Back Into the Job Hunt

About a month ago my boss bore the brunt of anger from the CEO over the fact that "50% of our faxes are not being received."  Aside from the fact that I'm tempted to ask why our business is still dependent on technology from the last century, I think the powers that be overreacted completely to a situation that was only marginally under I.T.'s control.  (How exactly are we responsible for ensuring that paper faxes are delivered to the intended recipient after they're spit out of the machines?) There were a lot of other, smaller incidents preceding this, so I guess it was the proverbial straw.

Within days of the beating, (while there were no physical bruises, he really did look like a dog who'd been savaged by a rolled up newspaper) he resigned his position as I.T. Director. This was devastating, not only because I truly liked working with the guy and looked up to him, but also because he had a hell of a lot more knowledge about what went on "behind the wall" (a phrase the I.T. Director at my last job used a lot) than I ever could hope for. But none of us in the department were too worried; he was going to stay with the firm, "in another capacity."

Well that changed today. He's officially leaving as of the end of the month. This follows on the heels of one of our application analysts quitting earlier this week. We were a small shop to begin with, and this is going to seriously cripple the department. In a meeting today, the COO said she expected all of us who remain (a grand total of 3) to take up the slack and "take on additional responsibilities" until a suitable replacement can be hired.

Yeah, we know how that works, doesn't it?  We somehow manage to keep the spice flowing, and all of a sudden they realize they don't need to hire any replacements.

Before you know it, Alexander finds himself as I.T. Director at the same pay he was making as a desktop tech. WHAT A SAVINGS!

Yeah, that's not going to happen.

I have no interest in his job—even if they tripled my current salary—and yet it's obvious that I'm being pushed in that direction.

I am a desktop tech, not a systems administrator. Not an I.T. Manager. I like what I do. I know what I do, and frankly just keeping up with the changes occurring in that aspect of technology is hard enough without having to now know and understand (to the point of being able to fill in when they're out) what the the other members of the department do.

As usual, management is clueless about tech works. Clueless.

So, my resume was updated and reactivated on Monster and Dice right after I got out of the meeting, and tonight I'll be hitting all the other job sites I utilized last summer.  Almost immediately after finishing on those two initial sites I started getting emails from recruiters. I have a meeting scheduled tomorrow with one of the bigger recruiting firms (I'm taking a sick day) and have followed up with another who claimed I'd be a perfect fit for a position they have coming available in about two to three weeks.

Having been through this all before, I can only say, "We'll see…"

I take some consolation in knowing that when I originally moved to San Francisco the first job I had there didn't work out either—but led me to a place I where I stayed for the next 8 years. The same thing happened when I moved back to Phoenix in 2002.

Fingers crossed.