Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
The LORD is on my side; I will not fear
Back in June 2016, I was laid off and my official last day was July 1, 2016.
When I found out, I was relieved and worried to some extent, as I believe I wrote here when it happened.
Since then, I had both knees successfully replaced, started receiving unemployment, and have been faithfully looking for another job.
I have only doubted and been angry with the Lord on a few occasions. Mostly these were driven by pain and response to Ellie's anxiety directed towards me.
From the time I was laid off until now, I haven't really doubted that we would ever go hungry, be late on bills or have other problems.
Just before Christmas, I applied for a job that I received as an email alert through a popular job site. The next day, I received a phone call asking if I was available for an interview. I said yes, and I was told it may happen that afternoon!
The interview wound up taking place after Christmas. The official job offer was pretty close to what I was making. About $7k short of what I was making, which was a LOT of money. This still, is a LOT of money.
Due to the nature of the job, I needed to get government/military security clearance. All of the initial paperwork took me an entire day+ to fill out, sign, fax, scan and email back to my new employer for preparing the clearance process.
The usual drug screening required for this took place, and I had to provide pictures of my Rx bottle(s) to validate some of the pain medications in my system.
Everything there cleared.
Then I had to fill out MORE paperwork, and then go through another security clearance process to get it directly authorized by the agency I am going to work for.
Again, everything there cleared.
I start work this week at home filling out forms. Due to MLK day, I will work on location on Tuesday.
While many others were worried that I wasn't going to find employment, I wasn't fearful.
I was worried and concerned, but I wasn't afraid.
My biggest concern was that I might need to apply for disability sooner than later, because my medication might cause some employers to forgo the validation process.
Going even further with the latency of employment, many of the employers I met with either didn't want to meet my desired salary range, didn't like that I wasn't as "certified" JAVA developer (The language is a C language and it's damn easy to read... so WTF?)....
AND...
I ran into an old coworker that I trained many years earlier, who told me that he had been laid off as had another large group of people too.
Our local market place is flooded by people in my industry.
My new job isn't in software development, however, it is in a technical support type of role....
BUT...
It's the organization that I am contracted to work with that makes me proud to accept the lower pay... which is actually higher than the pay I was willing to accept.
It should be good!
When I found out, I was relieved and worried to some extent, as I believe I wrote here when it happened.
Since then, I had both knees successfully replaced, started receiving unemployment, and have been faithfully looking for another job.
I have only doubted and been angry with the Lord on a few occasions. Mostly these were driven by pain and response to Ellie's anxiety directed towards me.
From the time I was laid off until now, I haven't really doubted that we would ever go hungry, be late on bills or have other problems.
Just before Christmas, I applied for a job that I received as an email alert through a popular job site. The next day, I received a phone call asking if I was available for an interview. I said yes, and I was told it may happen that afternoon!
The interview wound up taking place after Christmas. The official job offer was pretty close to what I was making. About $7k short of what I was making, which was a LOT of money. This still, is a LOT of money.
Due to the nature of the job, I needed to get government/military security clearance. All of the initial paperwork took me an entire day+ to fill out, sign, fax, scan and email back to my new employer for preparing the clearance process.
The usual drug screening required for this took place, and I had to provide pictures of my Rx bottle(s) to validate some of the pain medications in my system.
Everything there cleared.
Then I had to fill out MORE paperwork, and then go through another security clearance process to get it directly authorized by the agency I am going to work for.
Again, everything there cleared.
I start work this week at home filling out forms. Due to MLK day, I will work on location on Tuesday.
While many others were worried that I wasn't going to find employment, I wasn't fearful.
I was worried and concerned, but I wasn't afraid.
My biggest concern was that I might need to apply for disability sooner than later, because my medication might cause some employers to forgo the validation process.
Going even further with the latency of employment, many of the employers I met with either didn't want to meet my desired salary range, didn't like that I wasn't as "certified" JAVA developer (The language is a C language and it's damn easy to read... so WTF?)....
AND...
I ran into an old coworker that I trained many years earlier, who told me that he had been laid off as had another large group of people too.
Our local market place is flooded by people in my industry.
My new job isn't in software development, however, it is in a technical support type of role....
BUT...
It's the organization that I am contracted to work with that makes me proud to accept the lower pay... which is actually higher than the pay I was willing to accept.
It should be good!
Friday, December 9, 2016
Need to find your family? Win the Lottery... or join Facebook.
I recently joined the existing shit load of people on Facebook.
Immediately after I created my account added only my sisters as friends, ALL of my family was befriending me. I felt like the pork chop tied around the neck of the ugly kid to get the dog to play with him.
The reason why I joined Facebook was to promote my self-publishing efforts I'm doing through the Amazon Kindle Self Publishing service.
It's really a nasty bit of mobbing by everyone on there.
You can't post any read only comments/updates.
This means EVERYONE can post to your comment...
I've had brothers post "cute" dumbass replies, and my own mom replying to a post... "why doesn't my little boy call?"
WTF posts like that?
If you want...
SHIT.
What a FUBAR system. I'm really close to just cutting the whole fucking thing off. Except that I want to promote my books/stories.
It's not easy being cheesy... or was it being green?
Recently though, I noticed one of my nieces posting about mental health troubles...
I know what that's like to go through. It appears that it's all brand new to her.
I suggested that she watch the videos from BipolarStateOfBeing on YouTube. Not the newest ones, but the original ones from 5+ years ago. They helped me the most.
Originally I thought about letting her know about this blog... but I really don't want this to get around to my brothers, sisters, parents, etc. then back around to my family here. Especially back to Ellie.
I suppose when/if I die, then Ellie will know about this blog, and so will the Misses. Until then, I'll just keep doing what I do.
It's healthy to journal your life, and even if this is just one side of my life, it's OK.
At least, my family gets to eventually see this part of my life, if they do at all.
Immediately after I created my account added only my sisters as friends, ALL of my family was befriending me. I felt like the pork chop tied around the neck of the ugly kid to get the dog to play with him.
The reason why I joined Facebook was to promote my self-publishing efforts I'm doing through the Amazon Kindle Self Publishing service.
It's really a nasty bit of mobbing by everyone on there.
You can't post any read only comments/updates.
This means EVERYONE can post to your comment...
I've had brothers post "cute" dumbass replies, and my own mom replying to a post... "why doesn't my little boy call?"
WTF posts like that?
If you want...
SHIT.
What a FUBAR system. I'm really close to just cutting the whole fucking thing off. Except that I want to promote my books/stories.
It's not easy being cheesy... or was it being green?
Recently though, I noticed one of my nieces posting about mental health troubles...
I know what that's like to go through. It appears that it's all brand new to her.
I suggested that she watch the videos from BipolarStateOfBeing on YouTube. Not the newest ones, but the original ones from 5+ years ago. They helped me the most.
Originally I thought about letting her know about this blog... but I really don't want this to get around to my brothers, sisters, parents, etc. then back around to my family here. Especially back to Ellie.
I suppose when/if I die, then Ellie will know about this blog, and so will the Misses. Until then, I'll just keep doing what I do.
It's healthy to journal your life, and even if this is just one side of my life, it's OK.
At least, my family gets to eventually see this part of my life, if they do at all.
While you were away, we changed the keys to the locks, and repainted your bedroom neon green!
It's been many moons and Google/Blogger went and changed all their UI on here.
I don't think it's too bad, but it's a change I wasn't expecting.
It looks and feels more like a Fisher Price toy.
Honestly, I don't know why everyone has to add more and more icons, instead of menus with words. Are people getting that stupid that they can't READ?
"Back in the days" when I started with computers I had DOS, which on its own was a bit of a learning process... HOWEVER, the applications, except for a few, all had what were called, "MENUS". They were all written in "English", which meant you had to read the screen to figure out what to do. Maybe I'm too simple minded, that adding more graphics and less words to the screen is stupid. Okay, it really is stupid to take away the menus... especially the shortcut references! Microsoft has been doing this for years and now I'm even more frustrated, because I don't want to take my hands from the keyboard to do something. This really applies to adding new keyboard shortcuts for features I use a lot more. (Mostly bullets and numbered lists.)
Oh well... it seems like the best way to do anything for people out there is to just make it stupid proof.
I'm a bit miffed now, and this diatribe won't lead to any sort of update to my life...
I guess I'll write another entry after I publish this one...
I don't think it's too bad, but it's a change I wasn't expecting.
It looks and feels more like a Fisher Price toy.
Honestly, I don't know why everyone has to add more and more icons, instead of menus with words. Are people getting that stupid that they can't READ?
"Back in the days" when I started with computers I had DOS, which on its own was a bit of a learning process... HOWEVER, the applications, except for a few, all had what were called, "MENUS". They were all written in "English", which meant you had to read the screen to figure out what to do. Maybe I'm too simple minded, that adding more graphics and less words to the screen is stupid. Okay, it really is stupid to take away the menus... especially the shortcut references! Microsoft has been doing this for years and now I'm even more frustrated, because I don't want to take my hands from the keyboard to do something. This really applies to adding new keyboard shortcuts for features I use a lot more. (Mostly bullets and numbered lists.)
Oh well... it seems like the best way to do anything for people out there is to just make it stupid proof.
I'm a bit miffed now, and this diatribe won't lead to any sort of update to my life...
I guess I'll write another entry after I publish this one...
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Being unemployed is a lot of work..
I never wanted to use social media. I still feel that it exposes you to the world, and then you need to watch what you post and what other people post about you.
Previous to being unemployed, I was almost completely missing, even though I've had a huge presence through my coding and technical documents I wrote for my employer.
Since my name was never published with my technical articles or my applications and utilities, I really don't have any proof for new employers of what I've done.
The source code I wrote for those utilities belongs to my last employer, so I cannot even share it or possibly even use it with a new employer.
So, what do I have to show for my work?
"Hey, I have written lots of technical docs, busted out hundreds of thousands of lines of code... but I can't prove it aside from just saying it."
Kinda fucked up when you're working with the intellectual rights between employers.
Going back to all the work, I spent many hours setting up a Facebook account ot use for promoting my books & stories.
It turned more into a shit fest of: "Oh, look there's my brother... oh look there's my little boy... oh look there's... Oh, that picture is Awesome! 45 people "liked" your photo(s)..."
So WTF?
Why do I need to be notified that someone liked a picture of my bare ass?
I mean seriously?
Who cares?
I updated my profile photo with a picture taken 5 years ago, and everyone is like, "Wow, that's a great photo.".... and all I want to say is... "yeah it is... All of you have copies of it from the same damn family reunion we were all at!"
Then there's my mom... "I need you to call me..." "That's a great photo of my "little boy""... Holy shit! WTF would someone post shit like that to a site where most of that shit is public?
I should post something like, "here's the damn bitchy lady who used to yell at me about how poor my fucking grades were" OR "Thanks for yelling at us kids for not putting the fucking lights on the Christmas trees correctly, when you wouldn't do it or even show us WTF you wanted done!" OR "WTF didn't you get an idea that I was depressed and my grades were bad about it.... Why couldn't you try and help me, instead of yelling at me!?"
I setup a LinkedIn account, and spent several days filling in the various parts of the forms, and employers, and work experience, and projects I worked on, and then "connecting" with all the people I worked with over the years.
Now, the people I connected with are those that I trust. There are shit loads of others from my last employer that I really, REALLY don't want to be associated with.
Hell most of the people aside from those I actually like are complete assholes!
Some of them are idiots and can't pour water from a boot with instructions on its heel.
A lot of them are heavy drinkers and drug users... Yet, since this employer didn't do any drug screening, nothing was found, even though they were pretty damn fucked up sometimes.
So, getting back to LinkedIn (again), I think that I am now publicly visible through Google searches... Whoopie fucking deal.
Actually, I did several searches on my first & last name, then first name, middle initial, last name.
I found only "public" phone records, and a reference to my Facebook profile.
Otherwise, I am going to be confused with LOTS of other people with the same name, including several sports stars.
In short, it seems like a lot of fucking work for almost nothing...
Except that I had a great phone interview for an IT position, where the interviewer said she wants to meet with me and their other IT people for a formal interview.
w00t!?
I need the job... but I'm not sure how excited I am yet..
At least today I'm not feeling very excited.
I haven't been sleeping good for a variety of things.. one might be the pain in my legs still... (duh) Another would be heavy caffeine use from not sleeping... (duh, again) another could be the drop in pain medication.
The pain I have is being controlled almost completely with Acetaminophen these days instead of the opiods I had been taking.
It's a great thing to be off of them, for the most part... but it's also a possible reason why I'm not sleeping good.. it's allowing the pain to hit me harder at night, when the small doses I took through the day have worn off.
Right now, I am taken less than 1/8th of what I was taking three weeks ago. In fact, I'm taking less than 1/2 of what I was using last week.
Hell, I'm not even using the muscle relaxers on any sort of regular basis. I took some last night because I hurt my back on Saturday... and to hope they'd help put me to sleep... (HA!)
I did manage to sleep 4 hours last night, and if it continues with caffeine use the rest of the week... can anyone say... "Welcome to the Himalayas?" I mean... "Welcome to a good old mania time?"
Oh fucking well.
Previous to being unemployed, I was almost completely missing, even though I've had a huge presence through my coding and technical documents I wrote for my employer.
Since my name was never published with my technical articles or my applications and utilities, I really don't have any proof for new employers of what I've done.
The source code I wrote for those utilities belongs to my last employer, so I cannot even share it or possibly even use it with a new employer.
So, what do I have to show for my work?
"Hey, I have written lots of technical docs, busted out hundreds of thousands of lines of code... but I can't prove it aside from just saying it."
Kinda fucked up when you're working with the intellectual rights between employers.
Going back to all the work, I spent many hours setting up a Facebook account ot use for promoting my books & stories.
It turned more into a shit fest of: "Oh, look there's my brother... oh look there's my little boy... oh look there's... Oh, that picture is Awesome! 45 people "liked" your photo(s)..."
So WTF?
Why do I need to be notified that someone liked a picture of my bare ass?
I mean seriously?
Who cares?
I updated my profile photo with a picture taken 5 years ago, and everyone is like, "Wow, that's a great photo.".... and all I want to say is... "yeah it is... All of you have copies of it from the same damn family reunion we were all at!"
Then there's my mom... "I need you to call me..." "That's a great photo of my "little boy""... Holy shit! WTF would someone post shit like that to a site where most of that shit is public?
I should post something like, "here's the damn bitchy lady who used to yell at me about how poor my fucking grades were" OR "Thanks for yelling at us kids for not putting the fucking lights on the Christmas trees correctly, when you wouldn't do it or even show us WTF you wanted done!" OR "WTF didn't you get an idea that I was depressed and my grades were bad about it.... Why couldn't you try and help me, instead of yelling at me!?"
Now, enough with bitching about Facebook and the idiots who use it.Getting back to working hard being unemployed.
I setup a LinkedIn account, and spent several days filling in the various parts of the forms, and employers, and work experience, and projects I worked on, and then "connecting" with all the people I worked with over the years.
Now, the people I connected with are those that I trust. There are shit loads of others from my last employer that I really, REALLY don't want to be associated with.
Hell most of the people aside from those I actually like are complete assholes!
Some of them are idiots and can't pour water from a boot with instructions on its heel.
A lot of them are heavy drinkers and drug users... Yet, since this employer didn't do any drug screening, nothing was found, even though they were pretty damn fucked up sometimes.
So, getting back to LinkedIn (again), I think that I am now publicly visible through Google searches... Whoopie fucking deal.
Actually, I did several searches on my first & last name, then first name, middle initial, last name.
I found only "public" phone records, and a reference to my Facebook profile.
Otherwise, I am going to be confused with LOTS of other people with the same name, including several sports stars.
In short, it seems like a lot of fucking work for almost nothing...
Except that I had a great phone interview for an IT position, where the interviewer said she wants to meet with me and their other IT people for a formal interview.
w00t!?
I need the job... but I'm not sure how excited I am yet..
At least today I'm not feeling very excited.
I haven't been sleeping good for a variety of things.. one might be the pain in my legs still... (duh) Another would be heavy caffeine use from not sleeping... (duh, again) another could be the drop in pain medication.
The pain I have is being controlled almost completely with Acetaminophen these days instead of the opiods I had been taking.
It's a great thing to be off of them, for the most part... but it's also a possible reason why I'm not sleeping good.. it's allowing the pain to hit me harder at night, when the small doses I took through the day have worn off.
Right now, I am taken less than 1/8th of what I was taking three weeks ago. In fact, I'm taking less than 1/2 of what I was using last week.
Hell, I'm not even using the muscle relaxers on any sort of regular basis. I took some last night because I hurt my back on Saturday... and to hope they'd help put me to sleep... (HA!)
I did manage to sleep 4 hours last night, and if it continues with caffeine use the rest of the week... can anyone say... "Welcome to the Himalayas?" I mean... "Welcome to a good old mania time?"
Oh fucking well.