Pins & Needles

Things are still up in the air at work – they’re reorganizing the IT department by moving the iron to a centralized data center in Cincinnati which is cutting the need for people here by a lot. So, there will be five jobs left here come April 1st – appropriate date doncha think? – one of which I don’t quite qualify for (that Network+ cert would’ve helped there) and the others I’m afraid they’ll say I’m overqualified for. Typical.

Anyway, I applied for all three job types (there’s three first-level techs, one second-level lead tech, and one network tech), and last week I was interviewed for all three. The network tech interview revealed that I knew very little about VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol – that’s where you use the same internet connection your PC uses to handle voice traffic instead of a phone line. Once you buy all the hardware it’s supposed to be ‘way cheaper than the baby Bells). On the other hand, nobody else here knows much about it either since we haven’t been working with it. The interviews for the other jobs went great I think. All the interviewers said we’d know who’s picked in a day or two. That was a week ago today. So what does that mean? Is it just taking longer to decide than they thought? Or have they decided and I’m not in and I need wait for the snail-mail “Good luck with your future endeavors” letter? On the other hand, nobody has heard anything yet so it’s not just me.

Getting canned wouldn’t be the end of the world, at least. I will get severance pay! (Never had that before anyplace I worked; it was always, “Hi! here’s your last check, Bye!”). I’ll continue getting a paycheck until June. This will allow me to finish my last semester at Northwestern and graduate. Sooo many jobs I want to apply for say they want someone with a BS or BA – doesn’t much matter what topic, just a degree. So, I will finally be able to say, “Sure, I got one o’ them.”