New Job!

You’ve all probably noticed (or anyway, I hope you have!) that I’ve been quiet around these parts for a bit.

I just got hired in as a Technical Specialist at Chrysler through RGBSI.  I start on Tuesday, and a lot of my radio silence was due to my getting things prepared for this move, as well as a bunch of other things (Harvest Dinner, Alpena Nile Club visit, yardwork, interviews, etc etc) going on.

So.  An update.

I’m moving down to Auburn Hills today (eeep!) and will be staying in a residence hotel.  Sounds kinda icky, I know, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Then I’ll be moving to Auburn Hills Apartments.  I got lucky with this walk in.  We drove all around the Auburn Hills area and I managed to get a nice apartment in the same complex I was in before, but a different building.  If you want my addres, please email me, and be aware that I’m not moving there til October 29th.

So.  Yeah.  I start work on Tuesday.

Wish me luck!

Oh, also, check out the pictures I posted from our drive up to Alpena here on my mobile pictures blog.  We had a good time, and I’m looking forward to next year!

Rants, Computers, and Some Good News

Well the title says it all.

~Rants~

Well, can anything else go wrong?  This is usually a bad question to ask, but it seems that everything goes bad at once.  Forgive me while I put my ranty-pants on for a sec.

1. The car has a dead battery. Or at least I think so.
2. The netbook has a battery that’s not charging the way it should be.
3. The laptop’s internal hard drive died.  Lost 4 ripped CDs, my saved games and my Windows partition.  I’m glad I did a backup of my /home on the Sunday before it totally died.  I would have been in tears for a week if I’d lost everything.

Grumble.

~Computers~

Well, I managed to get a hard drive from my brother to replace the one that click-clacked itself to death.  I’m pleased with it so far, but I’m not pleased with the amount of space; only 200 gb.  It’s working just fine.  I’ll probably end up getting a 500 gb drive sometime and upgrading.  I want 100 gb to devote to Windows 7 so I can keep my skills current, as well as test things like Flock and play games.  I’d like to play some more Sim City 4 and The Sims, as well as World of Goo.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do about the netbook battery.  I posted something to the Ubuntu Forums, but I don’t know if I’ll get any help.  It’s taken about a day and a half to charge.

Unacceptable.

~Some Good News~

I got a call today from a recruiter about an interview.  So I have a phone interview with a company that does plastics processing and whatnot.  The job is for a Product Engineer, which is something I really want to do.  Sounds good, and I hope it works out.  It’s in Ann Arbor.  Not a bad place to live, and I’m not too far from home.  What I’m looking forward to is paying off my car.  Probably that’s what my first thing I’ll “buy” if I get the job. I’d love to get that taken care of so I don’t have to deal with it and worry about it.

So, wish me luck.  I hope something happens with this.

Monster Email

“If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.” Whether you are searching for a new job through Monster or other websites, keep in mind that the same technological innovations that help in your job search may be used by cyber-criminals looking to lure job seekers into questionable job “opportunities.”

Monster, the worldwide leader in the online recruitment industry, makes protecting job seekers a top priority. While Monster continually monitors its network and database to detect and terminate fraudulent access or job postings, keep in mind that Monster’s primary purpose is to serve as an open forum for employers to advertise open positions and a service for job seekers to broadcast their qualifications to interested employers. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate parties (such as employers) have access, but neither we nor any other online recruitment company can guarantee that inappropriate parties will not gain access to a posted resume. Accordingly, we’d like to remind you of what you can do to help keep yourself safe during a job search.

Know What to Avoid

Some employment scams appear as job postings or classifieds while others may target victims with an offer through an unsolicited email. Below are the most common scams you may see:

Money-Laundering Scams
Money launderers often create job descriptions that offer commissions or pay as high as $2000 per day to process checks on behalf of foreign nationals. They are recruiting local citizens to “process payments” or “transfer funds,” because as foreign nationals, they can’t do it themselves. The image below is an example of a money laundering scam hidden behind what appears to be an offer of employment.

Reshipping Scams
Reshipping, or postal forwarding, scams typically require job seekers to receive stolen goods in their own homes– frequently consumer electronics — and then forward the packages, often outside the United States. Those who fall for reshipping scams may be liable for shipping charges and even the cost of goods purchased online with stolen credit cards.

Pre-pay/Work at Home Scams
Although there are genuine jobs working at home, many “offers” are not valid forms of employment and may have the simple goal of obtaining an initial monetary investment from the victim. Using claims such as ‘be your own boss’ and ‘make money quickly’, Work at Home scams will not guarantee regular salaried employment and almost always require an “up-front” investment of money for products or instructions before explaining how the plan works.

Protect Yourself

What seems like a lucrative job offer could cost you your savings and more. Learn to identify the signals of an employment scam to protect yourself. When conducting a job search:

1. Look for signals in a job posting or email offer, which could serve as an indicator that what is being presented as employment is not legitimate. Don’t get involved with an employer that can’t make its business model perfectly clear to you or one that’s willing to hire you without even a phone interview. Do your own research on any employer that makes you feel at all uneasy.
2. Never put your social security or national ID number, credit card number, bank account number or any type of sensitive personal identification data in your resume. You should never share any personal information with a prospective employer, even if they suggest that it is for a “routine background check”, until you are confident that the employer and employment opportunity is legitimate. Use Monster’s resume visibility options to ‘Be Safe’.
3. Do not engage in any transaction in which you are requested to transfer or exchange currency or funds to a prospective employer. Remain alert for the Work at Home employers who require you to make an up-front investment.
4. Be cautious when dealing with individuals/companies from outside your own country.
5. If you see a questionable job posting or suspect misuse of the Monster website or its brand, please report the suspected fraud to Monster.

If you think you have been a victim of fraud, immediately report the fraud to your local police and contact Monster, so steps can be taken to ensure your safety. We also recommend that you file an online report with The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). For more information on how to conduct a safe job search, visit Monster’s Security Center. You can also check out LooksTooGoodToBeTrue.com.

Best regards,

The Monster Team

I got this from Monster.com and in these shitty economic times, it’s worth taking a look at.

Job Searching…

Job searching is a pain.  I shouldn’t really think of it as such, but would it kill someone to call me back?  I don’t want to be perceived as desperate, but the whole thing drives me nuts.

What I don’t like are the double standards.  I MUST respond right away to a posting, phone call, or email; while the employers don’t have to.  They seem to ignore me most of the time, even though I’ve called and emailed them.

There is no sense of urgency.

I understand that it’s an employer’s market out there, but would it kill the employers to have some common decency and call when the candidate is not wanted?  Even one of those “Your skills don’t match with the job requirements, but we are keeping your information on hand for the next 90 days” emails would be preferred to being left out in the dark.

I’m just frustrated.

Oh well.  I’ve applied for another 10 or so jobs today.

Ah, and an aside to what I’ve been talking about…  If you follow me on twitter/identica/plurk you will already know this, but I found a new site: JobFox.

You fill out a profile with your resume information and your skills (some are a little buzz-word like) and then start applying for jobs.  Companies post requirements up there and all you have to do is click on the “Apply” button.  Makes things much easier than going to individual companies sites and creating yet. another. profile.  I have so many profiles out there, I don’t even know what ones are active, dead or still coming up in searches.

Anyway, complete the touchy-feely “work type” quiz and your profile will be complete.  Apparently, I’m an Individualist-Transactor.  Kind of meaningless, but it gets your profile to 100%.  *shrug*

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News. Bad or otherwise.

Well… All good things must come to an end.

I was enjoying my job.  I really liked it.  I’m never happier than when I’m working.  I’d love to do what I did every day for the rest of my life.

Alas.

I was laid off last week Friday, effective 19DE08.  Blech.

If anyone follows my identi.ca feed, then you know that I’ve been working the past week and I’ve sort of been enjoying it and my motivation has been waning.

I’ve been training Amelia to do my job when after I’m gone.  She will do fine.  She’s brilliant and I’ve asked her to give me a reference.  She said she would.  Awesome.

I am going to miss the whole team.  We went bowling last night.  I managed to get tanked…  I suck at bowling (I haven’t bowled since I was in Auburn Hills, if that tells you anything) and I won the boobie prize.  It was a signed bowling pin from the team.

I’m going to be job searching for the next bit of time… Pretty hot and heavy too.  I really need to go back to work as soon as I can.  I love solving problems, working with a good team and being able to be very busy.  I LOVE being busy!  It makes me tick.  That’s what I loved about Kettering… it was stressful, but it was good.  I don’t buckle under the pressure of a job.  :)

I will miss Kathleen, Amelia, Jake, Al, Jason, Rich, Eric, Katie, and Margaret.  Oh, and Omesh and Jim and Tom.  And all the others that I met at work: Bill, Marlene, Lisa, Tom, Dick… Everyone.

Getting laid off sucks.  I can just hope to have something in the beginning part of the year.  Wish me luck.

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Job Post

I GOT A JOB!!!

Now, before you all get excited, it’s an entry level position at Delphi.  Not too exciting.  It sounds like paper-pushing until I get an opportunity to move into an engineering role.  At this point, I’d take anything to get me in at the ground floor.  I thought the co-op was supposed to do that, but hey.  This job market sucks a big one, so at least I have something.

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Interview!!!

I’ve got a job interview tomorrow!  Woo-Hoo!

It’s in Dearborn, MI (bout a 2 hour drive from Saginaw) and it’s for a tech job that’s out of state.  It’s actually at a staffing agency.

Wish me luck!!!

Oh, that means my fanfic won’t be updated til Friday.  Sorry for the delay.

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Wisconsin Trip

As some of you know, I went to Wisconsin on Wednesday.  Here’s a lowdown on the trip. 

Wednesday, 5/23/2007

I got started early; about 5 AM for a 7:40 AM flight.  The trip through airport security was easy and painless.  I don’t like having to take my shoes off, but that’s ok.  The flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul was kind of long, but fine.

The flight from Minneapolis/St. Paul to LaCrosse was very bumpy.  I don’t remember anything like that from Boston to Bangor.  I ended up weaving from that plane to the baggage claim.  My bags got to LaCrosse all right, but they were searched by the TSA.  Anything for flight safety, right?

Enterprise (my car rental company) was not in the airport.  I was quite confused  until the lady from Hertz gave me the number for Enterprise.  And yes, they do “pick you up”, just like the commercials.

I ended up with a Ford Escape.  Not too bad of a car, but I’m not used to driving a SUV.  Matter-of-fact, I’m not used to driving anything much larger than my mom’s Saturn.

The hotel was really nice.  It had a pool, but I didn’t have my swimsuit with me, so I didn’t get a chance to use it.  I opted for TV and reading my book.  Not much was on TV, but I watched some episodes of Without a Trace and Spongebob.

Went to bed early.  Now we come to:

Thursday, 5/24/07

This is the day of the interview.  I got around early (about 6:30).  Breakfast was included in the price of the hotel.

It took ten minutes (literally!) to get to Michaels.  I was early (as usual).  At any rate, the interview went well.  I was spot on with stuff, and I felt totally at ease with the guy I talked to.  He was totally nice… everyone seems nice from Wisconsin!

We ended up getting lunch(!) at a a cajun place.  I got the seafood gumbo.  It was sooooo good; slightly spicy, but that’s fine.  I explained Kettering’s program to the engineers I was with.  The were impressed.  Well, like I said to them; “people are either impressed or horrified by the program” (said in leiu of ten weeks of classes/3 days of exams and 20 credits).

The interview was done about 2 PM.  I went to the car, changed clothes, then went to Enterprise.  They took me to the airport and all was well.  My outgoing flight was late(!) but I didn’t worry.  My connecting flight in Minneapolis/St. Paul left at 7:20 PM.

If you end up in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, make sure you have at least a 2 hour layover.  Why, you ask?  It’s so you can go SHOPPING!!  Yes, I said shopping!  There’s like a mall in there!  It’s so cool.

Anyway, I was sitting over by D terminal (my gate was D1) after I had Quiznos for dinner.  I was sitting there listening to my mp3 player, and was like “what am I doing?  I could be walking around!”.  So I did.  I wandered around over by F terminal.  They have an iPod store with pre-loaded iPods, a luggage store with some cool purses, clothes shops, book stores and a cool little Minnesota shop with kitchy stuff in it.  It had shirts, hats, magnets, keychains, mugs, baseballs… anything you wanted that mentioned Minnesota, this shop had.  I ended up with a magnet shaped like Minnesota with a loon and moose on it as well as a hat.  Set me back about $20, but that’s ok.  I wish I had picked something up in Wisconsin, but I wasn’t thinking about that when I was there.  Oh well.  I’ve got something from Minnesota, so it’s ok.  :)

I ended up home by 10:30 PM EDT.  I was super tired.

I hope I get this job.  It sounds like a  cool opportunity.  I wouldn’t mind moving to Wisconsin.  It’s a very nice state, with loads of things to do.  :)

SAE World Congress 2007

Entrance to the SAE World Congress: Free
Bus shuttle to the SAE World Congress: Free
Lunch: $7.00
Getting a career job: Priceless

I couldn’t resist.

~~~~

I went to the SAE World Congress yesterday. Man, was it busy.

Anyhoo, I went to the career fair they had over in the South East booths. I saw reps from GM, TRW, Gulfstream, Toyota, Stryker, Honda, some staffing agencies, Visteon, Southwest Research, Sterling, Harley-Davidson and a couple others. I put out all 16 of my resumes and a couple of my business cards.  Very productive.

I also got entered into a drawing for an iPod (through one of the staffing agencies) and a drawing for a trip to Hong Kong (through a supplier booth). I don’t know if I’ll get either, but it’s worth a try, right?

I managed to pick up a ton of literature about the different companies that were there, as well as some trade mags.

I picked up so much stuff I needed to get a bag of some type. Gulfstream had bags they were giving away, so I ended up getting one of those and putting all my stuff in it. I was big enough for all my stuff, including my purse. The only problem with it was it got really heavy by the end of the day. I missed the sweet ones that Toyota was giving away at their booth. Those were really nice and were gone by noon.

Job fairs are a good place to get company swag as well.  I managed not to get too overwhelmed by it. I picked up a Honda keychain (very nice), a sweet pen from Oshkosh, a Tangle toy from Gulfstream and a balsa airplane from National Instruments. Oh, and my bag from Gulfstream.

~~~~

To clarify, I only had entrance to the exhibits and the career fair. I didn’t have entrance to the paper presentations or to the other presentations. I could go to the vendor presentations though, and that I did.

~~~~

If you’re in Michigan next year and want to do something different (and you can get off work or school), I highly recommend going to this.  It is a giant networking opportunity for engineers of all disciplines. All that is required is some time, and you going to the website to pre-register (http://www.sae.org/congress).

Job Search Update (again)

I had my interview at Grede Foundries today.  It went very well, if “very well” means almost 2.5 hours in the interview.  :)

We talked about all the usual things.  I just answered the best I could.  That’s all I can do, right?

Anyway, afterward, my mom and I went to Frankenmuth.  It’s not too far away from Vassar, so we didn’t have far to go.  We ended up at the Z Cafe for lunch (good lunch… I recommend it to anyone who goes) and tried to find the purse shop.  We ended up walking almost to the brewery when we gave up.  It was cold!  Anyway, we think it might have moved to the River Walk Place.

So, it’s been a good day overall.  I hope I get the job.  *crosses fingers*

Job Search Update

Well…

I didn’t get the job or even another consideration for the Flowserve job.  *sadness* but not really.  It was something that was way out of my league and I don’t think I could do a good enough job in it to justify my pay.  It would have been really stressful and tough.  Not that I’m not tough, but it was a support role for Dow for all of their pumps and seals and stuff.  It seemed to be a “crisis management” type job.  It doesn’t seem to be my thing. 

In other news, I have another interview tomorrow.  It’s at Grede Foundries over in Vassar.  It’s a “Plant Engineer” position.  I’d be working on plant layout and stuff.  Doesn’t sound too bad.  I’d rather do materials research and part design, but if I can get this job and some experience, maybe I can work into the job I really want.

I hope I get this one.  I really want it.  I want to work in this job and get better at what I do.  I want to get some experience so I can get a better job and be able to support myself.  Isn’t that what everybody wants to do?

Jobs…

I just got an email from CAMLogic in Oxford about a job! W00tness!

They were like, “call us to set up an interview, our hours are 8-5 M-F”. I got the email at 4:35. Not bad for a cold email to a company I found on craigslist. :)

This is very exciting. I have the chops for it (I think) with all my CAD and CAE experience (I*Deas). I enjoy doing that sort of thing, especially working in a group to create a cool new part. The only thing I don’t want to do is try to sell stuff to people.

Oh, and I applied to Radio Shack to be a “sales associate”. Woo. I don’t do cell phones, but I can help people who want to build electronics stuff. I think. I did take that one class in school… Maybe I’m not qualified to help people, but I can run a register. I’m good at that.

How cool would it be for me to move back down to the Metro Detroit area? I just moved back! *Sigh* Stuff happens. I can think of all the good things that would happen: career advancement, money, independence, possibly a new car, cable or high speed internet… I can also think of only a few things that would keep me here: some friends I’ve made, the Bookcrossing meetups, Crumbs, time with my family…

I do think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. And my friends I’ve made up here can come down and visit ( this means you! :-D). I can also reschedule the Bookcrossing meetups for the weekend. I could… I’d have to check with the other group members, but I think it would work. :-D

I’m excited. I hope I get it. I know, I know, I shouldn’t get excited about it because I’ve been let down hard before, but this seems different. I hope it happens.