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

[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!