JOBS JOBS JOBS

Those of you who know me, know that I have had "issues" getting and keeping work since my bout with Kidney Failure. It's an ugly fact that employers will not hire you if you've had this condition and then they tell you that they found someone else who was more qualified than you to cover up the fact. Why do I tell them I've had the operation? There is a TWO YEAR GAP in my work history and the last job I worked was paying me 44K to play computer games all day.

Challenging? OHHH yeah.

So, ever since the transplant, it's been one battle after another while my mind and body re-adjust to the regiment of drugs I get to take, (which includes prednisone).

My kidneys crashed at the beginning of the DOT BOMB crash and for the following two years, I was on State funds which helped me support the household. Noelle, my wife, got laid off shortly after I was put on dialysis, so in an ironic twist, my state income was the primary bread-winner for a while for 6 months.

In the end, Noelle donated the kidney, I got "work" at a couple of places but it wasn't the same as when I was working for Mplayer.com

The corporate trend in this washed up silicon valley has changed from hiring anyone who had a little experience to hiring young and highly educated pups who'd take any amount of pay just to be working again. This makes it very difficult for an "unskilled QA guy" like me to find work.

Sure, I did find work for 7 months at Electronic Arts as a Support Technician, but they paid me all of $9.50/hr for a job that should have been paying $14.00/hr easily! (remember this before you buy one of their games and want to bitch to someone about how it won't work on your computer). I hated this job and knew I had to keep it to help keep the household afloat. One thing it did teach me was technology and computers skills. I now have a 3 computer lab in my house with wireless everything!

So, my last job looked promising and was ironically enough, behind the Electronic Arts Campus by about 500 yards!.....and in another cruel twist of fate, the funding for my position got pulled because the decrepit old lady who runs the place mis-communicated with a major client regarding procedures. They pulled the funding for my position because of this and before I knew it, I went from sitting at a window office with a view working as a project coordinator to sitting on my couch watching the price is right.

What the smeg just happened here? I was one day away from owning a Mazda 6 Sport Wagon!

Well, this was the week before Thanksgiving 2004. It is now April 29th, 2005 and I have not worked a day since then. For most of my pathetic career, I have always had to skimp on the holidays due to money issues. That holiday season was more depressing than any other I have ever had. THANKS LPS GROUP!

Since having my position terminated for no cause of my own, I have had enumerous interviews with second rate companies, all of which have told me that they have found someone better after having heard about my two year absence in the work force. One guy even asked me my age, and told me that he doesn't like to hire men, usually. I've never been descriminated like this before and I called him on it. He, of course fed me a line to evade a lawsuit. (not gonna' help him much.....I've sought counsil).

So here I am at the gist of this post....after a myrriad of people telling me "NO", I have finally had an interview that went well on Tuesday. It went very well. So well, in fact, that they sent me on a drug screening! (this is code for "it's a 98 percent chance that they will call me to tell me to come in to work once my background security check and my urinalysis clears") So the only thing keeping me from starting there is if they discover the presence of barbiturates in my system, or if my background check reveals that I sell guns or can be a serious liability due to ties with "bad people" or somethig like that, and on both cases, I'm clear.

I asked about my anti-rejection drugs and they said that it's not what they look for, so Ta-Dahhh! - they actually DON'T care about that!!!

The place is called Beacon Fire and Safety - they interviewed me for the position of "Mobile Technician" which loosely means "fire extinguisher refiller". Not a bad thing to do for a living in fact a welcome change from the Tech Rat Race. It means a lot of redundant tasking for a couple of months until I learn enough to move on to something like installing fire alarms and what not, but I'm okay with sitting in a parking lot with 23 -40 cannisters and a radio to keep me busy. I read their leaflet and as it turns out, they also offer fire safety education and teach people how to use a fire extinguisher.

You know, changing career paths is kinda' fun. THIS is what I'm wanting to get into because
1.) I like teaching and
2.) I'm a pyro.

So, I have not gotten a call just yet because it takes up to three to four days for the background check to clear as well as the tox-screening. The interview was on a Tuesday afternoon and the urinalysis was held at around 4:00 PM, (end of the day) - so I don't expect to hear from them until Monday or Tuesday.

All in all, I think I'll be working again by next week. The best thing is that I don't have to ever return to TECH as a career ever again, in fact, I think I've become more knowlegable about it ever since it's become my hobby.

Wish me luck, everyone.....