Speaking of Getting Paid…

I haz a jobz!

Obviously I'm not going to divulge too many details, but let me just say it feels damn good to know I'm going to be seeing a paycheck again!

I got a call last week from a recruiter I'd worked with about six months ago. At the time I'd interviewed with a company in the Tech Center that would've been a good fit for my skills, but the environment was basically the same as I currently found myself in and I wanted to get away from that. Instead of being the sole non-managerial tech guy at the facility, I'd be one of two. No thanks. I wanted to get back in with a bigger team. I turned them down.

Anyhow, the job that was pitched to me last week sounded great. It was with a large, well-known company (approximately the same size as the last one I worked for in Phoenix), and the number of support staff was actually a little bit higher than what I'd been a part of in Phoenix. I wouldn't be the only guy there. The commute was reasonable (even on snow days), and the pay was pretty close to what I'd been making at my last job.

Excellent!

It's just a contract to help roll out and/or upgrade about 1500 workstations by the end of the year, but that's okay. My last job in Phoenix  started out the very same way: a 3 month contract rolling out workstations that kept getting extended and extended, finally getting hired on after a year and staying for the next seven.

The only thing that literally had me shaking when I heard it was when the recruiter told me that there would be a technical test administered by the client. He said the hiring manager at the company knew from my experience that I'd be able to handle the job, but needed to cover all her bases, so that's why I had to take it. Despite all my technical experience I bomb those tests with amazing regularity and lately I was starting to believe that because of this I was basically unemployable unless I happened to stumble upon a situation where a test wasn't required. (As has been fortunately the case in all my previous endeavors.) While I obviously know my stuff (I wouldn't have been able to stay in this field as long as I have if I didn't), pulling answers out of my head to questions without having a PC in front of me to physically manipulate has always been my downfall. Always.

Anyhow, I met with the hiring manager yesterday, and praise be to the baby Jeebus—or through sheer dumb luck—the test wasn't your typical tech test. There were no "What does DHCP stand for and how does it work?" or "Please describe the function of Port 300," questions. They were along the lines of "A user comes back from vacation and their laptop cannot connect to the network. What steps would you stake to troubleshoot the problem?"

I was able to answer all the questions, and for the first time felt reasonably confident at my responses. The manager came back in, looked it over, and said she was impressed. I'd even provided a line of troubleshooting for one of the questions that she hadn't thought of! We chatted a bit more, describing the project, her department, her management style (hands-off), and it sounded very much like what I had in Phoenix—something I have sorely missed these past two years. While I work best independently with a minimum of supervision, I also crave the camaraderie that being a part of a large group provides. I told her my team in Phoenix had become like a second family to me, and she said that's the way she viewed hers. "I look forward to working with you," she said, and shook my hand.

w00t!

Before Ben left for work he told me I'd wow them so much they'd hire me on the spot. I thought he was crazy.

I start Monday, and I'm really looking forward to beginning this new chapter in my life.