It’s 8AM and I’m enjoying the last few days of vacation. I can call it vacation now because I can finally relax after signing offer letters and a stack of other paperwork last night. Interesting differences between a big company and a small company:

* Paperwork! There’s more paperwork but it’s useful and written well, clearly enough to help me make sense of my new obligations.
* Healthcare is better and less expensive and it becomes effective on Monday when I start.
* I don’t have to front my own money on behalf of the company. With daZZee, if I wanted to take a client to lunch, it was my money going out the door and sometimes as long as 45 days before I got it back. With CenturyTel, it’s a company credit card paying for the meal.
* There’s a company car for business travel and each car has a gas card in the glove compartment
* There’s a 401(k) saving plan *and* a pension.

From my friend Jason Buchanan via IM session:

> the other day the BBQ grill ran out of propane and I had forgotten that we were going to have steaks. so I hauled out one of my cast iron skillets and got it hot and put a big blob of butter in the skillet. my wife thought I was nuts but I explained to her that in french cooking everything (especially meat) is cooked in a skillet (on stove) with butter. she didn’t know how a filet and a sirloin strip would taste being cooked that way. I told her you could fry human shit in butter and it would taste good.

I start my new job at CenturyTel in Branson on September 15, one month after [daZZee](http://dazzee.com) shut down in Springfield. All that’s left to do is sign the offer letter and pass the “whiz quiz” and I go back to the working life.

Thanks to everyone who helped with prayer, advice, cash, food and even free workouts. Most will never know just how deeply we were touched by your generosity.

I’ve learned a few technical lessons while being without gainful employment. Technical people fall in to two broad categories: hardware geeks and software geeks. The more specific your knowledge is within those bounds, the greater your pay and the smaller the job pool. View the following in that light:

* Learn a broad skill from the other discipline. I’m a “hardware” guy, but I also know some basic skills within procedural programming. While I’m not an expert, I could hack something together with Perl or even PHP, but I found that if I’d known Javascript, I would have been better off finding part-time work. From the software side, a programmer would have an easy time finding temp work as a PC technician if they took the time to get a couple of simple certs like the CompTIA A+ or even Network+.

* There are more programming jobs out there than hardware jobs. Hardware maintenance and design is rapidly becoming a commodity skill. Higher-end design, say something that involves multiple cities, sites, security and network priorities still commands good pay and progressional respect. If you’re in a hardware-based job (network admin) then you need to ask yourself “what’s next”. The days of fast networks, defacto standardization of IP and the Cisco juggernaut have made the network admin job almost too easy.

* Software geeks should know three scripting or procedural language and one object-oriented language. For example, for a web developer it might be javascript, perl, PHP and Ruby. For a traditonal application developer it could be javascript, Java, Python and Objective-C. Pick your favorites–I’m not saying these examples are the ones to follow. Bonus points if you know Smalltalk or Lua.

* Don’t study for the job you have, study for the one you want. A few certifications are good, too many are bad so if your’re studying to be a CCIE, then you need to have an idea of the job you’re trying to get before you start down that road. If you’re a CCIE at a company that has no need for that knowledge, then you’ll become a liability. You’re overqualified for your job, no possibility for career advancement and your boss will likely be wondering if you’re heading out the door to the next place.

* If you’re not willing to move to a “top tier” tech city, then don’t become a “top tier” geek. Some software companies will tolerate remote talent, but most want their teams working together, eating pizza and losing sleep within 10 feet of each other for weeks at a time.

In the next post, we’ll talk about the businesses end of your career.

It’s hard to relax when I have this much uncertainty in my life.  The offer pending from CenturyTel removed just enough stress that I took Friday “off”, just like I didn’t have a care in the world.  I played with games on the Xbox that I’d let get dusty, downloaded some new cars and tracks for Forza 2 and then raced and ran some time trials.  I was finally able to relax and enjoy my time without work.

The best news has been that I’m finally able to get some sleep.  The last three nights I’ve slept eight hours straight through, something I really haven’t done in a month.

I got word yesterday from [CenturyTel](http://centurytel.com) that my offer letter is being prepped and the company president (!) has to approve my salary. My new boss was nice enough to push for a little extra to help cover the fact that I’ll be driving 80 miles round trip each day.

What does this mean?

* My new job uses the best experience gained from the last two jobs–design and pre-sales work.
* My new company is *very* stable
* Healthcare will be $150 less per month and I’ll get to stay with our existing provider.
* My pay will stay the same and the paycheck will come every two weeks instead of twice a month.
* We won’t have to deplete our savings
* I’ll start next week if all of the paperwork gets done today or Monday.

Once I have the offer letter in hand, I’ll be able to breathe a sigh of relief. Thanks to everyone who has kept Tammy and I sane through all of this. We’re in the home stretch–keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Al Dente: “Yesterday, Serious Eats reported on the Hot Beef Sundae trend that’s sweeping the country. The dish can be found across the nation at state fairs from Florida to Nebraska. The Hot Beef Sundae is comprised of mashed potatoes, roast beef, more mashed potatoes, gravy, cheese, and a cherry tomato.”

click through for the hot beef action photo…

Lesson 1: Have six months salary in the bank at all times

This is lesson is easy to remember and easy to forget.  You’ve all been told for years now to keep plenty of money in the bank for emergencies and unemployment is the reason why.  I didn’t keep nearly this much and I’m paying a heavy price.

Lesson 2: Always maintain your social network.

For technology people, maintaining a local network of people both professionally and social is hard work.  Most folks like me would rather spend their off hours studying technology or working on tech gear, but working the room at a chamber of commerce mixer is worth it’s weight in gold when you’re out of a job.  Also, as people get older, the too easily dismiss modern methods of social networking.  For example, I have a [Twitter](http://twitter.com/houseofwarwick) account but most people my age wouldn’t likely know what it was, let alone how to use it effectively.  Worse, it would be dismissed as a ‘waste of time’.  That’s exactly the wrong attitude to have.  I spent 2 hours updating mutual contacts in [LinkedIn](http://linkedin.com/in/stevekirks/) and found three people in this area that have good job leads for me.

Lesson 3: Structure your time.

Each day without a job should be treated like a regular work day.  Get up on time and get to the gym like always.  Be sure to leave the house and head for a library, Barnes and Noble, Starbuck or something to keep you in the public and “be seen”.  Set appointments with friends to explain your situation and ask for ideas.  Keeping a schedule means you get to feel like you’ve accomplished something at the end of the day and that’s important because without a job, most people feel a loss of self worth.

Lesson 4: Be upfront about your job loss.

I spent a couple of days being ashamed that I lost a job.  I wondered about blame (mine? theirs? who’s?) and even tried to reconstruct events to figure out where I went wrong.  In my case, the situation was more clear than others, so it was easy to move past the “blame game” and move on to getting the word out.  Call everyone you can and let them know.  The more people that know about your job loss means better chances at finding a new job.  It also means more people to look at your resumé that can give good feedback, helping your chances with recruiters and HR staff.

That’s all for now.  I’ve got more to write, but I’ve got work to do here at the house and (hopefully) an appointment later today.

Not everyone would complain about a three week vacation, but considering the circumstances, I’m ready to call it quits and get back behind a desk.  I should know something permanent about the new job by the end of the week, so I’m filling my time with odd tasks, mainly centered around the prevention of insanity.