Category: Job

Haven’t heard anything new yet … My “buddy” tells me that they hire slowly there … That’s cool cause I can wait it out … I’m not in a dire need to move on, it’s just a desire, so I can be very selective … I mean if this doesn’t turn out to be the best thing in my opinion, I have two more paths to consider, and in today’s newspaper, there is a web design job that is advertising $120K/yr.

Took my sleepy Monday with me down to the computer room about 1pm, and there was Mike working on the paper … He had arrived around 11:30am I guess … I moved the mice on the machines to wake up the screens, and I guess this activated myself as being “around” on the chat engines cause my “buddy” asked me if his work had called me for an interview … Of course there was an email from him at 7:44am, but who gets up that early? Actually, I usually would have got that a couple hours before I went to bed, but last night was bumming on the couch and watching movies that I’ve already seen … 7:44am? Do people regularly get up that early? I mean, every day? … and at that time have the faculties to send email? … Wow!

In regards to the job mentioned earlier in this “log” … I had to provide a more “traditional” resume for the Human Resources Department … I provided it again via web page with a printable version available … Here is an example https://www.davidpierron.com/resume_template.php. Of course I altered font sizes, colors and added a background texture … Had my father look over it and I sent off the link to my “buddy” … He then reiterated to me that this was a “Senior” position, so maybe there was something said about my experience or whatever, but I don’t know … I don’t know if it has to do with the fact that I don’t have any “official” certifications, but I can certainly pay for them if I ever had to … Either that, or if they’re a requirement of employment, an employer can do all that tuition reimbursement stuff and send off employees for classes etc … I did that back in the day for various aspects of my job … Personally, I think it’s a waste of time … I think hands on is the only way to go … The concepts I learned way back in 1985 still apply in my opinion, and the training, or mindset I have since growing up through mainframes makes me a much better System Administrator than those that never saw a console or a CRT … I have always likened my mainframe days to be like a HUGE PC … I stood inside the computer … CPU box over by the window, Controller in the back corner with the disk array down the back of the room, and the other up the side … All cables run underneath the floor and cooling blown throughout the ceiling and the floor … Started with reel tape drives (autoloaders from StorageTek) to IBM 3380 self loading cartridge drives … and finally near the end of those days, a huge laser printer … But assessing the impact of changes and planning for ways to cover all the bases, that’s the concepts that I think better aid me in Systems Administration … PCs were certainly such a relief when I started grasping the power that they had to contribute … Now office buildings are run off of PC Server rooms, and the mainframe is a rarity … Neat!

Well, here it is early Monday morning and I haven’t heard anything about that computer job … My buddy was supposed to send me out an application, and he said his boss was “coming back” Thursday … So Thursday came and went … The weekend came and went … I even saw some Monster.Com commercials while sitting through the Flyers playoff games … (The relation is that I am looking for a computer job). While I am always the optimistic, I certainly haven’t lost hope, but it’s not like I’m bugging anybody about it either … I certainly don’t want to be any sort of nuisance … So, “buddy”, if you read this … I’m waiting on you …

Last Wednesday I got a message from a buddy about a job:

Can you update your resume to make it look like you LIKE Microsoft? There is an open position here in my group for a Sr. Systems Engineer. I’m building you up as we speak (read.) I’ll see if I can email you our company application. I’m “guessing” the pay would start in the $55-65k range? That’s a guess though.. Let me know if you are interested..

So I sent back a “Hell yeah!” and have waited to hear from him and also asked about the “LIKE Microsoft” reference … He said he was just kidding … I think this comes from my disappointment with Windows’ performance in my hosting environment … I don’t believe my “resume” is anti-Microsoft … I don’t really refer to it as being an issue … Fact of the matter is that I use a lot of Microsoft all the time … My trials of trying to get away from Microsoft by using FreeBSD as my servers and an iMac as my workstation (OSX based on FreeBSD) certainly haven’t come to fruition yet …

Anyway, he says he will send me an application. So, we’ll see how it goes from there … The solution to all my problems?