Another semi-annual update
Hi folks. Been awhile, again.
Thought i'd update since there have been some recent changes. I started a new job on Monday. Which actually, I wasn't supposed to start until NEXT Monday, but oh well, they needed me to sit in on a training that was already being offered, so I started early.
I'm in the same industry and actually the same product, or basically the same. I'm working with a direct vendor now, who is the vendor that my company originally got our product from. MSC has several variations on the same basic platform so there is going to be a lot for me to learn when it comes to the nuances of each.
This is a much needed change. I have been feeling very disatisfied about my job for quite awhile. While I greatly enjoy the work, there was just too much of it, and not enough money to staff so that it could have been more even distributed. In fact, I don't think quanity of our staff was really the issue... there was just such an inbalance between my knowledge base and that of my co-workers. That wasn't due to some astounding intellect of mine, it was just because I was there in the beginning when the company started and I have the 4 years of troubleshooting and experience and "this didnt work, try this" approach and no matter how much you can teach someone, you can't teach them experience. So the fact that I had experience over the others with the application and the training, meant that there were some things I just couldnt delegate.
In my old role I was a trainer, configuration, support, implementation, marketing and manager. At the new company I will doing support. This is 100% work from home and pays 20k more per year. It seems like a big step back on responsibility, but instead of supporting roughly 300 users on one centrally deployed app, i'll be supporting thousands on multiple apps throughout the country... so... i'm by no means taking the change as a transition to a cake walk. Just different. Not having the travel will be very nice.
But it isn't all daisies and farewells to the old. I'm still going to be contracting with my old company to act as a resource to the remaining staff, to train any new staff they hire and to work on specific projects as needed. Like I said, there was a lot that only I did, and my former bosses decided that they would rather me continue to do that then try to have someone else get up to speed. This is particularly over the next 3 months, because they scope of the organization may be changing depending on some grants they have applied for, so the need for a "me" might be changing anyway. The contractor money will be nice for awhile anyway.
Other then professionally everything else is still about the same. I'm still with Richard and Leigh, and that is what it is... a hard relationship to manage but one (two) that continue to be worth the work.
I'm getting ready to completely remodel my basement and hope to have that done by Christmas, but that probably isn't realistic. I can't really get started (its gutted now) until I get my withdraw from my 401k funds. That will be 3-4 days after the final paperwork is completed by ING. Who knows how long that will take. All if my stuff and my employers stuff was completed on my last day as FTE, but I have a feeling that ING will take some time to process.
Im excited about Christmas this year, because I'll actually have money to buy gifts for people like I want to. I won't go overboard, but it will nice to not have to choose between rent and gifts :P
Oh well, guess thats it for now. I hope everyone is doing well.
Thought i'd update since there have been some recent changes. I started a new job on Monday. Which actually, I wasn't supposed to start until NEXT Monday, but oh well, they needed me to sit in on a training that was already being offered, so I started early.
I'm in the same industry and actually the same product, or basically the same. I'm working with a direct vendor now, who is the vendor that my company originally got our product from. MSC has several variations on the same basic platform so there is going to be a lot for me to learn when it comes to the nuances of each.
This is a much needed change. I have been feeling very disatisfied about my job for quite awhile. While I greatly enjoy the work, there was just too much of it, and not enough money to staff so that it could have been more even distributed. In fact, I don't think quanity of our staff was really the issue... there was just such an inbalance between my knowledge base and that of my co-workers. That wasn't due to some astounding intellect of mine, it was just because I was there in the beginning when the company started and I have the 4 years of troubleshooting and experience and "this didnt work, try this" approach and no matter how much you can teach someone, you can't teach them experience. So the fact that I had experience over the others with the application and the training, meant that there were some things I just couldnt delegate.
In my old role I was a trainer, configuration, support, implementation, marketing and manager. At the new company I will doing support. This is 100% work from home and pays 20k more per year. It seems like a big step back on responsibility, but instead of supporting roughly 300 users on one centrally deployed app, i'll be supporting thousands on multiple apps throughout the country... so... i'm by no means taking the change as a transition to a cake walk. Just different. Not having the travel will be very nice.
But it isn't all daisies and farewells to the old. I'm still going to be contracting with my old company to act as a resource to the remaining staff, to train any new staff they hire and to work on specific projects as needed. Like I said, there was a lot that only I did, and my former bosses decided that they would rather me continue to do that then try to have someone else get up to speed. This is particularly over the next 3 months, because they scope of the organization may be changing depending on some grants they have applied for, so the need for a "me" might be changing anyway. The contractor money will be nice for awhile anyway.
Other then professionally everything else is still about the same. I'm still with Richard and Leigh, and that is what it is... a hard relationship to manage but one (two) that continue to be worth the work.
I'm getting ready to completely remodel my basement and hope to have that done by Christmas, but that probably isn't realistic. I can't really get started (its gutted now) until I get my withdraw from my 401k funds. That will be 3-4 days after the final paperwork is completed by ING. Who knows how long that will take. All if my stuff and my employers stuff was completed on my last day as FTE, but I have a feeling that ING will take some time to process.
Im excited about Christmas this year, because I'll actually have money to buy gifts for people like I want to. I won't go overboard, but it will nice to not have to choose between rent and gifts :P
Oh well, guess thats it for now. I hope everyone is doing well.