A Day of Pluses and Minuses
Jan. 25th, 2005 12:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneAnd the plus definitely outweighed the minus!
First, the minus.
My student aid for this semester is totally boned. I had to get an agreement filed by close of business Monday that told Glendale, where I’m taking a 3 credit pubic speaking course (required for my degree), it’s also the school where I work and got my student aid from initially, and GateWay, where I’ll be taking two courses for 7 credits, one is required for my degree and the other is not, but is still an important class.
I was told quite specifically that I could take 3 hours at Glendale (the amount required for me to work there) and that this agreement would couple my hours together to make the 9 minimum for my student loan.
It turns out that I have to have a minimum of 6 hours at Glendale.
There is absolutely no bloody way that I can take 13 hours, when my GateWay courses start up in late March/early April, I’m going to be very pressed for time.
So no financial aid this semester, unless I file for it at GateWay. Talk about a royal pain in the tuchus.
Now, the plus.
I got a job!
I’ve basically been unemployed since March of 2001, ignoring an 8 month stint from September 2003 through April 2004. I’ve been working at the school since September, but it’s hardly worth talking about as it’s $5.15/hr and 19 hours a week. It basically bought a tank of gas and some groceries. I’m 43 and I’ve been totally dependent on my parent’s for my house payment, truck, insurance, and utilities. Fortunately that now changes.
I got a job with the Department of Education, they have a big data aggregation project going on and need additional help, and I was selected. It pays well, $25/hr, and it’s a 3 month minimum contract that is likely to be extended, no info on whether or not it could become a permanent position.
And they’ll let me take off 3 hours Monday/Wednesday for my public speaking course, I’ll make up the time either that evening or the next day. Actually, I think I’ll probably try to tack on one hour Monday through Thursday, that’d take care of it.
The hiring story is mildly interesting. I met with the recruiters the last week of 2004, they called for an interview early last week and I met with a guy last Friday. He explained the project, we went back and forth discussing it. Then he pulled something that blindsided me: someone in the department knew me!
Starting back around 1988, we were using 3Com 3+Share file servers for networking. Windows was not really viable at that point, everything was a dos interface for loading programs. And 3Com gave us agency email and later some internet. 3Com apparently had some sort of partnering going on with Microsoft at that time and we were meeting at the MS office for user group meetings. Eventually 3+Share began going away and we were presented with Lan Manager, a networking system that ran on top of an early version of OS/2. Lan Man was a Microsoft/IBM product as OS/2 was mainly from IBM.
Well, all through this time, at these meetings, there was a guy who worked for AZ Dept of Education. At the time I was also working for the state in a different agency. Later the user group became a Lan Manager group, then somehow became a Microsoft SQL Server group. By that time I had moved to the police department, but I still saw the same guy at the meetings.
It turns out that he was the one at Education who knew me, but he’d been unable to make the meeting. So the first guy asks me to come back on Monday, no problem here. So I go in Monday AM and the second guy is there. We recap some of the things discussed Friday, do some random BSing and talking about the “old days” of database (dBase III, prior to III+, Lotus 1-2-3 v1, etc.). It goes pretty well, they tell me they have to discuss it and talk to the various head hunters involved.
So I go to school, go to work, and the last hour of my shift has me at High Tech 2 where it’s easy for me to pull out my laptop and work on various things. I check my email and there’s a message from my recruiter, and it says to call him as he had important news. It really could be only one thing, and I was correct and got the position.
It seems like every good position that I’ve gotten has been at companies where I’ve known someone on the inside.
I don’t start until next Tuesday or Wednesday, they have to get final approval now that they have a body to fill the position. I get to attend a 2-hr “welcome to the company” meeting at the recruiters on Wednesday, that’ll be pretty boring probably, I’ll then have to blitz across town to get to school on time.
Such fun!
But my weekly gross will go from a bit under $90 to $1000. I can live with a little inconvenience.
First, the minus.
My student aid for this semester is totally boned. I had to get an agreement filed by close of business Monday that told Glendale, where I’m taking a 3 credit pubic speaking course (required for my degree), it’s also the school where I work and got my student aid from initially, and GateWay, where I’ll be taking two courses for 7 credits, one is required for my degree and the other is not, but is still an important class.
I was told quite specifically that I could take 3 hours at Glendale (the amount required for me to work there) and that this agreement would couple my hours together to make the 9 minimum for my student loan.
It turns out that I have to have a minimum of 6 hours at Glendale.
There is absolutely no bloody way that I can take 13 hours, when my GateWay courses start up in late March/early April, I’m going to be very pressed for time.
So no financial aid this semester, unless I file for it at GateWay. Talk about a royal pain in the tuchus.
Now, the plus.
I got a job!
I’ve basically been unemployed since March of 2001, ignoring an 8 month stint from September 2003 through April 2004. I’ve been working at the school since September, but it’s hardly worth talking about as it’s $5.15/hr and 19 hours a week. It basically bought a tank of gas and some groceries. I’m 43 and I’ve been totally dependent on my parent’s for my house payment, truck, insurance, and utilities. Fortunately that now changes.
I got a job with the Department of Education, they have a big data aggregation project going on and need additional help, and I was selected. It pays well, $25/hr, and it’s a 3 month minimum contract that is likely to be extended, no info on whether or not it could become a permanent position.
And they’ll let me take off 3 hours Monday/Wednesday for my public speaking course, I’ll make up the time either that evening or the next day. Actually, I think I’ll probably try to tack on one hour Monday through Thursday, that’d take care of it.
The hiring story is mildly interesting. I met with the recruiters the last week of 2004, they called for an interview early last week and I met with a guy last Friday. He explained the project, we went back and forth discussing it. Then he pulled something that blindsided me: someone in the department knew me!
Starting back around 1988, we were using 3Com 3+Share file servers for networking. Windows was not really viable at that point, everything was a dos interface for loading programs. And 3Com gave us agency email and later some internet. 3Com apparently had some sort of partnering going on with Microsoft at that time and we were meeting at the MS office for user group meetings. Eventually 3+Share began going away and we were presented with Lan Manager, a networking system that ran on top of an early version of OS/2. Lan Man was a Microsoft/IBM product as OS/2 was mainly from IBM.
Well, all through this time, at these meetings, there was a guy who worked for AZ Dept of Education. At the time I was also working for the state in a different agency. Later the user group became a Lan Manager group, then somehow became a Microsoft SQL Server group. By that time I had moved to the police department, but I still saw the same guy at the meetings.
It turns out that he was the one at Education who knew me, but he’d been unable to make the meeting. So the first guy asks me to come back on Monday, no problem here. So I go in Monday AM and the second guy is there. We recap some of the things discussed Friday, do some random BSing and talking about the “old days” of database (dBase III, prior to III+, Lotus 1-2-3 v1, etc.). It goes pretty well, they tell me they have to discuss it and talk to the various head hunters involved.
So I go to school, go to work, and the last hour of my shift has me at High Tech 2 where it’s easy for me to pull out my laptop and work on various things. I check my email and there’s a message from my recruiter, and it says to call him as he had important news. It really could be only one thing, and I was correct and got the position.
It seems like every good position that I’ve gotten has been at companies where I’ve known someone on the inside.
I don’t start until next Tuesday or Wednesday, they have to get final approval now that they have a body to fill the position. I get to attend a 2-hr “welcome to the company” meeting at the recruiters on Wednesday, that’ll be pretty boring probably, I’ll then have to blitz across town to get to school on time.
Such fun!
But my weekly gross will go from a bit under $90 to $1000. I can live with a little inconvenience.
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Congratulations
Date: 2005-01-25 02:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-25 09:22 pm (UTC)Much cool!
Good on you.
Way to go!
Date: 2005-01-26 06:27 pm (UTC)