The Red Brick Times

Well ... two weeks into the new year and the silence is deafening!!

A couple of quick updates:

I have been unemployed, since 12/22 (MERRY CHRISTMAS BUNKY !!). I was working as a consultant at National City Bank but in the wake of the takeover by PNC the project I was assigned to was 'put on hold indefinitely'. I returned to the job search trenches on 1/6 scouring the usual [monster.com, dice.com] and have about 13 resumes out. In the last week, I have a survived the first two levels of the interview process with Sherwin-Williams and have only to get by a face-to-face with 7 managers over three hours.

I have also been pursuing a couple of independent projects, one with the Summit Co. Engineer and one with a private individual to develop a new web site/web service (can't tell you much more due to signed NDA). Both though, once acquainted with the 'facts of life' regarding how much custom web work costs are suffering a bit of 'sticker shock'. I have hopes (faint) they will come to grips with reality sooner or later ... we shall see.

Robin had to have surgery on 12/29 and is at home recuperating very well. First post-op with the Dr. was yesterday and he (and we) are pleased. No complications, recovery is excellent. Robin will probably return to work in early Feb. (light duty only, no heavy lifting for a couple of months).

Kids are fine, bills are paid, my Mom keeps plugging along (82 last summer), in-laws are good too. I guess in the larger reality we are well and lucky to have the resources available.

Happy New Year to all

Posted 11:42 AM by jeichenlaub (2) comments

       Comments:

Ouch. Sorry to hear that. Last I knew you were still with that insurance company. Guess that was a while ago. I then wondered if the only email address I had for you was that company so I looked and found one at projectxxi, went to that URL and the design looked pretty familiar. Did you get that from the one I did for a client last July?

I have another web page job I'm just starting for a client I do other tech work for. I'm only charging them $10/hr for the web stuff 'cause I'm kinda slow at it (I get $30/hr for everything else) but if you want to work on it together that would be cool. We'll figure something out moneywise.

# posted by  whatley : January 14, 2009 4:07 PM
 
My regards to Robin. There is no safe haven anywhere. I keep expecting to be told "Thanks for your work. Please go home." The installers that implement the stuff I design were sitting home for December as the annual coffers for ATT ran dry, but we seem to be back and booked through February. Learning this work consists of prying info out of the heads of those who have done it before. I ran into another ex-traffic controller who is also working there and she confirmed my impressions of a company with no good process flow and less plan for efficient transfer of information. As she put it "Everything is in people's heads and they are reluctant to share." So it feels like a company division slated to fail when a more efficient competitor comes along. And the big financial players still hoarding the first half of the 700 billion bailout have not yet bitten the bullet and written down the value of their asset portfolios. That's when the big drop will happen. There was a program on public TV that tied the current world financial swim to Enron, in that "off book" hidden liabilities and losses became such a universal practice that it pervaded the market and has, in part, led to present distress. In fact, many of the key players from Enron became policy-makers in big finance around the world. Dance with the one that brung ya. Hunker down and put up preserves for the polar night.

# posted by  Andy : January 16, 2009 6:24 AM
 
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