The Road to LJ Updates is paved with good intentions
A certain someone (cough…stecciem…cough) nudged me awhile back regarding updating my LJ page. I did promise (repeatedly) do to so, but alas and alack life, the universe, and everything conspired to keep me from doing so. I did explain (though not as successfully as I had envisioned) that since I didn’t specify a date to update, then I wasn’t breaking a promise, it’s simply a promise delayed. So hopefully to get myself out of a real or imagined dog house, here is my LJ post. To make things easier, I’ve even broken it down it to chapters.
The title is “Busier than a 3….(hey unclesiko, what kind of goat is that again?)”
Work - Day job:
For those who know this, bear with me. For those who don’t, read on.
I’m currently working at newspaper in the marketing department in an “ITish” job. The main part of my job involves going into the system environment configuring it to accept promotions, pricing, account creation, and a whole lot more I don’t know about then testing it to make sure everything works find. I’ve done testing before, but nothing quite like this. It’s a better environment in that there is room for advancement - which is something that they didn’t have at my previous place of employment - where I was laid off after 9 ½ years.
The hardest part is getting used to the environment. It’s a lot more starched than I’m used to. When I went on my interview, I asked what the dress code was and my said “business casual”. I said “So polo shirts and Dockers are ok?” She simply looked at me as if I just spoke in Sanskrit. I was later told I don’t have to wear a tie everyday, but I look good when I do. When I heard that, cluegirl magically appeared behind me and struck me with her trusty Clue-by-Four™. I went from an environment where I was hardly at my cube to one where you’re in your cube most of the day - unless you’re in a meeting. Another thing - on the first day of orientation, HR gave us some swag. Normally it’s a coffee cup or the like - they gave us a mousepad with the company motto and…..a lunch sandwich container. My boss also told me I could eat at my desk if I wanted. (I looked at her, and as I channeled the Terminator and saw probable responses scroll in front of me….I discarded the first 17 because they all were variants of “Are you mad? Why in the world would I eat at my desk?” The first few weeks were rough - there’s no training program, so training involved being taken to every meeting under the sun. Well imagine yourself sitting in a room where everyone is talking in a language you don’t understand and you don’t know enough to be able to ask questions about what you don’t know (not sure if that makes sense). It’s a catch 22 in that you need to know how the business works to be able to do your job - but you can’t do your job until you know how the business works. I learn by doing, not by sitting in meetings - I’ve never been a meeting person. I’ll be honest I almost walked away from the job the second week because it wasn’t a good fit. It the time since then, the place isn’t quite as corporate cold as I thought, but it’s still cool. I asked my boss to see if there was any work I could be doing? She did find some things for me to do - there was a security function they wanted to implement, so I was tasked with figuring out how it worked and testing it. After I did that, she told me she wanted me to schedule a meeting to explain what it was. Well, after 6 times of having the meeting scheduled and then having it moved for one reason or another (the main one was that my boss’s boss wanted to be in the meeting so she could see how present). Now I don’t have a problem getting in front of people in general. I also don’t have a problem with I have a good chance of being able to baffle them if I can’t dazzle them, but this was a case where the people who were going to be in the meeting knew what was going on and I was less than comfortable with what I was going to be talking about. Two hours out from the meeting, I actually felt queasy. Anyhow, I did make 1 smart move - I brought brownies. Everyone was happy and even my boss’s boss asked if I was trying to make her look bad since in her meeting, which was just before mine she didn’t have any food. I told her, “No ma’am, I’m just trying to front load the meeting” The meeting went well and I heard good things including my boss who told me “You’re so articulate”. I appreciated the comment, but also if you’ve heard Chris Rock talk about Colin Powell…..it can also be considered a backhanded sort of compliment. I think though it was more along the lines of - wow, he really can talk (I hadn’t really been talking a lot at work because of the coolness I feel and the fact we’re siloed and not 1 big happy department all on one floor. The boss’s boss joked that she wondered if I could talk, because I never pipe up say anything in the meetings). I’m currently running through testing every aspect of the new release - which is good because it gets me into the system and seeing how everything works, but since I don’t know how it works, I’m constantly having to ask how to do this or that. Kinda makes me feel lost or stupid from time to time. At least, I’m getting to the point where I understand enough that I have gone from being completely lost to just totally confused…and lost. I am lucky that my boss is understanding - she has told me she doesn’t expect me to be really contributing for at least 6 months to a year. She also is concerned that I’m not fitting in. She’s pointed out a couple of male coworkers of color and suggested I have lunch with them. Both my boss and my boss’ boss have commented about my cube. I hadn’t gotten my name plate, nor did I have any “flair” in the cube. Once I put away my work and undock the laptop, then you wouldn’t even know someone inhabited the cube. I’m guessing they didn’t think I was acting like I wanted to be there and they both “suggested” I put something in my cube. So I’ve got 2 posters of jets and a Borg Teddy Bear. I’ll be glad when I get a handle on things so I can determine if I really like my job or not. I’m being exposed to more each day, just be glad when it all makes sense.
Work: Night Job
After 2 months of being laid off, I got a call to interview for a contract desktop support job at a tv/radio station back in March. The person who asked if I would go in for the interview was the person who handled the networking support. I was told that they probably won’t pay a lot. I went in for the interview and it went something like this “We’ve known the network support tech for years, so if he vouches for you - that’s good enough for us”. I started that afternoon. The work is what I’ve been doing for the past umpteen years, and they really appreciated my customer service skills as well as my technical skills. I had already interviewed for what became my day job and was simply waiting for the call. The equipment was outdated (PCs were purchased in 2000 and some of them still had Windows 2000 on them. They were running only 256 MB ram) and everything ran slow, but the people were nice and it was a very laid back environment. Well, I got the job offer from the day job and when I gave them the chance to counter offer, they said they couldn’t meet it. Well, I accepted the day job, then they came back 30 minutes after I made the call and they said we can match it. I told them I had already notified the day job and that I would be starting in a couple of weeks. I did say that since I wasn’t that far from the day job, I’d stop by when I got off work and make sure everything was working until they found someone. That was 3 months ago and I’m still going there 3 to 5 nights a week, from 1 to 5 hours. It does make for a long day. They asked me 2 weeks ago what would it take for me to stay (keep in mind this is a laid back environment, I know the job, they people love me). I told them I would think about it, but the main issue is that it would be a dead end position - no where to go to. Well, there’s some other issues. They had a “restatement of earnings” and wound up way in the hole. They laid off 5 people out of the 6 person IT department. The lone person quit (which is why they brought me in) because he was overworked and burned out. Lastly my boss - engineering and IT director quit because of how things were being run. I’m torn - I was considering asking them to make me the IT Manager with a decent salary bump, since they don’t really have anyone - but the fact remains that seeing what has happened with the IT department previously, I don’t know (if they even did accept my offer) how things will turn out - there still won’t be any room for advancement, my degree I’m working on wouldn’t be used, and I’d hate to find myself on the street corner if they have another restatement. More on this as it develops.
College
I just passed Human Resources Fundamentals with a B and now I’m currently taking Business Research Methods. If I can get through this class (7 weeks total) then I’ll have 5 more classes to go with my graduation date in Feb 2008. Just trying to gut it out, because I’m a little on the burned out side, plus with the day job, I don’t have the free time I used to have at my previous job where I could do home work and it’s not convenient to do any homework at the night job and by the time I get home, homework isn’t number one on the hit parade. When I get through this, then its rest time until May when I walk across the stage, then start getting ducks in a row for pursuit of a Masters.
Navy
I was supposed to go to San Diego for a 45 day training class. Making my previous job aware of this, may have contributed in some small way it being my previous job. They never got the class scheduled, so I opted for a 2 week class locally as a Career Counselor (my current day job was happy I wasn’t going to be gone for 45 days). It’s a job that helps other Sailors and looks good on my eval. Just hope I can fit it into everything that is going on. My plan is to do a lot of the prep work in my free time and do as much through e-mail so that I can just dot the i’s and cross the t’s on drill weekend. I’m also webmaster for the unit website and I have to recreate the site on the new hosting area they have. I also found out that I got promoted to Petty Officer First Class (three chevrons). I told them please frock me (pin the rank on me and put it in my records) before someone double checks the test. I was so shocked when I found out. I remember feeling that I hardly knew anything, but the test results showed I did very well. In a perfect world, if I can get an Early Promote on an eval, I can take the test for Chief Petty Officer in 2 years - not before my current enlistment ends, but early into the next one. Also once that happens, I can put in a limited duty officer package. There’s a lot of if’s between now and then - main one is working on the timed 1.5 mile run I have to do. I’ve always felt the Navy has ships, boats, plans, humvees, and even construction equipment - I shouldn’t have to run. The Navy doesn’t share my enlightened view point. I’ve never been a runner, but I guess I need to learn. I’ve been told as a First Class, I’m a leader and I need to be setting the example.
Tactical
A friend of mine is a police officer and has asked me to film his teams tactical training once a month. It’s a great gig. I show up for the practices and in addition to videoing, I also get to play the bag guy. I even work out with them as well. I joked that I was going to get a t-shirt made with the department logo and the tag line “I’m with the band”. Last month, they had a rappelling class and I took part in it. It’s not that I don’t do heights, but I do have a perception of safety issue. That and I spend most of my life being risk adverse and the rest of it half scared. I was shocked that I didn’t just freak out and not do it. This tower is around 45 feet tall. I did several rappels over the course of the day. It was a lot of fun and wouldn’t mind doing it again.
Trying not to go out like a Johnny Quest villain - you know AYIEEE!
Well, that brings me current to pretty much most of what’s going on these days. I’ll try my best to stay current - at least it should be easier now since I’m caught up.
The title is “Busier than a 3….(hey unclesiko, what kind of goat is that again?)”
Work - Day job:
For those who know this, bear with me. For those who don’t, read on.
I’m currently working at newspaper in the marketing department in an “ITish” job. The main part of my job involves going into the system environment configuring it to accept promotions, pricing, account creation, and a whole lot more I don’t know about then testing it to make sure everything works find. I’ve done testing before, but nothing quite like this. It’s a better environment in that there is room for advancement - which is something that they didn’t have at my previous place of employment - where I was laid off after 9 ½ years.
The hardest part is getting used to the environment. It’s a lot more starched than I’m used to. When I went on my interview, I asked what the dress code was and my said “business casual”. I said “So polo shirts and Dockers are ok?” She simply looked at me as if I just spoke in Sanskrit. I was later told I don’t have to wear a tie everyday, but I look good when I do. When I heard that, cluegirl magically appeared behind me and struck me with her trusty Clue-by-Four™. I went from an environment where I was hardly at my cube to one where you’re in your cube most of the day - unless you’re in a meeting. Another thing - on the first day of orientation, HR gave us some swag. Normally it’s a coffee cup or the like - they gave us a mousepad with the company motto and…..a lunch sandwich container. My boss also told me I could eat at my desk if I wanted. (I looked at her, and as I channeled the Terminator and saw probable responses scroll in front of me….I discarded the first 17 because they all were variants of “Are you mad? Why in the world would I eat at my desk?” The first few weeks were rough - there’s no training program, so training involved being taken to every meeting under the sun. Well imagine yourself sitting in a room where everyone is talking in a language you don’t understand and you don’t know enough to be able to ask questions about what you don’t know (not sure if that makes sense). It’s a catch 22 in that you need to know how the business works to be able to do your job - but you can’t do your job until you know how the business works. I learn by doing, not by sitting in meetings - I’ve never been a meeting person. I’ll be honest I almost walked away from the job the second week because it wasn’t a good fit. It the time since then, the place isn’t quite as corporate cold as I thought, but it’s still cool. I asked my boss to see if there was any work I could be doing? She did find some things for me to do - there was a security function they wanted to implement, so I was tasked with figuring out how it worked and testing it. After I did that, she told me she wanted me to schedule a meeting to explain what it was. Well, after 6 times of having the meeting scheduled and then having it moved for one reason or another (the main one was that my boss’s boss wanted to be in the meeting so she could see how present). Now I don’t have a problem getting in front of people in general. I also don’t have a problem with I have a good chance of being able to baffle them if I can’t dazzle them, but this was a case where the people who were going to be in the meeting knew what was going on and I was less than comfortable with what I was going to be talking about. Two hours out from the meeting, I actually felt queasy. Anyhow, I did make 1 smart move - I brought brownies. Everyone was happy and even my boss’s boss asked if I was trying to make her look bad since in her meeting, which was just before mine she didn’t have any food. I told her, “No ma’am, I’m just trying to front load the meeting” The meeting went well and I heard good things including my boss who told me “You’re so articulate”. I appreciated the comment, but also if you’ve heard Chris Rock talk about Colin Powell…..it can also be considered a backhanded sort of compliment. I think though it was more along the lines of - wow, he really can talk (I hadn’t really been talking a lot at work because of the coolness I feel and the fact we’re siloed and not 1 big happy department all on one floor. The boss’s boss joked that she wondered if I could talk, because I never pipe up say anything in the meetings). I’m currently running through testing every aspect of the new release - which is good because it gets me into the system and seeing how everything works, but since I don’t know how it works, I’m constantly having to ask how to do this or that. Kinda makes me feel lost or stupid from time to time. At least, I’m getting to the point where I understand enough that I have gone from being completely lost to just totally confused…and lost. I am lucky that my boss is understanding - she has told me she doesn’t expect me to be really contributing for at least 6 months to a year. She also is concerned that I’m not fitting in. She’s pointed out a couple of male coworkers of color and suggested I have lunch with them. Both my boss and my boss’ boss have commented about my cube. I hadn’t gotten my name plate, nor did I have any “flair” in the cube. Once I put away my work and undock the laptop, then you wouldn’t even know someone inhabited the cube. I’m guessing they didn’t think I was acting like I wanted to be there and they both “suggested” I put something in my cube. So I’ve got 2 posters of jets and a Borg Teddy Bear. I’ll be glad when I get a handle on things so I can determine if I really like my job or not. I’m being exposed to more each day, just be glad when it all makes sense.
Work: Night Job
After 2 months of being laid off, I got a call to interview for a contract desktop support job at a tv/radio station back in March. The person who asked if I would go in for the interview was the person who handled the networking support. I was told that they probably won’t pay a lot. I went in for the interview and it went something like this “We’ve known the network support tech for years, so if he vouches for you - that’s good enough for us”. I started that afternoon. The work is what I’ve been doing for the past umpteen years, and they really appreciated my customer service skills as well as my technical skills. I had already interviewed for what became my day job and was simply waiting for the call. The equipment was outdated (PCs were purchased in 2000 and some of them still had Windows 2000 on them. They were running only 256 MB ram) and everything ran slow, but the people were nice and it was a very laid back environment. Well, I got the job offer from the day job and when I gave them the chance to counter offer, they said they couldn’t meet it. Well, I accepted the day job, then they came back 30 minutes after I made the call and they said we can match it. I told them I had already notified the day job and that I would be starting in a couple of weeks. I did say that since I wasn’t that far from the day job, I’d stop by when I got off work and make sure everything was working until they found someone. That was 3 months ago and I’m still going there 3 to 5 nights a week, from 1 to 5 hours. It does make for a long day. They asked me 2 weeks ago what would it take for me to stay (keep in mind this is a laid back environment, I know the job, they people love me). I told them I would think about it, but the main issue is that it would be a dead end position - no where to go to. Well, there’s some other issues. They had a “restatement of earnings” and wound up way in the hole. They laid off 5 people out of the 6 person IT department. The lone person quit (which is why they brought me in) because he was overworked and burned out. Lastly my boss - engineering and IT director quit because of how things were being run. I’m torn - I was considering asking them to make me the IT Manager with a decent salary bump, since they don’t really have anyone - but the fact remains that seeing what has happened with the IT department previously, I don’t know (if they even did accept my offer) how things will turn out - there still won’t be any room for advancement, my degree I’m working on wouldn’t be used, and I’d hate to find myself on the street corner if they have another restatement. More on this as it develops.
College
I just passed Human Resources Fundamentals with a B and now I’m currently taking Business Research Methods. If I can get through this class (7 weeks total) then I’ll have 5 more classes to go with my graduation date in Feb 2008. Just trying to gut it out, because I’m a little on the burned out side, plus with the day job, I don’t have the free time I used to have at my previous job where I could do home work and it’s not convenient to do any homework at the night job and by the time I get home, homework isn’t number one on the hit parade. When I get through this, then its rest time until May when I walk across the stage, then start getting ducks in a row for pursuit of a Masters.
Navy
I was supposed to go to San Diego for a 45 day training class. Making my previous job aware of this, may have contributed in some small way it being my previous job. They never got the class scheduled, so I opted for a 2 week class locally as a Career Counselor (my current day job was happy I wasn’t going to be gone for 45 days). It’s a job that helps other Sailors and looks good on my eval. Just hope I can fit it into everything that is going on. My plan is to do a lot of the prep work in my free time and do as much through e-mail so that I can just dot the i’s and cross the t’s on drill weekend. I’m also webmaster for the unit website and I have to recreate the site on the new hosting area they have. I also found out that I got promoted to Petty Officer First Class (three chevrons). I told them please frock me (pin the rank on me and put it in my records) before someone double checks the test. I was so shocked when I found out. I remember feeling that I hardly knew anything, but the test results showed I did very well. In a perfect world, if I can get an Early Promote on an eval, I can take the test for Chief Petty Officer in 2 years - not before my current enlistment ends, but early into the next one. Also once that happens, I can put in a limited duty officer package. There’s a lot of if’s between now and then - main one is working on the timed 1.5 mile run I have to do. I’ve always felt the Navy has ships, boats, plans, humvees, and even construction equipment - I shouldn’t have to run. The Navy doesn’t share my enlightened view point. I’ve never been a runner, but I guess I need to learn. I’ve been told as a First Class, I’m a leader and I need to be setting the example.
Tactical
A friend of mine is a police officer and has asked me to film his teams tactical training once a month. It’s a great gig. I show up for the practices and in addition to videoing, I also get to play the bag guy. I even work out with them as well. I joked that I was going to get a t-shirt made with the department logo and the tag line “I’m with the band”. Last month, they had a rappelling class and I took part in it. It’s not that I don’t do heights, but I do have a perception of safety issue. That and I spend most of my life being risk adverse and the rest of it half scared. I was shocked that I didn’t just freak out and not do it. This tower is around 45 feet tall. I did several rappels over the course of the day. It was a lot of fun and wouldn’t mind doing it again.
Trying not to go out like a Johnny Quest villain - you know AYIEEE!
Well, that brings me current to pretty much most of what’s going on these days. I’ll try my best to stay current - at least it should be easier now since I’m caught up.