State o'de Ronin

[unixronin]

The state o'de Ronin.  Well.  "Jitters" would seem to be a good start.

You see ... well, I've been sitting on this a little for the last couple of weeks in an effort not to enumerate potential avians with uncollapsed wave functions.  But, I start a new job tomorrow, as an open-source database administrator for Datapipe Corp., 100% telecommute.

After so long, it's still a little hard to believe it's really going to happen.  It comes just in the nick of time, as with cymrullewes's unemployment benefits finally exhausted for good, we were looking the oncoming freight train squarely in the headlight.  Then this came up, well, out of nowhere, really.  An old friend put my resume into the hands of a technical manager, not a HR droid; the technical manager looked at my resume and said, "Wow, we want this guy."

One of the things I'd been very nervous about, looking for work, was that I absolutely could not risk any short term contracts or contract-to-hire, because of how disability works.  Or, as it turned out, worked ... it turns out that since I last looked into it, they changed the return-to-work portion of the SSI disability program significantly.  Without delving into too much detail, the most important part is that instead of three months to accomplish a "successful return to work" before losing disability, I get nine months to make it work.  That makes it a much safer bet.

Work finally started showing up for cymrullewes too.  So between one thing and another, it looks like far from eating a freight train, we're going to find ourselves back on our feet in double-quick time.  (Not to mention being able to afford to heat the house properly this winter, which is not to be underestimated.)

Comments

[hugh_mannity]

This is excellent news!

*does happy dance*

New Job

[ewen]

Congratulations.

I've found over most of my career that most jobs for both me and my friends have come via contacts putting me/them in touch with someone who could recognise what they're seeing. Alas too many people in HR seem to believe that domain knowledge isn't necessary to hiring, whereas for most technical areas it's the most essential part to recognising the right people.

Also heating in winter is a Good Thing (tm).

Ewen

Re: New Job

[unixronin]

That. There's a world of difference between having the required technical background and simply being properly buzzword-compliant, especially when the HR drone more likely than not doesn't understand what any of those long words in the job description and requirements actually mean.

Re: New Job

[cymru]

I'm curious how small the Wellington, NZ American ex-pat crowd is. One of my schoolmates is supposedly down there. I'd like to find someone to give him a light poke and tell him he's it.

Re: New Job

[ewen]

The Wellington (NZ) American ex-pat crowd is fairly well connected from what I can tell, at least amongst the tech-scene folk that I know (I know several American ex-pats in the tech area, and they all know each other and many others in common). Not sure how well it's connected outside the tech scene. But in most of New Zealand you can usually find a connection to someone in two or three degrees (although figuring out who the common factors are sometimes takes some work).

Ewen

[vatine]

Good-oh. I hope things work out well.

[ithildae]

That is very good news! Congratulations! I hope your first day went well. Human networking seems to work better than anything else when it comes to finding work, go figure. Let us know if it is fun. (proper heating is not to be underestimated.)