get used to it, I'm sure.

Oh, and it's SO QUIET! Did I mention that? So, so quiet. It's weird.

Except for my computer, which sounds like it's going to take flight any moment.

Hmm, what else to mention...? Oh, yes. I believe there is a corollary to Murphy's Law regarding work photo IDs. The day my hair is greasier than hell will always be the day when I'm unexpectedly required to have an ID photo taken. RCC, Sky, and now here. At least I can get in to work now, I guess.

I'm currently in a 90-day orientation period, during which time I need to be on my bestest behavior and not call in sick and not be late (like they'd even know, since I'm salary) and do good and learn lots. And not abuse the work e-mail system. So, I guess this is the end of blogging via e-mail from work (and super-long e-mail volleys with friends) for now. Ah, well.

Honestly? I think that, once I get the hang of this MicroStrategy thing and get a better understanding of Data Warehousing, this job will really be up my alley. It seems like a great transition from what I was doing at Sky to a more IT-centric career.

 

New Job Happy Dance

It's true: after being unemployed for almost six weeks, I have accepted a job offer!

I'll be working in downtown Toledo, on the 12th floor of a corporate office building across from Promenade Park. I will also be making more than twice what I made in my previous job: an increase in salary of 114%, to be exact. Aaron and I will be on equal financial footing — actually, I'll be making just a little more than he makes, to tell the truth.

The main thing, though, is that I'll be working in the Information Services department, in Data Warehousing. The change of industry has to be the biggest benefit of this entire severance situation.

My start date is one week from today, at which time I get to report to Orientation at 8:30am. On Aaron's birthday. Which he requested off from work. But it's all good, since we'll get to go to dinner together on his birthday. Yay!

So, when's a good time for the Diana Got A Job Party that I promised you all...? I'm thinking Saturday the 17th, evening? Who's in?

 

Second Interview Results

You know, I'm not entirely sure how that went.

I spoke briefly with my potential supervisor's supervisor, and that seemed to go well. More of the same: Tell me about the Access tracking database, etc. Then I met with two senior team members, who asked me more technical questions: How many tables were in your database? How many columns in the main table? What kinds of reports did you create?

Then I got the SQL test.

First question: Write pseudocode to generate the first 10 numbers of the Fibonacci sequence: (0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34)

Took me a second to remember / deduce what the Fibonacci sequence was (add the two previous numbers to get the next number). Then I was all, OK, do while loop / for next loop, something like that. Counter variable going up to 10, sure. But I never figured out how to set variables for the previous two numbers, or to do the calculation mathematically. So, they got part of my logic behind it, but not a correct answer.

After that were a couple of query questions that should have been easy, but weren't. After those were a bunch of definition questions, some of which I farted my way through ("What is normalization and when would you go for it?") and some of which I skipped ("What is a transaction?"). All in all, I answered probably half the questions on the quiz, and got some of those mostly correct. Some of them I knew how to answer in the context of Access, but not SQL ("How do you define a one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many relationship between tables?").

After the test, my potential supe came in and told me that the test is mainly to see where I stand programming-wise and what my problem-solving thought process is like. He stressed that in entry-level positions, they don't have much to look at with regards to a body of work, so the test serves to give them an idea of where each applicant stands.

The Powers That Be will be convening by week's end to decide who gets the job. I'll keep you all updated.

P.S. - I wore my traditional Halloween dangly bat earrings to the interview. No one noticed. At least Jess noticed when I wore them to Eric and Jess's reception on Saturday. :-)

 

Interview Today: Results

Today's interview — number two since the job hunt began in April — was for a large health care company whose corporate offices are located in downtown Toledo. (Let's skip the company name and keep Google out of this, yes?) The position in question is in Data Warehousing, which deals with getting data into the warehouse and spitting that data back out in the form of reports.

I arrived a little early, located the building (again — I interviewed here a few years back), and went across the street to spend ten minutes at Promenade Park. Beautiful day, gentle breeze, very calming.

(By the way? On my way up into the parking garage before this, I saw a vanity license plate that made me laugh out loud: PWN3D. I *so* wished I would have had my camera on me.)

Once I went into the building, I was taken upstairs by an HR representative to fill out some standard paperwork: OKs for background checks, stuff like that. Then I was taken upstairs for my interview.

Things that went right:

• My new interview pantsuit is *killer*. I looked perfectly professional (IMO), and didn't feel fussy about my clothes or awkward about my bearing.
• I successfully portrayed my ability to learn on the fly, to keep myself busy and productive, and to try to better myself and my department. A lot of this had to do with my resume, though.
• I had plenty of relevant questions to ask.

Things that I could have done better:

• Interview questions for which I was not prepared: "Why do you want to work for our company?" and "What did you like the least about your previous jobs?"
• OMG I forgot to bring my references! Sheesh. The last time I used my fancy black folder was when I went to the job fair, so it was full to the brim of unstapled two-page resumes. It should have been full of the job description printout, a resume, and my references. No worries, though; I asked the HR rep if I could e-mail them to her later, and she in turn gave me not only her card, but an entire folder with info on benefits.

Overall, the interviewer (my potential supervisor) said he sees potential in me, and that appears to be my strongest quality. I honestly don't know much about their software, but I know I can learn, and I can bring my design and layout experience to the table when it comes to actual reports.

There would be some awesome benefits to working here. The office has a fantastic view of Promenade Park, right on the river, and three of the building's five elevators face the river. There would be no worries about having a place to walk during my lunches, either. As for more company-related bennies, I'd be eligible for software training, including Microsoft. They also seem to have a pretty decent health plan, so Aaron and I would need to compare policies and see whether I should spend the money on my own company's insurance plan. (Insurance is covered in Aaron's union dues, so the plan would have to kick a lot of ass for me to buy my own.)

I should be hearing back from my interviewer by late this week or early next week to see whether I get a second interview. I'll keep you all updated!

 

Interview Today

Interview in downtown Toledo in two hours. Data Warehousing in the Health Care industry. Wish me luck! I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Unemployment Depression

Unemployment Depression: CollegeRecruiter.com Insights by Candidates

If I'm already feeling down after two weeks of being jobless, how am I going to feel if it takes three months? May the Flying Spaghetti Monster save me from such a fate.

read more...

 

When It Comes Down To It

Since I can't seem to get motivated about my job search today, I decided to finally unpack the box of files and other goodies from my desk at work. Yes, it's been sitting by the kitchen table for two weeks now, and I'm just now unpacking it.

What's a little depressing is that everything regarding my employment over the last five years is now contained in three hanging folders: one labeled "Huntington Info," one labeled "Loan Corrections DB," and one labeled "Sky Bank Misc."

This could actually be more than a little depressing, if I let it. Instead, I will share this little tidbit I saved for posterity (identifying information has been masked to protect... well, to protect *me*):

Please don't misunderstand me: we did understand and appreciate the client's needs, and addressed the client's concern by setting him up to receive a monthly billing statement. We were all just amused by the communication itself.

Know that this letter sits in the folder labeled "Sky Bank Misc," and will amuse me from time to time as necessary.

 

Day Eleven of Unemployment

Or of being unemployed, anyway. Unemployment compensation comes later, if at all. (I might have a job before it has time to kick in. Hopefully.)

These couple of weeks have been an interesting ride so far. It's quite a roller coaster, going from being energized and excited about finding a new job to being depressed and unmotivated and back again. I mean, I know that I'll find a job; that's not the issue. This issue is, how long do I keep applying for the jobs I really want and would really be excited about, and when will I lose the upbeat, positive, forward-thinking attitude and just start applying for anything that wouldn't suck too much? How long will that downward spiral take, and will I jump off in time?

I've at least gotten some concrete "no" answers this week. The tally since April:

Total resumes submitted: 30
Number of employer rejections (or duplicate jobs from recruiters): 10
Number of jobs I've declined: 1
Number of positions about which I've never received a response, and have basically written off: 8
Number of recent job applications I'm still holding out hope for: 11
Number of interviews so far: 1

I need to slow down and actually use the battle plan I learned from my outplacement training. I need to update my Personal Marketing Plan and get it out to a many people as I can, and try to get an inside line on new jobs *before* they're posted online. I have one such inside line in the works right now, and I'd have no problem taking this job if it pans out. I need insiders at other companies, though, and I need to work harder on that. Slower. More methodically. Not jumping at every opportunity like a drowning woman grasping at anything that floats by.

Focus. Calm determination. That's what will get me a job.

And schmoozing. Don't forget schmoozing.

*sigh*

 

More Stress Than I Realized

Being at home with Aaron for a week — and during *this* week in particular, biologically speaking — has made for some interesting dynamics.

Left to my own devices, I'll sleep for at least 10 hours and stay awake for between 12 and 14 hours. This, as I have already learned in the past, is not good for my mood. I start to feel lazy and depressed, and become less productive, since my normally productive and creative afternoon hours are suddenly my sleepy morning hours. Rolling out of bed at the crack of noon needs to stop.

At least I've been making myself to-do lists to keep myself busy. Follow-ups, hitting job-search websites, and driving to BG for outplacement workshops have been on my agenda.

Still... after a decent amount of job rejection, or getting no response and counting that as rejection (and fielding website restructuring requests that feel like rejection, but shouldn't), I'm starting to feel a little stressed. I hadn't realized it until I had a little mini-breakdown today, for no good reason. I'm still chalking most of it up to hormones.

My diabolical plan is to add more structure to my days, and to get up earlier. Instead of going to aikido this evening, for instance, I'm going to attend tomorrow's (and Thursday's, and Saturday's) 10am session. I'm also going to meditate daily, like I'd mentioned before that I wanted to do.

I need to not take everything so personally. I also need to eat better, exercise more, and get out of the house every day. Otherwise, I'll sink into a funk from which I'll never escape. And that's not a good way to find a job.

Update, 12:45am: It's amazing what a difference just ten minutes of meditation can make. That 8pm session of zazen, plus a solid and genuinely excited decision to attend aikido tomorrow morning, along with a shitload of job leads from one of Aaron's friends, have all acted to calm me considerably.

Lights out in fifteen minutes.

 

Day Two of Unemployment

Day One was spent recuperating from the incredible Flaming Lips show in Cleveland on Sunday. Slept in, chilled out, and came up with a battle plan. Day Two saw the initiation of said battle plan.

I identified two major issues that I need to address: productivity in job-hunting and organization in general. One affects the other, but I can't just go at them one at a time. I need a pleasant and clean workspace to feel happy and productive; but I can't clean to the exclusion of all else, and THEN go find a job. So, I set myself up a list of priorities for cleaning my desk space, starting with my file cabinet, moving to the stack of stuff on the floor, then the stack on top of the file cabinet, then the pile on my actual desk, and so forth. (Anyone who saw my immaculate desk at work wouldn't believe that my desk at home is such a disaster.)

As for job-hunting productivity, I launched up my long-neglected Palm Desktop application. It has a task list and calendar, which is mainly what I need. I'm basically doing like I did when I was coordinating the database project with James: set up a short but vital list of tasks to accomplish the following day, so I feel super productive when I finish those plus more.

I'm also logging everything I'm doing in an Excel log, so I can track my productivity. For example, today I searched through all my del.icio.us jobhunt bookmarks and found two jobs I'm going to apply for tomorrow. I also followed up with a potential employer and sent my Personal Marketing Plan (i.e. my list of skills and target employers) to a former colleague to look over.

Since I got all that accomplished during the day, I didn't feel bad spending my evening playing Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD on the 360. :-)

If I can keep this up, I'll at least feel like I'm not squandering my time at home. Still, this super-extended vacation is going to be weird.

 

The More Things Change...

The cycle comes around again, and I find myself in a familiar stage of life. Familiar, yet not the same.

Hello, unemployment!

The last time I was unemployed was Winter of 2002. It was January, and I had just earned my Bachelor of Science from BGSU. I was living in my first apartment, alone, more than halfway through my lease, with no income in the foreseeable future. I borrowed money from friends to pay rent and bills while sending out resume after pointless resume. Without a car, my job choices were severely limited, and I ended up finding a short-lived part-time job at a local photography studio. I had also signed up at Manpower, but they'd only landed me one brief assignment at the County Courthouse. Once they found me a full-time assignment at Sky, though, I bid the studio adieu.

I worked in the mailroom at the Sky Service Center for a few months — March through May, I believe it was. There was a major merger that May, though, and the mailroom duties I'd been performing were being moved to another location. So, I was without income again.

Sometime around this point was when Aaron and I moved in together. I don't recall if I was unemployed when we actually moved in, but I do remember that I finally bit the bullet and took a third-shift gas station attendant position at Meijer not long after. That job didn't last long, thankfully, as Manpower called with another assignment: Lockbox at Sky Bank. I quit Meijer without notice, just in time for my Mom's annual visit at the end of June.

I started in July as a temp in Lockbox, was hired on permanently in October 2002, and I've been gainfully employed by Sky ever since.

Until today.

Today is different. I'm getting quite enough severance and retention to keep my half of the bills paid well into next year (if I'm frugal), and I have a reliable car with which to drive to a potential job. I have over five years of experience in the work force (I hate the term "the real world"), and I have a couple different directions in which I'm thinking of taking my career. I have a more professional-looking resume, and I have more experience writing cover letters that actually target the employer's needs. I'm better at interviewing and schmoozing in general. The "me" of today is much more mature and pragmatic and employable than the "me" of five or six years ago.

I'm not panicky. I'm not nervous. I feel like I should be, but I'm not. I just know something will present itself, something that screams my name, not just something that sounds like it wouldn't suck.

I'm going to take a few days' vacation, then I'm going to start the job hunt on a regular workday schedule. I'm fine. We'll all be fine.

You hear me? We'll all be fine.

 

Future Planning

So, I'm starting to realize (with some help from my friends) that any job I take at this point is going to be entry-level. Not coffee-bitch entry-level, maybe, but college-grad entry-level. Basically, I'll be pretending that the last five years never happened when I'm looking for potential jobs. Granted, I've learned a lot of valuable office and interpersonal skills since graduation six years ago, but I've only meagerly advanced my technical knowledge in my field.

Speaking of: what *is* my field, anyway? We had this discussion before, to a degree, where I bemoaned my lack of advanced skills in any given field. But even assuming that I'm getting a glorified intern job... I have a clean slate, assuming someplace will take me. I could go marketing, or IT, or something else.

I'm even contemplating taking evening classes, once I get myself a new steady job. Maybe get a certificate or an Associates at Owens in... IT? Marketing? Something that will get me where I want to be in my new company. It'll depend on what kind of tuition reimbursement my new employer has, if any, and if I end up getting any on-the-job training in things I want to learn, like .NET or some other technology.

I still maintain that this is a delicate balance. I have to be receptive to whatever comes down the pike, and be prepared for just about any opportunity that presents itself. Winds of change, and all that.

It's kind of like aikido: I could be thrown down and be totally unprepared, and get hurt. I could be thrown down and be excessively tense and resistant, and get hurt. Or I could take the energy that's directed toward me and use it to my own advantage, being ready for what's to come, take the fall rolling and come up on my feet.

I'm not terribly good at that physically yet; maybe the mental concept will come easier.

 

D-Day for Loan Corrections

The day is here. September 21st. People are having their exit interviews with HR. Our three temps were done yesterday, and one stopped in this morning to collect her things. One team member has already packed up and shipped out for her Florida vacation. The department is thinning.

Yesterday afternoon, we all got "yearbook" pages featuring messages that people in our department wrote to each of us, accompanied with a CD slideshow of photos and music. I haven't watched the slideshow yet, but I've been told that it features the Green Day song "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)." Now I've had that song stuck in my head all morning.

It's a unique atmosphere here today. Somber, certainly. We've been working together for years now, and now we're all parting ways. Granted, a few of us still have another week or two, but that's going to be more like hanging around a deserted school during summer vacation, doing what still needs to be done.

There's also a feeling of discontent. Some people aren't entirely clear on the amounts of their severance and retention, and when that will be paid out, and about their eligibility for unemployment. There's a slight feeling of bitterness and flippancy -- we're still doing our jobs for one final day, but we've long since lost any feeling of company loyalty. We still have enough pride for our jobs and respect for our coworkers not to slack too much, but there's definitely more people away from their desks and more chatter than usual. It seems to come in waves -- silence, then everyone talking at once, then silence again. Team members are also amazed and frustrated at how many people are still requesting loan changes after our widely-publicized Wednesday cutoff.

One ray of light is Stacy, our boss's boss's boss. She came through the department earlier and spoke to each of us individually, thanking us for our hard work. Stacy is one of the few management types who really seems sincere to me. I can talk openly and freely to her, and even though I feel like I've got diarrhea of the mouth sometimes, she still listens and seems to honestly care. I think Stacy's visit softened some of us a little.

This is a strange and unique experience. Each of us is simultaneously closing a chapter in our lives, and emotions can run high. As for me, I'm not emotional, per se, but I'm definitely feeling... detached? Surreal? I'm noting the poignancy of the moment without being overly sentimental about it. Sure, I spent more time with these people than with my own husband for the past few years, and I'll miss some of them, but it's not like they're dying. Thanks to e-mail, we can all be in touch quickly and easily at any time, should we want to be -- even Scott, who's moving to Utah.

But I'll see him next week. Scott, Heather, and our supervisor Ruth Ann will be around for two more weeks. I'll be around for one.

It's something unpredictable / But in the end it's right

Still, work is *not* the time of my life. :-)

 

Geek Chic

I decided to take a different tack on the job hunt this evening, and look one-by-one at each business that's located in the business development where I currently work. I'm a big fan of the location, being that a.) it's a fifteen-minute drive from home, and b.) there's a fantastic wooded walking path through the middle of the area. So, I sat down with a list of (most of) the businesses in the park, and went to all of their websites, and determined whether their industry is something I'd be interested in pursuing, and looked for job postings.

I found a few that sounded vaguely interesting, and a few that I'd already known about — but I found one business that finally sparked my interest enough to get the job-hunt juices flowing again. It's a national firm, an IT services and solutions provider, and I'm only vaguely familiar with most of their offerings. All of it made the geek girl in me drool, though.

Only a computer nerd would look through a list of technology solutions and think, "Ooh, HP Storage Area Network. I've never heard of that! Sounds cool!" Lots of the names like Altiris and Veritas and Citrix, and lots of the buzzwords like Web Content Filtering and Business Continuity Planning, all sounded familiar to me, but not enough so that I'd even be able to talk for two minutes straight about a given one.

The only section of their services where I know I can shine is Web Development, including website design and development and website management services. That I can do. The other stuff... it harks back to a day when I went around with Kirkum and installed new network cards in pizza-box Macs. Or imaged computers in the labs. Or installed a right-angle adapter in my own legacy Mac so I could install an ethernet card.

At any rate, I got fired up enough (and undepressed enough) that I worked on my Personal Marketing Plan like the nice outsourcing lady told me to. I have a list of about a dozen companies that may or may not be hiring, but that it would be pretty cool to work for. You can all expect that, once I have my Marketing Plan done and ready for prime time, I'll be sharing it with you and asking you, "Do you know anyone who works for...?"

 

Self-Confidence and Job-Hunting

I realize that potential employers may Google me to learn more about me and my background. Despite this, I'm going to post what's on my mind, rather than putting a front forward about how confident I feel about my job search.

I'm pretty proud of myself, sure. I joined one other co-worker to create a relational Access database that currently has over 150,000 records in its main table, with 20 users, and has only completely crashed and burned once in a year and a half of operation. I've recently redesigned two websites from the ground up (buzzword: full development lifecycle) using PHP and a custom database backend for content management.

But am I confident about my skills? That's a deeper question...

read more...

 

Career Lottery

Snicked from talcotts, via khath, via clawfoot and crystalkirk:

1. Go to http://www.careercruising.com/
2. Put in Username: nycareers, Password: landmark.
3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
4. Post the top fifteen results.

My results after all three sets of questions:
1. Multimedia Developer
2. Video Game Developer
3. Business Systems Analyst
4. Website Designer
5. Animator
6. Cartoonist / Comic Illustrator
7. Computer Programmer
8. Web Developer
9. Film Editor
10. Market Research Analyst
11. Professor
12. Webmaster
13. Artist
14. Desktop Publisher
15. Graphic Designer
16. Technical Writer
17. Computer Animator
...
32. Photographer

I've actually considered most of these careers, except maybe Market Research Analyst or Business Systems Analyst. Some of these (like Computer Animator or Video Game Designer) I would have liked to have done, but require more or different training/schooling. Some (like Artist or Cartoonist) I've long since lost the skills to do. Many of the others are viable options, and I feel that the quiz gave surprisingly accurate results — especially considering how blasé I was with my answers, for the most part. I only ventured away from the neutral choice when I had a strong feeling for or against a particular job task.

All righty. Video Game Developer job, here I come...?

Right.

 

Interview

Today's plan: Work until noon. Go home for lunch. Leave at 1:35 for an interview at 2pm. Rock the hell out of the interview. Return home and chill with my sick hubby for the rest of the afternoon.

I've done my homework, for the most part. I've researched the company, I feel confident with my standard interview answers, and I have some questions of my own to ask. I'm actually fairly excited about the size and stability of the company, as well as their wares.

Still undecided about whether I'll change into a suit before I go, or just stick with my business casual attire. I'm leaning toward comfort over overheated professionalism right now.

Send positive vibes my way today around 2pm. I'll let you know how it goes.

Update, 7:30pm: Interview went smashingly well, IMO. I don't think I've ever had such a straightforward discussion of Where The Company Is Headed vs. Where My Career Is Headed. The location is a 25-minute drive through not the best part of town (albeit not the worst, either), and the neighborhood is not one where I would feel comfortable taking a lunchtime walk; but the company is small and stable, and I think I would fit in with the other two/three members of the IT department. We'll see what they think.

BTW? I wore the suit.

 

Coincidences?

Things are definitely moving. Things are happening. What will come of it all, I'm still not sure.

Amy-sempai had mentioned a few weeks ago that her company was accepting resumes, but I kept missing her at the dojo to give her mine to pass along. I also never asked her the name of her company. Meanwhile, I found a listing on Craigslist and applied, only to find that it was for the company where Amy-sempai works. Wish me luck on my second interview of the job hunt...

There was also a company I'd spied a while ago, but who required samples of applicants' work. As my portfolio still isn't quite up to snuff yet, I hadn't applied. I'd checked their website, but couldn't find any employment info anymore, so I assumed they'd found who they needed. Recently, a recruiter contacted me about a Web Designer position. Turns out he's looking for a candidate for this particular company.

Guess what I'm finishing up tonight. Let's hear it for external motivation, eh?

I feel like I'm at a very tricky time. Any tiny shift of direction one way or another could make a giant impact on the next five or ten (or more) years of my life. When I think of all the seemingly insignificant things that combined to get me where I am today, I find myself wondering what I'll be wondering later on.

If Sky hadn't been bought out by Huntington... If I hadn't signed up for that aikido class... If James and I hadn't gotten to create that database... If I'd never marched senior corps... If I'd taken X job instead of waiting for Y job...

I just need to do what I can, and go with the flow. Things will fall into place if I let them.

 

Come On, Baby, Finish What You Started

I've been droning on about aikido a little too much lately, so I suppose I should write about something else already. I'm sitting here at work, with a painfully light workload, so this seems as good a time as any to write a blog entry (via e-mail to myself, of course).

Not that I have anything particularly pressing to blog about, mind you. Most of my "free" time lately has been spent job-hunting, nursing my pulled muscle, or escaping into Civilization IV.

Speaking of the job hunt: I've gone through my list, submitted my resume for those jobs I hadn't yet, followed up on past inquiries, and have started putting the finishing touches on my portfolio. I think I've got the portfolio working in all modern browsers, including Firefox 2, Opera 9, Safari for Windows, IE6 and IE7. Granted, there are a few minor display discrepancies: IE6 has an unfortunate space at the bottom of the page which activates the scroll bar, and Opera (or is it Safari?) doesn't highlight the items in my submenus. Those are minor details, though, and I can deal with the differences for now. Now, I'm going through all my featured projects and including examples and samples and links for each. I plan to have my portfolio complete by the end of next weekend.


In other news of the me, I ordered my very first Little Black Dress™ and a couple pairs of work-friendly Skechers online. I need to get myself down to Lane Bryant and spend a decent amount of money updating my wardrobe, although I feel funny either a.) shopping alone or b.) shopping with Aaron, and I don't really have any local girlfriends to shop with. What I'd really like to buy is a brown tailored pantsuit to go with my new shoes. (Wow... matching an outfit to a pair of shoes? That sounds unusually girly of me.)

Last time I really went ballistic on clothes shopping, I sorely needed a wardrobe update due to having lost, oh, fifty pounds? Now, though, I'm just tired of wearing the same crap to work all the time. Of course, I should probably hold off on buying work clothes until I get a new job and find out what the dress code is there. I'd hate to update my business casual wardrobe, just to find that I can wear Threadless shirts and jeans to work -- or, worse, that I have to go out and purchase an actual professional wardrobe, with multiple suits and accessories.


Also: Aaron and I had an in-depth conversation this weekend about my ability to finish what I start. I am absolutely notorious for starting a project, either coming to a hard part or just getting bored with it, and dropping it for the next Flavor of the Month. Websites, fiction, genealogy research, major cleaning, all have fallen prey to this habit of mine. He was particularly concerned with me finishing my portfolio website before I get involved in something else -- namely, instructing marching band for the first time. He reminded me that I don't do anything by halves -- quite like him, now that I think about it. I immerse myself in whatever new project I undertake: genealogy, candle-making, learning SQL, weight-loss, drum corps, aikido, whatever. I don't just try something or dabble in something. For this reason, I've specifically avoided starting any new projects, even though I've wanted to work on my fiction and genealogy research in the past months.

I might have to gracefully and humbly bow out of the marching band gig, even though I don't want to. I can see things that need fixing in the band, things that I might be able to help with, but I don't know if I should really be dedicating literally an entire evening a week to band, plus a good part of another evening a week to aikido.

I have some time to think it over, though, and to finish my portfolio before the next rehearsal I'm slated to attend. We'll see how things pan out.

 

Job-Hunting Update

This evening was spent evaluating the state of my job search and determining my next steps. I feel pretty happy about what I accomplished.

I decided that, first and foremost, I needed to update my log of job applications and job solicitations from recruiters. So far, the tally is nineteen total job possibilities. I still need to send in my resume (or apply online) for four of those opportunities. Five jobs on my list were brought to my attention by recruiters or HR reps. (It's a good thing I updated my Monster resume.)

Next, before I contacted the new folks or followed up with the old, I wanted to finish updating my resume. The LHH workshop was surprisingly helpful, and made me realize that my five-year-old resume was, indeed, horribly out of date, as far as current resume format is concerned. The two-page allowance saved my ass — I was always told to keep your resume to one page, no matter what. So, I'd ended up printing my resume on legal paper, which is not the most accessible of formats for everyone. At any rate, I finished tonight what I'd started last week in the workshop, writing job summaries for my RCC positions and formatting the whole thing in a way that pleases me... as much as a standard, "normal" resume can.

Next on the agenda:

1. Apply for outstanding jobs on my list
2. Schedule follow-ups with recruiters and HR reps
3. Add finishing touches to portfolio, including (but not limited to) videos, shockwave and audio files
4. Post and/or update info on other job sites
5. Search for more jobs online

I have something like 21 working days until my job is eliminated — oh, did I mention that my end date got extended a week? My betters were concerned that Huntington might need specific data from the database, or help moving it to their servers, or Buddha knows what else. So, basically, I'll be sticking around with Scott, Heather, and Ruth Ann, helping to pack boxes and put out fires and check balances and transactions on Sky's systems. But I'm OK with that — it gives me one more week to job-search, and gives me a nice, even date of October 1st to give potential employers.

Still, though... one month total to get this going on. I'm not worried, but I'm starting to feel the pinch.

 

A Quickie

I pulled my groin in aikido on Saturday, while trying to roll. I'm getting annoyed with myself for not "getting" it yet. At least my leg seems to be on the fast track, and feels like it should be healed by Wednesday's class. It really put a damper on the weekend's other extra-curriculars, though.

This week, Monday through Thursday afternoons, I'm attending an outplacement workshop paid for by Sky/Huntington. I was dubious about its actual value, but it actually seems like it's going to be helpful. Among some of the highlights will be resume-crafting, networking and job-searching, and negotiating a job offer. I'm actually looking forward to some of this... plus, it gets me out of the office for half a day.

Rob has requested another manly candle, to be picked up this week. In looking at my records, I realize I haven't made any candles since February (which was the last time Rob requested a manly candle). Candle-making is definitely a seasonal thing for me, being that I don't like to have the oven on in the summer, and my timing mojo gets thrown off if I melt candle wax in the microwave instead. Maybe I'll have to ramp up the seasonal candle-making a little earlier this year, and be sure to give everyone at work a going-away candle with my name and URL on it. :-)

Update, 11:45pm: Rob's candle came out well. I used a blow dryer to even out the surface — I should have tried that long ago.

In other news, bumping up the difficulty in Civilization IV really makes a difference: from me beating all the computer players in Chieftain mode to me getting my ass kicked and barely making it to the end of the game with one city intact in Warlord mode. If it weren't almost midnight (and if I weren't gainfully employed and due at work at 8am), I'd start another game.

 

Job App Tally

Jobs applied for: 9
Responses received: 3
Contract jobs in hire process: 1

Basically, I'm still officially in the running for a position I applied for back in early May; another company that seemed promising in early May is due for a prodding; and I did get an offer of a part-time contract job back in late June, although I haven't yet been called in for a contract-signing.

This is the most important thing right now: finding a job. Granted, I have potential severance and retention money coming in September... but I'd rather not have to use it for actual survival in the midst of unemployment.

No worries. No stress (yet). It's just time to pour it on, and get ready to jump onto the merry-go-round.

(No, I have no idea what that metaphor really alludes to. It just sounded good in my head.)

 

Interview Results

Long Story Short: I now have a potentially steady stream of part-time web development contract work. I do not yet have a new full-time job.

The Rest Of The Story: It appears that I passed the "task" with flying colors, and went above what the other two or three potential coders had accomplished. Yay for being anal about cross-browser compatibility. I also apparently finished the task faster than the others. According to the seemingly-older (read: my age) partner who totally took charge of the interview, I will get paid for my ten hours of work. How much? That remains to be seen.

I had an entire page of questions ready to ask them, but was stopped short when I realized that this would be a contract job, part-time, max of 20 hours a week, working from home. All my questions about benefits, family leave, PTO, company stability, all went out the window once this became a nice side gig. Granted, it *is* a nice side gig... but I still have to do some follow-ups regarding other possible full-time positions.

(When I do secure a new full-time job, I may request that they withhold extra taxes, too, since my new contract gig won't be withholding for me.)

If I were a college student and landed this gig, it would be the best thing EVAR. Experience and money doing what I want, and just in my free time! Hell, I probably could have done it during my time working in the computer lab, and no one would have been the wiser. Alas, now I have to pay bills and mortgage and whatnot, and I have not such luxuries with my time and livelihood.

So... more time to maybe hang out at Sky and get my August 10th incentive pay and maybe my September 21st severance. The stress is just a little lessened now, but not entirely gone. I'm not entirely sure how this contract gig will pan out in the long run. I'm hoping for the best, and am still genuinely excited to be a part of this growing and evolving company, but I can't guarantee that they can give me what I need to pay the bills.

 

A Thought About The Internet Today

Never before have I been able to prepare for an interview by studying my potential employer's MySpace page. I'm going to be interviewed by people who were graduating high school two years AFTER I graduated college. Yes, these guys were learning to drive while I was getting my bachelor's degree. And they're hearty beerpong enthusiasts.

o.O

I'd never even HEARD of beerpong before I started looking at this company. No, I'm not much of a partier; thanks for pointing that out. My cubemate James explained it all to me, though, so I don't need a primer on beerpong.

Beerpong aside, I'm keeping an open mind about this company. They do good work. They're living the dream. Effin' A. If I can join in, get in at the ground floor, be part of something big (and help them with their typography)... I'm all for it. If they're cool, I'm cool. I'm still young and hip, right...?

Right?

 

Accomplishment

"Task" for potential employer: done.
Time to complete: 10.5 hours.

I've never coded someone else's website layout before. I liked it. Could be that my calling is strictly as a web developer, not a designer. That, plus I'm a grammar nazi. When I'm plugging in content, I *have* to correct comma splices and misspellings. Web copy editor, anyone?

Now, it's time to focus on following up with other companies to whom I've submitted a resume online. I am armed with legal-size paper and a full clip of determination.

I have three months to land a job in my field. Granted, if I don't, I get to take home a decent chunk of severance pay... but it's not worth it to waste job-hunting time and possibly miss the job for me, just to stick around and get my severance. You know?

 

Putting Out Feelers

While my portfolio is still not quite finished, I have put up a passable temporary placeholder, and have now sent out three resumes. One was to a friend's former employer (they say it's not what you know, but WHO you know), one was a classified ad brought to my attention by a co-worker, and one was an ad I found on my own in the local paper (well, on their website, anyway).

I still have a really hard time "selling" myself as being THE employee a given employer should hire. I've been playing up my quick learning and adaptation skills, and my versatility — need a designer with programming background, or a quick-learning programmer with design skills?

But, still. I'm no rockstar, no matter what my husband says. I can't let on to potential employers, though.

I'll find something better than banking. I'm sure of it. It may not be the ideal job, but it'll be invaluable experience, and it'll use the part of my brain that makes me happy and fulfilled. I got to do that for six months, while James and I were actively developing our database, and I'd never been happier about going to work.

Of course, I'm *hoping* for the ideal job. That would be pretty keen.

...

Dammit, I *am* a rockstar! Look at all this shit I can do, and without even a CS degree. Really! That database James and I made is pretty posh for Access, considering how much of it we Googled along the way. I can do this. I can hang with the rockstars. I rule!

Toy store!!!

 

Spring Fever

Here I sit, manning the reception desk at work, watching the gorgeous weather outside, wishing I could be out there. I'm all caught up on the work I needed to get done by week's end, and now I'm just helping out the rest of the department and stalling until it's time to go home… without being too obvious about it. Not that there's much of anyone to bust me for slacking; this place is dead today. Anyone with any sense must have decided to play hookey and go golfing.

Of course, now that I have some time to blog, I can't really think of anything I'd wanted to say. Figures.

 

Stress In Its Various Forms

Had I sat down to blog about eight or nine hours ago, I would have written quite the vitriolic entry about my day job. You might have gotten to read more than you wanted to know about the inner workings of my department, and how far behind we are in our work, and our staffing issues. You might also have learned a little more about the fact that my employer is choosing not to let us know yet which branches and departments are staying and which are going, and how this is making the entire department quite pissed, although we're still just assuming that we're toast.

Even though I spent the entire first half of my workday being lethargic and not caring about my jo