Not Necessarily Interesting News

Yes, I am re-employed. As of the 3rd of January I will be working for Red Hat Inc. My official title is Global Learning Services Instructor. I will be doing Red Hat Linux training all over the U.S. Mostly confined to the Central U.S. It’ll be about 75% travel. It’s a lot of time on the road but it seems like a fun job.

I got the initial call from a recruiter about 3 weeks ago. Over the first couple of weeks I had three phone interviews. Last Tuesday I was flown to their site in Westford, MA, near Boston, for a day of face-to-face interviews. I thought they went well but didn’t hear back for almost 2 days which really had me sweating.

On Friday I got a call that they were preparing an offer and to be ready to get it via email. The offer came in on Monday morning and was a pretty good offer. I took all day reading over the paperwork and faxed it back Monday evening making it official.

I fly to corporate headquarters in Raleigh, NC on Jan 3rd to start orientation and then my training.

Years of riding the contracting bandwagon at IBM have finally ended. It made for the best Christmas present my family could ever have gotten.

I had a few phone interviews over the past couple of weeks for a position as a Linux Consultant or Instructor for a company based outside Boston, MA. Not tough to figure out who it could be. The phone interviews went well, I thought, and they flew me out from Austin on Tuesday for a day of face-to-face interviews on Wednesday.

Overall, I thought they went pretty well. I had a good feeling on the way back to the airport. Today I talked to the recruiter and found they apparently thought I had good people skills but was lacking in a couple of areas technically. I asked what those might be and was only told LDAP. Ok, I’ll admit I’ve never used it in the past. In the phone interviews it never came up as a deal killer. I even said I hadn’t used it before. I assumed it wasn’t a big issue if they flew me all the way to Massachusetts.

So, what does one do? Today I started reading up on it and am building my own test server at home so I can get up to speed on it and learn the basics. Doesn’t seem to be a big deal. Since no one is hiring over the next couple weeks because of the holidays, I guess I’ll spend some time getting to know it. It might be too late for this job but might help in the next one.

After talking with the people at the company they all seemed to really like the environment and seemed to genuinely enjoy their jobs. I _really_ want to work for this company. I’ve worked with them in the past and have never run into someone there that doesn’t like their work. I hope to get a better description of what I’m lacking so I can work on getting those skills. That way I can try again to join them at a later date if they’ll let me. Assuming, of course, I don’t find a position in another company that I like better (though I doubt it. This place just seemed ‘cool’). It seemed like a place I’d really enjoy working and had people I’d like to work with.

Well, made it through the first week of unemployment.

I’ve had a few interviews. I had one very promising prospect for a 6 month contract in Maine. In Winter. Um, yeah, I’ll have to pass on that. One interview I thought went really well Thanksgiving week never called back. It was a perfect job. 4 miles from the house. Easy commute. I know someone that works there so I wouldn’t be totally on my own. I’d really like to know where I went wrong on that one.

The best prospect at this time is with a well known Linux distributor. The position involves going on to customer sites and helping them with whatever they need done. 80+% travel is a bit brutal but the pay should be decent and I work from home when not on the road. Don’t have to leave Austin. Weekends home guaranteed. I passed the first interview and have another Monday. If that goes well I’ll be flying out to their headquarters for a face-to-face. Keeping my fingers crossed.

As-is we’ve got enough in savings to last a while. Problem is that money was supposed to go towards remodeling 2 other bathrooms. Guess that has to wait.