The New Job

What have I got myself into? This network is a mess! Let me back up …
I started my new job two weeks ago now. Monday morning I arrived at 7:10AM. When asked what time work started my boss had said “people start coming in between 7:00AM and 8:00AM”. But I could see that she would rather folks come in earlier. That was fine with me as I am trying to avoid my local inner-city rush hour. I ended up arriving a little too early, about 7:10AM. Only one other guy was there, and I could see that he was wondering why the hell I was there so early. Everyone else shows up at 7:55AM. No matter, I was able to spend some time cleaning junk off my new desk.

When my boss showed up, she grabbed me and said “follow me!” Then, out the door we went and up a hallway to a strangely situated room near the elevators. She cracked open the door, and ushered me into this roomy “junk closet”. “Grab one of those”, she said. I picked up a Dell box, and carried it back to my desk. I had a new PC. Woo-hoo! Next we headed for the elevators, ducked inside, and I watched as she cracked open a special panel and requested the “7th floor”. This floor is reserved for hospital staff only. Once there, the doors opened to what seemed to be a general storage area. It was pretty loud, as you had to duck and jump over duct work and generator-like devices. Amongst the rubble was old hospital beds, food preparation equipment, ancient PC’s, and … a rack of 19 inch flat panel displays. I grabbed one, and back we went to the elevators. While waiting for it to come back, I heard a “lullaby jingle” which rang loud and clear from all directions. I turned to look, but all I could see was a radiation cage for the decaying of radiology equipment. “Did that jingle come from within there?” “No, that’s the intercom … a baby was just born”.

Once back to my area the boss says “work on setting up your computer, I will be back later”. So I unboxed everything and starting going through the motions. I must say, I was right at home. When I logged in with my new account, I all ready had a couple of mapped drives – one of which was full of various software packages. I got to work installing Office, antivirus stuff, and some utilities that would probably come in helpful like Ethereal.

About the time I was wrapping up and checking my mail for the first time – the boss returned.

She turned to one of the veterans of the department and said “remember that project I had you working on … well it needs done now … so have him work on that and give him the details”. Then she was gone. What was this project? Track down every port on every patch panel in the hospital – and record what port on what switch that connects to. Basically, I was asked to build a compiled list of locations of wall jacks to patch panels. Then, patch panels to switching equipment. This might take … a while.

An hour into the project I could see that the wiring was a Goddamn mess. The good news is that I could complain about it all I wanted, and tell everyone how awful it was – because nobody that works there now had anything to do with it. The old regime from years past is completely gone (disposed of) and after only one day I could see why.

Three days into the project I felt I was making some headway, thanks to the help of an intern that they had assigned me. The intern had no knowledge of networking but had been working for the hospital off and on for years. The advantage was that he knew where everything was located now (and for that matter were things USED to be in years past).

Now here are some tips for anyone who might run network cabling.

1) Label the wall jacks. Even if you don’t have a fancy sticker labeler – you can write onto the wall jack with a permanent marker. But hey – write the correct thing on the wall jack while you are at it.

2) When you put in a patch panel, they are labeled one to twenty four (or more). When you put in a second panel, it too will be marked one through twenty four. Don’t be a fucking retard and leave it that way. You can’t have two jacks that are both port “18”. Duh.

3) When you run out of ports on the patch panel, and you are running some more cable – don’t reach around the back and yank out stuff you aren’t using at the time. Spend the extra fifty bucks and get another panel.

4) Don’t put three piece oak furniture in front of network jacks. If you do, you should put something on the wall or on the furniture which tells the network administrator what’s behind the obstruction.
Most of these seem like common sense. Perhaps I could sum all these up with one master rule – “Make sure your network administrator has some idea of what the fuck they are doing”. That being said – the boss approached me on my third day to see how things were going, and then asked “how long until this is done”.

I was honest. Maybe too honest. I went on to tell her that this network (at least the first floor) was in the worst condition that I have ever seen in my 12 years of IT. “If I were to do this right, we are looking at several more weeks of running around this place”. Her eyes widened and I could see that she was about to be … not happy. “Not weeks! Days!”, she said, “so let’s try this again … how many days will this take”. I wasn’t sure how to retort. But she is a serious woman, who doesn’t kid much, and wants it all straight. “I should have a somewhat useful list and diagram in the next two days … but it could be months before this all gets straightened out”. She understood. She said “I understand why you say months … we don’t have months … you get it done in two days!”.

Two days later I had a pretty good list of where various ports went to. But there were other problems. Some wall jacks were labeled incorrectly, and we didn’t have time to test each port. Running around with a toner (fox and hound Fluke device) was taking far too long (even with two people working for nearly 10 hours a day). Even now, two weeks later, I am upset that it’s such a mess.

It was made pretty clear to me that this was my network. My baby. And my baby is quite ill. I hope that in the years that follow I can turn it all around. But certain things have to stop. Like the build maintenance people running our network drops for us.

My second week of work, I spent the first two days in orientation. You learn all sorts of interesting stuff there. HIPAA rules and regulations, how to deal with spilled body fluids, how to help people in need, emergency codes, infection prevention … the list goes on. For two solid days we were packed into a hot little room where speaker after speaker came in to entertain us with odd movies, slides, and other such presentations. It was all good information, and it was all necessary. But still, I was quite ready to “get back to work”.

The rest of the week was broken up into a few tasks. They would like for me to take over some of the printer/copier/scanner support for Ricoh devices (the hospital has dozens of them everywhere). I went out and fixed a few printer jams to help the “PC technician”. I even helped out on a strange wireless problem. Oh, here is an interesting story.

The emergency room had called a couple times one morning. They have two carts with laptops in them that they roll around to perform patient registrations with. Of these carts had gone belly up on them and was rolled back to us for repair. I had inspected it, ran several tests and determined that “it’s fucked”. Simply put, they damned thing was overheating and shutting itself off. It was years out of warranty and would need flat out replaced.

In the mean time, their one other cart was experiencing issues. As they rolled it around the department it would sometimes loose it’s address and begin dropping packets. I had a look, and confirmed their claims. There were nine access points in this area, most of which were about eight feet apart. It was complete overkill and I had to wonder if there were enough channels to keep all those signals separated. I also noticed that while there were nine access points, there were only eight cables going into a switch. Like everything else in the hospital, nothing was labeled so it took me an hour or so of climbing up and down a ladder and running back and forth to track down and label all of the connections. Sure enough, one of the access points was getting power from a POE injected patch panel … but was not sending or receiving data through the network. Basically, every time a cart was lucky enough to connect to this access point, traffic would begin dropping.
I also noticed that two other access points were alive and well – but would also drop packets when connected. Was it that the switch was managed into a VLAN of some sort which was configured poorly? They only started having this problem a few days before when this new switch was put into production. Since the consultant that was hired into the project is the only one that would know, I asked him about it. I also asked if I could gain access to this switch for the purpose of troubleshooting. He declined to give me that information or to assist in my problem.

The following morning I went in with a mission. I removed all of the access points from the Cisco switch and plugged them into an old Netgear 24 port switch from a “junk pile”. Sure enough, everything worked fine. I wandered around with the cart a few times letting it connect to various access points, and renew its address each time. All the while, I ran continuous ping back to the default gateway. I dropped a single packet throughout the entire test. It was clear to me that I had made my point.

I headed back to my department, and I grabbed the veteran. “I think I have narrowed down the problem to that new switch”. I explained what I had done. “I guess you had better tell Rob then”. Rob is the “consultant” for a Cisco equipment upgrade. I went into the little office which was set up for Rob and relayed what I had done, and what I had found out. “Are they plugged into the Cisco now?”. “No”, I said, “but I can put them back in for you. I just wanted to show you that it works when they are not in the Cisco device”.

With that I headed back to the emergency department, and started plugging the access
points back into the Cisco. When I did, none of the link lights came back. That was odd. Then the door to this room cracks open. It was my pal from our department. “I thought you were kidding about that. You really pulled them out of the switch?”. Here is where I’m really confused. I thought he was kidding. Yes, I un-plugged the access points from the Cisco switch, and put them into an old Netgear. Yes, I told the Cisco consultant what I had done. Yes, I fail to see a problem with doing so.

“When you left”, he adds, “Rob asked me if you had access to these switches. He thinks someone is going around screwing with them, and now he thinks we’re doing it”.
I genuinely felt bad. The consultant can kiss my ass. I think he is a huge waste of money. If I have to unplug a device and plug it back in, I should not have to go ask permission or wonder if it’s going to break something. But I did feel bad for my department buddy. I had just made life a little harder on this guy, and he is all ready pretty well stressed out.

Having plugged everything back in, I headed back with my tail between my legs to talk to “captain dickhead” the consultant. I apologized (against my better judgement). “Sorry about that”, I said, “I guess I didn’t see a problem with moving devices from one switch to another to troubleshoot that issue – and I wanted to ensure it was a problem at the switch before I bothered you about it”. He continued to scorn me, “well that’s the problem … you can’t just go unplugging things”. I failed to see his point. “Well the users are going to be unplugging things all the time. We can’t stop that. My question is, why are the ports all dead?”. He connected to the switch and had a look. “All of those ports are in ‘error/disable’ mode”. “ah, well can’t we just re-enable them then?”. “I don’t know”, he says.

What don’t you know about this? Aren’t you the fucking “expert”? Well I’m not Cisco certified, but I would be willing to bet that the ports just need re-enabled. Oh, by the way – can you fix it so that they won’t do that again for when the power goes out – or the POE patch panel finally bites the dust? Thanks!

He re-enabled the ports. It was fine. And after some more mucking about in the settings, things were back to normal. Thank you Mr. Cisco genius. I could see that I had made an enemy for life with this guy, but seriously, who gives a shit?

One thing about that whole mess troubled me though. How much of a network administrator can I be if someone else manages all my equipment? Maybe I am overstepping my bounds here, but I was hired because I had routing and switching experience. What’s going to happen when this guy is “done”? Will he just leave, and we will have to figure out how to make all of this stuff work? Is he going to provide support after the project is done? It seems that there is so much work to do, and so little time to do it, that most of the staff would rather not be involved. But I don’t come from that kind of environment and I am going to have a hard time adopting that mentality. I guess I just need to let that one go.

In the mean time, this is the “nicest” place I have ever worked. Aside from the vendors and consultants (the outsiders) the hospital is like one big family. Everyone there is friendly, outgoing, and busts their asses to get the job done. I like being part of that. I like greeting people in the hall. I like watching how all of these departments, offices, people, equipment, etc. all work together rather flawlessly. It’s like one big ant farm, and I have a magic key which allows me to explore the whole damn thing 24 hours a day (with the exception of surgical areas of
course!).

Oh, I have blogged far too much this time. More exciting news later!

You can fire me - because I quit (all ready)

Sunday night was rough. I caught something over the weekend, and it was making me pretty ill. That night I dosed up on Niquill and went out like a switch half an hour later. At 4:00AM I woke up parched. My throat was just raw, and I was in pretty bad shape. I would have to get up in a few hours, so I couldn't take another dose of Niquill. Maybe just a little nip? A night-cap - and then back to bed.

6:30AM came around like a motherfucker. The alarm was like a nail being driven into my head. I was dead to the world. That Niquill was still coursing through my veins. I was awake, but I couldn't convince my body to get out of bed. By 7:00AM I hadn't moved, and I was ready to go back to bed. Problem was, this was my last week of work - and I was kind of looking forward to it. With my laptop at my side, I popped it open and "emailed myself off" from work. Perhaps they would think I was just using up some time off that I had built up. But then, I all ready quit. So who cares. I went back to sleep, and didn't get up for another four hours or so.

I dragged around all day Monday. I was in pretty bad shape. I had the runny nose, sore throat, typical cold symtoms. None of my kids had been sick, so where the hell did I get this from? Was it backlash from one of those vaccine shots I had last week? It could be a sinus infection. I started choking down sinus pills. They didn't help me feel any better - but they did dry things up a bit.

Tuesday wasn't much better. I couldn't stop sneezing. I went through half a box of tissues on my way into the office. But I really had to go. If I called off again, they would really think I was screwing with them. My voice was almost entireley gone, so I was lucky to have only taken two phone calls in my first hour there. Then the boss called me into his office. I was expecting some sort of "exit interview" as his wife indicated might happen before I left out for good. But it was no such interview.

"So Friday's your last day?"
"That's right! I'm a short timer. Just working on wrapping things up, closing what I can, etc"
"Well, I would like for you to work through the day, and then take the rest of the week off"
"Oh, okay"
"Yeah, we will pay you for it. And you have a couple of 'TOB' days left, we will add those in next week"
"Great!"

I was being sent home - with pay! Awesome! There were a couple other things to settle. I had to turn in keys, my pager, and finish re-assigning service tickets that I wouldn't be around to resolve. When I got back to my desk, I started tearing all the junk off my walls, packing up all my desk trinkets, and wiping things down with cleaning stuff. I was going home! Woohoo!

I still don't understand why I was sent home. I wasn't going to argue with the guy, but they will all ready be short staffed. Sending me home four days early wasn't going to help those matters. But then maybe he thought I was just going to stick around with a bad attitude and bother the other guys? Who knows. But it was clear that the other men were mad at him for giving me the week off ... when they really needed the additional coverage.

I also picked up a hint of resentment from the boss and his wife. They were rather annoyed that I quit this job. If anything, it helped me know that I had made the right decision. They really think that the job is that good and we should want to work there forever. Meanwhile, there is no career advancement or hope of obtaining a raise. When we point out that certain things need attention (like that we spend too much time supporting customers with wireless problems - I LOVE YOU WINDOWS XP) they simply ignore us or blow off the issues. So you have a wealthy management team - who is growing wealther with every four to five customers that we are adding daily, and you have a staff of four guys who are growing bussier with every addition. Meanwhile we are supporting the same obscure product day in and day out, and come to work every day knowing that we will never move forward or obtain a raise.

I shook hands with the guys, wished them well, and I was out the door. I got to come home early. I didn't have to worry about getting my kids to the dentist the next day. I had the rest of the week off! But damned if I wasn't still really ill. Maybe he sent me home because I was sick and infecting the rest of the office? Nah - he was not that considerate. :-)

I wish I could say that I have spent my time at home wisely. I haven't. The last time I was sick, I made great strides with ODDREE Issue #2. It has been about a year since the first issue was released, perhaps I should get back to work on that? And so I spent my first day at home chugging down Dayquill and coffee, and working away in Adobe Indesign. The results were impressive, and it got me excited about completing this second issue.

I have also set aside some time to work on the new web site. I had decided that when issue two came out, the web site would have to get a make over. I have annoyed way too many people with my old Flash gag. So I put up a new site. Check it out? http://www.oddree.com

Now, here it is Friday all ready. I start the new job Monday! I am starting to get excited about it. I'm looking forward to seeing some new faces, and facing some new challenges. I spent an hour or so cleaning out my bookbag, and deleting old junk off my thumbdrive. I wonder if I will have a desk to sit at? I wonder if I will even need a desk. I don't know much about what I will do on this job. I hope that it doesn't suck. Stay tuned!

Happy Trails

I finally got that job offer. It wasn't as high as I was hoping for, but it was only about 5,000 less than my target. I accepted, and with that we went to work on the final stages of the hiring process. The first of which - was to talk to my current boss. I was not looking forward to this part. I still needed to sit down and talk to the guy myself. He was completely in the dark about what had been transpiring. It was Friday afternoon, and perhaps late on a Friday would be as good a time as any to break the news to him. But alas, he would be in meetings all afternoon, right up until 6:00PM when I was leaving what would be my last 7:30AM to 6:00PM shift (don't ask).

Monday morning I waited for the boss to come in and get settled in. Moments later, I attacked. I walked in, and shut the door. "You know it's important when I shut your door", I said. He was all ears. I gave it to him in one sitting. "I have been made an offer ... one that I don't think I can refuse". I went on to tell him a little about the position, and why I was taking it. "How much did they offer you?". I told him it was roughly 10,000 more than I make now. He nodded, and that was about it. No counter offers, no trying to talk me out of it. He was all right with my leaving. I told him "I don't want you to think I am leaving out of here because of you all, I'm just doing whats right for my family ... and my career". That wasn't entirely true. I have about had my fill with the boss on a couple issues, one of which is how he deals with our complaints about after hours support (for which we are not compensated), our suggestions on new business, and process in general. He just ignores us.

I will not miss my work, or my boss. But I will surely miss the guys I work with. I worry that they will be under-staffed for a long time coming. Even when they get someone hired, they will have to spend weeks training that person to bring them up to speed (like they did me). But I didn't have a start date yet. Perhaps I could give them some fair warning. In the mean time, I had some work to do to get hired.

On my first of two required visits to the hospital, I met with a nurse. She put on a pair of thick glasses, and pulled out a clipboard. It was a questionnaire of sorts that started with "when was your last tetanus shot"? Uh oh. I wasn't really sure. Wrong answer. "Have you ever been tested for TB"? I had, but it was at least 5 years ago. Wrong answer. "Have you ever been vaccinated against Hepatitis B"? I didn't even know there was a vaccination for that. I'm not very fond of needles, but I could see that I would be getting quite a few of them shoved into me in the very near future. Sure enough, I was given a video to watch while the nurse went off the get my shots ready. I got to learn about how to deal with spilled body fluids, and how to properly wear a respirator mask. When she returned, there was a tray of needles. We got right to work. Ouch.

When I was done there I was sent to the lab for some "blood work". This is the part I really hate, having a needle pushed into my arm and held there while I am bled out. I guess it's a phobia. I have always feared having needles put into my skin. But I tried to calm myself, I didn't look, and it was over pretty quickly. Two days later, I was back. This time I was given a true physical. I had to stand in awkward places, have a doctor punch me in the kidneys, and do the old "turn your head and cough" thing. And then I was given the golden ticket, a "right to hire" signed by the staff. With this I was able to go to human resources and get my paperwork together. And following that activity, I was sent to the IT director to get my start date established.

She was rather quick with me, as I could see she was pretty busy that day. "When would you like to start? Do you have to give notice?". Technically, I don't. My contract is a "work at will" deal, where I can quit (or they can fire me) any old time. "I would like to give two weeks, but I'm not really required to". "One week", she says, "you will start on the 5th, yes?". I agreed. And that was that.

I took the news back to "the men", and I could see that they were both happy for me and disappointed all at the same time. They are far too kind to give me crap for leaving. They know why I'm leaving, and they want to see me succeed somewhere else. It makes it that much harder to depart. They will be missed.

Tomorrow I will start what will be my last week with the old crew. I have about 30 service tickets that I need to have cleaned up and completed by Friday, or I will have to hand them off to someone else. Throughout the week I will need to take down my pictures, ditch some old paperwork, and just wrap things up. Next week, I will get to start a new job. New faces, new challenges, greater opportunities.

Pa Passes On

Last week I had been talking to my mother about my grandpa. He was in lousy shape, and she wanted me to know that he may be on his way out. He's had Alzheimer's for several years now, and his condition went from mediocre to just plain awful in a short period of weeks. She told me that she thought I should be prepared for bad news, but that I probably wouldn't be interested in any final visits. Partly because his mental state was pretty bad, and also because he wouldn't know who I was. A few days ago I got the call from her. Pa had passed away.

I didn't spend a lot of time with my grandpa. I barely knew the guy. For that matter, I have never known any of my grandparents all that well. But I had a strange bond with my grandfather. People were always telling me that I looked like him. Namely my mother. She brought me a photo one time of him when he was young, and had just enlisted in the Navy and it was frighteningly like my high school senior pictures. It was clear that I had been practically cloned from his DNA. We had many common traits. Pa was a gentle, caring guy. Never one to start fights, or create static. He loved carpentry, and would spend countless hours in his shop building various things. For many years he built clipper holders from plexi-glass for barber shops around the United States. This was a process he had perfected over the years using an assortment of hand crafted templates, heating devices, and glues.

It was a shame to hear that he had passed. I knew this would be hard on my mother. Yet, it was relieving for the family. Pa had simply gone to sleep one night, and didn't wake up. It was a quiet and peaceful ending to what could have been a bitter battle with life.

Saturday was his funeral. We were asked not to dress us, although I couldn't resist wearing a suit. It was a respect thing. Pa had asked that he buried in a collared shirt, no tie and with a sweater if it was cold. It was a Catholic service. Those are always awkward for me, not being a Catholic myself. There are all sorts of readings and scriptures which are supposed to illicit a crowd reaction such as "and God be with you". I just tried to keep my head down, and nod when appropriate. I wasn't the only non-Catholic in the house. A good part of my family is atheist, and Pa had some good Jewish friends too (one of which stepped up and read scripture at the service).

They had some pictures of of my grandfather from various stages of life. Everyone kept looking at the photos of him in his thirties and then looking back at me as if they had just seen a ghost. When the service was over, I came over to hug my mother. She said that she will always remember her father when she looks at me. She told me that Pa gave me some of his best traits. For that I am greatful.

I wish I could have known the man better. Perhaps everyone felt the same way. At his funeral, they kept referring to his life as a "mystery" which was a little weird. I hope when I die, they won't consider my life a mystery. But then, they will have years of obscure Blog posts to refer back to.

Historic Comments
Grats about the new job, and sorry to hear about your 'pa
apex81 | Homepage | 02.26.07 - 5:15 pm | #

Hey hey dude,

Long time no read! Still up to no good I see!
Im living in the UK now, so I just wanted to let you know that when you eventually post that T-Shirt you should send it to Bristol not Johannesburg hehe.

Hows things? Im sure the last time we spoke you had been making babies?

Mike
Mike "Rattor" H | 09.30.07 - 7:33 am | #

Where'd he go?
eco | 12.30.07 - 8:55 pm | #

Interview Round II

Monday morning I showed up to what I was hoping would be a job offer. It actually ended up being another interview. Let me tell you, they are very careful about who they are hiring for this position. In a way, I have a great respect for how seriously they are taking this position. It also makes it that much more challenging for me. But I want this job. Soon. Now. Give it to me!

I came in, sat down at the desk and watched as my interviewer grabbed her head and shook her hair around. "I have a terrible headache" she finally said. There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence. "I'm sorry, I'm having trouble thinking right now ... the pain is terrible". She lifted a half empty diet Mountain Dew can and shook it around. "Usually by this time I have had three of these". "Oh yeah", I said, "you should take down some aspirin and a lot of caffeine to chase that out. Sounds like a migraine". She nodded, not really listening to me, and got on the phone. "Hello doctor, can I still take you up on that offer for some ibuprofen? Thank you."

She excused herself and stepped out to meet with the doctor down the hall. She came back a few minutes later, and began to tell me about her style of management. Her accent is very thick. She went on to say that when she speaks, people really listen to her. Partly, because she holds everyone accountable to what she asks of them ... and partly because her broken English is sometimes hard to put together which she joked is probably why people really pay attention to her. But I could tell that she is a tough lady, and she wanted me to know it. In her words, her style of management is very "direct".

She said that the reason she brought me back out was because she was unsure of how I might handle customer service. We talked a bit. She asked some interesting questions which were more to put me on the spot than to illicit feedback. They were along the lines of "tell me about your strengths" and "tell me about your weaknesses". She was not really interested in my answers. Often she interrupted me as I was delivering them. This was a test of speech and mind. "Tell me what you do to relieve stress". "I talk to my wife ... I try to meditate now and then ... and I take karate classes and punch things ... that helps". She immediately asked, "which of those is most helpful". "Talking to my wife". She smiled.

"What have you learned from interviewing?"
"I guess you learn a lot about yourself. You asked what my weakness is. Nobody else would ask me something off the wall like that. Kind of makes you think about yourself, which you wouldn't normally sit around doing. And you can try to prepare for a question like that ... but you're never really prepared"
She agreed.
I added, "or were you really asking me about what I have learned about the job market and IT?"
"No, that was a good answer. But tell me what you have learned about IT over the years"
"Everyone has the same miserable problems, and uses the same miserable products. As different as every environment is, we all know one another grief in this field"
She agreed.

It was going very well. Here's where it got better.

"Here's what I think about you. You have looked for a good job that you really like for a long time and never found it. You liked your job of 7 years, but you have been trying to replace that ever since. I think if you found just the right position with just the right people to work with, you would stay there and be happy"
I agreed, completely.
"So I want to give you this opportunity"

That's where she is offering me the job. I said "great!". I waited. She continued.

"I will get with HR and get this moving. We should be in touch very soon"

Shit. I have the job. But I really wanted to walk out of there with my offer in hand. Another grueling interview, and no job. Still it was fantastic news.

Exploring the Land

This past weekend we headed out to Mount Vernon to explore the area. I printed out a big map of the town (it only took one sheet of paper) and then we just drove around. We found that we could get a mansion of a home for the 100 to 115's which would not be out of our league ... but out of our interest. In other areas of town, we could get a very decent looking smaller home for 70 something. As we drove around we scribbled down the names of several Realtors, agencies, etc. I also penciled in the prices of the homes (the ones that were listed) right onto the map. So later we can see what neighborhood a home is in before checking it out. All in all, the whole town looked like a nice place to live. Even the few trailer parks scattered around the outskirts of town were very neat and well kept.

There are difficult, yet exciting times ahead. We will be cleaning up this house, trying to get the kids through the rest of the school year, buying a new home, and moving into it all in a relatively short period of time.

And I still don't have that job offer in hand. What's keeping these people?

Historic Comments
Woo-hoo. Just been catching up on your (mis)adventures of late and was genuinely excited and relieved to read about your interview with this IT Director. I won't say congrats yet, but good luck instead.
Ty | 02.16.07 - 4:00 pm | #

Opening The Door

I was sitting in my living room earlier this week. It was a non-karate night. I was still lounging around in my work garb (tan pants, polo) trying to forget the day I had and rest my brain. Then there was the doorbell. I don't get visitors. My kids don't really have friends in the neighborhood any more. They all moved away. Any friends we have would tell us that they were stopping by. The only people that ever ring my doorbell are salesmen, or charity workers. I wouldn't have any of it.

Five minutes or so went by, and then there was banging on my door. I had one of my kids look out the window. "It's just some guy ... with a clipboard". I decided that this must be pretty important. Here it is just below zero outside, and this guy is still on my porch wanting to talk to me. I open the door. He says, "I have a package for you". Seeing that nobody sends me flowers, I knew exactly what kind of package this guy had for me. Court papers.

Sure enough, I had two nice packets of paper from the local court system. Nothing unusual. Just the mortgage company doing what it has to do, which is to put a final date on my house. My choices are to sell it, or give it back and let them sell it. The "get out of our house date" is well into the summer, which is nice. Maybe this wasn't bad news. I have some time to get this place into better shape and sell it.

Move forward to Thursday morning. It was tougher going to work than usual because we have all worked a long week. Aside from taking shit from a lot of our customers, we had the boss breathing down our necks about intrusion prevention alerts that he feels have been ignored. I was just as tired getting out of bed as I was getting into it. I went into the office, dropped into the call queue, and away we went. Sometime into the afternoon, my cell phone rang. It was one of those rare opportunities where I was writing up some service ticket notes, and I wasn't on the office phone. I set myself into DND, and I looked down to my phone. I wasn't sure what to expect. For a while, my mortgage company was calling me twice a day to play a recording that says "we need to talk to you". Now that I had talked to them and told them that I couldn't afford the house payments, they stopped calling.

But this was a 740 area code. I only know two people who would call me from that area code, and one of them is a guy working 10 feet away from me. This had to be the hospital calling. But it could just as easily be the news that they had hired someone else, and I was out of the race. Just before I opened my phone, I let all the air out of my lungs expecting the worst.

"Hello, it's Mike from the hospital ... would you still be interested in a position with us?"
"Oh yes, absolutely!"
"Great, we would like to meet with you as soon as possible ... when can you come back out?"
"How about Monday?"
"Okay, Monday it is ... 10:00AM good?"
"10:00AM it is!"
"Good. You will be meeting with the IT director. You can go right to her office, or if you don't remember where it is you can come see me first"
"Great! Thank you so much. Have a good weekend"

Now I went from not having the job at all ... to almost certainly having it ... again. These up's and down's are killing me. I have to keep my hopes under control. But I was all ready interviewed by the whole family there. And the person I am meeting with next, is the IT director. This is looking like it will probably be a job offer. Me, her, and a table with slips of paper being passed back and forth. I may just be moving out to the country (to eat a lot of peaches).

Options

On the other hand, I may have a shot at a job that pays a boatload more than the hospital gig. I would be a "manager", and would get my own department to run. I don't know what my chances are at this job - but my friend Bonnie says "they're good".

I guess it's nice to have options. I can start the job at the hospital, and if I hate it I can hope that the other job pans out. If I like my job, and I still get offered the other one, I will get to decide if I want to try something new for considerably more money - or take the job that I like out in the sticks.

To be continued I guess.

The Progress Bar

There was a time when everything came with a progress bar. I liked the progress bar. It gave you an idea of how long you had to wait. But some time ago, the progress bar was replaced with what looked like a never ending animated picture. I remember attempting to start problematic services in Windows NT and what you thought was a progress bar ended up getting to 100 percent and then just starting over. Smoke and mirrors. When Windows boots up, you aren't given a progress bar. You are watching an animation. How long will this take? Sure, we could give you a real progress indicator. But we are all so impatient, perhaps we are better off not knowing that it's going to be a while yet.

Still, I would love to have a progress indicator when I apply for a job. How much longer should I wait? I applied two weeks ago. One week ago they were supposed to call with an answer. I guess I blew it.

Wouldn't it be nice to know why you didn't get hired? I wish people were honest. I can take a bit of constructive criticism. Wouldn't it be helpful if when you submitted a resume that was hated, the company would call you up. "Hello, this is Joe. We looked at your resume. Don't like it. You lack leadership, and your skills are outdated. Also, you spelled your name wrong. Thanks for applying". I would respect a call like that. If you ask me, it's more crushing to hear nothing back. But then, I have never asked someone why they didn't hire me. It's not like they would owe me that. It wouldn't hurt to ask, right? I asked.

I sent an email off to the hospital that went something like this ... "I think I have come to terms with the fact that I did not get the job. But if you could spare me some constructive criticism to help me with future endeavors, I would greatly appreciate it". An hour later my wife messaged me to tell me that they had called and left me a voice mail. It was from the HR director. He just wanted to tell me that they had two more interviews before a decision would be made, but I was sill "in the running".

It had been a bad week. But it was better with that news. They made an offer to someone, who didn't end up taking it. They would like to talk to two other guys, but keep me on ice. I get it. They want to explore all their options. They truly want the best damned person they can find. What if I came on board, and stunk up the place? At least they could have a good number two guy to pull into the position while I was still on probation. I was able to relax on that Friday afternoon. That was good news. I needed some.

Leading up to Friday I was sinking into a depression. I laid in bed all week, tossing and turning. I was going to sleep at 1:00AM. Then waking up at 3:00AM and 5:00AM. Thursday night I slept really good, because my poor body was ready to quit on me ... and then I went to karate class. Strange things happen when you are suffering from sleep deprivation, and then trying to put your body to the limit. While trying to perform 50 simultaneous round house kicks, my legs stopped working. We had been working the legs and knees all night. I had been doing pretty good. My body just felt numb. But my leg just started to drop. It was as if my brain was talking to a brick wall. KEEP KICKING. What are you doing? I said KEEP KICKING! It was no good. I was beat.

But Friday was a great day. I was given new hope, and I needed that.

Then Saturday night I got a call from my friend Bonnie. She called to tell me that her department at the University had posted the job that she thought I should apply for. She went over the details with me, and told me all about the department. "You would have to manage a few people", she says, "so you will need to stress your management skills". I have no management skills, do I? I have always had a hatred for management. But that is because I always feel that managers make bad decisions. And "project managers"? Don't even get me started on them. The State of Ohio has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars giving their managers "project management training". I wonder if they will think that was a good investment ten years from now. Would I make a good manager?

I don't have high hopes applying for this job. The posted salary is $65k to $85k. I'm not worth that much money. Bonnie thinks I am. I don't think I can get this job without a degree. Bonnie thinks I can. Bonnie tells me that the guy who would be interviewing me has all ready seen the smaller version of my resume. He seems to think that I am above this job and it wouldn't interest me. Imagine that. She says that my technical skill set impressed him. She added that he doesn't have a technical skill set himself and he would be more concerned with my personality and attitude.

Now I have a couple shots at a job. I probably wouldn't hear anything on this University job for a month. That is, a month from now they may ask if I can come in for an interview. That would be okay with me. But can I stay in this house for another month? Just how long does it take to get thrown out of your home? I would like to think the mortgage company would like for me to help them sell the home. But once attorneys get involved, nothing goes smoothly.

Tyler Durden said, "the stuff you own - ends up owning you".

Historic Comments
Hey steve, this is Matt from when you used to work at Best Buy. We have an opening for the law firm I work at for a trainer. It would be a cake job for you teaching office and a few other progs. This is a real nice place to work for. Email me with your info and so I can get a hold of you and we can talk about it more if you are interested. Hope all is well.
Matt Sunday | 02.07.07 - 2:20 pm | #

mattman0622@gmail.com
Matt Sunday | 02.07.07 - 2:52 pm | #

Yeah, I miss progress bars too. Thought it was just me.. *sigh*
Ty | 02.16.07 - 4:02 pm | #

Liberation

I spent several hours today cleaning out the back of my basement. I actually started digging through the junk earlier in the week placing what was "sellable" on eBay. To date, my earnings are almost $50. The rest of the garbage is not really anything I can sell. For that matter, it would be hard to give most of this shit away. Aside from all the computer junk I have to clear out ... one thing had to go ... my shelves of training manuals.

When you are in the training business, you print a lot of shit. I could never teach from PDF's on a laptop, although I've known many instructors who do. The sheer cost of printing all this crap was actually pretty low. I invested in a $50 laser printer when I started my training business. I was lucky enough to have a toner cartridge full of toner. I have never changed it. Every time I taught a new class I would download the materials, print them out, bind them, and label the binder. I accumulated a few shelves of this bulk paper product pretty quickly. But now what would I do with it all?

I guess the real question is why have I kept it this long? If you had asked me to throw all that shit out when I started my full time job back in May, I wouldn't have wanted to. I like to have a backup plan, and I figured if things didn't "work out" with the new job, the training business was more than willing to take me back. Now I am facing financial ruin, and my house will soon be someone elses house. I could still jump right back into the training business. Or, I could toss this heap into a recycling dumpster and never look back.

Would I ever want to go back to that lifestyle? The cold silence of a hotel room. The funny tastes and smells of foreign places. Calling my family from the road to "say hello". Teaching corporate lackies how to use poorly developed products that will change next year. Never again.

There was a certain satisfaction in slinging the bags full of paper into the dumpster. One had started to tear, and exploded on the inside wall, papers flying around in the cold darkness. I had a choice. I chose my family. I will never regret it. I don't have to ask myself if I did the right thing anymore. I'm free. But at what cost?

Tomorrow I will find out that I didn't get the job at the hospital and even though I know it's coming it will still break me down.

Tomorrow I will contact the recruiters I have avoided all week, and ask them to present me with more jobs that don't interest me, and that I am not qualified for.

Tomorrow I will get a couple more calls from the mortgage company, and I won't answer the phone.