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Posts Tagged ‘jobs’

Last Day at Intel

Thursday, October 31st, 2019 No comments

Today was my last day at Intel. I can’t say that I’m happy about it. I’ve been there the past 3 years as an FTE and was there on and off the previous 4.5 years as a contractor. The have been ups and downs the past 3 years have been fantastic. I’ve grown so much as a developer and leader.

I’ve hardly been in the office the past 3 months. The area my team occupied is a ghost town. I went in yesterday to clean out my desk. Today I had my exit interview and turned in my equipment. At least I got to keep my badge.

Feelings can change, but I feel like this might be it for me with Intel. I’ve been shoved out the door too many times by them when their business needs changed. We’ll see though. Never say never.

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Here We Go Again

Wednesday, July 31st, 2019 No comments

A week ago today, my entire team found out that we were being eliminated, including management. That’s around 30 people. It really sucks because I enjoyed being on this team. Some of them have been working together for 10 years. I’ve been with them since early last year, when my previous team merged with their team. It’s not just our team that’s being eliminated, pretty much all the engineers in our division were being let go. It’s all cost cutting. The work we’re doing is being outsourced to teams in Ireland, India, and Poland. The term they used is that they were “right-sizing” the organization.

The good news is that I’ll still get an employee until October 31 and I can spend that time looking for a new job. I guessed what was happening last Tuesday when unusual meeting invites started going out, so I started updating my resume then. I’ve sent it out to a few contacts and applied for a few positions. There’s an internal job fair at Intel next week and there’s a good chance I’ll find another position then. I just don’t know if it’ll be as exciting as the one I’m currently losing. I’m not just limiting my search to Intel though. Hopefully, I’ll have something definite by October 31.

I don’t know how people have 20+ year careers at one company. I keep getting laid off every 2-3 years.

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Surprise Vacation

Monday, June 17th, 2013 No comments

At the end of the week before last, my friend John texted me to say that he was going to be in Reno, NV for 2 weeks and it would be cool if I could come down for a few days. I went to Expedia and saw that it would cost only $196 for round trip tickets. I usually don’t go on trips on such short notice (4 days), but I didn’t have a job and it wasn’t expensive, so I figured I would go. My former co-worker and Alston and I had said that we wanted take a quick trip just to take a break from job hunting, but we never got around to planning anything. He was hired by a company that I referred him to and I had a feeling that something would be happening for me any day, so there didn’t seem like a need for a trip anymore. I figured that if I had any requests for phone interviews while I was gone, I could do them in the hotel room.

John was busy during the day, even on Saturday, so we could only hang out at nights. That gave me a chance to shop and explore.

Tuesday – I arrived in Reno around midnight via San Francisco. I went straight to bed.

Wednesday – I did some shopping during the say. I think all I bought was a card game and some books. I got a request for a phone interview on very short notice. I nailed it. I decided that instead of leaving Friday as originally planned, I would leave Sunday so that John and I could drive to San Francisco Saturday. That night we went to a casino and ate dinner there. Afterward, we gambled some we went home.

Thursday – I think I did more driving around and shopping during the day. I bought a hoodie because I left my jacket in Portland and I knew we would be outside that night. That night we drove to Lake Tahoe, ate dinner, and took in some of the scenery. John wanted to get some pictures of the sunset.
Lake Tahoe

Friday – I went out, bought another book, and bought an auxiliary cable for the rental car we’d been using (actually, it was a minivan because they didn’t have anything else when I arrived Tuesday night). A little after 4 I got word that I had gotten the job that I interviewed for on Wednesday. I was hoping I would find out something before 5, so I wouldn’t spend all weekend wondering about it. We celebrated with drinks that night.

Saturday – I bought some presents for other people this time. John and I drove to San Francisco. We got there so late we didn’t have time to do much. We hung out in the Castro all night. We got pretty drunk.

Sunday – John wanted to see trees so we drove to Muir Woods. We got to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge on the way there. The woods were fun. We go a lot of exercise walking along the trail. After that we drove back to Reno because I had to catch a flight back. I made it back to Portland via Seattle a little before midnight.
Golden Gate Bridge

Muir Woods

I had a great time. I think that was the longest I’ve been away from Portland since I moved here. It was great to get away for a little while and it’s always fun to hang out with John. I think I’ll be seeing him again in November.

Let’s See What Happens

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 No comments

I updated my resume on Dice recently and applied for a few positions just to see what might happen. Shortly afterwards I started getting a flood of emails and phone calls from tech staffing companies. This has happened before. Talking to them ended up being a waste of time. I think it is best to work directly with the companies that are hiring. I did say that I would at least consider every opportunity presented. I just wasn’t going to go out of my way unless I was really interested. I wish they would pay attention to my location preferences, because I’m being told about opportunities all over the place.

One staffing company presented my resume to Walmart. Walmart apparently acts very quickly. After 1 quick conversation with the staffing company, Walmart was ready to fly me out to their headquarters in Arkansas for an interview. The staffing company made it sound like there was a good chance I could receive an offer while I was there. After thinking about it, I told them I would pass on the interview. I don’t think I was to live in Northwest Arkansas. I think that’s in the Ozark region. It seems like it would be like living in Starkville, maybe worse. The types of businesses I was looking for weren’t close by and it’s one of the most conservative areas in the country. Also, the population isn’t as diverse as I would’ve liked. The cost of living in that area is about the same as Starkville and I would have been making a lot more money, but it wasn’t worth it. I should have said no sooner. Not only do I not like the location, but I am philosophically opposed to working for Walmart. I don’t even shop there anymore unless I need something quickly that I can’t get at the grocery store.

A software company in my hometown area in central Mississippi started show interest in me. Their website says that you don’t have to be Christian, but you have to abide by their Christian-based ideals to work for them. That was an immediate turnoff. I’m fine with Christians, but I’m not one and I don’t think that should be in the workplace unless it’s religious field. I found information online from either current or previous employees. Apparently, you’re encouraged to be a good Christian and support the Republican Party. If, like me, you’re not Christian and Republican, you probably won’t fit in there. I had pretty much made my decision to not pursue them any further when they invited me with just a few hours notice to an event they were having on campus. I declined, saying that I had another engagement. That engagement was going to the gym and getting home in time for the Community season premiere. I haven’t heard from them since.

I’m getting tons of phone calls and emails, but I’m ignoring most of them for various reasons. It’s nice to feel wanted, but it’s also nice that I can be picky. I’ll keep testing the waters for a while.

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