Easy Come, Easy Go

Edit from the future:  This has been in my drafts for moths and I decide to just publish it as is.  It's too painful to try and proofread and see if I omitted anything of importance.  


A few Mondays back, I alluded to "some other news to share this week."  I am was employed again!  Alas, it didn't last and while I wrote up a draft about the adventure before my contract ended, I'm gonna whittle it done to the essentials.

It got off to a rough start because this hire didn't happen in the linear way most jobs do.  

I saw an ad for a help desk position in my industry.  I am hilariously overqualified for that position, but it was part-time nights covering the Pacific Coast Time Zone.  I figured they might give me a chance and whatever the pay scale, it would help pay for that bathroom remodel.  

My short-lived New Office

Instead, the recruiter at the consulting company (which I have interviewed with on two separate occasions since separation from Big Audit) reached out on Sept 18th about a position that is a little more within my wheelhouse.

It's a remote position, a W2 contract for at least 3 weeks, possibly longer. "This is a medical family matter, taking my senior person out of town to help with care. The situation is still developing, and it's difficult to determine the exact timeframe."

at face value, a 3 week gig at the standard rate would have knocked off about 25% of the bathroom remodel cost so I was open.  We talked on the 19th and I honestly cannot remember the exact details, but I told her my standard availability for interviews is 9-12 CST M-F with a day's notice.  I do this because, since most go nowhere, it's a waste of a shower and shave for an interview in the middle of the day.

She called back a bit later and said they would like to speak to me in 20 minutes.  I'm like, NO.  Then her boss BRAD called and said I was overthinking it, just have a conversation with their client.

I honestly cannot remember a thing from that call other than it was very pleasant and the client said he liked what he heard.  In fact, he mentioned that there was a permanent position and that the contract could lead to it.  The consulting agency immediately jumped in to protect their finder's fee and we left it at Boss and Client would work out specifics.

This seemed like a good situation.  Short term I can earn money to pay off bathroom renovation.  Long term this would be a path back to Chicago because they have an office there and I would have to move to a state they had an office for those good old tax compliance issues.

Unfortunately, what was supposed to be an immediate hire got delayed because Consulting Agency is very fly-by-night and they use a terrible background checking service.  It also took client a long  time to send me equipment and instead of a laptop (like everyone else sends) they sent me 2 sweet monitors, two sets of keyboards and mouses, and a very small desktop.  

I'm not sure what exactly happened.  I was onboarded by Consulting Agency but they wouldn't pay me for that time (realistically about 2 hours of my time).  Then they only wanted me to bill for the time I actually had something to do with the client, which was an average of 2 hours per day.  I objected and said my time is valuable and if I'm tethered to a computer, I deserve compensation for that.

Last Tuesday BRAD wanted to have a Teams meeting.  Here-to-fore, all our conversations were simply on the phone.  I asked if I should be concerned and he said "I do all calls on Teams, I like to see people".  Glaring Red Flag that I missed.  We had trouble connecting but once we did, he mentioned that he looked at my timesheets that I had saved but didn't submit and asked if I now had work.  I said there was still idle time but it had improved.

He said something about getting in front of something to course correct but he didn't elaborate.  I told him that the people I was working with are aware that I had idle time and were okay with my charging my time although obviously it was a Client decision so I told him to see if Big Client was okay with it.

That night I had sent a LinkedIn connection request to the people I'm working with.  The person who was out on Medical Leave accepted.  

Next day I get a call from Consulting Agency that Client reached out and said that things weren't working out for them so they were terminating my contract.  

The person who accepted my LinkedIn connection apparently has severed it.

And what sucks is I have to put this on my resume and LinkedIn profile to show that I have been hireable, yet at the same time I have to explain it IF I get an interview.

Because we live in a world where people are supposed to work from almost Cradle to Grave.  Gaps in your resume signal to employers that you are either a problem employee or, worse, that you don't actually need a job.  Employers hate an employee who could just walk away from a job.  

 

Back to the Beginning

 On Friday I got a phone call from the agency that "represents" me on my contract gig at No-Name Software Company Adjacent Company.

They told me that No-Name Software Company Adjacent Company is not renewing my contract and that my last day would be Feb 26th.  

While I'm not terribly upset that it ended, I wish it had gone on longer so I could use the experience to make my resume and LinkedIn profile more stable.  Because I've worked a few short-term contract jobs, I get penalized because:

• Recruiters want me to list every job to show I'm hireable;
• But the tasks and responsibilities are so mundane that no one would be impressed enough to choose me over another No-Name Software SME candidate.  

It is no coincidence that my Manager (Mel) rescheduled and canceled my One-On-One with her.  She, and our boss, don't like conflict and are just trying to hold onto their Corporate America jobs until they can retire.  They are on borrowed time because the Corporation that acquired their smaller company is not making money off their product.

What does irritate me is that Mel tried to pin it on me.  They could have, and did, go with Budget cuts.  But she also tried to put it on me that I didn't Step Up and In enough.  I should have been more of a self-starter.  let's ignore the snafu of my start date, or starting just as everyone is going on vacation after a long year of consulting.  

Translation:  I didn't realize I was going to have to be responsible for your Onboarding and be expected to help you succeed.  

Could I have been more aggressive?  Sure, but what would that have really accomplished when a company -- and by extension a team -- is somewhat dysfunctional?  I did my best to walk the line between asserting myself and respecting other people's downtime.  

  I'm writing these entries as they happen and as I have time to jot things down but I may not publish until months from now (or ever). Note: This post was written when the events were still fresh.  I waited for a while to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job-hunting efforts.

The offer

   I'm writing these entries as they happen and as I have time to jot things down but I may not publish until months from now (or ever). Note: This post was written when the events were still fresh.  I waited for a while to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job-hunting efforts.

I heard back from the recruiter today.  They want to offer me a contract position that could transition into FTE if I gel with the team.  They are also offering me less than we initially discussed.  

On the one hand, I have the luxury of being able to take $50/hr and not worry about making the rent.  On the other hand, the Job Description has not changed.  So they are trying to get Prime Rib at Pub Burger prices.

Update from the future:  The recruiter, who is jaunting around Europe right now came back with the following:

We are still getting some ducks in a row, but these are the details being discussed:

$60/hr

6-month contract (with option to promote to full-time after 3 months)

40 hours per week (minus holidays)

Exclusively working for us, but this is our preference (J thinks he will be able to keep you busy 😊)

I should know more on Monday.

10/12/23 1:39pm

The exclusive thing is because I asked about taking on a side gig if the work was anything like the contract job I had 2 years ago where I literally just earned money by pushing a button every hour.  It's telling that they don't want me to do anything like that even if it wouldn't interfere.  

Third and final Interview

   I'm writing these entries as they happen and as I have time to jot things down but I may not publish until months from now (or ever). Note: This post was written when the events were still fresh.  I waited for a while to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job-hunting efforts.

|The 3rd interview with No-Name Software Company Adjacent Company came and went.  The only timeslot was not ideal because it comes at the time I normally get in line to pick up Moose and Squirrel at school.  But since all these interviews have had Hard Stops after 30 minutes (this one should too) I decided to risk it because I should still be able to get in line before the school starts releasing students.

The interview wasn't as good as the first two.  We finished early and she asked the usually bullshit "what are you passionate about and what motivates you to come into the office" type interview question.

The obvious answer is "a fucking paycheck" but they don't want to hear that.  They want you to give them some bullshit bougie answer.  It's on par with asking "why do you want to work here".  They want a virtual blowjob and a pony.  

  

The Second Interview

  I'm writing these entries as they happen and as I have time to jot things down but I may not publish until months from now (or ever). Note: This post was written when the events were still fresh.  I waited for a while to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job-hunting efforts.

So the 2nd interview with No-Name Software Company Adjacent Company came and went.  As with the first interview, it was painless as far as interviews go.

And as with the first interview, as far as I can tell, it went well.  I don't recall if I grabbed the lead or let her ask the first question but she asked me why I got into technology.  That tells me that she, like many people, don't consider interviews as the primary part of their job.

Labor Laws are a bit lax down here

It's certainly better than the old guy who was going over my resume line by line and asking me things about my college major and who was my boss at a job almost two decades ago.  

I have  3rd and final interview today.  The only timeslot was not ideal because it comes at the time I normally get in line to pick up Moose and Squirrel at school.  But since all these interviews have had Hard Stops after 30 minutes (this one should too) I decided to risk it because I should still be able to get in line before the school starts releasing students.

10/5/2023 11:26 am

The Interview

 I'm writing these entries as they happen and as I have time to jot things down but I may not publish until months from now (or ever). Note: This post was written when the events were still fresh.  I waited for a while to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job-hunting efforts.

So the interview with No-Name Software Company Adjacent Company came and went.  As far as I can tell, it went well.  At the same time, there wasn't any moment I could point to that said "Yes they want me" or "No they won't hire me".  

As far as interviews go, this one was painless.  I took the lead and asked him to describe the role beyond what the recruiter told me and factoring in any changes in the Job Description (JD) since initial posting. 
 

The interview was conducted by a nice enough fellow who wears the title of Director but is really just a techie who has been doing this far too long.  We of course ran out of time before he could ask me any significant questions, had he the desire and ability to do so.

Best case he is kicking the can down the road and setting up a technical interview where I can really show my knowledge of the No-Name Software platform.  It seems all their products integrate with it so my knowledge gives me a leg up on other candidates, at least on paper.  

Nightingale has given me permission to stop job hunting and focus on being a SAHD.  We were good savers and she now has a good paying job in a low-cost-of-living state.  That said, I would like my own income and to keep padding our retirement funds.  

BTW, this role turns out to be more implementation consultant than customer solution oriented.  Honestly, I can do it if they give me a chance.  I really just want to be able to add to my resume and be able to subtract some of the pointless contract work I had to take on.

No-Name Software Company Adjacent

  I'm writing these entries as they happen and as I have time to jot things down but I may not publish until months from now (or ever). Note: This post was written when the events were still fresh.  I waited for a while to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job-hunting efforts. 

Near the end of last year, I interviewed for a job that I really wanted.  It was No-Name Software Company Adjacent, meaning my experience with that software platform would have been advantageous.  I had three rounds of interviews only to return from the holidays to a "We've made the decision to continue the process with another candidate"  only to see the job reposted on LinkedIn less than a month later.

This year has been even stranger in the job hunt because I had a few recruiters reach out about positions that weren't actually available yet, or the movement stalled or the Job Hunting Gods just want to fuck with me.

'bout to drop a sic album

My options are in-house at a law firm (or if I'm lucky, an in-house at a non-law firm), working for a consulting company, or one of the rare No-Name Software adjacent opportunities.

Even during the Remote Heyday, most law firms require you to live in a state where they have an office for tax compliance reasons.  And now they are pushing back to the office at least in Hybrid Mode.  

The consulting companies want someone with my No-Name Software Company experience, but not my Corporate America experience, because they want to take advantage of less seasoned employees.  And if we are being honest, a lot of people I've worked with over the years work at these places and they simply do not like me.

Finally, there are the No-Name Software Company Adjacent roles which are harder to find and I've already been passed up on 2-3.

I'm interviewing for one of those tomorrow but I have so little hope that I haven't even mentioned it to Nightingale.  Besides the usual lethargic haze, the cadence on this one has been abysmal.  It's a little fuzzy when I actually applied but I recall when I got a call (Sept 7th) from the in-house recruiter, my thought was "Wow I applied 2 weeks and I'm hearing from you now".

We had a call but ran out of time.  He did say he would present me and hope I moved forward.  When I didn't hear from him on Monday as he suggested, I reached out Tuesday via email.  He didn't respond until Thursday saying that he hadn't heard anything but would ping the person.

I waited until the middle of this week to send a "Hey what's going on" in the cacophony of Corporate America speak.  He responded EOD and said the directory wanted to interview me and set it up for tomorrow.

A couple of things.  The pace he responds to emails is ridiculous.  That tells me that he is inefficient, his company can't get things done in a timely fashion, or both.  

He declined my request for some pre-interview coaching so I don't really think I'm gonna ace this interview.   

an incesstrious industry

 This happened.

Senior recruiter reaches out to me at 12:24 pm 3/8/3023

we talk at 3:30 pm.  I explain how it's very likely one or more persons in his organization know me and doesn't like me.  he says he's going to submit my resume anyway.

this morning at  8:06 AM

Hi, I spoke with the team this AM. At this time, they are moving forward with another candidate already in the interview process. I appreciate your time yesterday. Feel free to keep in touch!

 

Sent the following messages at 8:38 AM

I had a feeling.   :-)   Things do change and directors come and go so if there is a changing of the guard, please keep me in mind for future opportunities.

I give the recruiter props for reaching back with the best letdown message he could come up with under the circumstances.  He is lying and knows that I know he is lying.  

I've burned many bridges in my career.  Some of it was my immaturity.  But some of it was also standing up for myself, setting boundaries and not letting people treat me like crap.  

I cannot say who this company is but I did apply with them in 2015 and also got this after a first-round interview:

It was a pleasure speaking with you to discuss your background and interest in HBR Consulting.  We appreciate your time, attentiveness and patience throughout the interview process.  While we were impressed with your qualifications, we are unable to offer you a position at this time.  We will retain your resume on file and should our needs change, we will contact you.

And then a few months later I was hired by a Big Audit and we engaged said company to work on a project.  It doesn't look like lightening will strike twice though.  

Keeping the Faith

 So it's been 2 years since I was laid off from Big Audit 2.0.  Since then I've talked to a zillion recruiters, had dozens of interviews, and one contract gig.  The contract gig, despite its drama, was more of a liferaft than I ever imagined.  It lets me reframe the narrative from "I've been unemployed since July 2020" to "I've been unemployed since May 2022".  Because without a job, I have no power.  No control over my life.  

To say I'm losing faith is an understatement.  I know I've blown a few interviews, but it doesn't seem mathematically possible to have blown them all so badly that no one will take a chance on me.

To be sure, there have been 5 places this year alone that should have taken me on, based on my experience alone.  Two were even contract gigs which would be low risk if it didn't work out.

• There were interviews given by people who don't know how to conduct an interview.  
• There were interviews where the role described did not match the job description given.
• There was a job interview where one of the interviewer was drinking wine.
• There was a job interview where the interviewer was wearing an ill-fitting T-shirt.
• There was a job interview where the interviewer picked his nose.

In my field, there are a few options.  I can work for a law firm and be a Widget Engineer.  They might call it something different.  If I'm lucky, I can find another Audit or non-law firm company that uses the No-Name Software.  Finally, the last option is to work for one of the consulting firms that get hired for short-term implementation or upgrade projects.

And I'm so ANGRY.  Angry that my Office Nemesis is still employed there.  Angry that he was allowed to bully and harass me with no repercussions.  

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Feeling powerless and out of control

 sometime in the middle of the night, I realized today would have been my 5th anniversary at Big Audit.  Alas, that didn't happen thanks to being laid off 10 months ago.  I had wanted to make it to at least Year 5 because that is when the full 401K matching investment kicked in.  As most Corporate America entities write their benefits packages, if you separate from the company even 5 minutes before a milestone year, you get prorated benefits.

I'm still going through some depression and PTSD, the effects of my office nemesis.  He really did a number on me.  Looking back through the lens of time, I see things I didn't notice at the time, that I should have done a better job of confronting things head-on and standing up for myself.

It's been a rough few months in the land of job seeking.  I've probably talked to over a dozen recruiters.  A few have brought promising opportunities only to ghost me after I send them my resume.  Sometimes I get feedback like "strong on client-server technology but not on apps" or "not enough Cloud Experience".  

In my industry for my particular skill set, you either worked at the No-Name Software or were at a company that was an early adopter of their software solution.  If you couldn't make it work at No-Name (say for instance you were not part of the cool clique) you found work at a Partner integrator company or a law firm.  All these people use to call me at the support line asking for help and I got them the answers they needed.  But now suddenly I'm not good enough to work for them.  

I once said that dating and job interviewing are similar in that you can have a great first, second, nth date/interview, but until someone gives you a job, you got nothing.

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Happy Valentine's Day and weekend review

The weekend came and went and there are a few things I wish I could take back but for the most part it went well.  We got up early on Saturday and dropped off our paperwork at the tax preparer.  With both our condos finally sold we hope to not only not have to pay taxes this year, but perhaps get some money back.

Then we headed off to Costco and I have to say, getting there at 9:30 when they first open is a huge difference from the normal time we usually arrive.  Fewer people means we can get through the store quicker before the kids have a meltdown.

When we got home we put the kids down for nap and then went to Kingston Reflexology for a couples massage.  That was basically our Valentine's Day present to one another.

We get all the Valentine's now

On Sunday a CN blogger friend came over and picked up our Bob Stroller.    We were gifted 3 double strollers and really only use one, so it was a relief to clear the garage space of this one.  I had visions of running races with the kids in it, but after two years we have never used it.  It is in rough shape but nothing a good cleaning couldn't fix.

On Sunday  I made the mistake of reaching out to someone I had essentially written off.  When I started my new job, I realized that I worked right across the street from an old friend from the No-Name Software Company.  I asked Hanna about meeting for lunch and we made plans.  Of course I had a conflict so I asked about rescheduling.

When someone cancels plans with someone else, I feel it is their duty to reschedule the event, within reason of course.  I made a few attempts but didn't pick the magical right day/time and figured this person wasn't interested in having lunch.  I gave up and moved on.

That was around June last year.  Flash forward to this weekend.  I sent Hanna a text that was a simple "hey has your account been hacked."   Apparently she has another new phone because she didn't recognize my number (side note: how fucking hard is it to transfer your contacts to a new phone in 2017?)  After talking for a few minutes she was  all "let's do lunch." 

While I thought, Fuck You, I said sure, sure, gotta run.  Which I think even the densest person in the world would interpret as please kindly find a short peer to walk off of and go fuck yourself. 


This person wasn't intentionally trying to be mean or inconsiderate.  They are a 8 or 9 on the Airhead ability in the D and D Game of Life. Which means they may not have got the point about aforementioned implied Fuck You, but somehow I think I have burned that bridge.

It took me a few days to process but what really bothers me is this person made more of an effort to find out who the mysterious texter was than to make plans for lunch last June.

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Getting the band back together

I'm writing these entries as they happen and as I have time to jot things down but I may not publish until months from now (or ever).  This post was written a year or so ago, when the events were still fresh.  I waited for a while to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job hunting efforts or reveal any information about my former company.  The purpose of these posts aren't to bash my former employer but to share my experience.

I'm writing these posts about the switch to Managed Services at TopFive's aka the outsourcing of our IT but not publishing them.  If you are reading this than it means it either because safe to post or you hacked into the admin panel of my blog (good job).

So we had another round of meetings to talk about what is going to happen.  People are naturally upset, especially if they went through this before.  There is a lot of uncertainty and you cannot control much of anything.

I'm some ways I'm...relieved.  Don't get me wrong, I will miss the paycheck and am concerned how soon I will be able to replace it and by how much.  But honestly, I have been struggling for work for years now.   My demand has been significantly below my capacity for longer than I can recall. 

A new wrinkle has emerged in my industry.  I've alluded to the No-Name Software Company and it's many buy outs.  This week news came that it was breaking off and forming its own entity, basically going back to pre Big Corporation size.

And for months I've been having dreams where I'm back at the No-Name Software Company.  Serendipity?  Perhaps.  But there is a reason people left No-Name Software Company and it sounds like all the major players that were part of the dysfunction got cushy jobs at the new gig.

Why college costs so much

This Why does college cost so damn much article, this time in the NYT is making the rounds.  The
author discounts the argument that states have slashed funding for higher education by emphasizing that adjusted for inflation, state support is much more extravagant today than prior to 1980.

Ed from Gin and Tacos says "there [are] definitely are too many administrators and they have a terrible habit of paying themselves too much."  But he also maintains that's not the whole story, though,  The rest of it is a result of two legitimate problems:

• One is that competition for students is intense (at private schools, "desperate" doesn't go far enough to convey the enrollment situation these days) and colleges increasingly look to compete by turning the experience into a playground."
• The second part is the one people only whisper about. More and more students are going to college over the past two decades, partly driven by the availability of loans and the inability to enter most fields without a degree." 

"Those of you who went to college in the ancient past can attest to how austere the accommodations were, how barebones the support services were, and how little "fun" universities paid to provide."

Arslan Says: The sad fact is that many jobs which should require no college degree are requiring them for no explicable reason. You see this all the time: Requirements- "four year degree." No specification as to the field. It could have absolutely nothing to do with the field, but no matter how much real world experience you have actually doing that job, it's a non-negotiable requirement. --
source

When I was at the No-Name Software Company a couple of coworkers were vying for a Team Lead position.  Between the two candidates there was the very smart guy who had been there longer and knew what the hell he was doing.  He was also working on his Cisco Certification in his spare time.  The other guy had some type of college degree but not nearly as much experience.  He was technically competent and also a charmer.  Guess who got the TL position?

Other Guy went on to become a Director there but before that, he was instrumental in hiring Director Palpatine who directly and indirectly was the cause of so many people leaving or being forced out, including the guys who selected Other Guy for the Team Lead position.  And that is what we call Corporate Irony.

Some rebuttal to the above that I mined from Gin and Tacos comment thread on the subject:

--GunstarGreen Says: The reason the generic "four year degree" requirement appears on more and more job applications these days is because having a degree — any degree, the field is entirely irrelevant — speaks to the applicant's ability to withstand staggering amounts of bullshit. The vast majority of American college degrees aren't worth the paper they're printed on in terms of describing a person's knowledge or aptitude in a given field, but they do signify that a person was able and willing to go into substantial amounts of debt, put up with a ton of academic and bureaucratic horseshit, and in general be a good little peon that did as they were instructed and seal-clapped when appropriate for four or more years. This is all that most American employers want from a prospective employee these days, actual skill be damned.--
source

Now look at it from the young person's point-of-view.

They graduated!

YAY!

So, new college degree in hand, they go looking for a great paying job – that was the point of college, no?

Only to find that, unless they had a great special skill, or had gone to a top-level college, jobs 'don't pay so good.'

What happened?

Hey, they had fulfilled their end of the bargain! They had gotten their degree!

So why couldn't they find any jobs besides being entry-level CSR's making just a few bucks more than minimum wage?

This wasn't how this game was supposed to go!

"I went to college, dammit!"

source

A few things to avoid multiple posts

So I had to pass up the chance to run the March Madness Half Marathon on Sunday.  Boris had a 102 fever and was up all night so I didn't get much sleep.  Combine that with the fact that while I did the majority of the training (more than 80% of the mileage), my running form was still not effortless, it would have been a sucky race for me.

Borrowed and Edited from actual finisher

The only part I'm even remotely saddened about is that this year the weather was absolutely perfect and I would have been able to run in shorts.  This happens every few years but is obviously unpredictable. My hope was that my training for and running of this half marathon would provide me with the necessary pseudo training for the Shamrock Shuffle in a couple of Sundays.  I can still run 5 miles but not fast or without stopping.  I guess we'll see.

Boris and Natasha (aka Moose and Squirrel if you haven't already caught on) are waking up at 3, 4 or 5 am and acting like it is time to be awake for the day.  This is not working well for us obviously.  I don't know what to do about it.  Sleep training is a little harder for twins because even if one is sleeping the other can wake them up quickly.

On the nights that my mom is over it is both a blessing and a curse.  Blessing because she deals with them.  Curse because 1) NG still wakes up and 2) my mom talks to them and holds them too long instead of putting them back in their cribs so they have no incentive to go back to sleep.  Sometimes she either doesn't get to them quickly enough or doesn't soothe the one that is crying before the second kid wakes up.  It isn't all her fault but it doesn't help that my mom is the type of person who wears out her welcome rather quickly.

She questions and scrutinizes a lot of our decisions even dumb ones like how much to bundle the kids up on a day that is between warm and cold. 

It wasn't just me

A few Thursdays ago I went to an event hosted by the man who got me the job at the No-Name Software Company.

There were two others from my  No-Name Software days, and a third person from my stint at Big Bucks Law Firm 2.0.  We caught up and talked about the events that caused us to leave No-Name Software Company. 

On the positive side, it vindicates me that BM was forced out even though he has a much better attitude than I ever did at that place.  On the negative side, it seems like a lot of our "classmates" keep in touch without including me.

Still, each of those persons has been able to find a new job by reaching out to someone we know.  I have done it alone.


Strange Dreams

Thursday morning of that same week, I apparently made a loud noise while in the middle of a dream.  In the dream I was walking with Katness and Monica and I stepped through some snow and ice.  What should have been a small step into some melted snow turned into a deep chasm and I was sinking very quickly.  The water apparently was so cold that I didn't have an buoyancy.  I sank to the very bottom very quickly.

How have I not told this story before

I've written about the No-Name Software Company many times on this blog but I don't recall ever telling the story behind how I got that job.

It was the spring of 2000 and I was in my last quarter of G-School at DePaul.  One evening after some database class ended and everyone was rushing toward the elevator, I lingered back.  Night classes were supposed to go until 9pm but they usually ended early and if you were lucky, they ended early enough to catch an 8:35 train to the burbs.  I was back in the city and using the El but even so, catching an earlier Brown Line would have been just as much of an advantage.  So it was odd that for some reason, I decided to hang back.

It was at this moment that Emram and I talked for the very first time.  He asked me what I do (for a living) and -- having just been let go from a Dotcom company -- I said "nothing."  He found that odd but then realized that it meant I was unemployed and not happy about it.  He told me his company was hiring and I should give him my resume.  I think he gave me a business card, or perhaps he wrote his email down on a slip of paper.  Back then Google was not a thing but I was smart enough to backward engineer a company from an email address.

I checked the company website and there was a couple of positions I remotely thought I had qualified for.  Six months ago Motorola turned me away because I didn't have a degree or experience in IT and I didn't think it would be much different this time even though I was technically six weeks away from graduating with a degree in computer science.  The details are hazy but somehow an interview was set up for the following Tuesday, the same night as our class.


Had I had more experience and a modicum of confidence, I would have realized how my interview was a sign of things to come.  The person I was to interview had forgotten we had an interview.  I was kept waiting for a relatively long time.  A future coworker/call dispatcher kept coming out and apologizing to tell me that Gavin would be right out.

We finally got together and talked and Gavin asked me a few database questions.  One that I was sure I bombed was demonstrating a join on the whiteboard.  I was trying to recall a right-join which even today I cannot do without looking it up (and by default all joins are right-joins unless you specify otherwise).

I had arrived at 1pm and left the interview around 4, so that gave me just under 2 hours to kill before class.  When I saw Emram, he asked how it went and I told him that I probably blew it.  Apparently. I hadn't because Gavin called me Friday night to offer me the job.  I started the day after my birthday about a month before graduation from g-school.

Some things I think about on my Morning Drive to work

Coulda, shoulda have been me:  Once in a while I'll see some news tidbit of my former colleagues from the No-Name Software Company on LinkedIn or Facebook.  Someone I worked with in the trenches is now a manager or someone who joined after me is higher up on the food chain.

We use to joke that it would be cool if Microsoft bought us out.  Well a big name company did eventually buy it up, though it was after a lot of other mergers and take overs in the meantime.  And I had to leave because I was never going to advance party because of my own shortcomings and party because I wasn't part of Director Palpatine, clique.

You always hear about those lifers at IBM who retired with boatloads of stock and are set for life. That should have been me and some of my colleagues, had we not been forced out of there.  Essentially as the company got bigger and the workload increased faster than we could keep up with it.  That's what happens when only half the call takers take calls.  Those who were not part of Director Palpatine's hand-picked band of merry ass-kissers had to go.

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Like Art Therapy, without the Art:  A long time ago, there was this Twilight Zone or TZ-like remake show that featured Ed Asner as an author who retired.  He started seeing these strange creatures in the background that no one else could see.  He eventually confronts them and asks what he has to do to make them go away.

"Write about us," one says.  He takes out his type writer and the show ends.  So it goes that I need to start writing about something that has been forcing it's way into my active brain feed, especially whe I drive to work in the morning.  I've alluded to it before but it has to do with my first job out of college as a paralegal assistant.

So I'm going to start writing posts about those days on this blog.   It's good to get it in writing and out of my system and perhaps I can parlay it into some fodder for the other site.

My Crib Chatter Weekend

This weekend was another one of those weekends where the decent weather came on the busy day and the useless weather* came on the not-so-busy-day. 

On Saturday all I really manage to accomplish was taking the recycling to the recyle location -- our hood hasn't got the blue bins yet.  In the evening we had dinner with SHB and her husband.  We went Blind Faith in Evanston and had a tasty vegetaran/vegan meal.  First we went to an art showing of a friend of theirs. 

Sunday was meet some Crib Chatter people in the real world. A couple months ago I met Milkster in person.  She had moved to Albany Park and wanted to meet Nightingale and me.  I was hesitant at first because well you're talking about meeting someone from the internet and I have yet to see a news report where that turns out well.  However, there was something admirable in her insistence so I ran it by Nightingale and she thought it would be okay since it was at a Starbucks.  And the meeting was fun.  She reminds me of my friend Hanna from the No-Name Software Company.

Speaking of which, Milkster lives in the same building on the same floor as JF, a guy I went to high school with and helped get a job at the No-Name Software Company.  He lived there from 2005 to 2009 and was lucky enough to sell in time to avoid the crash in our area.  He sold for $10K less than he bought according to Redfin but when you consider how much most places are under water today, he did well.  He's always had a lucky horseshoe up his arse.

Milkster put together a lunch gathering at  El Milagro...so I got to meet Sonies and Benjamon9, and their SigOthers.  Sonies wife seemed familiar but in that I've met a person like her before, not that I've actually met her before.  Benejamon09 was quieter than he is on CC and his partner did more of the talking.

I suggested a CC group photo but everyone half heartedly agreed so I didn't push it.  After lunch we drove back to the north side so that Milkster and her guy could see this house at 5627 W School in Portage Park. 

Milkster was hoping to get the house for a song, rehab it, rent it for a fwe yearas and then move in herself.  Unfortunately, the hosue was in very bad condition, too much work for her and her contractor to take on.  The amount of money she would need to sink into it would buy her a house in better shape.  This is the kind of home that someone will buy for cash and then fix up and sell for $300K.

We did meet an interesting couple there.  I call them the Real Estate Fairy and the Polish Prince.  The Polish Prince had an interesting way of sizing things up, I'll call it the Trinity of Rehab:  Cost/Time/Quality. 

Essentially if you can get two of the following but it will cost the third:

Cost -- Time  --- Quality   aka   Cheap, Fast, Good.  If you want it Fast and Cheap, it won't be Good.  If you want it Good and Cheap, it won't be Fast.  You get the picture.

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*(cold, rainly, bleak or all of the above)

When Time moves slower than light

In several of the companies I've worked at in Corporate America, they've had the lunch with the bigwig shindig.  Essentially its an informal sitdown with your peers where you can talk openly and honestly about life and work at Company_that_currently_employees you.

While I suppose there is some company out there run by ex-hippies that really care about employee grievances, this is mostly just smoke-and-mirrors.  Make no mistake, any serious grievance should not be aired at this meeting.

In a healthy company, an unspoken understanding that anything said remains at that table and if there is some trivial cost-free item that comes up a lot it might be addressed. i.e. bring back the free soda in the break room especially now that you're making us work 70 hours a week again.

In dysfunctional companies, the hope is that some naive employee will say too much and higher ups can gauge if a new policy was too restrictive or just tolerable enough.

And if you think about it, anything serious enough to be a deal breaker would probably have you already submitting your letter of resignation on your bosses desk.

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At No-Name Software Company, we had After Hours rotation.  In the early days we were very unmanaged, so former Tech Lead JT managed this rotation schedule.  Every  so often he'd re-do it, coincidentally when he noticed that his rotation would come over a holiday, which was usually when our after hours calls spiked up.  After all, the best time to upgrade software is when your users aren't around, like over a holiday weekend. 

So he'd redo it and being the jerk he was, he would not have any regard for who was just on call.  Usually I was the one who got put on the deck on the new schedule because I wasn't one of his buddies and having a master's degree was a threat to him. 

And there was no governance or infrastructure to put him in check, so naturally I got the short end of the straw and was resentful and bitter.  Which is one of the reasons why I didn't feel too bad when he contacted me a couple months ago begging me if I knew of any job opening anywhere.

JT had a very good arrangement at No-Name Software Company.  He got to come in half an hour before the Call Center opened so he got to leave at 4:30 to catch his train.  That 4:30 started sliding to 4 and then 3:45/3:30.  He always worked from home on Fridays and could not be reached on IM after 4 pm.  He basically abused his limited power and position by not giving much back.  Eventually, like all support engineers there, his salary became too high to justify.  You cannot sustain too many engineers at the top of your pay scale when you can hire two entry level techs for almost the same cost.  So when his abuse outweighed his usefulness, he was forced out like so many others.

One More Thing I'm Thankful For

Being a Subject Matter Expert as well as a customer of the No-Name Software Company, I was included in a Customer Briefing about questionable accounting and business practices by former management prior to the current companies acquisition.


Let me try to clear that up, when I first worked for the No-Name Software Company, it was called something. Through a merger/takeover, another company bought it and changed its name. I still get recruiters calling me to see if I'm interested in taking a contract job out-of-state for a position I have no qualifications for whatsoever. A simply reading of my resume and cursory understanding of the position you're trying to fill should make that self evident but alas, recruiters are mostly bottom feeders who couldn't make it into Human Resources.

Anyway, a few years after I left No-Name, another company acquired it. This is the company that allegedly implemented said questionable accounting and business practices and is now under investigation by the SEC and UK's Serious Fraud Office for civil and criminal investigation.

I have no way of knowing if the way they cooked the books is illegal, legal or just screwy.  It's probably one of those risk versus reward factoring chances of being caught scenarios.  What I can speak to is the culture that existed when I was there.  Everyone from the Top down had a culture of only sharing as much information as necessary and only when it absolutely needed to be released.  Development would release software with known issues and not share them with Consulting Services who would discover them at advanced installs and not share with Technical Support, who would discover work arounds and not propogate those back to anyone.

My point is that I probably left in the nick of time, though I had no idea at the time. Even though things were rough at the Low-Rent Consulting Company (C2), I did learn a lot of my current skillset and much more than I would if I had remained at No-Name.

I left C2 to go to a Big Bucks Law Firm. I was there for almost 3 years before running, not walking away. While I wasn't the first rat to scurry off the sinking ship, I once again got out in the nick of time. Everyone was geting the hell out of Dodge including the CIO.  A few months ago, the FBI charged the replacement CIO with fraud. I was not involved with any of that.  However, it's just never a good thing to be in the vicinity of such impropriety if you can avoid it.

Connections are Important to keep open in Corporate America

One of my first experiences negotiating the Corporate Ladder came at the No-Name Software Company. My team lead JT -- which stands for Jealous Troll -- wanted all the benefits of being in charge but none of the responsibility.

I recall asking JT for a day off about a month in advanced. JT's answer was to ask him when the time drew closer because he didn't want to endure the overhead of tracking vacation requests. Because, you know, it would be such a hassle to put a note on his Outlook Calendar.

Even with my inexperience in Corporate America, I could see where this was going, especially since I heard him say the counterpart to another teammate earlier in the week. As the date drew closer, he would say "oh so and so already requested that date off and he has seniority." Pause. "You should have asked sooner."

JT had many of these management quirks. When a new guy would start, JT would take the computer equipment ordered for that person and swap it with his stuff so that he had the latest available hardware. And he'd brag about it.

No-Name Software Company was a dysfunctional culture. In the early start up days it was possible to get away with anything because the employees were young and the culture wasn’t very mature. Once we grew and went corporate, that shit wouldn’t fly and JT got demoted. Most of the people he use to have seniority and authority over are higher on the Corporate Ladder than he.  JT finally left the software company about a year ago.

JT reached out to me last week.  Apparently he's sick of his current position and is desperate to get out of there. The interesting thing is a few months ago I reached out to him to see if anyone we worked with needed a new position and he was all coy and evasive, wouldn't connect me with anyone. Instead he took the info and said he’d pass it along

Another person from the No-Name Software Company whom I’ve spoken to on the phone but only met once at a going away party reached out on LinkedIn. At that going away party we were introduced and chatted but were abandoned by our common connection and ran out of things to talk about which thus made for an awkward moment. I think we could have been friends except I suspect my "reputation" kept this person from connecting at first. The LinkedIn connection doesn't mean anything besides she's covering her bases. Still, a part of me likes to think that's progress.