Old Job-The Big Move

I only have a few more days in my current role before I am off to start a new position on a new team within my same company. It is only a small physical move; I am moving one floor down. But it is going to be a pretty big move just the same.

I have been in my currnet position for over 6 years now. I know my job pretty darn well. Oh sure, their is TONS more I could learn right where I am. But I am comfortable in my current position, I know what I am doing and I am a "goto" guy for many who respect me. I am really going to miss the people I see and talk to and work with everyday! Jacquie and Jeff, I'll miss you guys. Charles and Kevin F too. I hope Kevin G will still eat lunch with me once in awhile. Kurt and Robert are great co-workers, Chad is super smart! Erica trained me-now she's the new boss. I'll miss Paul's crankyness, Pat's quiet humor and even Darius!

But I remind myself why I am leaving: More money. More direction. Opportunities to learn new things in an exciting group. A new manager who just might promote me. Leadership opportunities. Career development.

I am excited and nervous about the Big Move. Such is life. Change is inevitable. Change is good. It is also hard.

Come see me on the 3rd floor.

-Durk-

New Job

Mr. B, the manager of the Security group, had approached me quite awhile ago about a job in his group. He asked if I had experience with C+ and some other computing languages. I told him that I did not have the programming language skills he was looking for. He asked me to be on the lookout for a qualified person and I asked him to keep me in mind for any future position within his group. Mr. B approached me on 5-20-06, he walked into my cube and told me to write a number down. At first I thought it was a phone number, but he clarified that it was a job requisition number, that it was for his group and that I'd better hurry because it ended THAT DAY! So of course I went to apply for the job right then and there-as fast as I could! I could not find the job requisition! So I immediately emailed Mr. B. my resume and told him that I'd love a chance to work for him.

In the mean time I phoned a friend and he suggested that I try to track down the recruiter. So I began to call around and so did he. I found a name and my friend found out more details: Only 14 applicants, all external; I'd be the only internal applicant, which could really give me an edge! So I emailed the recruiter, stating that the hiring manager had asked me to apply and asked if she would add me to the list of applicants. Mr. B called me and tried to help me look up the job, even though the job was still open it was not available to for additional applicants. So he IMed the recruiter and asked if I could be put on the list. She said that normally I couldn't but that she would add me. YES! I would at least get an interview with 14 external employees and me-the internal employee!! And then Mr. B asked me: "Are you interested?" OF COURSE! And then asked me what my current pay was. I told him and then he did the totally unexpected: Asked me to meet him at the elevators for a talk! We went to the picnic lunch area, he bought me a pop and we sat and he interviewed me! More like explaining the details of the job-telling me what I'd be doing! Again he asked if I was interested, again I said yes. "How does a 10-15% raise sound?" I said that is sounded awesome! And he said that he'd have the recruiter write an offer! AWESOME. He even showed me the new area where they would be moving to-showed me about where I would be sitting in the group!! AWESOME!

The next day I approached one of the people on Mr. B’s team, mentioned that I had talked with their manager the previous day and they explained how Mr B had offered me a job! It had really happened!

A few days later, even before I a formal offer, I sat down with a couple of teammates under Mr. B and they explained what I ‘d be doing on the new team! WOW.

Here it is a couple of weeks later...I have a verbal offer and am merely waiting for the written offer and then I get to haggle about the actual raise! SWEET!

-Durk-

The Re-Building Phase

I lost everything on my work laptop's hard drive-so much for hope. All my email is gone. All of those spreadsheets are gone. All my automation scripts, gone. No more bookmarks, no backups of files that I left on the local hard drive, no more pics, no more music, IT IS ALL GONE.

But it isn't all irreplaceable or a critical loss. Life will go on, even my work life. I will still get emails in the future. I can re-create spreadsheets-maybe even better than before or see if I emailed a copy to someone else. The automation can be re-written-although not automatically. I can find all of those websites again. I can take more pics and steal more music.

I would like to say that I have learned from my mistakes! I will find some nifty program that will automatically back up my email .pst file. I will back up all of the documents in My documents folder. I will print out pictures and burn music onto CDs.

But what is reality? Reality is loss. Reality is pain. Reality hurts. OK, so that may be a bit dramatic, but no matter what I do I can't protect everything from everything.

So what? Well, thank goodness for second chances. Monday is over and Tuesday is here. IT Guy will hand-deliver my "new" laptop any minute now. I'll spend the next couple of days tweaking, installing and setting things just right. Then I'll get all of that backup stuff in place. Then I'll start working on all of those things that I lost.

Thus marks the beginning of my re-building phase.

Here it comes again: The Great Cosmic Truth:

Life is full of second chances. Forgiveness is a wonderful thing. Grace is a wonderful thing. This Easter season can be one where the old passes away and the new person is re-born. It isn't easy giving birth...Just ask my wife who had baby boy #4 just a couple of months ago (no girls). It also isn't easy re-building and changing for the better.

Is it worth it? Well, I don't know yet. I know I can't go back. There is nothing to go back to. So I have to move forward. I don't have to learn anything new or do things differently. But I can't remember everything that I lost...Or it wouldn't be that big of a loss. I don't remember how everything worked or was worded or organized or whatever. So I am going to have to do some things differently. Hopefully I will do them better as well.

Change is good. Growing is hard.

-Durk-

If You Always Do What You've Always Done You Will Always Get What You've Always Gotten

Today is shaping up to be a stereotypical Monday. My work laptop PC is dead. It indicates that there is no bootable drive. Which may mean the hard drive is dead. This makes me sad and mad and angry. I should not feel this way. I should have a warm and fuzzy feeling that everything is OK, that all my data is backed up in a safe place, just waiting to be recovered. After all my hard drive crashed and burned last September. I lost everything then-especially VERY important emails. And I vowed that I would back things up. A promise broken. I'm not too sure how many times I have to go through this to learn to back things up. All is not yet totally lost-the IT Guy still has to look at it. So there is hope.

So I asked my local admin assistant if she will assist me in submitting a ticket. She recommends calling help desk and asks me to use the new number, "Did you get the email with the new number," she asks. It gets a little painful after this, but finally she figures out that I don't have access to my email. Surely this is not the first time she has these frustrating conversations.

There may just be a lesson in all of this. OK, here comes the Great Cosmic Truth:

Such is life. We do dumb things (or bad things just "happen") and we react. And when we have a chance to do things differently the next time, we don't! Instead we think that we can do the same thing over and over again and there will somehow be a different result. And when the result is the same we wonder why. All of this is not too far off from the definition of insanity.

All is not yet totally lost-people can change. People can chose to learn from their mistakes. So there is hope.

I really hope I get my emails back. And my eBay stuff. And my pics. Oh yeah, that work spreadsheet too. I have hoped for this before and have been disappointed. I really hope I am not insane. I think I have hoped for that before too.

-Durk-