Not dead. Just resting.

[Stavros]

Hey guys long time no see (except for those that visit the IRC channel which I'm on but rarely active on). So what the hell have I been up to? Shit I don't really know where to start, but I know I started really drifting away from Suck-O when college started. Calculus was the bane of my existance, but I've been done with that for about 3 years. I barely passed but I'm out with a Computer Science degree.

After leaving college I worked a part time job at Best Buy Geeksquad (what a rip-off) and stupidly took the first ticket out of there to a company in Mobile Alabama. They're an insurance clearing house hospitals use to send insurance claims (CMS1500s - Medicaid/Medicare electronic claims and UB04 claims - private health insurance company electronic forms). That job didn't last long. I didn't know anyone down there and learned that I hate being a corporate code monkey. So I got fired. It was devastaing. Partly my fault for being so green behind the ears, but at this point it's water under the bridge.

So after breaking a year lease (which I should have gotten the 6 month lease which is right about the time I got fired) I packed all my shit up and moved back in with my grandparents. My brother had started Pharmacy school while I was in Mobile, so when he moved up to Jackson, Mississippi to finish off his last two years (this semester) I gave away all my shit to him (couch, swapped flatscreen tvs, mattress, microwave, toaster oven, etc.). So I spent 3 months looking for a job. Then my dad suggested I ask my cousin who was working at the local hospital if they had a part time job opening. Went over to his house talked to him and (not knowing at the time how bad the turn over rate for help desk was) I got a job there. So I went in expecting I'd find something else in a year or get full time. Well a year turned in to (almost) two. I've been at that job for a year an 11 months. November 19 would be two years to the day.

So I got to job hunting. I applied to several but didn't get calls back. I already knew I wanted to work in IT. So I'm looking at jobs on the State Personnel Board (the job board for State level jobs) and find a posting that's labeled System Administrator. I apply and don't hear anything for a couple weeks. I check back and find an identical posting with identical specs and fire off another application. About a week or so later I get a call back for an interview in Jackson the following week Tuesday. Later that same week I get a missed call from a number in Jackson with a voice mail saying he wants to interview me on Monday. So I call back and of course at 4:45 on a Friday I'm not going to get anyone. So mom says shoot an email. I forget until Monday. Monday morning rolls around and I send an email off about 8AM. I promptly get a call back around 8:30. I explain to him that the next day I'm going to be up there anyway could we re-schedule then. He agrees. First interview was a nightmare. Interview by committee. Had 3 people asking me questions. I didn't do so hot, but that's ok that job was another help desk job anyway. I was tired of getting yelled at over the phone. Second interview is much more informal. I felt good after that interview.

A week goes by and I haven't heard anything. I call back and tell him if he hasn't already hired someone I'm still interested. He said he was waiting on word from his boss and he'd call me when he heard something. So last Thursday I get a call saying he's offering me the job and sending background check info in the mail. I fill it out and send it on Friday. I was told to expect it to take a week. Today after work while in the car changing into gym clothes I get a call and said I passed the background check and his only question was do I want to start November 3 or November 17. I chose the 17th cause I gotta find a place to live. So I turned in my 2 weeks and in 4 weeks I'll offically be a Systems Administrator for the Mississippi State Department of Revenue.

I guess the moral of this story is that the world is not static. It's also shocking how fast the government moved at blinding speed to hire me.

I have a side project I'm trying to work on. I was content to work on it with a shitty part time job in hopes that if it works out we'd start a video game studio from the proceeds. Still trying to get it together if I can get in touch with the 3D artist.

[bad_brain]

nice to hear from you again on the site, and not just some quick convos on IRC (when I have time to drag my workaholic ass on there )....

oh well, jobs...you would have been the first one I know who even only remotely liked the first couple of jobs he had, including myself. I originally did a 3 year apprenticeship as auto mechanic (gawd, I hated it SO much) but never worked a single day in that job...I actually even simply stopped going there without any notice until they fired me...
my next job was delivering carpets, which was very hard manual labor....and the payment was way too bad for it.
but in retrospective I have to say I am glad I went through those experiences, because they showed me what I DON'T want to do the rest of my life.....and you should think the same.

and hey, you're still pretty young, I found my way in business in my early/mid 30's....actually through the awesome people I met on suck-o. it wasn't easy, it wasn't fast, but it was worth it.

I'm glad you have a job at hands now that seems to be really interesting and that might open some really nice opportunities for you. maybe one thing I can give you on your way, from my experience: be nice, treat people well and with respect, but after all: business is war. fight for yourself and your tribe, fuck everyone else.

[maboroshi]

It's good to see you are still on the path Stavros. Keep at it!

Gambatte Kudasai!

Maboroshi.

[Stavros]

"Like" would be a strong term. I would say that there were various stages of dislike (at least for the last half of this current job). Didn't care really one way or the other for the Best Buy job but the commute sucked. Especially when I had to be up there at 6AM. Hate is the correct term for the second job. This job I actually did like but I've become bitter about it since I've really started paying attention to how the department is run. I think the part that pisses me off the most is that I've been overlooked a couple times for full time even though I'm pretty now second most experienced at the help desk. If I can put up with this shit for almost 2 years I can put up with pretty much anything. I'm glad I got fired early and got it out of the way. Really forced me to mature. I learned that IT is really where I'd like to work. I would have to really be interested in the project to motivate myself to go back to programming which is why it's stayed a hobby so far. As for physical labor I had a healthy dose of that about ten years ago picking peas in my grandmother's garden for $10 an hour. I remember we'd have been picking peas for like 4 or 5 hours and we looked back and we were only about a quarter way down a row. The rows felt like they never ended. That was a few years before I got DSL and found Suck-O.

I've been saving my money since I pretty much don't have any bills and been living with my other grandparents for the last 2 years in preparation of this moment. I won't brag but it is a lot for being of the Millennial generation. I also have to thank my family for helping me to graduate debt free.