The Major

Author: FourMajor

  • The Results of My Job Search

    My job search was rather fruitless. I applied for one job, and had contacts with people about many others who found my resume online.

    I had interviews with three companies:
    KEI: Kapor Enterprises Inc.
    This company is owned by Mitch Kapor, one of the founders of the EFF. The company is for profit, but they do work for Mitch’s various non-profit foundations, as well as several other cool organizations like the Mozilla Foundation. They provide IT and HR services.

    The position was for desktop support and system administration. Mostly Linux, some Windows. In San Francisco. I interviewed with them on the phone two Mondays ago, and he said he would get back to me in the middle of the week. The middle of the week came and went, and then the week came and went. So this week I’ve sent two follow-up emails and have not heard back.

    HotOrNot.com
    HotOrNot.com is a dating website that draws their visitors in by displaying non-nude pictures of people like you and me, and letting people rate them from one to ten.

    This job would have been sweet. This is the only one I actually applied to. I would have been the sole system administrator responsible for about 90 web servers. Very relaxed hours. Very nice neighborhood that I could have walked to. Very small company.

    I managed to get an interview, but unfortunately I did not get the position. I don’t hold anything against them though; I honestly wasn’t qualified. Also, they actually got back to me on the results of their hiring process. I wish them the best.

    VMWare
    VMWare makes virtualization software that lets you run multiple servers on one computer. They are located in Palo Alto.

    The position was for Support Engineer I. The people that worked there were highly technical, and it would be a great environment for learning. I interviewed there this past Tuesday.

    The interview went pretty well. I could have done much better with the Linux questions but I nailed the networking questions. I am not sure if they are going to offer me a position or not, but I’ve decided that if they do offer it I won’t take it. The office was super cool, and the people were super smart, and I think I would learn a lot, but ultimately I don’t want to go to Palo Alto every day and I don’t want to work in support any more.

    So what have I learned from this process? I’ve learned that I probably could have nailed one of the two “dream jobs” (KEI and HotOrNot.com) if I had more technical experience. I also learned that there are lots and lots of jobs out there, but that I don’t want to settle for another job that I want to quit after a year. So the solution to this is to learn more, and get more certifications.

    From experience, I cannot very well learn and have a full-time job at the same time. My second semester in school, when I did not have a job, I got three B’s and an A. My best semester. And it took me a long time to get my CCNA. The weekend that I crammed before the exam was the hardest I have ever studied. And I seriously burned myself out.

    So if I am going to learn and improve my resume by getting more certifications, I am going to have to focus on that task alone. To accomplish this, I have decided that I am going to take 2-4 months and not work. I will just concentrate on getting my CCNP. This is my goal for these several months, and as an extra-credit assignment for myself, if I can fit in some learning about DNS, Apache, and scripting, that would be great.

    But I know that the biggest risk with this plan is that I’ll not be motivated to study. So to lower this risk, I am going to treat my studying like a job. I will leave the apartment at 8 or 9 every weekday, and go to the library to study for 8 hours. And then I’ll come home and forget about studying. Also, I am very interested in the subject matter. The CCNP exams (there are four of them) cover in-depth routing protocols, remote access, multi-switch networks, and troubleshooting. If I were studying something I didn’t care about, it would be very difficult.

    The next few months should be interesting. But I think I’ll enjoy them.

  • Wha Happen?

    This pretty much sums up all that is wrong with the world: Parker Brothers releases version of Monopoly using debit cards instead of cash

    Seriously, who doesn’t love having a big ol’ wad of Monopoly cash?

  • Honk Shoo

    Tonight is my last night working night shift. Ever.

    I have kind of an unofficial list of things I will never do for work, and now I am adding this to it. My current list:
    1) I will not work in a restaurant.
    2) I will not sell things.
    3) I will not work weekends.
    4) I will not work nights.
    5) I will not travel more than one hour each way.

    I hope to add as many of these to the list as possible with my next job:
    1) I will not work in support, no matter how high level.
    2) I will not work with Windows.
    3) I will not be on call.
    4) I will not work an overly strict schedule. So, I’ll need some freedom on start and end times.

    I am guessing that I will only be able to add about two of those with my next job. And the ultimate goal here is to become valuable enough, with knowledge, experience, and certifications, where I can eventually accomplish the following as well:
    1) I will not work more than 35 hours per week.
    2) I will not accept less than 4 weeks of vacation per year.
    3) I will not work for a for-profit company unless they share the profits very generously with the employees.

    It is going to feel so great tomorrow night to want to go to sleep, and then just go to sleep. It’s also going to be great that, if I want, I can go out and have a couple of beers at midnight. Or I can stay up until 2am playing some Eve Online with Mark. Obviously this takes a bit of self discipline, because you can’t come in to work every day on 5 hours of sleep (even though that is what I do now).

    The night shift did have its perks though. I rarely had to wake up to an alarm, and I got to work by myself with no interruptions. But I think I will be able to do without those things 🙂 Time to join the “normal people.” It was going to happen sooner or later.

  • Unnecessary Arguments, Part II

    Following up on yesterday’s post about global warming, I thought of another example of an unnecessary argument. This one has to do with gay marriage.

    Social conservatives sometimes argue that it is a choice to be gay, not something that you are born with. The liberals bite.

    It shouldn’t be about why someone is gay. It should be about equal rights alone. It should be about being able to marry any consenting adult, whether you are straight or gay, or even if the relationship based completely on friendship alone – a “life partner” type arrangement.

  • Unnecessary Arguments

    There are a few things that I believe in strongly enough where I think that the other side is just plain wrong. Global warming, for me, has quickly become one of those issues. Saving ourselves from rapid climate change must be one of our very highest priorities.

    Some of the arguments from the other side are absolutely absurd. They don’t have anything to stand on, so they just start making shit up. Even those that agree that there is or might be global climate change argue that if we were to do something about it, it would ruin our economy.

    And the rest of us give in to this argument. Not give in in terms of agreeing with it. But we give in when we even argue that at all. We let them change the argument. Now it isn’t about global climate change, it is about the economy. First of all, our footing isn’t nearly as steady when talking about the effect on the economy as it is when talking about science – things like CO2 emissions and temperature change. Even if it was as solid – What is the point? Our main argument is that we are putting ourselves at risk of massive flooding and millions of deaths worldwide. Who cares about the economy when faced with these prospects?

    This post inspired by this post on ThinkProgress.

  • Electric Car Goodness

    0-60 in 4 seconds.
    $0.01-$0.02/mile
    redline 13,500 RPM
    two gears

    The Tesla Roadster

  • Sonic.net is Awesome

    It is worth the (small) premium to get a good ISP:

    “We will not allow warrantless wiretapping or access to customer information.”

  • *grumble*

    Patience is a bitch sometimes. And so is only getting a few hours sleep, even for just a couple days.

  • The Media is Good at This…

    Well I guess the media got bored of the Mexico story…

    Buried deep within the NY Times website. Definitely not on any front pages. And I know there are some very important stories right now, but Bush saying a swear word is getting more coverage than 1 million people in Mexico City protesting a contested election.

  • Source of Military Equipment

    There’s a lot being said about Hezbollah getting their rockets from aid from Syria and Iran. Well…who do you think supplies Israel’s warplanes? It sure isn’t Israel. Yep – It’s the United States.

    And every time over the past few days when you hear that Israelis have been killed, how does Israel retaliate? An eye for an eye? Impossible. They kill many more of their enemy.

    This whole thing really is making me sick. And to think my tax money is going to support this crap. That really pisses me off.