The approximate schedule of events:
Jan 11, 12:15 PM: Phone rings. It's Conformia, a company that I'd applied to through Monster in mid-December. They want to know if I can come in for an interview. In four hours.
Jan 11: 4:00 PM: Interview. It goes really well. The people seem great, the work is interesting (interfaces for process control! Squee! Exactly what I wanted to do! And it's for making booze!), and I'm a good match as far as background and general experience. I don't have some specific experience that they're looking for (Web applications in general, DHTML in particular) but they seem very positive anyway. The place is about 12 miles away (spitting distance, by local standards... a 20 minute highway drive, a 30 minute non-highway drive (all depending on traffic of course)) so that's a big plus.*
Jan 11, 5:45 PM: I'm asked if an initial "contractor" period of two months would be acceptable (i.e. I'd be a contract employee instead of a full time employee, so no health care, 401K plan (like RRSPs), paid vacation, etc. for that time) while they make sure I can learn the specific stuff I need to. R:tAG's got us a health plan, there's only one holiday in the next two months anyway ("Presidents' Day"), and DHTML doesn't look like rocket science. I say sure.
Jan 11, 5:50 PM: They ask if I can come back at 11:00 the next morning, since the HR people have apparently all left for the day. I say sure.
Jan 12, 11:00 AM: I'm given a contractor agreement, an NDA and a request that today be my first day of work. I say sure.
So I'm employed. About freakin' time, you might say. :) The starting salary is low-ish, but at this point, I was really starting to worry about the huge chronological gap in my CV. I can only blame the US gummint for so much. Plus since I'm basically restarting my career I was expecting to get a novice-level salary anyway. Plus, at any level, it's income instead of outgo.
Yay!
* It's a block from the Sunnyvale CalTrain station too, but considering that the nearest CalTrain station (College Park) is a 15 minute drive from our house if the highways are completely empty (haw!), that doesn't seem worth it.
Congratulations Amy! That is excellent news, and I am sure you are very, very excited. In fact, I was picturing your face as I read the post.
The New Year, brings wonderful things. Great way to start off 2006!
Congrats again!
See what happens when I let you borrow Jen for a few hours... :)
Congratulations. Now your vacation is over. Get back to work! :)
Great! Always good to hear of someone getting the job they want. BTW, if you hear of any openings in the "global beverage industry", give me a ringy-ding-ding. That's the job I want!
Merry New Year to you both!
Congrats.
-- C
Congratulations!
Steve S.
Way to go, Amy! You're freakin' awesome and now you get your chance to show them Californians what it means to really shine.
ringy-ding-ding?
Well, I can't say as I'm 'miserable for you', because I'm very pleased that you've found something in your "area" (hee hee hee) that also applies to your "area" (snicker). However, now that you are employed, it will certainly cut down on the amount of free time you have to spend pining for the lovely fjords of Saskatchewan.
I shall have to pine for you now. I hope you appreciate everything we do for you, back home.
Right on!
Very nice site! »