2 Days and Counting

I have two more days at my old job and then we'll be heading to Cyprus for a short break before I start my new job. So here's a couple of reasons I am really going to miss the guys in my shop. We do have occasional slow moments. Geeks, for those of you who played football or cheer-led in high school, have a perverse sort of artistic sensibility. During one of these slow moments, some packing material was turned into a crocodile, complete with creepy back-lighting, claws, and someones toy as the sacrificial victim with exclamation (yes, made out of more packing material) being devoured. What's not to love about these guys, right? I'll miss you guys.

I have another friend who works at my new office who is forever making jokes about "the White Tower" that is this higher level department where I will be starting soon. This, for those of you who are nerdily-challenged, is a reference to the Lord of the Rings and the White Tower of Sauron, the home to an incredibly powerful and evil wizard. My friend is always telling us how great life is for the privileged few at the White Tower. The department in the Tower that I will be working for is IA (Information Assurance) where I will gain these evil wizard abilities that I mentioned in my last post.

Today was my last day working with my boss and his wife who works in a different shop. Here is a picture of the ice cream cake they brought me today.

Again. What's not to love?

I feel like Wonder Woman tonight

I've got a new job. Ok, let me back up a little.

I work a lot of hours. I'm not kidding when I say this. A 60 hour week with a half hour commute either way and up to a 2 hour wait to get through security makes for very little time to sleep, let alone do anything else. I mean really, I get up at 3 AM to be ready to go by 4. I leave and hopefully make it to work by 5 AM. I then work until 5 PM and then there's the half hour or more home. So basically, I'm running from 3 in the morning until about 6 at night. Then I have to get ready for the next day. hopefully I'm in bed by 7:30, but I'm rarely asleep before 8:30 or 9, leaving me 6 and a half hours of sleep on a good night. I spend most of my weekends just catching up on sleep. I'm really tired. Also, I was told that there was a whole lot of down-time at work when I would be permitted to study. It just hasn't happened. So not only am I exhausted all the time, but my MCSE certification is about to expire and I haven't gotten anywhere on my degree program, which I'm only half way through.

So what I want to do when I grow up is manage my own gaggle of geeks. I love nerds. I really do. I understand them, though I'm not as smart as most of them technically. If I can't do that, I want to do computer and network security, which is a really sexy field for something IT related I think. It's interesting, always changing and it makes a lot of money no matter where you take it. The afore-mentioned degree program has an emphasis in this field. So I was told that a few levels up from my lowly station was an available spot doing security. It was more prestigious, would give me a valuable skill-set and it was only 48 hours per week (4 12 hour days to be exact) which would give me the chance to at least take one or two classes. I applied and got an offer! Oh joy!

Except the hiring company totally low-balled me. I would have been making about $40K less per year and I just couldn't justify that kind of loss. I might as well go back to the US for that kind of money. So being a little bit insulted, I sent back a counter that I thought was WAY out of my league. Working a whole day per week less, I would have only lost $10 to 15 K per year. I know that sounds like a lot to most of you in the states, but trust me, my degree is worth it and it's not really all that much in the overseas contracting world. Also, having a whole other day to catch up on sleep would allow me to help out a bit more around the house and run a few of my own errands rather than making Tom do everything, which is what he does now.

The company came back just barely under my counter, so I quickly singed on the dotted line and asked what the next step was before they could change their minds. So, you are reading the blog of a soon-to-be much better educated, much better rested computer and network security guru. My kung fu will be unstoppable.

So get this, my new job is actually a subcontractor for ITT, the company I'm working for now. ITT is a great company and if you get a chance to work for them, definitely do. They've totally done right by me the whole time I've been here and I'd go back and work for them in two seconds if I didn't have such a great need for off-time right now. But my boss and his boss and all my co-workers have been so sweet to me about all this. They all seem genuinely hurt and sad that I'll be leaving and I must admit that I'm going to miss them very much too. My boys are awesome, but then again, so was my last bunch of nerds. I loved them too and miss them very much even now, but I've found other nerds to fall in love with here. I hope lightening strikes again.