The First Stumbling Block
Wednesday, January 27th 2010 at 1:35pm
The first major stumbling block has really hit me.
Funding for college works differently in Paladin's state than it does in mine. Also, one has to be a resident (live there for a year) before much of it even applies. So, if he moved to my home city, he might not be able to get any funding at all, and thereby not be able to afford to go to college there for at least a great deal of time, and might not be able to get his degree for who knows how many years...
As Paladin himself put it; “If I give up this job and move there and that doesn't pan out, I'll have you, but my career future will be decimated.”
And from that statement until this moment I have been feeling really gloomy.
[10:18am]
Me: I learned some new stuff about you today.
Paladin: Oh? Like what?
Me: Yeah. You write everything down.
Paladin: Huh?
Me: All kinds of things that I would either type, or wouldn't even bother to write.
Paladin: Oh, really?
Me: Game related things, people related things... Oh and the thing for work; I'm guessing it must have been when you were practicing at the start of doing on-site work? A bunch of chicken-scratch and cross-outs for how to greet someone and talk about work related stuff. I suppose I might write something like that out. Nah... I'd type it, and then say it out loud at my computer. Might even record myself if I really was concerned about how I sounded.
Paladin: Hmm.... Who knows... I had one job where they had me do cold calls when business was slow. I really hated that.
Me: Cold calls? Like tele-marketing?
Paladin: Roughly. Well, pretty much. I hated that. Cold calling is calling a customer who isn't expecting it, nor has indicated interest in being contacted. Frankly, it's unethical and I shirked doing it whenever I could.
[11:00am]
Me: By the way, I've notice something about your place... Remember how I said the usage of space is very poor? How you have way more space than it appears because of the way things are put? I've noticed that I could easily fit absolutely everything I own, including furniture even, into this place. Lol. Well, perhaps not easily; but it could be done.
Paladin: *chuckle* Oh dear. I'm just thinking of the shock to my sanity that filling my place with pink furniture would give. If you end up moving out here for something more long-term than summer, we'll have to work out how to fit your stuff in.
Me: Well, none of my furniture is pink.
Me: It's probably more practical for you to leave most stuff at home if I'm moving to your home city, though.
Me: Indeed. Which is why I had not thought about it until today. The furniture I own; two futons (one entirely black, the other with silver bars), a beautiful wooden little rectangular coffee table, a not-as beautiful wooden square coffee table, a wooden upright jewelry stand that is huge for a jewelry stand (about four feet fall, two feet wide and one and half feet deep), a black and white painted dresser, a wheeled black and metal laptop stand, a very small but very nice wooden desk, two matching metal chairs (one lime green and one pink) which I would leave there regardless, a metal pink and black folding chair and folding table set, and a crap load of mostly white plastic drawer sets, a few of which are black and four of which are pink. If I were to be moving here for good, like if this wasn't California and 2012 wasn't something that truly concerned me, I'd also bring my mini black fridge and set it up next to the bed. :p
Oh, and there is my upright white air-conditioner, if that counts. But that's more of an appliance than a piece of furniture, although I use it as furniture for most of the year, lol.
The plastic drawer sets I own; two four-foot tall white stands with five large drawers and two small ones each (filled with clothing); four 1ft squared white three-drawer sets filled with papers, one black high-quality craft drawer set including a bunch of very shallow drawers for sorting crafting paper, four medium sized pink drawer sets with two or three large drawers and one small one each (filled with crafts), a couple of wheeled drawer sets that are narrow and about three feet tall, several mini six to eight-inch tall three-drawer sets (like the ones that contain my sex toys, playing cards, etc), and likely several others as well that I'm forgetting.
Paladin: Well, squeezing all that in with my furniture would be quite impressive...
Me: Nah, it'd all fit in easily. I also have a large mirror I would want to take with me anywhere I went to.
Paladin: Would there be any floorspace left?
Me: Yes, of course. I want to make more floorspace actually. In fact, may I do that today?
Paladin: How are you planning on doing so?
Me: By moving all your shit. Okay, by moving about 20% of your shit. :p
Paladin: I want details, you goof.
Me: Okay, the black shelves, the white table, the maping area, the reading area would all be shifted. Everything else would remain as it is. But I'm not sure I'm actually strong enough to move everything the way I've dreamed up, lol
Paladin: Um... Draw it out and show me what you're thinking when I get home and we'll discuss it. If I'm okay with your plan we can move stuff together.
Me: Oh bother. Yes, but if I do that, you'll be like "enh, I don't like it" whereas if I do it, you might see it and not like at first, but then get used to it for a few days and then grow to like it. Well, actually, in any case, I need to get rid of all this recyling stuff and you need to ship whatever needs shipping first.
[One might point out the relevant quote here; “It's much easier to get forgiveness than permission.”]
Paladin: I spent a lot of time moving furniture around before I settled on that layout, I'm open to something better, but I'd really be annoyed if I okayed it and you shifted it back to something that I'd tried and didn't like. Also, I don't want you moving that stuff alone. If I came home to find you squished under collapsed furniture, I'd be irritated.
Me: Well, I have a bunch of ideas, but I generally have trouble settling on any of them without actually moving things around. So perhaps I'll just brainstorm with you, and mention all of the ideas that I've had.
Paladin: Alright.
Me: I'd be fine, but I'd be more concerned about me breaking something, lol. Are you sure there is no way I can steal you before the onset of Summer? Like in June? Well, at the beginning of Summer, perhaps?
Paladin: Eh. I'll need to get my transcripts sent to the colleges there and get accepted for summer quarter.
Me: That could work. I'd like that. Wouldn't you want to be starting school in September? I seriously would suggest starting in September and using the summer to get settled and enjoy yourself a little.
[Paladin laughs.]
Me: I'm serious. What's funny?
Paladin: That's expensive living.
Me: Psh.
Paladin: If I was working full time, it would work. I could start by looking for a job, but I really ought to do that before moving, so that I can guarantee I get something. I spent two years job hunting before I found this job and the economy is far worse today than it was then.
Me: We could both get some half-way decent part time jobs while looking for something better. I'd likely be able to return to Urban Roots, and you could likely apply there, or at the bakery next door, or you may like Dibble better - you could probably move up from an entry level position to something better very quickly at Dibble. Meanwhile, we could get you and your things settled, get you enrolled in whichever college you figure suits you best, look for an apartment if you feel it's necessary, garden a bit, have lots of board game parties...
Paladin: What is Dibble?
Me: There are a lot of lazy and unskilled people in WhereIlive, making many organizations desperate for reliable, friendly intelligent people with experience. I'm certain that you wouldn't spend more than four months without a job at most if you were actively looking.
Me: Dibble True Value Hardware. It's like five blocks from my house.
Paladin: Ah. Retail...
Me: Because of it's location, they have a hard time finding and keeping good employees and are almost always hiring. Lol. But the people who've been there for years are awesome people. And my mother and I know all the people that have worked there the past five to ten years. It's not ideal, of course, but it's something I'm almost certain you could get hired for. Whereas I know of many people I would want to talk to about getting you something more suited to what you can do. You have a resume somewhere?
Paladin: Probably.
Me: Useful.
Paladin: On my computer, somewhere. Or my server.
Me: I bet Cerylidae can get you a job doing something you'd enjoy. He works with networking computers together or something. lol.
Paladin: I've done tech work before.
Me: Well, unfortunately I don't know enough about what you do currently, or what you have done, or enough about the topic in general to tell the important differences between computer science, programming, networking, technical support, etc.
Paladin: I knowledgeable of all of those, although my router proficiency is limited to unix and SoHo routers... Never programmed a cisco router.
Me: Within each genre of everything technical there are so many things to know or not know. Lol. Like, I know enough about html and web-design to make professional looking templates, but I don't know CSS or Flash. But I don't even know what there is to know or not know about so many of those things. Like, I have never even heard of SoHo or Cisco routers, lol. So, yeah, in reference to a resume, I was hoping for a comprehensive list of things you could do. Like programming Unix and SoHo routers. Then I'd know what to mention when asking around my contact list.
Paladin: SoHo stands for Small Office/Home Office. The types of routers sold at best buy or another computer store, for example. Cisco routers are specialized industrial routers that need to be programmed by a specially trained technician.
[Noon]
Me: Ah. I see. You have you're associates in something or other, right?
Paladin: No. I could probably get it pretty easily, but I never bothered to go for it. :/
Me: Oh I see.
Paladin: Since it would take stuff that wouldn't contribute to the four year degree I'm aiming for. Ought to have, in retrospect. ...A coworker of mine brought some extra pan sausage with her for lunch and gave it to me because 'you're nice unlike some people and you can eat this'.
Me: What exactly is your official job title now? Job title & tag line, actually, lol... Sausage.......... o.o We should have sausage tonight. And potatoes.
Paladin: Sausage and potatoes sounds good to me. Job Title is technically Installation Assistant. Although, I often refer to myself as the 'Troubleshooting Specialist' since that's what my current role really is. In a company with six people, job titles are pretty meaningless.
Me: Oh I see.
Paladin: I'm not sure what my tag line is... Um... when people are trying to get my attention, they say things like 'Help! Tech Support!'.
Me: I meant more along the lines of "Can repair a broken monitor in thirty seconds!"
Paladin: I also handle a lot of receiving and inventory management.
Me: Exciting.
Paladin: Well... In an email I received today from a salesman I was told that I am 'one of the most customer focused, service oriented and technically knowledgeable techs [the salesman has] ever worked with'
Me: Hey, Cerylidae asks me, "What does he even want to do?" And I realize I have no answer. What are you aiming for?
Paladin: Do?
Me: Yeah. Like, what position is ideal for you right now? Ha. If I could choose to be something that I could do with my current qualifications; I'd be a novel illustrator I think.
Paladin: Hmm... I don't know what is really relevant here, but I enjoy a wide variety of roles, considering that I do so many different things in a small company. Troubleshooting is my strongest point, but I enjoy A/V & Data Installation Design - which focuses on determining what kind of equipment is required to meet a customer's or client's needs, Tech work/Support, Computer and A/V Component Installation, Sys Admin work. I also enjoy working with customers/clients when I'm empowered to help them. I don't enjoy something that is strictly a desk job at the one PC unless it is quite varied and stimulating. Thus number and form crunching, accounting, order processing, etc are tasks I dislike.
I have no idea what kind of fields you know people in, so it's hard to be specific. Or that Cerylidae is in or knows people in.
Me: He says he knows a help-desk job that he could probably ease you in to; “general computer repair, network/general PC helpdesk work.”
Paladin: Hrmm... A desk job. My satisfaction with that would depend on how much was answering phones and how much was fixing stuff. 'Help Desk's function differently from business to business.
Me: Well, I asked if there was room to move up from there, and he said yeah, and that they pay more when working evening shifts, which sounds nice.
Paladin: *nods* Then I could go to class during the day.
Me: Cerylidae; "what sort of experience/certs does he have with sysadmin?"
Paladin: No certs, amateur grade experience, but familiarity with administering private small linux and small linux + Windows networks. I'd probably benefit greatly from some training to familiarize myself with the most efficient methods to meet a client's needs in the business world, but I could teach myself everything necessary if noone experienced was available to provide the training. I'm familiar with most popular linux distros including Ubuntu, Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, and less recently red hat and SuSe. Professional familiarity with Administering Windows SBS network domains as I'm the assistant Admin of our network at my current workplace. I've also setup complete small office networks on Windows SBS domains as that was one of my previous jobs. Come to think of it, I do think I got a MS cert for Windows NT4 and a networking cert, but those are at least 8 years old. =P
I think the networking cert is called something like Network+. I don't really consider old certs of any value though. You have to maintain certs.
Me: Yeah. He was saying that where he works they provide any certification needed.
Paladin: Oh, I've also got an Extron Cert. That's an A/V cert, but it is up to date. A/V being Audio/Visual
Me: Ah.
Paladin: I'm experienced fully installing and integrating technology such as SMART Boards, Projectors, Flat Panel Screens, Sound Systems such as Front Row or Teach Logic, etc. I guess that may be important as more and more often someone needs to make these useful with a PC.
[1:00pm]
Paladin: You'll find both useful when we get you enrolled in some college courses for yourself.
Me: *squirms* For some reason college has returned to be intimidating. As I once found the prospect. Perhaps because I suddenly realize how much I don't know all over again. >.<
Paladin: So? You don't know stuff. That's what college is for. Anyway, you have me, right? I help you get up to speed on anything you struggle with.
Me: It's not that I'm against going. Just quite nervous and intimidated.
Paladin: *kisses you*
Me: *kisses back*
Paladin: I understand, but when we have the means to put you through college, I want you to take some classes. I think you'll genuinely enjoy it, once you get rolling.
Me: I'm sure I would enjoy much of it. I'm just afraid of how much would be left in my life if I really applied myself to the classes and made sure I didn't flunk. It would likely take up 90% of my time and energy, and that in and of itself is frightening.
Paladin: You don't have to be a full time student. You can pace yourself. For example, wouldn't it be nice if you could go somewhere and learn some new art techniques, or get access to various computer design tools.
Me: Right, I've thought about that. But being non-matriculated makes it impossible to get any funding whatsoever. That means you pay the absolute full price for each course. Whereas if you're taking enough classes to be considered full time you can get at least some token amount of funding, Paladin: Well, if you attend a state college in your state of residence, you should get a break on your fees. Your parents paid for that when they pay their taxes. So, part of your tuition is essentially already paid for and you can't get that money back.
Me: I don't know about here, but where I live there are no breaks for students who want to take only a few classes at a time; none at all...
Paladin: Really?
Me: Really. I already looked into it.
Paladin: Jeez. That's a very serious issue.
[I explain some of the technicalities I know about, he explains some things he knows about...]
Me: I want to expound on what I've said, and yet I realize I don't know nearly enough about it. I just know it has to be more than like two or three courses at a time, but I'm not sure what the minimum is. It's not like a part time student spends that much time in classes; although there is studying to be considered, but I could do that beside you/with you.
Paladin: Well, I guess we'll have to look into it. Still, counting on a grant is a gamble in most cases. Grants aren't a certainty even if you qualify. I need you to find out more including what my odds of getting one are, if I'm eligible. If I give up this job and move there and that doesn't pan out, I'll have you, but my career future will be decimated.
Me: *groans unhappily*
Paladin: I can do the research when I'm there if you prefer. That is, at home.
[1:49pm]
Me: You know... It's just hit me. Like fully hit me... That for whichever one of us moves; it really is risking everything.
Paladin: Yeah. It's... significant.
Me: Indeed. I know you don't want to accept help from my parents; but they would do everything within their power to help you complete college. And I will do everything within my power to find you a place to start your career there.
Paladin then sent me a song and told me to listen to it and relax. I did. I cried. I felt better. And now I'm going to return to organizing.