Chronicle: Got a new job

Journal Chacham's Journal: Chronicle: Got a new job 2

Journal by Chacham on Tuesday December 03, 2013 @03:17PM

I was looking for a job and an interview required references. I decided to put down an erstwhile supervisor and coworker, but only after aksing their permission. They both agreed, and i never heard back from that (first) place. (Not because of bad reviews, the head hunter explained they were excellent.)

A bit later, the supervisor called back with yet another supervisor, ready to hire me. He strongly recommended me to her, and she was willing to go with that. Asked if i wanted to be hired or contracted, i wanted to wait to answer, but they realized that as i only have a BA and not a BS, it would be better to contract and perhaps ask to be hired later. Fair enough.

I went for the interview which was toned down due to the recommendation, and the three supervisors (large project) seemed okay with me. Then the technical guy came in and asked me if i knew the things that the supervisor knew i did not know, and i answered accordingly. The idea was, since it's database related, i can learn it (quickly). I have a good track record learning the tools, and actually understanding what is going on.

Well, he nixed me. The supervisor was still going to hire me for an as-of-yet unknown position, after she got back from her two-week vacation. Indeed she did, and i started yesterday.

As she had no position for me, the other supervisor (the one i have worked for in the past) decided to pull me onto his project. The application was slow to begin with, expansion to Mexico made it even slower, and now with Europe on the map, it'll probably be redesigned, mostly because the database was not designed for it. Being that is my expertise, he wants me to do the redesign. Pretty kewl.

So, he (old supervisor) asked her (new supervisor) to move me to his project. Alas, she has finally found something for me to do. So, it's 50/50; working on two projects. The sense seems to be that she will hire anew, and i will switch to working for him 100%.

I was supposed to meet the two supervisors at 9am on Monday. I rented a car for the week, drove down the familiar road, and forgot one turn (different building). I called him after 9 asking for help, and he asked who was supposed to meet me. Well, that's kind of good. Noone "realizes" i am late on the first day. When i entered the building, he was waiting for me, he showed me to the other supervisor, drove me to get my badge, and showed me to my seat.

Getting the badge was simply enough Sit down and have her take a picture of me. She asked if i wanted to see it. As i didn't care, she went on to print the card.

I don't remember what it was, but my supervisor made some comment and i smirked. As soon as the lady saw that, she said something like, "ok, sit back down, we're taking your picture again, just keep smiling." She showed me the first picture too. I was less concerned about my facial expression, but my shirt and coat seemed a bit out of order. It's better on the second card, but i'm uneasy about that ridiculous smile.

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Yesterday, i was asked to help someone with the website taking over a minute to load a particular page. When i asked to see the query, he said it was handled by toplink and he could turn on logging. While we saw which actions took time but the queries were still hidden. We were not getting anywhere.

When it was time for lunch, i explained our two options. One was to guess what the queries would be, see if they are slow and tune them, create an SP or VIEW, and have toplink call that instead. Or, find out where the appropriate loggin option is. I gave him my email address (work) and cell phone (personal, as i didn't have a work yet) to contact me when he wanted to continue, and i haven't heard from him since.

I got my phone, but am waiting for the computer to be replaced with the one i am supposed to be using. In the meanwhile, i cleaned the desk, drawers, keyboard, mice, and anything else with 409, and tidied up the wires with rubberbands. Other than that, there isn't much to do. When i get my computer, i'll have to customize it heavily, especially to get Windows 7 to be more like XP, which, for me, has increased functionality in the start menu and explorer. I'll probably install Libre Office so as to avoid the Office 2010 ribbons, which moved things sround so i can't find anything anymore. I'm so happy i switched to the mac at home.

I brought my Kindle to read during this expected downtime. I am a bit scared that i will lose it. Amazon will not track or deactivate ir (so i have read) and there really isn't a good way of identifying the device. With a cell phone you can at least call someone in the phone book asking them whose phone it is, but the Kindle has a first name. Even with a full name, it wouldn't say how to contact the owner. Perhaps i ought to put a sticky note on it. For now, i bascially leave it in my coat pocket.

Updating the Kindle here, though, is harder. Tryng to connect to the wifi results in an error, "Enterprise or peer-to-peer Wi-Fi networks are not supported." I guess i would just bring a USB cable here, But it really isn't that important.

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