Changes

Things have been kinda weird at home the past couple of weeks. Many changes, all related to one big item: I lost my job.

I choosing to view it as a positive. I really loathed my job, all aspects of it. Information Technology was never a dream job of mine; I just fell into it. And I was sick of dealing with clients who had businesses that I didn't agree with. So I don't have to deal with that any more. But I need to decide whether I am going to find another job, or use this as the kick in the pants to get my home business really moving and shaking.

I have been getting up early every morning to make Car Guy's lunch. And I swear, I'm going to make a concerted effort to update more regularly.

Thanks for stopping by!

Ick, ick, ick

I swear, I haven't been sick this frequently, EVER. Until I started my new assignment in November. Wish I could prove that something in that building was causing all this illness, so I could quit.

Because I spent the last 2 days holed up at home, I have no real interesting stories. Unless you're into stories about towering piles of used tissues. Which grosses me out, so you'll have to go elsewhere to get your snot fix.

Leadership Conference was, as always, a total blast. One of the funnier things that happened was that the server for my favorite forum went down one day. The folks who weren't at Leadership were going into serious withdrawl. Which is why my previous post has so many more comments than usual. People remembered this blog and wanted me to send them updates. Unfortunately, though I did have internet access, email wasn't functioning properly, and I just didn't have the time to type out announcements anyway.

Car Guy says I'd better go to work today. And I am feeling better, so I guess I will. Have a good one!

Whoo!! Vacation!

Today's the last day I work until 2008. Wa-hoo! And I'm new enough to my work team that I'm not included in the list of people checking the month-end and year-end processing. Word is we're going to be dismissed early today, too. I've got $5 in store coupons to use at a bookstore and will be heading there if we do get out early.

What do I have planned during the break? A little of this, a little of that. Dinner with my parents on Sunday. Christmas Eve dinner with Car Guy's family on Monday. (Which reminds me, I still need to wrap presents.) Make some jewelry - I got some gorgeous pink and green glass beads yesterday. Plan the kitchen remodel, including picking out and pricing granite, tile, flooring, sinks (I'm putting in 2) and windows. Clean and organize at home. Follow up with some January hosts. Plenty to keep me busy, in other words.

In case I don't get back here before Christmas, have a safe and festive holiday with your loved ones (or not, as your preference).

That floating feeling

NaBloPoMo day 20

I just hate the feeling of drifting along with no way to control things. It's pretty common at the beginning of a new work assignment. I have no phone at my desk, no access to common documents, and no idea what the system does. And I'm supposed to be working with this system, doing updates and support. Once I get into it, and have some things explained, no problem. But right now I feel confused and drifting.

Thanksgiving is in 2 days, and I have no idea who is coming. We invited Car Guy's family: a total of 8 adults (plus us), 2 children and 1 infant. The only people we've heard from are 2 adults who aren't coming, and 2 who are. Car Guy suggested cancelling, since we haven't heard from anyone. That'll teach 'em!

New job today

NaBloPoMo day 19

I start a new job today. Not a completely new one, but for a new client. I don't know whether to be excited or scared. At least it's not my old client - their projects were so poorly run and it was such a terrible place to work that it completely turned me off health care completely. And wouldn't you know, I was sent on an interview there about 2 months ago. I'm just glad they went with another company for the staff on that project.

So anyway, new client starting today. Gotta figure out the best way to get there, take my "desk junk," my books and personal effects, and then learn new coworkers names (I'm terrible at names). It's an open-ended position, so I could be stuck there for 7 years like I was at previous client.

At least it's a short week.

Phew! Placed!

NABloPoMo day 16

I got a placement at work! Finally!

That probably needs a little explanation. I work for a computer software and services company. They "pimp" me out to other companies that need programmers. Luckily, they have a bench policy, wherein we receive our full salary when we're between clients, unlike many other contract services companies. I was placed with a client in May, but that was only for a week. Prior to that, my last assignment ended at the end of September 2006. So I've effectively been on the bench for 13 months. While there's no official policy limiting bench time, at about a year, management starts reevaluating your skillset to determine whether they really need to keep you around.

One of the issues I've been dealing with while on the bench is avoiding reassignment to my prior client. Unfortunately, refusing an interview or assignment is a fireable offense. So I couldn't avoid being sent on an interview there. But I'd almost rather be dead than working there again. But now I don't have to worry about it.

I start Monday at my new client site. I don't know exactly what they'll have me doing, but it's in a new industry (for me) and, as far as I know, is an open-ended assignment, so I'll be there a while.

The bonus? My employer doesn't give Thanksgiving Friday as a holiday, but my new client does. So I'll have Friday off without using a vacation day.

Obligations

Just gotta vent for a minute on this one, folks.

One of the supposed requirements my employer has for people in its services division is that we maintain a current resume, in the corporate standard. I've mentioned before that I'm currently assigned to the team that reviews and validates those internal resumes.

Unfortunately, there's no consequences for not updating one's resume. And some people who are on long-term client assignments don't care whether theirs is updated or not. So we have to send reminders, usually copying their account manager so they can see the lack of cooperation from the employee. For some of my less responsive people, I've taken to indicating the date of the original request in the email subject, and then driving that point home by including the number of elapsed days in bold in the body of the email, on the third (and later) reminder. For example:

To: Deadbeat.Employee@bigcompany

CC: deadbeats.account.manager@bigcompany

Subject: Request to update your Bigcompany resume (original request 9/26/2007)

Good morning. The resume team has not received the update we requested on September 26, 37 days ago. Please take a minute to update your resume, addressing the items outlined below, and return it to the resume mailbox (resumes@bigcompany) by Wednesday, November 7.

Apparently, someone got offended that we would highlight the length of time it's been by bolding it. Excuse me?!? That's the point. If you won't fulfill your obligations, then we'll embarrass you into doing it.

Ugh. Another day at work.

Ick ick ick. Another day, another 50 cents (we're in a bad economic place, here in Michigan). I've got things to work on, but just don't feel like doing them. Why can't people follow directions, so I don't have to send their resume back to them 3 or 4 times to get corrections?

And to make things even worse, I almost hit 3 separate pedestrians with my car on my way in this morning. I was a few minutes earlier than usual, and it was raining, so it was quite dark. I've determined that Detroiters don't like to use crosswalks, and they assume that every car on the road can and will stop for any and all pedestrians, whether they're in a crosswalk or not. Do you know how hard it is to see someone who's walking across an unlit street in the middle of the block, wearing dark clothes? And there were crosswalks - at signals - 15 feet or less from each offender.

Brainless pedestrians aside, I managed to get to work without incident. But now I'm (obviously) surfing the net instead of working on the 2 resumes that are waiting for me. And I'd so much rather be home today. There's packing to be done for another cooking show tonight. Luckily, I'm demoing the same menu as last week's show, so I don't need to reinvent the wheel, just make sure everything is clean and I've got consumables (catalogs, etc.)

I hope your day today is more productive than mine promises to be.

The Internet and the decline of language skills

Is it just me, or has the rise of the internet paralleled the decline in language skills in the US?

A group of my friends online were discussing this the other day, because one child had brought home a spelling list that included some real head-scratchers. He's in the "challenge" spelling group at school, so that was no surprise. What was mind-boggling to me was the number of people (at least on that forum) who didn't know how to examine the components of the words in order to reach a rough approximation of the definitions. The members who did that were, shall we say, more "seasoned" people, who went through school before the advent of email, the internet, blogging and text messaging. (And if you're here from CS, I apologize if you were in the group of people who didn't know how to figure them out.)

My 10-year-old niece is in a TAG (talented and gifted) program at her school. At the beginning of the academic year, teachers gave all students in her program an assessment to determine groups for spelling assignments. Most were within a couple of grade levels of their actual grade. But WonderNiece kept going, right into the Grade 10 words. She doesn't have typical spelling lists this year; she will be given Greek and Latin roots to learn and apply. If you ask me, that's a much better application of her time and energy than learning some words by rote. Don't get me wrong - it's fun to have a couple of "$5 words" in one's arsenal to impress people, but being able to figure things out and do so intelligently is a far more valuable skill.

In my day job, I work for a large software and IT Services company, in the services division. I've been "on the bench" for a while, and have joined the internal resume team while between client assignments both for something to do and to make myself useful (and therefore less likely to be let go). The resume team is responsible for proofreading services division internal resumes, the documents account managers send to prospective clients. We've got a detailed instructions document that partners with a pre-populated template for employees to use. Long story short, if we could let people go for inability to follow directions, the company would be more profitable, but unemployment in Michigan would be higher. I think the poor English language skills are because the employees in question are technical people (i.e. programmers) and managers (i.e. project managers) who either think in programming languages or, well, don't think.

So don't be a techno-speaker. Learn to use your words. Use them correctly. And challenge yourself to learn more of them.

TTYL, KthxBAI!