Where's Spacey??? (He is now looking for a job)

Some folks have been asking the few rare times I have managed to hop on to play where I have been. Well, life has been a bit hectic the past couple of months. I think I mentioned to at least some of you about my father-in-law suddenly falling ill and passing back in October. On top of that, the house which the courts ordered sold back in May 08 when the divorce was made final is now in foreclosure, and I have been dealing with lots of paperwork there (trying to get the bank just to do a deed-in-lieu like I asked them to all summer). And then there was this little matter called a "Performance Improvement Plan" which I was placed on back in November.

What is that you ask? Well, a PIP is something which basically put me back on probationary status, with a list of tasks they wanted me to do which would be evaluated closely. Today, that PIP came to an end, with the conclusion that my skill set did not match what they viewed my position as now requiring. And so, so ended my job at Carnegie Mellon.

This is not an unexpected development. While I knocked off several of the items listed on the PIP in very short order, some of the tasks were in the "What are they thinking?" category. When somebody has never even used a Mac, you don't give them a complicated development project on a Mac with a three day deadline for developing a project plan with timelines on how that project will be done. Nor do you give them a task to debug and fix a problem which only occurs every 6-8 months. And when you give them tasks on which the requirements are always creating scope drift... let's just say that is a recipe for almost guaranteed failure.

There are some good things about this whole mess. The terms of my separation from CMU are such that I get paid for another 30 days, and I get benefits through the end of February. HR is also going to be helping me apply for unemployment, and to try to find a job at all the places CMU has contacts in the Pittsburgh area. Add in knowing a friend who works at Google Pittsburgh, another who works at NetApp (a big storage device company), and having apps in at both, as well as friends who are working at other tech companies in the area, I hope this gap in employment is more like the one prior to CMU (roughly 30 days), instead of the one before it (right at a year). And, other good things are getting time to spend with my wife, getting to do some coding for the SCA, and getting time to play some UT. Of course, it does not stop me from missing friends from work, nor does it stop me from wishing I could be a bug on the wall in some of the group meetings held by folks who were likely the loudest complainers about my performance. But... such is life, and I now turn yet another page.

As for those of you who are techies working for companies who do Linux/Unix and such... if your company is open to hiring someone who lives in Pittsburgh and really does not want to relocate me... please let me know via a PM or IM. I can easily point you towards my resume, which I updated over the past few weeks.

Well, gonna wrap this up, and see if I can hop in for a map or three, especially since I am not already 30 mins or more past my bedtime.

Sorry Spacey - wish you the best of luck!

Good luck Spacey.

Good luck brother, we all feel your pain.

Goodluck on your job search old buddy. Took me 2 months to find a job after I dropped out of my security gig. I truly hope you find your place in the other techie business's and that your friends can help pull you through. Take care Spacey

Thanks for the well wishes... Keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer next Tuesday and Wednesday... Next Tuesday, I get to spend 2+ hours in a mediation hearing, and hopefully, I can pull things together enough that they will let me do a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure on the house which should have been sold over a year ago as a result of the divorce (long story, not here)... but then....

Next Wednesday from like 10-12:30ET...I am interviewing at... Google(tm) PGH I still don't know the details on the position. I have all sorts of paperwork I have to fill out and hand in, like a NDA, job application, and other paperwork. But in what is appearing to be typical fashion, they are having me interview remotely with someone out in CA, probably in the home office (hard to say, given I have heard they have several places in Mountain View). But given the fact that some of the things I have been told to prepare on include things that I have not done much with in like 25 years (what are the pro's and cons of things like QuickSort vs. HeapSort vs. MergeSort) and things which have come about since I was in college (AVL vs. Red-Black vs. Splay trees), etc. I almost feel like I am going to be defending a thesis proposal. (need that spinning head emotie).

Either way, this is going to be one heck of a prep for positions at places like NetApp and others I am getting my resume into.

I'll be praying for you and crossing my fingers, Toes, and eye's. I just know you got skills Spacey.

. I guess it's study study study for that google job? Well anyway I wish you the best of luck.

Same here Spacey. Good luck!

Have no fear space you'll do just fine!