Category Archives: the ongoing saga of my job

the ongoing saga of my job 1 Comment

On The New Job

I’ll bet you’re all wondering how my first two days at the new job went. Well, wonder no more!

Yesterday was mainly Orientation: all about benefits and office tours and videos and fingerprints and forms and more videos and — OMG, I saw “W” from Good Eats (aka Vickie Eng) in one of my orientation videos! Squee!

Ahem. Anyway, yeah, orientation took up the vast majority of my Monday. I did spend about the last hour of my day actually in my department, being introduced to everyone, then reading some online training materials about the application I’ll be using.

Some other randomness about my first day:

  • I was so proud to have secured myself a parking spot in the really close parking garage. The attendant (an attendant in a parking garage?) directed me to park in a corner, by a wall, under a bulkhead. He had to direct me to help me get into the space, and I had to duck to get in and out of the car. And I had to have exact change for the SEVEN DOLLARS it cost to park there for the day. Lesson learned; the garage next door is only $3.
  • The restaurant downstairs brings up sandwiches and salads to sell on the sixth floor eating area. I hadn’t brought any lunch with me, since I didn’t know if I’d have access to a refrigerator, so I bought a $3 tuna salad sandwich for lunch. It was quite good.
  • My company pays for half of our parking costs, once our benefits officially kick in. So, after January 1, I’ll only have to pay thirty-some dollars a month for parking, instead of $3 a day (roughly $70 a month).
  • There’s a fitness center on the first floor. It costs about $25 per month to use. They give you a locker, and they wash your gym clothes every week. Wow.

Today involved more reading of online training materials, learning about the company, and trying to develop a routine. I brought my small Hotei (Laughing Buddha) figurine from home, and brought my wall calendar and wedding picture from my box of stuff from my old job. My desk is at least starting to feel like my own space.

I’m discovering that I’m really a creature of habit, be that a good or bad thing. I’m entitled to two 15-minute breaks and a 45-minute lunch, but I’m not really used to taking breaks. I’m also not sure if eating at my desk is expected or OK or what, since we do have a “pantry” on our floor, with a fridge and a microwave. As far as what to do on my lunch break… I haven’t been listening to my iPod, in favor of just walking around downtown, then walking down the riverside before going back to work. (I never realized that Toledo had such gorgeous views.) Today, I walked downstairs for my lunch walk instead of taking the elevator. All twelve floors. It really wasn’t bad. I think I might make that part of my lunch routine. Still, I think I’d feel more comfortable if I had someone I could hang out with for a week or so, do the break and lunch thing with, and just kind of learn the social ropes.

Speaking of social, I never realized how the four-person cubes at my old job affected our interactions. The new person would meet at least one other person and get to feel comfortable with that person, and the cube walls were short enough to see over when standing or walking. At my new job, I have SO MUCH ROOM in my cube, it’s indecent. I’m all crammed into one corner of it, though, just because I’m not used to having so much room to spread out. The walls are tall enough that I can’t see when people walk by, except maybe the tops of their heads, with makes it a challenge to socialize. It’s just little old me with my back to the cube door, reading my training materials and hoping to get up to speed. People have stopped in to say hello and welcome, but I can count the visits on one hand. I’ll get used to it, I’m sure.

Oh, and it’s SO QUIET! Did I mention that? So, so quiet. It’s weird.

Except for my computer, which sounds like it’s going to take flight any moment.

Hmm, what else to mention…? Oh, yes. I believe there is a corollary to Murphy’s Law regarding work photo IDs. The day my hair is greasier than hell will always be the day when I’m unexpectedly required to have an ID photo taken. RCC, Sky, and now here. At least I can get in to work now, I guess.

I’m currently in a 90-day orientation period, during which time I need to be on my bestest behavior and not call in sick and not be late (like they’d even know, since I’m salary) and do good and learn lots. And not abuse the work e-mail system. So, I guess this is the end of blogging via e-mail from work (and super-long e-mail volleys with friends) for now. Ah, well.

Honestly? I think that, once I get the hang of this MicroStrategy thing and get a better understanding of Data Warehousing, this job will really be up my alley. It seems like a great transition from what I was doing at Sky to a more IT-centric career.

jobhunt 8 Comments

New Job Happy Dance

It’s true: after being unemployed for almost six weeks, I have accepted a job offer!

I’ll be working in downtown Toledo, on the 12th floor of a corporate office building across from Promenade Park. I will also be making more than twice what I made in my previous job: an increase in salary of 114%, to be exact. Aaron and I will be on equal financial footing — actually, I’ll be making just a little more than he makes, to tell the truth.

The main thing, though, is that I’ll be working in the Information Services department, in Data Warehousing. The change of industry has to be the biggest benefit of this entire severance situation.

My start date is one week from today, at which time I get to report to Orientation at 8:30am. On Aaron’s birthday. Which he requested off from work. But it’s all good, since we’ll get to go to dinner together on his birthday. Yay!

So, when’s a good time for the Diana Got A Job Party that I promised you all…? I’m thinking Saturday the 17th, evening? Who’s in?

jobhunt 1 Comment

Second Interview Results

You know, I’m not entirely sure how that went.

I spoke briefly with my potential supervisor’s supervisor, and that seemed to go well. More of the same: Tell me about the Access tracking database, etc. Then I met with two senior team members, who asked me more technical questions: How many tables were in your database? How many columns in the main table? What kinds of reports did you create?

Then I got the SQL test.

First question: Write pseudocode to generate the first 10 numbers of the Fibonacci sequence: (0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34)

Took me a second to remember / deduce what the Fibonacci sequence was (add the two previous numbers to get the next number). Then I was all, OK, do while loop / for next loop, something like that. Counter variable going up to 10, sure. But I never figured out how to set variables for the previous two numbers, or to do the calculation mathematically. So, they got part of my logic behind it, but not a correct answer.

After that were a couple of query questions that should have been easy, but weren’t. After those were a bunch of definition questions, some of which I farted my way through (“What is normalization and when would you go for it?”) and some of which I skipped (“What is a transaction?”). All in all, I answered probably half the questions on the quiz, and got some of those mostly correct. Some of them I knew how to answer in the context of Access, but not SQL (“How do you define a one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many relationship between tables?”).

After the test, my potential supe came in and told me that the test is mainly to see where I stand programming-wise and what my problem-solving thought process is like. He stressed that in entry-level positions, they don’t have much to look at with regards to a body of work, so the test serves to give them an idea of where each applicant stands.

The Powers That Be will be convening by week’s end to decide who gets the job. I’ll keep you all updated.

P.S. – I wore my traditional Halloween dangly bat earrings to the interview. No one noticed. At least Jess noticed when I wore them to Eric and Jess’s reception on Saturday. 🙂

jobhunt 1 Comment

Interview Today: Results

Today’s interview — number two since the job hunt began in April — was for a large health care company whose corporate offices are located in downtown Toledo. (Let’s skip the company name and keep Google out of this, yes?) The position in question is in Data Warehousing, which deals with getting data into the warehouse and spitting that data back out in the form of reports.

I arrived a little early, located the building (again — I interviewed here a few years back), and went across the street to spend ten minutes at Promenade Park. Beautiful day, gentle breeze, very calming.

(By the way? On my way up into the parking garage before this, I saw a vanity license plate that made me laugh out loud: PWN3D. I *so* wished I would have had my camera on me.)

Once I went into the building, I was taken upstairs by an HR representative to fill out some standard paperwork: OKs for background checks, stuff like that. Then I was taken upstairs for my interview.

Things that went right:

  • My new interview pantsuit is *killer*. I looked perfectly professional (IMO), and didn’t feel fussy about my clothes or awkward about my bearing.
  • I successfully portrayed my ability to learn on the fly, to keep myself busy and productive, and to try to better myself and my department. A lot of this had to do with my resume, though.
  • I had plenty of relevant questions to ask.

Things that I could have done better:

  • Interview questions for which I was not prepared: “Why do you want to work for our company?” and “What did you like the least about your previous jobs?”
  • OMG I forgot to bring my references! Sheesh. The last time I used my fancy black folder was when I went to the job fair, so it was full to the brim of unstapled two-page resumes. It should have been full of the job description printout, a resume, and my references. No worries, though; I asked the HR rep if I could e-mail them to her later, and she in turn gave me not only her card, but an entire folder with info on benefits.

Overall, the interviewer (my potential supervisor) said he sees potential in me, and that appears to be my strongest quality. I honestly don’t know much about their software, but I know I can learn, and I can bring my design and layout experience to the table when it comes to actual reports.

There would be some awesome benefits to working here. The office has a fantastic view of Promenade Park, right on the river, and three of the building’s five elevators face the river. There would be no worries about having a place to walk during my lunches, either. As for more company-related bennies, I’d be eligible for software training, including Microsoft. They also seem to have a pretty decent health plan, so Aaron and I would need to compare policies and see whether I should spend the money on my own company’s insurance plan. (Insurance is covered in Aaron’s union dues, so the plan would have to kick a lot of ass for me to buy my own.)

I should be hearing back from my interviewer by late this week or early next week to see whether I get a second interview. I’ll keep you all updated!