the job search continues

[rone]

-> *dem* corporate politics scare the crap out of me, because the only response i have to them is violence. and i'm too pretty to go to jail.

Two months since i lost my job, and all i have to show for it are a few headhunters who aren't calling me back anymore, stalled interviews at LinkedIn, a hiring freeze at Yahoo!, and a passel of companies who've just started the getting-to-know-me dance (plus an inquiry from Adobe that had me laughing my ass off and sending a sneering reply to the poor recruiter, and then feeling guilty about it later, and for the love of god, why can't i just get over it, it's been two fucking years, i need some fucking closure).  The real problem here is that i scan craigslist and Simply Hired and there are no jobs that make me say, "Wow, i'd like to work there," or even, "Huh, that sounds kinda cool."  "Meh" is about as good as it gets, and i'm not even talking about all the goddamn Bubble 2.0 companies.  I've been contacted by not just one, but two companies whose product currently consists of a Facebook application.  No, i am not kidding.  And speaking of Facebook, yeah, they're hiring, but as a user, i can tell that being hired as a sysadmin there is a quick way to going all-out shit-flinging crazy; that place has serious technical issues, and i'm sure it all trickles down from that young nitwit at its top, and anyway, they'll become irrelevant in two years, much like Orkut and Friendster.  The point is that i want to avoid another company that'll have the rug pulled out from it by the VC.

I'm not sure if it's that i have to love my job to do it.  But it is crucial that i respect it.  And i can't respect it if i can't relate to it.  Every job i've had since i came to California came through someone i knew, with the exception of my three-week stint at Wired (that came through a contracting firm that was recommended by arian1, not that i'm blaming him).  This time around, my network has not worked, and that's disconcerting.  Yes, i realize it's the holiday season now (like i need another reason to hate it), but i contacted LinkedIn the day i was laid off from Visible Path, and it simply should not take this long for any company of less than 500 people to hire someone (or, failing that, to tell him that they won't hire him).

Comments

[mrbalihai.livejournal.com]

Dude, you never even bothered to respond to the position I sent you. It would've involved working on some pretty interesting stuff that has nothing to do with this lame Web 2.0 bullshit you're moaning about.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Arggh. It slipped through the damn cracks.

[mrbalihai.livejournal.com]

I'll check again on Monday to see if it's still open.

[adw3345.livejournal.com]

Hey, have you tried my employer, Itty Bitty Machines?

The current job openings can be found here:

http://careers.peopleclick.com/Client40_GLDTR/bu1/External_Pages/careers.htm

Be sure to specifically try the 'mobile' job openings, they might require 100% travel, but in many cases it's remote work and you can work at home.

I wish I could have some kind of pull at work, but alas I am not a high powered executive. However I can find out any inside information I can about who and what and so on.

Send me your resume if you can - I'll drop it as a "I recommend this guy" entry in the internal employee pages. Being associated with me in some way possibly may not actually hurt your chances at all, at least not today!

-Derrick

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

résumé (http://ennui.org/rone/resume.html)

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Eep. Well, it took me at least three months to get my current job, over the 1999/2000 new year. It was nerve-wracking enough that I clunged to my current job tenaciously.

While my current job is OK to the point where the most infuriating thing I have to deal with is having to deal with dozens of passwords... I have a lot of co-workers who have left for higher-paying or better jobs while I've been working there. at least up until 2005, and I have friends who insist I'm underpaid, even though they themselves are working jobs that frustrate them far more.

At least you know what companies to stay away from. I lucked out and didn't end up jumping from failed startup to failed startup to mismanaged but somehow long-lived business to failed startup, and that seems to be a common pattern.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I hope i know what companies to stay away from. I could be wrong.

[brong.livejournal.com]

Is there where I fall over in a pile of hubris as I mention that I've been out of work for a total of one day since I started work (apart from time that I deliberately took off).

Got work at the Campus Computer shop through the Uni employment service. They had to downsize, and booted me right over to IT helpdesk at the Uni for higher pay and easier work.

After Uni, I finally decided that I was moving to Melbourne and looking for work here. About 10 minutes into me scanning the jobs sites going "meh", there was an email to Sage-AU from Netizen saying they were hiring. Emailed straight away and within 10 more minutes I had lined up an interview.

Worked for Netizen until they went bust. The one day without work was figuring out if I was going to work for 3d3.com (the current contract I'd been working on at Netizen) directly or if I was going through an agency. The agency sucked, so I started directly there. Still had paid out leave from Netizen at the time though, so it hardly counts.

Worked for 3d3 until I quit at the end of 2000. Took a couple of months to spend some time at home, then got back on a Monday night, called Hugo (the guy from an earlier contract at Netizen who I knew had another company) and asked if he needed an IT guy. Interview Wednesday, started the next Monday (which was the day I had always intended to start working again).

That company changed around a few times, and I took 3 months unpaid leave to tour Europe in the middle of it all, but I was there until late 2004. I had already been in contact with FastMail after they advertised a job, but they got overloaded and never responded. While I was in New Jersey I got a call out of the blue from them just as I was about to start searching for a new job back in Melbourne. Had the new job already lined up even before I came home.

So there's my little boast. *rub* - have some luck from me :)

I'm afraid I don't know anyone in that part of the world who's hiring so I can't help. Hugo was looking for someone a while back for a new project, but it would have been more programming than sysadmin, and I was busy. I'd certainly work for him again outside the big corporate machine that sucked our lives out last time!

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

that young nitwit at its top

Oh look. He's 2.5 years younger than me. You know, if I weren't hearing good things about my own occupational prospects of late, I'd have to despair entirely. I assume I'll get over that impulse at some point, right?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Get off my lawn!

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

I'll take that as a “no”.

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

and anyway, they'll become irrelevant in two years, much like Orkut and Friendster.

You think? I never heard anyone (outside of occasional internet chatter) blathering on and on about what happened at Friendster or Orkut like I do Facebook, though granted it's not as common as MySpace. Of course, I wasn't going to school then, so that may have something to do with it.

Also, Just wait a bit and Bubble 3.0 employers will get ahold of you. They use their temporal info-footprint tracking drones to find out when the highest probability of you taking their lowest possible offer and then send one of their vat-grown greeters in a disposable biodegradable time machine* (powered by HyperKurnel brand fourth dimensional corn oil) to make an offer. Unfortunately, all their benefits only apply in timelines that have been proven illusory.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I think that MySpace's suck is catching up with it, and MySpace has had severe growing pains. Facebook is in the same boat right now, and a lot of the people i know who have joined have gotten tired of being blasted with application requests, and Facebook's attitude towards privacy is worse than expected.

By the time Bubble 3.0 rolls around, i'll be selling wine.

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

Facebook is in the same boat right now

I initially read this as "facebook is in the same bloat"

[arian1.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry :( I tried. I still say you get in touch with David Ross as he fires up GNAC 2.0. They were always good to me, the crash just killed us.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I just don't want to be a part of any "firing up" process. As it is, i'm less than pleased that Robert Half is farming me out. I really don't think i'm cut out for it.

Hang in there

[surferelf.livejournal.com]

My longest unemployed stretch was 14 months, because I was just holding out for a job I didn't hate. However, I had no education and no qualifications. You'll do alright.

Chin up!

[asienieizi.livejournal.com]

This is the hard part where your frustration takes over. And the sucky thing is there's nothing anyone can say that will help except the usual which has already been said so I'll skip that and just send a big !
You *WILL* find that good fit and perfect job for you because I won't have it any other way.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Check nvidia. I hear they're great to work for (from my young lady friend who interned there over the summer) and have a few unixy positions open. Just don't apply for mine again!

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Wait, which one's yours?

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

The one with batch queueing systems, perl, and netapps (http://careers.nvidia.com/pljb/nvidia/nvidiaemployment/applicant/jobClick.jsp?id=2911).

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I can safely say i will not be applying for that.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it looks kind of high-contact, but my god, I haven't talked to anyone here at all for, like, EIGHT HOURS. I'd LOVE to have a luser come in and say something ridiculous, just so I could have a damn conversation.

And I like netapps and perl and batch systems, and dealing with users with bizarre problems. It sounds like of like the old WPI job, really, except someplace cooler.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Heh, i wouldn't mind the high-contact job, but i have no batch systems or NetApp experience, and my perl sucks.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Yay! I mean, generally. There's another job there that I'm less qualified for, but it might be your kind of thing. We could totally be co-workers and do co-worker things.

Also Verisign is hiring a graveyard shift guy, so if you were totally sad and desperate you could join me in the IT Gulag.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

We could be emo twins, rattling our tin cups against the walls of our cubicles.

Anyway, no, not yet.

emo enough for you?

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Oh ho ho ho ho ho. If ONLY there was a cubicle. I DREAM of cubicles. Every day I wake up and think "Maybe today there will be walls," but no, no, I enter the "bullpen" area and sit, my ass pancaking out against the ancient and terrifying torture chair allocated for my sitting pleasure, and gaze blearily at the nagios monitors on the wall... When my buttocks finally go numb, it is blessed release, at least until I need to visit the facilities, when the return of circulation brings to light every ache they have accumulated silently over the terrible empty hours...

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I wonder if Verisign monitors keypresses or logs web access beyond simply the URLs accessed. If they do, a big hello to the verisign dudes! Hope you're having a cheery night and that this series of postings totally makes your day! Yeah! Review time is coming up, and it could be even more exciting!

[tarian.livejournal.com]

there's an opening at my place, 'cause our last sysadmin is taking his ball and going home at the end of the month. But it's in Colorado. And the reason the last sysadmin is cashing it in has to do with severe and intrusive micromanagement, without lube. So I can't honestly recommend the place, except that those of us who aren't management are pretty clueful and the work is spiffy any day in which management doesn't have time to come micromanage you.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Relocation is not yet in the cards, alas.

[pvaneynd]

Not finding a job just sucks. I don't remember exactly where you're located, but I know $WORK has some nice looking jobs over there like FreeBSD SA, "Linux" developer or I.T. Engineer.

If any of these look interesting then give me a sign and I'll put you into the internal 'people to hire' system.

Oh, work has a very very low suckage value I think. Very low indeed.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I've been reticent to apply there because it's so darn "corporate", but maybe it's not so bad. By all means, feel free to throw my CV (http://ennui.org/rone/resume.html) into the mix, thanks.

[pvaneynd]

It's in the pool. If you see a job you like in the listings, give me a nudge so I can try to forward your details to the guy who posted it.

[eqe.livejournal.com]

We (http://www.bittorrent.com) need another ops person, but
1. in the city (and a hike from caltrain)
2. sorta web2.0ish
3. there is drama in ops-mgmt-land, not sure when that will clear up.
4. it might be a more developey position than you'd prefer (I don't know how much developeyness you're comfortable with).
5. VC. They've axed one project already; we're currently on take two.

We're a debian shop, the ops group absolutely rocks, and we might even have a plan to make money. But damn, the commute.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I'll work in SF if they'll give me the same arrangement i had with Macromedia: two telecommuting days a week.

I wonder if there's a surefire way to make me more comfortable with programming, and if i should take it.

[matrushkaka.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain, it took me 6 months to find a job when we moved back here from LA. What a time that was. Dear Life: still waiting for my refund on that, thx.

In case you haven't seen this:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/03/08/ittech-job-boards/

I also saw these floating around:
http://www.crunchboard.com/item/34190601-Senior-Unix-System-Applications-Administrator
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/job-JNVLRTOVUP8
http://www.latpro.com/jobs/1723212.html

Good luck!

P.S. I found a small typo on your LinkedIn profile:

I've built and moved data centers, worked with a plethora of UNIX flavors, and have proven to be a fast learner in everything i've tackled. I want to continue using my skills and mastering more for a company that's well-funded, well-run, and well-staffed.

Capital "I" needed.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Thanks for those, but sadly they're all in SF, and that's just too far unless, as i said elsewhere, they're going to let me work from home two days a week. Anyway, i've already been turned down by Google far too often.

Also, i've been writing "i" lower-cased for years now. It's my own little pet idiosyncrasy.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Akamai is hiring in San Mateo: http://www.akamai.com/html/careers/current_openings_sanmateo.html. I don't see any operations positions open, unfortunately, mostly QA-related. If you see anything there that would interest you, send over your resume and I'll put it in the hopper.

I can also ask internally to find out if there are likely to be any nascent openings in ops over there.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Thanks, but too far for me; i don't want to take longer than 25 minutes to get to work.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Also, SUP (http://www.sup.com/en/index.html) says they're recruiting in connection with the LiveJournal acquisition..... :-)

[rjray.livejournal.com]

Tried to email you about the company I just signed on to in Palo Alto. rone/ennui.org bounced... better address to use?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

You tripped my killfile; i've whitelisted you now, so send again.

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

i want to avoid another company that'll have the rug pulled out from it by the VC.

VC Andrews?
Viet Cong?

what is VC here?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Oh, you poor, sheltered soul. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital)

[frosch.livejournal.com]

a) you may as well forget about looking for work until after the Rose Bowl. In every case I know of it takes at least three people to make even a minimal interview happen, assuming they all happen to be paying attention at once, and the attendance rate from now until new year's is going to run maybe 40%, even on working days. That means about a 6% chance that anyone's even going to give you a phone call.

b) People who are busy hiring usually have multiple vacancies to fill, and are usually very busy doing other things besides hiring. Even recruiters, who are paid to spend all day calling hiring managers, often have trouble reaching them.

c) Don't hesitate to call recruiters to find out what, if anything, is happening. They're not going to call you, because there's no money in it for them. Abusing them, however, is generally not a good idea; I have good, positive relationships with recruiters who have never placed me, but would call me tomorrow if they found something that was a good fit. Remember that the employment infrastructure does not exist to serve the candidate. Sometimes perfectly valid hiring processes for good jobs DO take months, for no easily explicable reason.

d) Facebook is not going to cut it in the long term. I have invested some energy in it because people seem to be taking it seriously as a development platform, and because of the Ivy League cred, but they have pulled a couple of major boners and need to tear down their goddamn firewall, and I don't think they'll do it until it's too late. I should have known better when Scoble started raving about it. Om Malik probably thinks it's great too.

e) all that said, I will be on the market again effective Friday afternoon. There's quite a bit of upside to that, but I probably should commit it to email rather than posting, in the unlikely event you're interested. I've come to think of these pauses as tastes of early retirement. I will be dead sooner than I want to be.

f) Cut me some slack if I'm belaboring the obvious. I'm just trying to be helpful.