Job search activity was high the last couple of days. I got an email Thursday morning from an agency and the first thing he asks is if I have talked to anyone else from his agency yet. Whaaaat? Why are you asking me, for Pete's sake, it's your agency, don't YOU know? But I don't say any of that, he just wants a copy of my resume, so I send it to him. A little while later he calls on the phone and he asks that same question about whether he is the first one to talk to me. I'm thinking my email has gotten delayed in some internet vortex and he doesn't have it yet. No, I haven't talked to anyone else at your agency. He does this thing where he will talk normally, but periodically he will cough, or laugh or something and he gets really LOUD for a few seconds, so loud that I have to slide the phone away from my ear. In a little bit, he subsides, and we go back to normal. It's really annoying. On top of that he keeps me on the phone for half an hour talking about nothing. I put up with it because, well, I'm being courteous. He is trying to find a job for me. If he is successful he will get a big fat commission, but that's okay. I'll have a job, which is the whole point of all these shenanigans. So I let him ramble.
A little while later I get another email from the same agency and I realize, oh! The first email was from a different guy. So I forward their emails to each other and let them sort it out. The guy I talk to claims to have won out, so I send him a copy of my resume. Should have had him get it from the first guy. What a bunch of clowns.
Dealing with all this makes me late for my Thursday lunch, and since I have to take my son to the doctor later that afternoon, I blow off lunch. One hour a day on the freeway is enough. I don't really need two hours of it.
Meanwhile I have an email from another agency. We end up exchanging a dozen messages over the next day and a half, and it looks like I might have an actual face-to-face interview with a local company next week. I had a phone interview with this outfit a few months ago which I thought went rather well, but I never heard back, so I thought that was the end of it. But now they are back. I wonder why that is. Anyway, we are trying to set up a meeting time and I tell them Tuesday or Wednesday would be good, and what do they do? They want to meet on Thursday morning, which means that if it is any kind of interview at all it is very liable to cut into my lunch hour. I already missed Thursday lunch this week. Twice in a row and I am liable to be in the doghouse. Cretins.
Thursday afternoon I get an email from yet another agency. I try to call him back, but their voice mail system cuts off half way through his greeting. Criminently, you would think a business that depends on phones as much as these do would have a decent voice mail system. I finally get in touch with him on Friday morning. We have a nice chat. This is the fourth person I have talked to from this agency over the last year.
Thursday evening I get a call from a friend of mine. Seems his employer is having serious problems with a new product. Seems none of the new people understand the basic concepts involved. No, that's not fair. They probably do, but things being the way they are, they are having a hard time applying their knowledge. Anyway, my mother always said "if you cannot say anything nice, do not say anything at all". I have probably said too much already. My friend wanted to know if I was available to help them out. That's cool, it's nice to know that at least your friends will still vouch for you.
Friday afternoon I get a call from Microsoft in Redmond which was totally unexpected. I chat with a guy with a rather thick accent for 30 minutes about a possible job. He quizzes me about assembly language for the ARM processor. I have never worked on one, but I have been around the block a couple of times and I am able to deduce what this bit of code is supposed to do. When we are done I find out he is from Korea. The accent sounded Asian, but I would never have guessed Korea. But then I haven't talked to many people from Korea.
Also Friday I get a call from my lawn man (!?) and he has a name for me. I follow up on it. Turns out the guy is involved in a line of work very similar to my own. He does not need my help at the moment, but it never hurts to have another contact.
Update December 2016 replaced missing pictures.
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