A good friend told me on Friday last week that I would have a job Wednesday. She didn’t have inside information or anything dramatic. She simply said “I have faith.” Her faith, and the faith of many others, has help to carry Tammy and I through to this day.
Yesterday was a second job interview with [Integrated Solutions Group](http://isgtech.com) and I think it went well. I hope to hear something from them today and get moving in a positive direction.
Big news: someone wants to buy our house. Bad news: I still don’t have a job. Monday or Tuesday, I’ll find out if I can go to work for a great company, still doing the sales engineer job. By then, we’ll have paperwork done to sell our house and a closing date set. That means by the end of the week, we could be “homeless”. What more will happen?
I had two interviews yesterday and both look like very serious job prospects and would allow me to start immediately. One is for a competitor of my old company and I would be able to work for them with the blessing of my old boss. That has a lot a appeal because basically nothing would change–pay, work, products–are all the same.
The other job is back to my roots in IT. I’d be a local IT admin for global company and work on their phone systems too. In that case, pay would likely be the same, but everything else would change. I would be out of the “sales” race and working on projects that were driven by business goals and not sales comp goals.
The IT admin job is one I’d rather have. The sales environment is wearing on me. I’ve been doing it for 9 years, asking and answering some of the same questions and seeing more disappointments than successes. The sales side has huge benefits both technically and financially, and this company has a track record for success.
I’m not stopping yet, so today is a “get organized” day. I’m moving contacts from my old setup in Outlook to a new on one of our house computers. I can then make lists of names to call and set up appointments to meet and maybe find jobs. I don’t want to be to presumptuous so I ask for help, not a job. People like to help people (self included) and I’m hoping that approach nets the biggest gains.
Folks, I’m out of a job. For the first time in more than ten years, I’m looking for work. This means I’m open to any idea that help me pay my bills and avoid being a statistic.
The company I work for folded up, closing the offices they have in Springfield and Rogers, AR and that left me on the street. I knew it was coming, but only by a week. In that time, I’ve been putting the word out that I’m looking, but now I’m trying to keep the money coming in.
The time for pride is passing, so let me be clear. I need something in 30 days or less or Tammy and I could be your new roommates.
I hit my emotional and mental wall today. I had myself a good old-fashion cry. Work is weird and not very satisfying. My home is a mess and my interactions with Tammy have been short and frustrating. I desperately want to return to a life more normal but more than that, I want to move from this house to 1424 S. Charing. It’s the right house for us. I know we’ll be there and I know we’ll make it through this, but man, this is hard work.
So you’re asking yourself, what would make him break down? Try living for one month with constant clutter, disorganization, irregular meals, no social life while performing physical labor for 12 hours each day. Top it off with a bathroom in shambles so you can’t even shower in your own house. All of the time, every time the phone rings, you fear that the call is to tell you everything you’re working for is for nothing.
Don’t tell me *you* wouldn’t break down at some point. I made it almost three weeks.
The Fit hit 10,000 miles this morning!
Lists are easy to write and it keeps me posting. Here’s a list of Radiohead songs I like:
* 15 Step from the In Rainbow album. I paid real money for the album, mainly because I wanted to reward someone for taking the time to write the songs and not be a free loader. *My* reward is a song like this. It’s a deliciously different rhythm and sound than I would normally expect.
Some days, the web feels like 5 people trying to make something; 5k people turning it into a list; and 500MM people saying, ‘FAIL.’
(Via kottke.org remaindered links.)
So I want a different blogging system and here’s the basic requirements
* I need to be able to create generic text files and have them automatically rendered into HTML using templates.
* I want the automation to be simple enough to write in almost any scripting language
* The workflow should be write a file, save it, let the automation see it/render it/upload it
I want a new blogging system. Here’s my manifesto:
* All posts contained within individual text files
* The ability to edit locally and have changes synchronized to the website via SFTP (since [we shouldn’t be using FTP](http://stevenf.com/archive/dont-use-ftp.php))
* The automation and intelligence of the weblog system should be local to my machine and written in well-documented common scripting language
* The local software would render the text files to HTML that can be served by Apache with mod_rewrite enabled.
Ideas?
Steve Kirks 