I’d Forgotten

I’d forgotten how much I hate computers.  Why can’t they just do what they are told?  What is it about programming a computer that creates mental blocks against the simple solution, and such extreme frustration!!

Now don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that I am working.  But here I am just a short time over a week into working, and I’m fighting with a stupid printing program because it won’t just do what I tell it to do.  Computers will work so much better when we figure out how to make them respond to our thoughts.

The good news is that I have already found one bug in the system and I am finished with 3 other work-orders.  The one that has frustrated me was really only a bother today, and despite my “griping” above, I am loving it.  This is the reason I love programming computers.  There is a solution to this problem, and I will find it.  I love finding the solutions.

So frustrating as it is at times, I’m so glad to be working again.

CC

The Finality of It All

The severance package pay arrived in my bank account yesterday.  It made my layoff seem so final.  I didn’t realize until today that the payout for my pending vacation had also come.  So I’m now officially unemployed and I don’t have any income (asside from unemployment).

The total amount is nice, and if Uncle Sam sends that money he keeps promising, I will likely be OK with no changes through September.  Of course, if I’m not working, we will definitely be cutting back.  That will let us last longer, maybe through November.

That, of course, is worst case scenario.  Far before then, I would take a job doing something to have an income.  Hopefully it will not get to that point.  I hope to get a job before the end of June, but that may not be the case.

In any case, finally having the payout has generated some unexpected feelings.  It just seems so final.

CC

Technological Woes

Well, I heard from another company earlier this week.  They decided to go with another candidate because he had more of the supplimentary skills they were looking for (web development, networking, etc).  This is understandable, but very frustrating.

You see, when you work for a financial institution (like MetLife was), and you work in technology, you tend to be very far from the cutting edge.  Now, I know (and knew) that PowerBuilder (my forte) was dwindling in market share, but there was also a decent core of people using the product to keep a job base.  Now, however, the market for PowerBuilder programmers is open, but looking for something else (most often .NET).

So, for seven years I worked for MetLife on a product that was going out of style.  While there, no offers were made to upgrade our skills, we were just maintaining our applications with nothing new, especially nothing as “cutting edge” as .NET (please read the sarcasm in that).  So here I sit with skills that are a few years out of date watching others with more current skill sets get the jobs.

I will admit that it is difficult to not get bitter over this.  I mean after all, I honestly expected to be able to stay at MetLife until I retired.  I didn’t expect to need to find another job unless I wanted to.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.  And so, the temptation to get bitter comes.  Bitter because I have to find a job.  Bitter because my skills weren’t kept current while I was at Met.  Bitter over the entire situation.

But I can’t let myself get bitter.  Bitterness is a cancer that will not only eat away at me mentally and spiritually, but physically as well.  It will be a root that sprouts discord and discontent through my life and the lives of my family.  Fortunately, despite what seems to be a bad “lot”, I have and know the cure.

God is the cure.  I know that sounds simplistic, but it is true.  Once we have a true and correct concept of who God is, there is no need for the bitterness that fights to come in.  You see, God is perfect and has a perfect plan for each and every one of us.  Because of that, I know that God is in control of these events (not MetLife).  And while I may not understand or be aware of it now, He has a perfect plan for the resolution of these issues.

Faith, that is what we are talking about.  Faith in God and His perfect plan to overcome any doubts or problems we have with our current situation.  It is a constant, daily battle to fight the bitterness, and one that we have to keep in our attention.  Faith is the key to the victory, but we must still be vigilant in fighting the battle.

CC

So Much for the Easy Life

I’ve commented to several people that I feel as though I’m busier now that I have been laid off than I was before.  Yesterday was just such a day that gives me that feeling.  Granted, going into the day, I knew I had a full agenda, but I barely got half of my things done.

The good news is that I had a two and a half hour interview to start the day, with four employees at the prospective employer.  At least, I think a two and a half hour interview is a good thing, we shall see whether they offer a job or not.  The company is a small development group with some support and marketing personnel.  The job sounds very interesting, very different from the slow moving behemoth that was MetLife.

The gentleman who would be my boss gave me a great analogy.  He said the job search for someone who was laid off is like swimming across a lake on a dark, moonless night.  You know there is a shore out there, but you don’t know when you will reach it.  Occasionally you have to stop and tread water, but generally you just keep swimming.  Sometimes there is a panic attack that maybe there isn’t another shore, but they pass and you get back to swimming.  While I haven’t been in this situation long, it seems a good analogy.  I also appreciate the kind words from him and others who have been in the same situation.  Nice to know I’m not the only one to have to deal with this.

So with the interview over, I went to switch our auto insurance.  We were with MetLife, but since I am not going to be an employee, I figured it was time for a switch.  I didn’t realize it was going to take an hour and a half.  I did have a question about our homeowners policy, so it wasn’t all just changing auto insurance.  Oh, and I’m saving money now that I have switched.  So much for the company discounts we were supposed to get.

After that, I had an appointment for my car.  One of the most annoying things that can break on your car is the driver’s side window.  You don’t think about how often you use it until it is broken.  I would also often forget it was broken until I was already in the drive-thru lane at the bank or the coffee shop.  Very annoying to have to open the door.  Even more frustrating because the car has less than 3,000 miles on it.  My car is a Saturn Ion, and however frustrating the window being broken might have been, they were able to fix it and gave my car a wash as well.

By the time everything was done, my day I started at 9:30 am was finally finished at 5:30 pm.  I felt like I had worked. :)  The bad part is that I didn’t finish everything I was supposed to do.  So I’m heading out again today and try to get it all done before baseball practices tonight.  Whew, I need a vacation.

CC

The Amenities of a Perfect Job

I started to write a post today for a perfect job, but it turned out much more technical than I had originally intended, so I decided to save it for some other time.  Today what I really wanted to talk about were the “extra” things we look for in a job.

I know that some people will consider me crazy, but I have decided that, for now, I am only going to be looking for a job here in our local area.  Yes, there are very few programming jobs locally, and yes, jobs outside of the area may vanish if we dip too deep into a recession.  I do understand those points, and while they are valid, I have a very prominent reason for not wanting to look outside this area.

Three of my four kids are playing baseball/softball this spring (my princess opted out), and their season isn’t over until the first week of June.  So, with that in mind, I am not going to even start looking for a job outside of our local area until late May.  God might work things out so that I find a job locally, or we may have to live off our severance package for a while.  Either way, we are OK with that, but I don’t want to sacrifice my kids activities just because I “have to have” a job.

I can remember when my second son was 2 years old.  It was the first time I was not able to go with my wife to either her or one of the kid’s doctor’s appointment.  Until then, I had gone with her every time for both her doctor and for my kids appointments.  The feelings I had that day are vivid in my memory, and although I have missed many appointments since that day 11 years ago, I regret what I lost.  I regret that our society has grown to a point where it is not considered a necessity for a husband/father to be with his family for these types of occasions.

I understand that a routine well-patient doctor’s visit isn’t a big deal, and no, I do not for one second doubt my wife’s ability to handle these responsibilities.  But how sad is it that our culture puts a higher price tag on an hour or two of “productivity” than on the same hour or two of family time.  How different our culture, our society, and most importantly, our families would be if we placed more value on the things that really matter, like time spent with family, than on getting that extra buck, or earning that next promotion.

So, as I look for a new job, I will be looking for one with those special amenities.  No, I don’t expect to be able to go to every doctor’s appointment with my wife and kids.  But I do expect to have the time to make it to baseball games and practices.  I do expect to have the ability to make it to piano recitals and choir performances.  I definitely will require the job to allow me to spend the time with my wife and kids to make sure they know how special and important they are to me.

CC

The Long Awaited Return

Well, it has been a while since I have done a blog post, and now that I have a bit more free time, I’m hoping to get back to regular (or at least semi-regular) posting.  I have some ideas on how to move forward, but that may take a few days to implement, so for now I’ll just keep that stuff to myself.

Let’s see, to fill everyone in from last time.  I think I mentioned that in October I was going to be taking a new position at work.  The new position was with the Production Support team and required me to be on-call essentially 24/7.  Well, it officially started in the beginning of October, but I had one remaining project for my old team to finish.  The last post here, October 14, lines right up with my transition to the new team.  Things got so busy and hectic that by the time I got home in the evenings, I wasn’t interested in spending more time on the computer.  Don’t misunderstand, I loved the new position.  It was the most excited I had been about work in several years.  The team was new, and we were still figuring out how the processes were to work, and at the same time, we were fixing things, both quick fixes and longer term corrections.  I enjoyed the variety and balance of the work.

Early this year, my bosses determined the model for our group.  There was to be an on-call team, and a long-term fix team.  The on-call person would field the problems coming in and after discussion, would decide whether a long-term fix was in order.  At that point, the long-term fix team would work to get the problems corrected.  I volunteered to move into the lead position on the long-term fix team for the applications I supported.  The official transition to this new model was going to be in late April, but the position would start earlier to help with transition.  I wish I could tell you that everything went great and that I had just transitioned to that new position, but unfortunately, that wasn’t what happened.

There had been rumors about a coming round of layoffs for several months.  Seems the funding had been cut and the IT group had to adjust to meet the funding.  Our team was not expecting to be hit for several reasons.  For one, most of the members of our team were contractors.  There simply weren’t many employees to choose from.  Also, while we were the new project, we were also the “pet” project of one of the higher up managers, one of the ones making the decisions.  Finally, we had our model and while there was some overlap in jobs, there wasn’t really any room for cutting anyone because of the required skill sets and such.

Well, much to everyone’s surprise, when the layoffs came in early March, I was in the group being let go.  This came as a shock and surprise to everyone on our team, my bosses included.  In fact, my manager and I had just discussed some of the new responsibilities I would be taking on the day before the layoffs.  However, as I have been telling most everyone since this happened, God was not surprised.

Since March 6th, I have been officially laid off.  I am still officially an employee until April 18th, but I am currently not working on anything more than a job search and my “honey-do” list. :)  We were asked to work a couple weeks for transition, and after discussing it with my boss, I agreed to work a week and be available for phone calls the second week.  We went on our planned vacation a few days early and got to spend that extra time with my parents.  And while on vacation, my wife and I were able to see a Braves spring training game (more on that later).

So here I sit, typing in my blog once more, soon to be officially unemployed.  I have a few job leads and even have an interview this Wednesday.  I hope to keep writing this time.  I have so much to write about and yet, I almost think I’ve been busier since I got laid off than I was before.  As always, thanks for reading, and keep checking back.  As I dust the cobwebs off,  maybe I’ll touch on something that is near and dear to your own heart.

 CC

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

Not sure if I mentioned it before, but I program computers for a living. I really enjoy programming. I think it has a lot to do with the order of it, as well as the problem solving. I really do pretty well at the problem solving. Unfortunately, I seem to be decent at creating the problem as well.

Today is a perfect example. I had been working on a test plan yesterday afternoon and this morning. I finally finished the first section of five sections around lunch time. As I realized this was taking WAY too long to write, and would be even worse for whoever had to test it. I knew I had created a problem that needed solving. Well, like most problems, they are best solved when you talk them out, so I talked it over with a co-worker.

Between the two of us, we came up with a shorter way to test the changes. Instead of testing each individual part of the data (which hadn’t changed), we could check that the code was pulling back the same data, and then spot check the other code changes. The new test plan was a good idea and it would work perfectly to verify that what was changed actually works. So I presented the new suggestions to my boss and he was OK with it.

So, over the course of lunch, my co-worker and I, in our discussion, threw out about a day’s worth of test plan in favor of the new method. I wasn’t too pleased with myself when I realized how long I had been working on the test plan that I was now throwing away. But that is the nature of the beast with programming. Sometimes the best thing to do is throw away what you have and start from scratch.

I had a bit of a better experience right before I left. The same co-worker came over and he had found a part of a different change that wasn’t working correctly. After explaining the problem to me, we started looking into it, me “driving” and him looking over my shoulder. It didn’t take long to find the problem, and within 15 minutes the fix was made and he was back testing. Only this time with success. In the words of Hannibal Smith, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

CC