Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

So yesterday I started a new job; my fourth in the last 13th months (fifth if you count the part time job I have had concurrently with different full time jobs). With each new job I have taken up the keyboard and tried to express some optimism, and so I find myself doing that again today.

There certainly are some easily quantifiable aspects of my job with Envacon that make it superior to what has come before it. My annual salary is higher, if only marginally, than what I made at Entrec. I have a private office just like a did at Armour Clad (and while the new office is half the size, my office at Armour Clad was right by the bathroom, and the acoustics from there carried too well.) And while FA gave me good hardware, and Metal Fab gave me top end software, Envacon is the first to give me a high end computer plus all the software I need to actually get my job done.

But the thing is, I've done the "look at why this job is better than my last" rig-a-more-roll before. I argued for each of my jobs in 2013 that they were the job I have been waiting for, that I would like to work and stay at for years to come. Everyone of those predictions failed, so why wouldn't this one? A big part of what made those predictions failures is that they were predictions in the face of negative perceptions; I wanted to love the jobs I got, and so when I saw things that bothered me I buried those feeling deep, then would write the praises of the new job.

The day I arrived at Entrec they didn't have a desk for me; that problem would never be resolved. I worked in a small room with two other guys, and but for my boss and the IT manager I never even got a hello from another person in the building. I had a leery feeling about the place from day one, and it never went away. Because I didn't have my own desk I had my trainer sitting next to me watching and critiquing my ever click, and that is in the end what led to my being fired.

I praised Entrec for the money, the shorter commute, and how interesting the work sounded. Though the positives were never enough to balance the negatives, and I was doomed to lose that job

The day I met Ken, the owner of Armour Clad I felt he was someone I would have trouble working for; he was both an egomaniac and a micro-manager. I didn't like that he wanted me to take a big pay cut for the first 90 days I worked there, with the understanding he would bring my pay up at the end of the 90 days.

I praised Armour Clad for the giant private office they gave me, and for giving me a chance to be an estimator. However, I would learn fairly quickly that what I liked so much about estimating in school, is just a small part of what the job involves in real life, and I despise what estimating is really about. Its just as well Ken fired me, because I probably wouldn't have lasted much longer.

While I perhaps ignored some strong warning signs at Entrec and Armour Clad, I can probably forgive myself for not paying attention to the signs of trouble at Metal Fab. Metal Fab are a bunch of cheapskates. Just walking in the building last summer it was easy to see that the furniture was old and the building was ancient and in need of repairs. All over the building were signs of just how cheap the company was. Most obvious to me was that as a drafter I didn't get a real cube,  my monitors were rather small, my computer was very slow, and for one crucial piece of software we didn't have enough licenses.

I praised Metal Fab because it seemed like a good fit for my skills and everyone there was genuinely a pleasure to work with. But on day one I was bothered by the the company's unwillingness to invest in vital equipment; I should have guessed that would also mean that they would rather lay off skilled workers than pay them during a down turn.

And so that brings me back to my new company Envacon.

As of yesterday, this is my life.

Before I say anything else about them, I should explain how I got the position. A friend put me in touch with them just after they received notice from their Mech Tech that he would be leaving. I was told it was too soon for them to do an interview, but that they would love to have a short cup of coffee with me. A short coffee turned into a long coffee, turned into a tour of the facility and meeting the other owner. By the end of two hours they had all but told me I was going to be hired, and the next day they made it official.

I have had to fight tooth and nail for pretty much every job I've ever gotten. Not being much of a people person, I am lousy at networking, and so I have never been hired like this before. I can't tell you how good getting this job in this way made me feel; for once I feel like a company truly wants me rather than is merely settling on me.

The only reservations or bad feelings I have ever had about this job are that I have worried a little bit that I am in over my head (which they have done a wonderful job of lessening by making it clear that I will not be expect to learn things fast nor truly replace the eight year veteran whose job I am getting) and it has occurred to me that with the owners of the company being in their late 50s that they might just sell the company off when they reach a certain age.

So to end things on a high note, here's a quick list of all the awesome things about my new job

• Very short commute
• Job has a lot of variety
• Pay is the highest annual salary I've ever received (though lack of benefits lessens this)
• A lot of my previous skills are relevant to the job (even help desk)
• I will be learning a lot of new skills that are very marketable
• Job will help me get my CET and other certifications
• Private office, 2nd floor with nice view
• Bosses seem like two of the nicest bosses I have ever met

Some Things to Like About 2013

2013 has been a year that it would be very easy for me to declare was an awful year on so many levels; we spent the entire year on the verge of bankruptcy, I was separated from my wife for a time, my wife tried to commit suicide, my son suffered a scary head injury, and I have been unemployed on four different occasions (just to name a few things).

I really want to take a moment to find some good things about what feels like 365 days of an elephant sitting on me, but before I do I am going to lay down some ground rules. First of all, I am not going to cite "at least I'm not" as a good thing (like "at least I don't live in a country that's having a civil war"); it is a great privilege to live in the country, and the time period that I do and have the opportunities I have had in my life, but the human brain is not wired to weigh such hypothetical scenarios as heavily as actual events in one's life, so for this exercise I will not invoke them.

Obviously anyone in the Savar Upazila building collapse
had a much worse year than me.

Second of all, I am not going to cite any things that might have happened, but did not, as good things (like "my wife's suicide attempt failed"); I feel that doing this is calling back to the bad events surrounding the near miss, and so such good things are tarnished. So with those two rules in mind, here is my list.


1. Margaret was diagnosed with BPD. Usually a person being diagnosed with any condition is not considered a good thing, but the condition itself is not new, its just that it was previously not diagnosed. With a proper diagnosis we can figure out how to live a life together that is a more happy one. In the past (before she was diagnosed) I frequently held hope that various BPD symptoms of Margaret's would just go away given time, and while it is now obvious that such hope was absurd, there is now real reason to believe that in time such symptoms may be lessened and controlled.


2. I have more of a sense of purpose with regards to my career. While this year has seen a great deal of upheaval in my job situation, leaving my cozy, but chaotic job at Fuller Austin has given me a chance to sample different possible jobs I might do as a Mech Tech. While at the start of the year I really didn't know what I should do with this education, today I feel that my best bet would be to continue to pursue drafting jobs, with the thought that given a better situation than the one I had at Entrec doing lift studies might work for me too.


3. I have learned a lot. 2013 was the year that watching edutainment videos and reading informative articles became my biggest "time wasters". Simply put, I am a smarter person than I was a year ago.


4. I have lost some weight. Not a lot, either in raw numbers or as a portion of what I need to lose, but the last I checked I am merely over-weight instead of obese as I had been for a couple of years. No doubt my part-time job at the theatre is helpful in this regard.


5. I have some good friends. I have always been a bit of a loner; actually I have always been a lot of a loner. And furthermore I have pretty low self-esteem, so I tend to assume that everybody else is as ambivalent about me as I am about them. But the last few months it feels like friends, old and new, have conspired to show me that maybe I do matter, and maybe I have actually positively influenced some people and maybe some people really do care.


That's all for now.

Happy New Year everyone!