2001-06-03 - 2:27 p.m.

Switching Teams

Though I do enjoy the work I do and my job has great potential to allow me to get involved in very significant environmental research, lately I've been seriously asking myself just where do I want to go. I certainly don't want any career to take over my life, but I also don't mind working full time. When I was an undergrad I didn't really pursue any relationships with women because I knew I wanted to keep my career options open.

My family had already moved to California, and it happened that I eventually followed them out here for graduate school. Though raised in Texas, I've most of my adult life either in Northern California or in the college environment in Central Texas.

Options to Home

By the time I was close to completely graduate school, whatever it was that motivated me to actually ignore the few girls as an undergrad that took an interest in me in favour of a career had gone. I wasn't shopping for relationships, but I knew that the Bay Area is where I really wanted to live.

I tried for months to find engineering jobs, but it is really near impossible to find that first job without any professional experience. Given that the private sector hates to train people or go to the risk of hiring a young engineer, my home expanded to include Sacramento. I could still live in Davis, and was close to my family. I had a few friends from graduate school, but since I didn't get out much, that was about it.

A little over two weeks ago when I had that fateful meeting with the department's HR person and he told me I had to shave my head or dye my hair a "natural" colour for the good of the department I was upset. So upset that I just casually mentioned to an engineer at a Bay Area water company that I had taken notice in their job posting from months ago. This same engineer emailed me at work encouraging me to apply and then on Friday he phoned me at work in response to some questions I asked about the job.

The bottom line here is that I never did change my voting residence from the East Bay. In a sense besides Bronco, Cloud, and Redwood and the potential I have at my current job, there isn't much else to keep me up in Sacto. Well, besides the fact that I realized I can rise far at my current job, in part because of slackers like ShortRound and Steelhead. But it helps that I've got a large pull of expertise floating around too. If I have questions that I don't know, senior engineers (these are people who are middle management usually) are so quick to respond to my questions.

And I love working with these people. Now the carrot in this new job is that though my goal / job function would change from being the "good" guy to being a "bad" guy (in a sense, as I'm interviewing with our competitor actually), I will still be working with many of the same people. I'll also be in a unique position to bridge the gap between my current office and the one I'll be working for.

It is just an Interview

All that said, I don't have the job yet. Granted, it pays between $800 and up more a month than my current job. And I really am qualified for the job. But still, I don't know how I'll compare to the other engineers or if they will want me. I do come with some baggage that Stompy deals with.

I guess no matter what else I've done this weekend (and I'll write about it later), I can't escape thoughts about the interview. Friday night instead of dancing I just put all my old Star Wars figures into those plastic figure coffins I bought a few weeks ago. Redwood came over around midnight to help. I still have something around 200 loose figures to go (remember I have my collection, my brothers, and whatever else I've found since 1977). I need to order more coffins and continue packing up my apartment.

Saturday morning I took a scrub brush and started to remove the smoke from my walls (this is from the day I accidently set my apartment on fire ... whooops!) with 409 spray. I think I ended up removing more skin from my fingers.

Part of me wants to talk of nothing but this interview. It really is such a big deal for me. But the other part doesn't want to get so worried that an interview (there is no job offer yet) overshadows other things in my life.

Coming Soon: Hard Core BDSM Play Party! ;)

-=-

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