After two years back at CPI I’m leaving again. I’m disappointed that it didn’t work out this time because I really thought it would; that’s why I decided to come back in the first place. Unfortunately the company and I were unable to come to an agreement on a number of things and when I was contacted by a recruiter for another company that made me a great offer I accepted.
So on December 26th I will be starting work for a cable/broadband/voice company. They seem like a great bunch of people and I should be able to pick up some additional Business Objects and data warehousing skills while there. I’ll also get some Oracle exposure there too. The commute is a little longer but not unreasonable; Traci and I are out there in the same area every other week for grocery shopping so we’re no strangers to the area.
So here I am, moving again and hoping this will be the last one for a while. I really want to settle down for a while at one place; hopefully this will be the one. Although disappointed about CPI I’m excited about the possibilities that my new job holds for me and I’m looking forward to getting started there. I wish CPI and all my former co-workers the best of luck; I really want to see them all succeed.
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So, why a Mac? Well, I’ve done a fair amount of thinking about this decision and have come to a few conclusions. I need to upgrade within the next two years. My current box, although still quite snappy, will continually become slower and slower as software and operating systems (Vista, in particular) become more processor and memory intensive.
First of all, I had to consider my options. I have three options really; Windows, Mac, or Linux. I know there are other operating systems out there but for my personal machine at home none of the other options make sense. Given these three options I first needed to identify what I really wanted. Part of me, at least the non-conformist in me, wants to buck Microsoft completely. Sorry to disappoint all you Linux apologists out there but Microsoft is and will continue to be a major force in the computing world for some time to come. There is no escaping Microsoft completely, especially if you’re coming from a Windows world and have already come to use some Windows-only software. Read more…
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For the past 8 years I’ve been toying with the notion of switching from Windows to either Linux or Apple. I consistently dismissed the idea either because Linux wasn’t quite capable of supporting the switch or because Apples were just too damn expensive. Granted, Microsoft has made significant improvements in Windows stability (and even security) over the past several years so the impetus to switch isn’t quite what it was in the Windows 98/Me days. Windows XP was actually a pretty decent attempt at Unix by Microsoft, all things considered, but it’s still Microsoft at its base. Security sucked in XP and doesn’t seem to have improved drastically in Vista, unless you call nagging the end user to death security.
Speaking of Vista, that’s really what’s sparked this whole thing…again. My wife’s laptop decided to burn out its video card so rather than fixing it immediately we came across a good deal on a new Vista desktop for her. After we got it home we ended up replacing the printer (incompatible with Vista) and bought two new copies of Outlook. My scanner won’t work with Vista either, but that’s a bridge we’ll cross another day.
After spending some time getting her machine set up I realized one major thing: I’m really not that impressed with Vista. I really expected something big for an OS five years in the making and I was, well, underwhelmed by the whole thing. It’s slow as hell, at least on her system, and the interface just isn’t what I thought it would be. I expected something revolutionary and it just appeared that it got a decent facelift. Read more…
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We have a pretty big problem here in St. Louis with people running red lights. I’ve always hoped we could do something about it and when I saw that the city was installing camera systems in order to nail red light runners I thought it would be a positive thing.
Now, however, I’m not so sure. I guess I always had a “Big Brother” fear about this type of “police enforcement” but I pushed it down hoping this was a step in the right direction and for the common good. I mistakenly thought that the city would only be concerned about people running red lights. I consider that to be extremely dangerous. Turns out they’re also interested in another type of “infraction”; turning right on red without coming to a complete stop first.
First off, I’m not saying I didn’t do it. I did. I often yield at a red light instead of completely stopping. Although it’s illegal, I don’t believe it’s necessarily dangerous; not any more dangerous than anything else associated with driving. I’ve also asked many other people if they do the same thing and they say they do. Still not justification, but it does shed a little light on the frequency. Basically this is the vehicular equivalent of jaywalking. Read more…
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I received the best letter ever today, one that I apparently have needed for some time but didn’t even know it. Turns out there’s this group called St. Matthew’s Churches in Oklahoma that knows me without even knowing my name. They’ve detected, through some kind of magic, that I need some direction in my life. They decided to loan me a letter with a bunch of cool stuff in it so I could get right to turning my miserable, useless life around and start obeying orders.
I flipped the envelope over to find even more good news:
Prophecies? Sealed prophecies? That’s Indiana Jones type stuff! And it also appeared that my time was running out since God’s divine power would only work for tonight and tomorrow night. I knew I was on to something good and I didn’t have time to waste so of course I decided to open it and peruse its contents.
Inside was a letter talking about handkerchiefs. They already had me at “sealed prophecy” so I read on: Read more…
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As I near the one year anniversary of my return to CPI, I’ve taken some time to reflect upon my life and my career now versus a year ago. Things had taken an apparent turn for the worst a little over a year ago when Maritz decided to cancel my contract with no explanation or consolation. Apparently that’s the way of things as a contractor working for a terrible company. Maritz was one of the best and one of the worst experiences of my working life. As a company I find it difficult to understand how they continue to operate; it was one of the most disorganized companies I’ve ever worked for.
When Maritz let me go I was floored. I literally felt sick. It was mid-December, we’d just moved into our new house, and we hadn’t even made the first house payment yet. We’d slightly over-extended ourselves when we moved but we did it believing that I would continue to be employed and we’d catch up again shortly. Unfortunately things didn’t work out that way.
After I was let go I spent a lot of time sitting around and wondering what I’d done wrong. I find it funny now that I seem to be quite valuable to CPI; whereas at Maritz I apparently had absolutely no value to them at all. I’ve worked for several companies throughout my life and I’ve never, ever been let go from a job. I’ve always received positive feedback from management and I’ve always succeeded in completing the tasks assigned to me. I’ve always felt like I was valuable to the companies I’ve worked for but for Maritz, this wasn’t the case. Ultimately I decided not to spend a lot of time doubting myself and to spend more time being positive and, above all else, finding a new job. As I found out, Maritz has a bad reputation for doing to a lot of other people exactly what they did to me. Read more…
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