Big News and Related Shout-Outs

There have been Major Doings afoot behind the scenes at The Hellhole, but I couldn't blog about it until everything was official. After 8 years, Alan is leaving his old job and starting an exciting new position! He had been unhappy in that job for various reasons for quite some time, the commute really reeked for him once he moved in with me and the new job is right in line with the computer skills he wants to hone - meaning Linux, mainly.

Shout-Outs and many thanks: Flippy posted a comment on Nancy's blog (Nancy is also job-hunting) directing her to indeed.com. I pointed the comment out to Alan and urged him to check them out. He found an interesting job listed and sent an e-mail with resume attached. He had an e-mail back in only a few hours and a phone interview set up for the following day. A face-to-face interview was scheduled for last Thursday, which lasted 2.5 hours. The following day, he was contacted by the 'head tech guy' for another phone interview. Next he was asked to come back Saturday for a second face-to-face with another supervisor and then he had two more phone interviews on subsequent days!!!

By this time, we couldn't decide if such a protracted interview process was good or bad. Were they teetering on the fence and hoping someone would feel strongly one way or the other about hiring him? Had they already decided to hire him and were having him talk to so many different people in order to determine which projects/departments best suited him? On one hand, it didn't seem likely that they'd be investing so much time if the answer was going to be "no thanks" but then one never knows. We joked Monday night that the way our lives worked, he'd probably never hear from them again, nor would they return his calls or e-mails. On Tuesday evening, however, he had another phone call but this time, it wasn't another interview, it was offering him the job and explaining the terms, benefits, etc.

Last evening after work, he went by to pick up the offer/contract in writing. We looked it over and the terms were very favourable. Today he faxed back the signed offer and tendered his 2-week notice. This seems like a very promising opportunity for him to develop new skills, learn more Linux, put into practice things that he's been doing as a hobby for some time. It's very good news and we're thankful to Flippy for the link and indeed.com for facilitating all this!

I can't close without a bit of gloating, however. Alan has known for some time that he wanted to change jobs and I've heard a great deal about how his knowledge is too specialized, he doesn't have this certification or that degree, a pay cut is a given, that is if he can even find someone who'd hire him, blah blah blah. He was fairly doom-and-gloom about his chances with this company, too. I kept telling him that he was S-M-R-T, he had the 1337 skillZ, he was more valuable and more marketable than he thought. Well, these people were impressed with his communication skills, his scope of knowledge and he is SOOOO not taking a pay cut. So there, I was right. Right, right, right, I was right, I love being right, ha ha ha ha! /end gloat

/for now

/will be rubbing it in for months