Monday, March 09, 2009

First day of job and life update

So today I started my new job. You might be asking "new" job? Yeah well on January 29th I was laid off of my job due to a 1 MILLION dollar shortfall. There were 9 people that were let go that day. The email that went out to inform them community of that fact was very impersonal and did not name any names as to who was let go. Assuming that everyone that was let go made right around the same as me (probably not far from the truth) the cutting of these 9 positions saved the employer roughly 300 thousand dollars, leaving them still 700 thousand dollars short. Now I am no financial genius but to me cutting low level positions does not do as much as they want, it takes full scale overhaul of the finances to cut 1 million dollars. The fiscal irresponsibility that continues to run through that community continues to be the norm for most departments and unless that changes they are just going to continually be in this exact same position. So while cutting some jobs may be a "solution", it doesn't solve the problem. Just like the government and their current "stimulus" package idea at helping to "save" our economy, in the end nothing will come of it. So for the last month I have been searching for a job. I have turned in probably 15-20 different applications at places in CA, OR, and WA. There were several nibbles on my resume from recruiters for various positions but in the end all i got from them was basic pre-interview phone screenings. Then 2 weeks ago my buddy and now former coworker Dean got an email from the former HR director from that place of employment saying that at the new place she works they had an opening for a Help Desk position. So I sent in my resume and got my name in the mix. I was interviewed via the phone on that Thursday, I got called last Monday about doing and interview on Tuesday. After the interview on Tuesday I was told it would be Friday or possibly today before I heard back. Last Thursday I was called and offered the position. The position is a 6 month position but there is a high probability that it will turn out to be a permanent position. The position pays more than my previous place of employment. So today was my first day at this place. It is a good position. It should be a fun place to work. My day started with filling out the standard paper work. Next was logging in and setting up Outlook on my profile. Then it was time to do some basic software install on some machines in the office. Then it was back to the office and sit in on some phone calls helping the remote users with some issues. Then came lunch. Then more helping remote users. Then for the rest of the afternoon I got to poke around and learn some things on my own. Overall it was a good day. Glad that I slept well last night and hope I will start sleeping well again now that I am employed.