(no subject)

Why am I still up???

Oh, yeah. Sorting files to send code samples to the recruiter in the UK. (She's got a client that looks at resumes AND code samples before interviewing! It's a miracle!) Unfortunately I couldn't find any copies of some of the really cool stuff I've done; must have stored it on the zip disks. Since I don't have a zip drive myself, and Woody's has gone flaky, I'm not going to be able to access those files until I'm down to see Mom & Dad later this month.

Which, of course, doesn't help now.

Hrm... I wonder... Jim archived off the Mini dealer site stuff, wonder if he could send me a copy...

Again, though, doesn't really help right now. :/

I did at least send a few things along; hopefully they look good enough.

(no subject)

Didn't make it to the "Coffee Cauldron" thingie in St. Paul tonight. Oh well, there's another in two weeks. Haven't been to one before; seems like a good way to meet some other local pagan/witchy types, though.

The University Pagan Society is doing a lecture and workshop on runes tomorrow- er, this evening, which could be interesting. One of those things I'm interested in, but don't really know much about- yet.

(Just wait, one of these days you'll see The Compulsive Researcher.)

(no subject)

Microsoft gets away with it

USAG drops request for M$ breakup, AND they're dropping the bundling issue entirely.

Of course, with the vast amount of money pumped into Shrub's campaign by many menmers of M$'s board, is anyone really surprised? Ashcroft all but said it during his hearings.

Bought and paid for; screw everyone else. Typical for Shrub and Friends.



Blergh. Didn't get to sleep until almost 5am and kept waking up. Too tired to get any decent sleep. This isn't good.

Haven't heard a word back on the local job, or from the recruiter in London. :P

{yaaaaaawn}

Still didn't hear back from anyone about those jobs. Erk.

Found out that a friend's husband was laid off today- this a couple days after finding out that his company would be closing at the end of the month. Karen was hit in the first major round of layoffs at Fallon a few months ago, and only recently found some part-time contract work. It's not good timing.


Background:

I used to work at Fallon, too. Was there for two years, working my butt off. Was always there when they needed someone to stay late (despite being horrendously underpaid); led projects when we got stuck with a PM who didn't know what they were doing; mentored new employees. Got a lot of top notch experience with some amazing clients, and learned a little about how to do things right- and a lot about how NOT to do things.

Anyway, I could go on about that place. There were some really great things- but there was also one hell of a lot of frustration. A lot of weirdness with people expecting techie people to be super social and outgoing and schmoozy just like the ad/creative people. Of course, the majority of techie types aren't quite like that...

Had an interesting conversation about that with the team lead of ITI before I left- well, actually, we pretty much agreed on one major thing: That people who are drawn to techie type professions have a certain outlook, and particular ability to work on something in a rather obsessive way that blocks out the rest of the world- which happens to be a very handy skill for that kind of work. Very direct, blunt, more concerned with getting things working properly on time than with massaging egos. (yeah, gross generalization, sorry)

Ad folks tend to be artsy types- often very open and outgoing, spending a lot of time bouncing things off one another, and jumping around a lot to end up at a series of concepts. (Not explaining that very well.) Those are skills that are valuable to that kind of work.

Try to force techie types to act socially like "creatives" (as they were called at Fallon), or vice versa, and it just doesn't work. Short periods of time, particularly when facilitated by food and drink, no problem. All day, every day, be like this or you're "not fitting in" and "don't belong" and therefore we don't have to pay any attention to you, even if we did hire you because you're good at what you do and are just what we're now saying we don't like.

(See, I told you I could go on about the place... )

Anyway, my exit: Back in March, I was told I could either take a rather nice severance package and go, or end up getting laid off a month or two later. (There was some other goofy stuff going on too, but the bitch (LM) at the head of that got laid off in the same round as Karen and my officemate, Josh. Sometimes, your actions really do catch up with you- couldn't help laughing when I heard LM got "let go".)

At the time, taking the severance and heading out seemed like a good idea, as I was getting a couple of headhunter calls every week. Unfortunately, my leaving happened to coincide almost exactly with the market going from so-so to plain old bad. Or as one recruiter I've talked to a lot puts it- "one day, the phone's ringing off the hook. The next day- crickets."

Since March I've had two short contracts, and one short (half day) freelance project. Several interviews, lots of potential leads- but very few places are hiring right now. More layoffs every day.

It's not pretty out there right now.