Today’s featured image is of me sitting on the grave of Corinne Elliott Lawton (born September 21, 1846, died January 24, 1877) in Savannah’s Bonaventure Cemetery. According to legend, Miss Lawton’s expression changes depending on what she thinks about her visitors. I did not know this when I took my seat and tried to mirror her, but now that I do, I assume that she’s smiling. Right?
If you like cemeteries, you really owe it to yourself to visit Bonaventure. It’s an amazing place with lots of famous dead people, fantastic statuary, and long avenues of old man’s beard-draped live oaks. There’s also generally a really nice breeze coming in off of the Wilmington River. Great place to spend an afternoon.
So I spent a fairly quiet Christmas at home yesterday. Did some laundry, hung out with the cats, took a couple of naps, paid some bills, and contemplated the fact that my final paycheck from AT&T will be deposited in less than two weeks. For all intents and purposes, my final day at work was last Friday, though I’ll go in today or tomorrow to finish clearing out my desk, wipe my laptop’s hard drive, turn in my company phone and ID badges, and continue to wonder just what the hell has happened.
I had an interview with a company called The X Company last Thursday, which is somewhat heartening. At least I got past the initial phone call and actually got to go somewhere and sit in front of two hiring managers. That led to a background check by their boss (in Bozeman, MT). Assuming no murders are found, maybe I’ll get an offer. If so, I’ll be starting at the bottom again, handling support requests from CPA firms who use The X Company’s cloud services. It’s a small company (just over 100 employees), which is nice. Not sure how interesting it’d be, but a foot in the door is all I’m looking for at this point.
I also had a phone interview with Americold, a company that provides refrigeration services from farm to market. 110 years old. I’d never heard of them. That job, should I get it, would require a bit of travel (domestic) and would feature working in “environments as cold as -20.” I told the phone interviewer that I grew up in Vermont, so that second bit wouldn’t be too much of a problem. The call was on Thursday and I had a pretty good reference as a lead, so maybe something will come of it.
Another lead came from a bar friend of mine who works for Ricoh. After I told him that I didn’t see any jobs that I could do listed on the Ricoh website, he went to his boss and asked. Boss said, “Get me his resume. Sounds like we could use him for something.” So I sent my resume to my buddy on Thursday afternoon and we’ll see if it goes anywhere from there.
And, finally, I got an email introduction from one of my tubist friends to a guy who owns a number of IT-related businesses. Introduced myself and told him I’d get him a resume after the first of the year. Not hugely hopeful about that, but who knows?
Regardless of all of that, unless I get a miraculous job offer from AT&T today or tomorrow, it’s time to start over at something new. I never envisioned myself looking for a job at 51 and I’m not entirely sure what type of job I actually WANT, considering that it’s probably going to be my last one. Don’t see any reason to throw in the towel on my computer experience – it’s the one thing that I know I can do – but I’ve let my mind wander about other possibilities. Teaching beginning music – to adults or little kids – is something that I’ve thought about quite a bit. Have also considered freelance programming and/or web design (a friend of mine in Canada does the latter – basically just tweaking WordPress themes for people and sometimes updating content). And I’ve talked with a couple of people about helping the online side of their small businesses.
Then again, maybe I should just get a license to sell insurance or houses or something….though I’m not a salesman in any sense of the word. Ideas? Email them to me.
So the weather in Duluth has been nuts lately. Today is supposed to be rainy and in the 60s. Yesterday hit 70. Last week it was clear and in the 20s. It’s an adventure deciding what to wear for my morning walks every day. Will I need long-johns or just sweat pants? Sweatshirt or light jacket (or, this morning, just a tee)? Wool socks? No socks? I make more decisions before 6AM than most people do all day….
Anyway, the house and car are paid for through another month, I’ve got one check coming, and hopefully a big one due in February. Combined with my renewed Costco card (which got two workouts last week….I’ve got enough food to last a year, I think), I just might make it for a little while. Long enough to figure out the second act, hopefully. Here’s hoping 2017 has something good in store.