A happy development
I have spent a lot of blog space in the past year bitching about my job, or lack thereof. It gives me great pleasure to report that I finally got a tech support position equal to my skills and experience in the field.Oddly enough, I'm going back to work for a company, let's call it HappyTech, where I was laid off three years ago. I started at HappyTech in '02, doing tech support for another company's software. An auto parts catalog on DVD-ROM, the software was a real piece of crap- buggy as all hell and too complicated for its non-technical end-users. But it had the advantage of being the cheapest parts catalog on the market, so they had a large customer base for us to support. It was a cushy job, a small help desk (three people) in a very informal environment where no one cared if you goofed off so long as you got your work done. HappyTech was a small company with a diverse, gay-friendly staff. On slow days I played games and downloaded music for much of the time. I burned scented candles at my desk and played my CD's, all with the blessing of the owner and office manager. A really idyllic situation in retrospect, although I had no idea how good I had it at the time.
Then the crap software maker sold out their support contract to an evil behemoth computer corporation. HappyTech's owner couldn’t find any new business for our help desk and had to lay us off after a few months. I found another great support job after a few months, but my employment woes of the past year are well documented here.
I saw a tech support job at HappyTech posted on Monster back in December and sent the owner my resume. On Thursday, he emailed. By Friday evening I was hired.
HappyTech is back on its feet in a big way. They partnered with a software developer to produce their own parts catalog. It's about to launch and the owner is setting up a help desk that will include six support specialists and one IT guy. They have a five year contract with a major auto manufacturer, which is unheard of in that industry right now.
I am excited to be starting back there tomorrow. Finally, a job with some security and longevity, after a year of job-hunting and temping and scraping by. From financial disaster to a decent steady income. No more worrying what I'm going to do when my geriatric Accord collapses this year for good. The impossible luxury of paid vacation time. The obscene decadence of fully paid medical insurance. It's almost too much for me to process.
posted by Sgt Howie @ 8:58 AM
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