It’s the end of my job as I know it. Last night I had my last full night of work, and this evening I only had to do my exit interview with one of the upper management before I got out of there.

Things I found out: I had been in consideration for an upcoming system administration position, but my manager neglected to tell me. If I could’ve stayed here, made a lot more money, plus gotten additional training and certifications, I probably would’ve done it. But it’s a little too late now.

Exit interviews are kinda odd like that. You find out things you didn’t know, and you tell somebody things they didn’t know about problems within the department. I made lots of complaints about ergonomics, generic complaints about coworkers, and voiced a few general gripes I’ve heard from friends of mine who work in other positions. I don’t know how much good it will do, but hopefully I voiced things in such a way that it’ll be considered and result in positive change. Who knows though.

I may have a place lined up to live. It’ll be fairly affordable and not far from my new job once I make the move. I’ll be finalizing details on it hopefully by Monday or Tuesday. My target for moving is next Friday, but I’ve still got to work out details of how I will move my things up there.

More updates later. For now, Jack’s Mannequin on my headphones.

Categories: Life, Work
Tags: moving

I do not recommend aimlessly wandering downtown streets in search of a bus route. I was confused about which road to catch to take the bus back north out of the downtown area. My feet walked uphill, downhill, and quite a ways north before realizing I was on the wrong road. I found another road, then realized it was the wrong road. Eventually, I found the write road.

The good news is this came after the job fair.

The job fair was at Safeco Field

I submitted probably ten different resumes in pursuit of opportunities ranging from valet attendant to recruiter to enrollment advisor. I’m expecting at least a couple of the managers will get back to me about my applications for these positions.

The hard part may be deciding how much of a pay cut I’m willing to take. I fully expect to be offered at least one position, but can I work for a third less money?

We’ll see.

Statutes of Seattle Fire Department employees doing their best to fight an unseen enemy

Categories: Life, Work
Tags: Seattle, travel

This is the first time I’ve used an iMac since I had Jake’s old clunker at Jacksonville, FL, during the summer of ‘04. I appreciated the clunker then and I appreciate this computer now.

Coming at you Live! from Seattle, heeeere’s… me!

I’ve had an adventurous day. Adventurous, at least, for me. I’ve never travelled anywhere completely alone before. Today I took a bus to the airport, boarded a plane, and flew to Seattle all by myself. I’m finally grown up and it only took 24 years. Now if only I could move out of my parents’ house things could be perfect.

So I’ve already seen a few interesting sites. Tim, who I know from Jax STP 2004, picked me up from the airport. We decided to Pike Place Market to get some food. We didn’t end up checking out the market, but we walked around for a bit. During the walking, we happened to walk by the first-ever Starbucks coffee shop (still operating!) until we found a Japanese restaurant to eat.

Nothing like raw salmon to make my day go right. Mmm, mmm… oishi.

I went to church at Mars Hill after that. It’s “contemporary” in the way _contemporary_ should be: rocking. And by rocking I don’t mean watered-down, sold-out, and shallow. This sermon packed more solid teaching than I’ve heard in the last six months (probably ’cause I haven’t been to church much). I enjoyed it.

Now I’m staying with some people I know up here. I’m exhausted from adjusting my sleep schedule to normal hours so ineed to get to bed.

I wish I had an easy way to send photos from my phone to this blog. I’ve had trouble with it so far. If you’re on Facebook, though, you can look at my mobile uploads and I’ll be adding photos there throughout this trip. For the rest of you, I’ll put some up here on the site later.

By the way, the big Job Fair is on Tuesday so please pray that it works out well!

Categories: Life, Work
Tags: church, food, iMac, Mars Hill, Pike Place Market, Seattle, travel

Because Tracy asked, I thought I’d give an update regarding plans for Seattle.

Thus far, I’ve applied for six different jobs in the Seattle area and have yet to hear back regarding any of them. At least two of the positions are still going through the selection process, and I have hope that I’ll get one of them or at least receive a polite slam. Both of those positions would be quite similar to my current one in several ways and would be more-or-less the best job I’m hoping to get until undertaking and completing graduate school.

Speaking of graduate school, I bought a book to study for the GMAT. Somehow I never was much impressed with the Kaplan products I’ve seen, so I opted to get the 2007 edition of The Princeton Review’s “Cracking the GMAT.” So far I’ve only made it through the intro, but it should be a good aid.

Categories: Life, Work
Tags: GMAT, Seattle, Tracy

I declined my opportunity to interview for the overseas position. I did some research into the company and became aware of a variety of criticisms made against the company. The two biggest turnoffs:
1) the company attempts to profiteer off its employees
2) the company has a 70% turnover rate in staff every year

Now my list of options is smaller again, but I continue to hope for a way out of my current job. All I know is I’m bored and I’ve considered becoming a temporary States or Europe traveling vagrant if I could make it work. Seriously, I’m getting that desperate.

The more serious options for my life include getting a Master’s Degree or perhaps applying for the JET Programme. If I go for a master’s, currently I’m considering an MBA program in order to have a degree I _can_ use and even combine it with my other natural interests such as music, computers, the internet, or my passion for Japan and other international cultures.

If you don’t know anything about JET, it’s a programme run by the Japanese government where international people come to the country and teach English or other languages to students in a classroom setting. The pay isn’t bad and I’ve heard people generally have a good time. I could end up in a small fishing village, but I also read statements saying that makes it easier to pick up the Japanese language because you have to use it more often. The main bummer about JET is I’ll have to wait to September to apply for the 2007 program.

The big upcoming crisis point in my life is August 1 because I need to know where I’m going to live after I pay my rent in September. The rental authorities want to know by then, and I have no idea. Looking at the calendar, I suppose I should start figuring it out. Eight weeks from now I could actually be vagrant. Awesome!

Anyway. Oh, in case you’re wondering, I didn’t call the girl yet, but I will do it later today.

Categories: Life, Work