11.16.06

The Short Story

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There is a long, long story behind this post, but I don’t have the time, the energy, or the inclination to type it. This is the short version.

The University of London shipped me a package of study materials last week—five pounds of papers in all. When I arrived at the FedEx service center to pick it up, however, the package I was given weighed eighty pounds instead of five. A manager helped me open the large box and load dozens of smaller boxes into my car (so many that they obstructed the rear-view mirror somewhat), and not until I got home did I find out that the shipment I received was actually supposed to go to the Apple Store Fifth Avenue, and was apparently shipped from the Apple office where I work.

I took the boxes in to work with me the next day—conservatively, I’d say it was about ten thousand dollars worth of replacement parts—and when I got home that night I found another delivery attempt notice for the same tracking number.

What happened, it seems, is that the Apple package was relabelled during shipping for some reason, but was assigned the wrong tracking number. The new label, therefore, had my address on it, and the return address of the University of London’s print shop. The next day the real UoL shipment arrived, but since it was already marked as delivered in the computers, there was no way to track it or verify its location. It still had an address on it, and stubbornly refused to blink out of existence, but if my building manager hadn’t run out of the building to intercept the driver on his way back to the truck, I might never have received it.

And I’m still trying to convince FedEx that it is, in fact, possible for two shipments to end up with the same tracking number (even if it’s not possible for them to start out that way). I have my package, of course, and Apple is being credited for their shipment, but now it’s a matter of principle.

10.21.06

New Era

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Woke up around five this morning. Couldn’t get back to sleep. Everything in my life is changing right now; my mind is racing and I’m full of nervous energy. But it’s good.

Thursday was my first day at Apple as an IS&T Helpline Analyst. Mostly I just shadowed a couple other techs all day, listening in on their calls and taking notes on the resources they used to solve problems. The calls were generally pretty simple: VPN issues, expired or forgotten passwords, slow network connections, requests for equipment and services, etc. There were a couple of Excel problems and a few oddities here and there (like a MacBook that for some reason always boots in verbose mode), but nothing too scary. Overall, I feel very much in my element.

On Friday I was given the entire morning to set up my workspace. I have two computers, an eMac and a PowerMac, which I was allowed to format and reinstall as I saw fit. I control both systems from a single keyboard and mouse using Teleport, and I also installed Quicksilver and Typeit4me to help me out. It’s all pretty darn slick. Friday afternoon was more shadow time. This Monday I’ll learn how to create accounts and change information in one of the employee databases, which is pretty much all I’ll do until Wednesday, when another temp starts and the two of us enter training on Espresso, the trouble ticket software we’ll use every day at Apple.

Another thing happened last Thursday: I got my acceptance letter from the University of London External Programme. I’m heading out to the Post Office in a few minutes to mail in my registration fee.

Everything just fell into place all at once, and it feels kind of eerie. Not that I can relax just yet; my job at Apple isn’t guaranteed past the end of the year, so I have to work hard to impress my supervisors in the hope of landing one of the limited positions they’ll have available, and I’m starting at UoL later than I’d intended, so I have to study pretty hard for the next few months to prepare for the four exams I plan to sit in May. If you don’t hear much from me in the near future, or if it takes longer than usual to get a response from me by phone or email, that’ll be why. But it feels like October 19, 2006 was the first day of the rest of my life, and I’m pretty happy about the way things look from here.

10.17.06

Update: No More Waiting

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I got the call today—everything is clear, and I start Thursday.

10.16.06

Waiting

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As most of you know by now, I recently landed a temp job (with the possibility of going long-term) at Apple. I saw the job listing Monday of last week, interviewed Thursday, got an offer a couple hours later, and went to the employment agency Friday to fill out paperwork for the background check and take a drug test. Now I’m waiting, and I can’t stand it.

I keep telling myself I have nothing to worry about. I don’t take drugs, I’ve never been arrested, and I have no reason to believe my references will say anything but good things about me. But I hate it when the matter is out of my hands and all that’s left for me to do is wait for a response. At the interview I felt confident and comfortable—and with reason. I knew my résumé was good, I knew I was capable of doing the work, and I felt in control of the situation. Now all I can think of is everything I ever did wrong at all my past jobs.

Tomorrow we’re having a pot luck lunch at my current job. To tell the truth, if I’d heard back from Apple today I’d have started tomorrow just to skip the pot luck. I didn’t feel like making anything that would need to be heated on-site, and I especially didn’t feel like bringing anything that might turn into a hassle at the security checkpoint tomorrow morning, so I bought a cheesecake at Safeway. I know at least half the office is bringing dessert, but none of the salads in the deli section looked good.

When I grow up, I wanna be Bill Murray.

09.28.06

Something I’ve Learned

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When pricing a home computer repair gig, it’s sometimes worthwhile to use a sliding scale based on what the client is able to afford. In doing so, however, I’ve learned the following: rich people ask for a printed bill, and then write a check for exactly what you ask. Poor people pay cash, and they tip.

Also: I’ve had this ravenous craving for spinach ever since I learned I couldn’t buy any. Now I hear it’s gradually making its way back onto the shelves. Welcome back, spinach! Let’s get together soon, OK?

09.01.06

Bagged One

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First of all, an update on last week’s interview: it went well, I think. I don’t know how many people they interviewed, or what kind of qualifications my competitors have, but I think I have a decent chance.

I hadn’t blogged about that until today because that very afternoon, not long after the interview was over, my internet connection died—right in the middle of filling out an application for yet another temp agency. I hooked up my cell phone via USB cable, finished the application, and called tech support. Apparently I was one of the first to report the outage, because the status on the tech’s screen changed during the call. She said it would most likely be fixed in a few hours, and that I should call back later that night if it wasn’t.

The next day, I went to the temp agency for an interview. That went well, and on the way home I got a call saying they’d found a short job for me—3-4 days, starting the next day—and that they’d email me the details. So I got home, checked my email … still no connection. I connected via cell again, got the job details, and called tech support. This was one of the most ridiculous tech support calls I’ve ever experienced—and I worked tech support. The woman I spoke to actually told me that it would be fixed “about an hour after they figure out what’s wrong.” I asked her to repeat that, and she did—I had not misunderstood. When I asked when they might figure out what was wrong, she had no estimate. “So,” I asked, “it will be fixed an hour after some unspecified time in the future?” The tech failed to see the humor in this. Long story short, my internet connection finally got fixed yesterday, after being out more than a week. I’m trying to get Comcast to prorate my bill—wish me luck.

I went to that temp assignment Friday—twiddly data entry work for an HR firm, where a bunch of records in a database are out of date (in this case because the state has changed the process for child support wage garnishments) and someone needs to go through and fix it by hand. Some records required research to verify case numbers and court orders. It’s mind numbing work, but it’s also the sort of thing that I’m really good at (I’ve been known to copy edit documents and format them in LaTeX for fun), so temp agencies tend to throw a lot of it at me. In fact, I’ve got another temp job starting next Tuesday. Data entry again, but this time it’s a 3-6 month assignment, and it pays almost as well as the school did.

So now I can breathe a little bit—money’s still tight at the moment, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I even sent in my registration forms to the University of London External Programme today.

Last weekend I went to a wedding in San Francisco and then stayed with my friends Ty and Autumn in Albany. Ty and I took BART to The City Sunday morning and rambled all over town, talking, just like we used to seven years ago when I lived in Marin. It felt good. And I just got back from the Sacramento Greek Food Festival, where I saw several of my former students dance and talked to them about their summers and their plans for the future. My grandparents were kind enough to take me (and buy my food), and I think they enjoyed hearing the kids call me “Mr. Dunham.” It took me a while to get used to that, too.

All in all, I’m starting to feel human again. Things are looking up.

08.21.06

Still Hunting

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I haven’t posted anything in a while because there’s been nothing of interest to report. I’m still looking for a job, and I have what I think is a fairly promising interview with a state agency on Wednesday. I’m also on the eligible list for state jobs as an Associate Programmer Analyst, and I get about one inquiry a day because of that. So I dutifully send in my applications, and I wait.

There’s also a job with the County of Sacramento that I’d really like: IT Customer Service Specialist, Training Option. So I’ve put in an application for that job and two others that could transfer over to it in time. The problem with those jobs is that the next scheduled “closing date” is in January. My understanding is that if there are openings and the list is getting too small, the closing date could be moved up and I could be put on the list sooner. But that’s not guaranteed … so I just have to wait.

In the meantime, I’m looking for temp work. I’ve told my regular temp agency to look for county jobs, which they usually get a lot of, on the theory that if I have to spend my days temping (potentially taking time away from interviews and other elements of the job hunt), at least I could be making connections in county agencies that could eventually pay off when I appear on the eligible lists for permanent jobs.

But of course I’m also thinking about paying the rent in a couple of weeks. I’ve done a little bit of computer work for a former employer and a couple of individuals, but that’s not reliable in the long term. So, today I started an exciting career as a day laborer.

I showed up at Labor Ready at 5:00 this morning, and a little less than three hours later I was assigned to a job with a company called East Bay Restaurant Supply, which (despite the name) has a Sacramento location on North 12th Street, where Avery Stationery used to be. My job was to help assemble and install a walk-in freezer at a country club that’s being remodelled. A good honest day of hard work—nothing wrong with that. But the funny part is that the country club is in Oakland, which also happens to be the home town of East Bay Restaurant Supply. This meant that I was paid for eight hours of work, but spent four of those hours riding in a van to and from the work site. I’ve been asked to return tomorrow—and I’ll be happy to do so.

So that’s the job hunt these days. Again, if any of my loyal readers know of an opening I’d be suited for, please let me know. I figure eventually the novelty of manual labor will wear thin—probably in direct proportion to the thinness of my wallet.

06.15.06

Looking Again

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As a couple of my readers already know (but most don’t), my contract with the school ends at the end of the month, and the school has chosen not to renew it. It’s understandable; they’re going through the re-accreditation process in a couple years, and would like to have a credentialed teacher in my position if possible. Kind of messes with my plans a bit, but I’m not worried about finding something new—I have two good possibilities lined up already, and will probably take some temp work to fill in any gap between permanent positions. Still, if anyone out there knows of a good job opening up in the Sacramento area next month, feel free to let me know. I’ll post any further developments here as they occur.

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