My roommate took the dog back. My guess is the barking all night because the little guy wasn't crate trained yet was a problem, but at the same time, the decision to get the pup and the decision to give him back were a bit rushed. When I have my own place, I'll be getting a dog. Just not sure if I can start out with a puppy, they do need a lot of time and attention till they grow up.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
One Week Down, Lifetime to Go
I just said that last night to my roommate, but after it left my mouth, I was abruptly awakened to the fact that that is the most likely situation. Companies aren't taking care of former employees the way people used to be when they retired. You have to be high up on the corporate pedestal to get a decent retirement package at most places, and even then, they may fire you for no other reason than to not pay retirement (TN has some really messed up employment laws). I can't count on Social Security (come on, someone make a joke). I will more than likely shift jobs every 5 to 10 years in order to maintain relevance or recover from downsizing in the computer industry due to an unfortunate pattern I'm starting to notice.
But then, I am really tired so I might not have the best perspective. Jay had some guys over last night and a few drank a bit too much and got ill. The smoke floating back into the house that could be smelled from any room may have contributed. People never stop asking me why I don't drink. It's because I've seen enough people screw themselves up because of alcohol. I feel bad for the guys, but then, they did do it to themselves; I only had a little pity on them.
Work is good. My head is about to explode with all the info I'm cramming into it, but I have to finish learning this stuff in the next couple of days, so I have a lot of reading to go.
But then, I am really tired so I might not have the best perspective. Jay had some guys over last night and a few drank a bit too much and got ill. The smoke floating back into the house that could be smelled from any room may have contributed. People never stop asking me why I don't drink. It's because I've seen enough people screw themselves up because of alcohol. I feel bad for the guys, but then, they did do it to themselves; I only had a little pity on them.
Work is good. My head is about to explode with all the info I'm cramming into it, but I have to finish learning this stuff in the next couple of days, so I have a lot of reading to go.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Working
I'm starting work tomorrow for VCCH. Thank you for everyone that has been praying for me to find something quickly. I'm still waiting to hear back on a few other opportunities, but am very happy with the opportunities that I have at this company to learn about Linux, Astrisk, and several other opensource projects as well as adding perl and ruby to the set of computer languages I speak.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Latest News
I'm jobless at the moment. A lot has happened since I last updated in December. CompUSA announced it's closing around one of my last posts then and I've been racing around like crazy since. I almost got fired for taking time off to spend with my sister, but the next day the manager got word that she had to cut payroll by a lot, so she gave me the time no problem. Dana and I went skiing in West Virginia before she flew back to Ukraine for the second half of this school year (and she has singed up for a fourth school year that will continue at the end of her third year this year - please pray for her as she raises the needed funds to continue in this volunteer position). The last of the tech staff at our local CompUSA got let go Friday (me and Kendrick lasted the longest, most everyone else already quit). I have a few weeks to think things over and develop myself professionally as I look for a stable, long term job.
I'm so used to looking at everything in the short term. I was home schooled, everything went a year at a time. Then there were summers. Enter high school and the year I was there before starting college at PBA for gen ed (and the student job I held there). Then I transfered to TNU and worked there as a student as well. Now I've been at CompUSA for almost a year and a half, and I'm looking for a new job as that has all ended. I am now very focussed on finding an well established organization in a market that is not fluctuating as rapidly as many that are out there are presently.
If anyone needs computer work done or anything like that, just let me know
I'm so used to looking at everything in the short term. I was home schooled, everything went a year at a time. Then there were summers. Enter high school and the year I was there before starting college at PBA for gen ed (and the student job I held there). Then I transfered to TNU and worked there as a student as well. Now I've been at CompUSA for almost a year and a half, and I'm looking for a new job as that has all ended. I am now very focussed on finding an well established organization in a market that is not fluctuating as rapidly as many that are out there are presently.
If anyone needs computer work done or anything like that, just let me know
Working (or Not) for Yourself
I lost a freelance job this morning because the client wasn't willing to pay my travel rate. I was going to have to travel 32 minutes each way, and wanted to cover time and gas, but I gave him the 30 minutes or less price for travel. The odd part was that he just blew up instead of asking if it was negotiable. Basically what he said rather angrily into the phone was [You're gonna charge me $xx.xx just to come out? I'll find someone else.] followed by a click. This from the guy I was trying to help out because the IT group he called told him he would have to buy a server and all this setup and config (and eventually support) service just to install a program that could be run on his existing desktop computer as a local server and be served to the other computer from there. I was probably only going to be there for an hour anyways and would have saved him about a thousand dollars at least.
I enjoy helping out small business owners that can't afford full time IT staff, but some times I feel like a cat scratching at anything within reach to land on the floor right-side-up after some of the things these people do.
I enjoy helping out small business owners that can't afford full time IT staff, but some times I feel like a cat scratching at anything within reach to land on the floor right-side-up after some of the things these people do.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Christian Semenar...
I fell asleep last night with the TV on and woke up to a Bible thumper very loudly proclaiming that the greatest gift we have is the Word. This makes me ask if she has ever actually read the Gospels (which happen to be in the Bible), because as far as I know (and the reason we celebrate Christmas), the greatest gift we have is salvation from our sin through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now she's on a bit about how everyone has angels running about for them to make them successful in business (read as "rich"). I hope these people didn't pay too much for the seminar.
Now she's on a bit about how everyone has angels running about for them to make them successful in business (read as "rich"). I hope these people didn't pay too much for the seminar.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
End of the Line
"End of the line." What a statement that is. There is no debating what it means. It just is what it is. You cannot argue that it will go on. The train stops here, and there is no where else for it to go.
F.Y.I. This is Stream of consciousness not news format. If you don't like that, don't read it.
Friday night, as I was finishing a rout at Climb Nashville, I got a voice mail on my phone saying that CompUSA had reached the end of its line. The deal for the owner to sell to a "restructuring" firm had finally gone through and they immediately announced that they were shutting us down completely. Some key stores will be sold as is, but I am not sure, but I assume staffing will not transfer with the store. Others will simply be liquidated. Nothing like a few key people high up benefiting from the sale and everyone else being out of work.
At first, the back of my mind was entertaining the thought that this could be a prank my boss was playing, but he would not joke about something like this (we all knew it was coming sooner or later - my money was on 5-10 years; Gordon, you win with a bet of less than a year).
Later that evening as I arrived home after finishing a couple more routs, I checked the Google News search and found quite a few sites already reporting the late news. Shortly after that, the store manager called me in person to make sure I knew as much as she did at the time.
I didn't sleep at all that night.
I went into work Saturday morning and we still had no news (I was actually a bit earlier than usual, arriving at 7:45 AM for an 8:30 test session). As the day went on, more info was passed along including a termination date of Jan 30 - I don't have official paperwork, so who knows how much time I have left. I did the usual surf the web between checking testers in and out of the morning and early afternoon examination sessions. This gave me lots of time to send e-mails to people that have sent me job requests and leads in the past. I have several opportunities I'm researching and need to follow up on Monday morning.
Having not eaten in about 24 hours by 4 PM Saturday afternoon, I had a small snack and went to bed. I woke up at 3:30 AM this morning (Sunday) and have been sending more e-mails and have continued talking with the Nashville Linux Users Group about the situation. Everyone has their own ideas of what happened, but the short of it is that CompUSA couldn't adapt to the new business model computer parts sales has taken in the internet age. This being the case, we either had to close up a lot and restructure (they closed 128 stores in February of this year), or close completely (which is happening because the restructure wasn't handled correctly).
The Tech Shop is business as usual through the end of the year, at which point I assume we will be stopping operations completely after finishing up any open service requests. I don't have any info about whether or not this is the case, and I feel bad for anyone that has an extended warranty through CompUSA, as they no longer have a service provider unless CompUSA can really sell the TechPro service as they are planning to.
Now does everyone understand why I would not mention CompUSA as my employer in previous posts?
F.Y.I. This is Stream of consciousness not news format. If you don't like that, don't read it.
Friday night, as I was finishing a rout at Climb Nashville, I got a voice mail on my phone saying that CompUSA had reached the end of its line. The deal for the owner to sell to a "restructuring" firm had finally gone through and they immediately announced that they were shutting us down completely. Some key stores will be sold as is, but I am not sure, but I assume staffing will not transfer with the store. Others will simply be liquidated. Nothing like a few key people high up benefiting from the sale and everyone else being out of work.
At first, the back of my mind was entertaining the thought that this could be a prank my boss was playing, but he would not joke about something like this (we all knew it was coming sooner or later - my money was on 5-10 years; Gordon, you win with a bet of less than a year).
Later that evening as I arrived home after finishing a couple more routs, I checked the Google News search and found quite a few sites already reporting the late news. Shortly after that, the store manager called me in person to make sure I knew as much as she did at the time.
I didn't sleep at all that night.
I went into work Saturday morning and we still had no news (I was actually a bit earlier than usual, arriving at 7:45 AM for an 8:30 test session). As the day went on, more info was passed along including a termination date of Jan 30 - I don't have official paperwork, so who knows how much time I have left. I did the usual surf the web between checking testers in and out of the morning and early afternoon examination sessions. This gave me lots of time to send e-mails to people that have sent me job requests and leads in the past. I have several opportunities I'm researching and need to follow up on Monday morning.
Having not eaten in about 24 hours by 4 PM Saturday afternoon, I had a small snack and went to bed. I woke up at 3:30 AM this morning (Sunday) and have been sending more e-mails and have continued talking with the Nashville Linux Users Group about the situation. Everyone has their own ideas of what happened, but the short of it is that CompUSA couldn't adapt to the new business model computer parts sales has taken in the internet age. This being the case, we either had to close up a lot and restructure (they closed 128 stores in February of this year), or close completely (which is happening because the restructure wasn't handled correctly).
The Tech Shop is business as usual through the end of the year, at which point I assume we will be stopping operations completely after finishing up any open service requests. I don't have any info about whether or not this is the case, and I feel bad for anyone that has an extended warranty through CompUSA, as they no longer have a service provider unless CompUSA can really sell the TechPro service as they are planning to.
Now does everyone understand why I would not mention CompUSA as my employer in previous posts?
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