I ran out of time and it is after midnight now, so I missed posting Jan 6th. This bums me greatly. However, to make up for this I am going to continue this saga later today. After a good nights sleep.
My current position “expired” when the project I worked for ran out of funding. So, I needed a job and soon. Every interview for open positions that I had so far had gone OK. It was the jobs that sucked. I wanted to find a position that was technical as well as administrative. I had been ruined by my former project. I was the administrative person for a group of software programmers. They let me do some very low-level (OK, grunt) computer tasks for them and I loved it. I cannot explain why, but I did.
Now I wanted to work with actual data, keep learning UNIX. The thought of doing only admin tasks again depressed me. I found out about an opening for an Operations Assistant. Admin and technical support for an Operations Center. I lucked out and got a tour of the place before I applied. The “Center” was housed in a very old, very broken down trailer. It did not even have running water. The carpet was sort of gross. It was not a large trailer, so multiple file cabinets were stacked up in the middle of the room and these were nearly as tall as I was.
The place was noisy. All around the edges of the room were different kinds of equipment. One monitor showed looping weather satellite images. One piece of equipment constantly beeped. A deep computer generated (and very loud) voice would make an announcement once in a while – in a language unknown to me. A group of computer stations were also in the middle of the room (next to the cabinets). They displayed data and graphics – also in a language unknown to me.
I found MY job! So what if I have to go to the building next door to pee? The jobs in the swanky new buildings could not compete with this one.This was home.
Now I needed to convince my new boss that it was MY job. I was perfect for the position in my own mind. I felt confident and excited as I approached the Operations Center where my interview would take place. I was also terrified. What if a more tech-y person wanted the job? What if they laughed at my grunt computer skills?
to be continued…
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