Keep the faith, and trust God. He has a plan for you. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Great to hear from you, Brian.

Actually this possibility didn’t pan out. I can’t remember how many interviews I’ve had since. It hasn’t been a lot. I had an interview last week that I didn’t think went well at all, but I got a call about an hour and a half ago that suggests they’re very interested in me.

I’d be lying if I said I’m not bitter. I am. Some days are worse than others. Due to getting married, I missed the recent sermon at church on vengeance vs. forgiveness. I needed that one. But I do know that all the people whose opinions matter believe my ex-employer made a mistake. And there’s no point in me spewing bile in their direction. The recruiters already know about my former employer. They have a reputation, and if I spew, it reflects a lot more badly on me than it does on them.

I believe I will land on my feet fairly soon. In the meantime I’ve been selling off anything of value that I don’t need anymore and I know I won’t miss, picking up gigs here and there, and doing anything else I can think of to slow the bleeding. It’s hard on my own to make enough to pay the mortgage, but I can at least pay my other bills with it.

My best advice to anyone is to never think of yourself as indispensible. Keep an eye on Dice.com and Monster even if you’re not looking. Make sure you’re qualified for the jobs that are out there now and tomorrow. For example, right now it seems like Windows sysadmins are expected to know SQL Server too. Three years ago they weren’t. I should have had a SQL Server running in my basement, and I didn’t. If I had, I’d have a job now, and I’d probably be making 10 grand more than I’m likely to make now.

As recently as January I was told (by someone who ought to know) I was indispensible. Four months later I was out the door. Things can change in a heartbeat, so it makes sense to be prepared for the worst.

It could be worse. I’m integral where I work – I thought. I designed the entire system in 2000: the network, the database, the application, everything that runs the company. In 2003 after we had doubled in size I started seeing cracks in the system. In 2004 the foundation was going to pieces. Now it’s 2005 and all hell has broken loose in our network. I told them in 2003 we needed to begin looking at a reorganization/rewrite/restructure of the application and network. I told them again in 2004, and many times in 2005.

With the foundation going to pieces I finally got permission to "hide out and begin the reworking" of the application. I wish they’d have kept their word – I was just pulled off the reworking to architect a brand new expansion to our system for our customers that won’t ever be used simply because one of our competitors has it. I have to write this system before Memorial Day and it includes integration with a document management system that I haven’t seen the documentation/SDK for, is based on Java (I work in C#, so not a huge deal, but… a barrier nonetheless), and is completely foreign to me in terminology and definitions.

Oh, and one of my two guys under me (or not; I was told by legal that I no longer had any employees I was managing but never by my boss, so I don’t know whether I’m a manager or not) quit. We found a replacement but since July is a 3 payroll month we’re not going to let him start work until August 5th.

I’m down a guy, I have a new project, I have a system self destructing under me, and they don’t want to pay for an extra guy.

The kicker for me was when they asked me if I’d be upset if they purchased a prepackaged solution. "Uh, no, go for it." They’d rather spend $500,000.00 (minimum) on software then pay a guy for three payrolls to help me get ahead. Not only that but the prepackaged solutions don’t let you tie an extranet in – you have to hire the solution provider to do that. You can’t create your own reports – hire the solution provider. I’d love to see my employer try and work with a software product they can’t twist and modify to do things their way – honestly.

(For those who are wondering why my application’s lifetime was only 3 years before cracks started: I wrote the application in 3 months. It replaced an application that had been developed over 12 years. The system was written when my employer had 20 or so offices. Currently we have 80 offices. In 1999 we had 150 full time users. We now have 400 full time users. The application was designed around a lot of things that were later removed; this hurt the base design. Etc.)

So it could be worse. You could be working for a company you used to love who has slowly fallen apart, trying to ensure your legacy doesn’t become "oh man he wrote that crappy system that fell apart." A clean break and new employment — that’d be great in a lot of ways.

Hopefully if you go to work there it is big enough to be somewhat financially stable and to need enough technical sophistication to satisfy you.

It’d certainly be nice to start married life with the job situation settled.

Good luck!

—
-Steve

The wedding, you mean? Two weeks from today.

I’ve considered changing fields but that’s probably not in my best interests right now. I think I’ll like IT when I’m not pigeonholed. The biggest problem with the last 7 years of my life is I’ve always been just one thing: If wasn’t the Mac guy, I was the Backup Exec guy. I do better when I’m doing a lot of different things.

Good luck, bud…

Best of all, I now have the energy and desire to work on my little personal computing projects at home. It’s not my job anymore, so my hobby has become fun again.

I’m glad things are working out for you. When’s the big day, by the way?

—
Dustin D. Cook, A+
dcook32p@htcomp.net