Back To Work

I go back to work, this time as a Project Manager for a nationally known retail operation based in Hoffman Estates, IL. I'll probably start on Wednesday or Thursday, but fully expect the the start date to push to next Monday. Hiring managers at this place have a lot to do to bring in a new contractor. This will be my third go round and this may be the charm.

With an unprecedented positive recommendation from a previous IT manager, the new boss was pretty well convinced he'd hired me before I came in for the face to face interview. That's what the recruiter said. This time he was right.

That was amazing. Thanks Nancy!

As usual, it took less than a day to get confirmation for the contract. Every job I've ever gotten resulted in the offer or confirmation taking hours instead of days. Once or twice it took as long as two days- but never any longer. In the latest round of interviews and waiting for the rejection phone call, e-mail or letter, I think offers were extended to other people (when I made it that far) and I was the 'back-up.' Of course, I may think too much of myself.It just might be I'm too old, made too much money or a combination of the three.

The new contract's supposed to run 4-6 months. In the interview, my new boss listed the projects his team will have to handle in the next 12-24 months. I believe he was telling me there's a perm gig in it for me, if I don't step on my....er....keep my nose clean. The recruiter thinks the same.

I had no idea Loyalty Programs could keep that many folks employed for that many projects over that length of time.

Thank Goodness for Marketing. Yeah, you heard me.

The journalist in me cringes when I say that because I've seen marketing and PR communications bombarding the newsrooms I managed.

Since then, I've worked three or four marketing projects and as visionary, pie in the sky and wishful thinking as these folks tend to be, the checks don't bounce and I learned the application isn't mine. It's theirs.

I'm an IT Project Manager now, pretty cool, hunh?

I gotta keep studying for my Microsoft Project and PMI PMP credentials or I'll lose access to the on-line question bank. I've found that pretty good for study.

It'll take a little while to get used to getting up at a reasonable hour more than once a week. So, I'm thinking I'll read and test in the evenings and maybe 8-10 hours a day on the weekend until I'm ready. I hope the new place will give me time off to take the tests. If I was smarter, i would have done all of this over the last 3-4 weeks.But I'm not and job hunting was a much higher priority.

As one Blog Commenter told me, Good. Maybe now you'll quick all that whining.

Probably. But if you've been looking for work over the last two years and know your elbow from your foot, you know I didn't exaggerate anything. And writing this blog with all the rants helped keep me sane. That and the Wellbutrin, Xanex and my wife.

But that's over, hopefully for a while- worst case for 4-6 months.

I hope to have some non-proprietary detail on how small teams in a huge IT arena handle development, project management and some generic info on Loyalty Programs. I've dome them on the BA side, so the PM side ought to be very interesting.

Thanks for sticking with me on this drive to be productive and back to work!

If Anything Can Go Wrong...

...it will. Murphy has to have had my search for work in mind.

This latest one is classic.

The company advertised for a permanent full time Business Analyst.

I got 64 (I'm not kidding) phone calls on this. My LinkedIn Profile is working, I guess. And two dozen e-mails. You know the ones- created in Java or a PDF so you can't do anything with it

I went with the first guy who called me.

Two days later, the company called my recruiter, said it wanted a phone screen. Great!

The phone screen was done by the incumbent. The company is smart enough to allow some overlap. Support Content Management, check; Lead Projects for enhancements, check; create and troubleshoot reports from a data warehouse, check. Great, the hiring manager will get my notes and we'll get back to you.

Three days later they want another phone interview. Hmmm.

The hiring manager is still screening. So what was the time I spent out of class invested in? Nothing, obviously, thought the suspicious former reporter now Business Analyst without a job. Yeah, forgot to tell you, I was in a certification class for the first interview.

I call in. We talk. The manager keeps harping on supporting the Content Management System. No, the manager didn't expect any major or minor enhancement for quite a while. No, you wouldn't be creating reports so much as trouble shooting them.

So you advertised for a Business Analyst because........?

Hmmm. The manager wants a Level Two Technical Representative, not a BA.

The last zinger occurs when I ask about the next steps.

"I'm not sure," says the hiring manager, "If we decide to go outside the team, we'd call you in for a face to face interview."

Go "outside the team"?

"Yes, I know we have people on the team who can do this, I just haven't decided if that's the route I want to go," the hiring manager says.

I politely say goodbye while making a rude gesture as I hang up the phone. It's an old Help Desk trick to lower your frustration level without getting into trouble.

So, the bottom line is:

1. The company's job listing, if not an outright lie, was misleading.
2. The inequitable playing field (she has a job, I don't) just became more so because I'm competing with people she already knows and who obviously have more domain experience than I do.
3. There ain't a chance in Hell I'm getting this job, the manager's doing this to fulfill corporate policy and this was just a numbers game.

If the manager calls back and wants a face to face (which I doubt will happen- trust me, I've been looking for work for over 18 months now), I will politely tell the manager that I'm not interested any longer and have accepted an offer with a competitor as it's new CTO (Chief Technical Officer).

I like Cornell's corollary to Murphy's Law: Murphy was an optimist.