Mea culpa for not realizing that it’d been nearly two weeks since I put anything here….though I have realized in the last week that I should have done so.
The featured image for this post is of me at a game at VMI in (I think) 2014. If memory serves, it marked the first game in Lexington, VA, since VMI returned to the conference after leaving for 10 years or so. One of the cheerleaders took it for me – good kids, those. I missed them more than the games themselves when I took last season off.
Anyway, the job search came (more or less) to an end last week, when I accepted an offer to join The X Company, an an Alpharetta-based cloud services company for CPA firms. I’m not going to pretend that this is my dream job, but it has good and bad points. It’s a small company (just over 100 employees), which has been around since 2002, has revenues of about $12 million, a 66% growth rate over the last three years, and has been honored by Inc. 5000 five times. That information is both good and (potentially) bad, because I’m frankly tired of working for big companies (3M, NYNEX, ComputerLand, BellSouth, AT&T) and much prefer the little ones. During my interview, for example, the CEO and co-founder was apparently making faces at my interviewers behind my back – I like stuff like that. A potential drawback, however, is its growth: I learned from my time at Compaid (an Inc. 500 honoree) that small, profitable, companies are ripe for takeover by the big boys. I am really hoping that I don’t have to go through that garbage again…and the fact that The X Company’s been plugging away by itself for 15 years is heartening.
The job itself (Hosted Services Consultant 1) is a severe jump backward for me. My paychecks will be just over half of what they were a month ago, I’ll be on the phone for much of the day, and I’m basically at the bottom of the barrel. I think the “on the phone” part of that scenario is what disheartens me the most, but hopefully I can stay busy and interested enough to either enjoy it or advance out of it. I still have a few leads with other companies, with jobs more suited to my experience and preferences, and I’ll wait to see if anything pans out with them.
I’ve cleared all the pre-hire hurdles with The X Company, however (background, credit, and urine checks), and am scheduled to start work next Monday morning. In Alpharetta. I forgot that part….my commute will go from 5 minutes to probably 45+ minutes. No more lunches at home.
At least I’ll be doing something. Unemployment has been, to put it mildly, sort of exhausting. I’m still getting up at 5:30 – the cats don’t care if I’m going to work or not – but, after my walks, I’ve just been kind of sitting around playing tiddly winks. No energy to do much of anything, and I’m usually wiped out by 5:00 in the afternoon and in bed by 7:30.
I do have some work to do in the next few days, however: cleaning the house in anticipation of a new roommate. My friend Mary, who I’ve known for several years, is coming up on the end of her lease in March and will be taking up residence in the guestroom. She’ll be bringing her adorable little cat, Pretty Princess, with her – which is both very cool and a bit terrifying. I have no doubt that Joshua and Chamberlain will be quite welcoming, but Boo isn’t the friendliest kitty when it comes to meeting new friends. It will be a fairly slow and cautious introduction, with alternating days of cats being closed up in different rooms so that everyone can get acquainted without much bloodshed.
Hey, Jenny and I combined four cats. Hopefully, Mary and I can do the same.
The GBB is back in rehearsals as of last week (although I didn’t start until last night – had a terrible cold/flu last Tuesday night). The board is being pretty active about looking for funding and additional performance opportunities, which is nice. Our board has been pretty lethargic for several years, and it’ll be nice to have input and organization from more than just the 2-3 people who’ve been running the show. We’ve got a mini-tour of GA, AL, and TN coming up in (I think) April, a return engagement to Kennesaw State in March, and a couple of other local gigs scheduled in May. I wouldn’t mind adding two or three more gigs, but a lot of the band folks are really weird about that. They don’t want to play more than 5-6 concerts a year. Not sure why you’d want to be in a band if you don’t want to perform a lot….
The weather in Duluth has been, shall we say, varied as of late. A week ago, it was 18 degrees during one of my morning walks. Today, it was pushing 65. I actually had the A/C on in my car yesterday. Am still waiting for the “chill” hammer to fall, when we have temps in the 20s for a couple of weeks and I can watch my natural gas bill go through the roof. But, so far at least, the utilities haven’t been too overwhelming. Which is good…because I haven’t received my severance check yet, and February is going to be extremely tight, financially speaking.
That should be enough for now. In a nutshell, it appears that I’ve survived my first layoff; my days of living alone are once again about to come to a halt; the weather is nuts; and my biggest opportunity to hike the Appalachian Trail has, at least for now, eluded me.
But I’m going to do it before I die.