So…my blog redesign…didn’t happen this past weekend. I intended to, but Mikey started school this past Saturday and instead of counting on those 4 hours to work on my blog…I figured I’d not work on it just incase the first day of class was only an hour long. You never can tell with college courses if the first day is going to take up all the class time or only the first hour. Blog redesign will have to occur next weekend while he is in class and I have some quiet time to be creative. I’ve already got half of it done, I just need to figure out how I want the background.

Instead I will have to post about all of what has been going on in the past couple of months sometime this week without the blog facelift. I can give you all one piece of information. I got to keep my job this month. My company had a RIF this past week…and if you search hard enough, I’m sure you can figure out which one it was. Luckily, I was not affected by it, but I had a few friends who were affected. It was very sad to see them go and for some people it just seemed senseless as to why they were let go. Even though I am safe for the month of September I’m not out of the water just yet.

In the case that you haven’t ever been part of a RIF where there are mass layoffs, this is how they work in CA. If the RIF affects more than 50 people or a certain percentage of your workforce, whichever comes first, the company has to issue a WARN letter 60 days before the pending termination date. When that date comes, they do the RIF. The company then has 60 more days following the RIF to lay more people off. So, basically, they can keep laying off people every month until they have a RIF lapse of 90 days. Once 90 days elapses without any layoffs, the company has to issue another WARN letter before they can start laying people off again. I know we are facing at least one more RIF before they are done…so wish me luck.

I love my job and the company I work for. I really want to stay and continue my career there since my career has really taken off there. But if I do end up getting RIF’d, at least I will have better confidence in finding a new job and being successful at it. My current experience has shown me that I do have Engineering talent and more potential than I thought. It has also taught me that I can be competitive and successful in my career even though I am in a male dominated field.

Stay tuned for my big news!

As the title implies, I’ve found some new motivation to write. The upside to this, is that I have a topic that I really want to write about for NaNoWriMo…the downside is that I probably won’t be putting what I write for NaNoWriMo in my blog. Maybe, I will post some excerts of it if I have some good ones that come out of “noveling.”

So, what is my topic, you may be wondering. Well, truth be told, I have had a lot to write about in the past couple of years, but I just haven’t written about it. Most of what I have wanted to write about in my blog, could have gotten me fired at my previous job. I didn’t want to end up being another Dooce (although her life seemed to have gotten quite fantastic from being fired for blogging) and I didn’t want something happening to me like what happened to Pointless Drivel…who was completely and totally unfairly fired for blogging about work (his was blamed for creating a hostile work environment over what he had written in his blog…which was a bunch of BS, since he had nothing but wonderful things to say about his workplace).

Yes, I will be writing about work. That isn’t quite right, I will be writing about female engineers in the workplace. What they encounter, what they want, how to handle them (since I have had bosses who just plain did not know how to work with women as their subordinates). Of course, that is not the case now. I love my boss and he does an awesome job and knows how to keep the workplace professional, but not too extreme on the serious. More importantly, I will be offering up the female perspective of working in a man’s world.

What gave me the idea? I’ve been in training classes for the past two days and I got to talk to the wonderful woman who set up our training classes and we shared some discussion about the engineering world. This was her first job where she worked for a Defense Contractor, versus a Commercial company. So, she has been adjusting to the world of Defense and how women are seen in that world…aka…glorified Admins. Of course not all Defense Contracting Companies are like that and not all departments or sections in a Defense Contracting Company is like that. I can certainly tell you that my department doesn’t even come close to this old adage of male chauvinist pigs in Defense…I don’t even think the company as a whole even gets close enough to touch this stereotype of Defense Contractors. However, it is certainly different from the Commercial world of Engineering. We had a nice long discussion on the differences. Over the past day or so, I’ve been thinking about our conversations more and more. I started to wonder if anyone had ever written on this topic before. Thus began my idea for a topic for NaNoWriMo (which I have been wanting to participate in for a while). I’m certain there has to have been a few books written on the subject…so mine will be more from my perspective, kind of like a memoir; but not completely.

Other subjects I have thought about writing on are James and that whole experience. I don’t think I am quite ready to write about that…and I think that is partially why I have been lacking from the blog more than I had before. Its something that I probably should write about, but I don’t have the energy to write about. I could write about my infamous SIL…but why waste my time, my brain and the bits and bytes on my hard drive about someone I really don’t care for. Why dwell on someone that I don’t have the energy or emotional capacity to waste on? I’m going through so much already with trying to let myself go through the grief process that I really don’t need to waste any part of myself on someone who is undeserving of my attention. Who wants to dredge up things? Not me, I want to move forward, its just not natural to become stale in a subject or move backwards. I am trying to stay in the present moment and my present moment, doesn’t really include her…as sad as that is for her.

I’ve also thought about writing about my knitting. But do we really need another book about knitting and the people who knit? Oh sure we need more pattern books out there, because I am a total pattern book junkie. But, I think I’ll leave the knitting memoirs up to Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and YarnHarlot along with the various others that probably broach the subject and can integrate it into their life story more humorously than I.

So, is this my return out of the bloggy writing block?

I don’t really have an answer to that question, but I certainly hope so. Mikey and I got new office furniture and rearranged our office last weekend…so maybe that is motivation enough to start writing again. I can tell you that the blog writing bug has been bitting me lately…which finally got me writing tonight. So, thats a start.

Just another one of those perks of my new job. I also get to see immitations of Yoda…complete with levitations! Can I ever say enough about how much I love my job?!

In my years of living, I’ve learned that there are two paths to take in life. There’s the path, where you feel so good about your life at the moment, that everything seems right and you know you are doing what you are supposed to do with your life and then there’s the path that makes you feel miserable all the time. You may not realize how miserable you are until you find the other path…but no matter what you do, you feel as if something is just not right, sometimes you know why and sometimes you just haven’t figured it out yet.

I’ve learned that it is so much easier following the path you are supposed to follow versus forcing yourself along the path that makes you crazy. Everyone wants to be happy and the only way to be happy is to follow the path that will take you there. So, I’ve learned that in making decisions, I have to go with what gives me a good feeling. If for any reason I have the slightest bit of doubt in a decision, I just won’t go with it. A few months ago, I thought I was being a little fussy by not accepting a job offer, because I had the slightest tinge or hint of discomfort…I really didn’t know if I would get a more competitive offer or not at the time and I felt like I was being forced into taking it. As a matter of fact, I even sent the offer back for a counter offer…finding it just didn’t quite meet what I wanted, yet the people giving it to me were acting like I would be nuts not to jump on it.

About a day before I had to make my final decision, I received a much more competitive offer with the company I am with now. Now I know that I wasn’t merely being fussy…I saw something better in this other company and when I went in for the interview I felt completely and totally relaxed, the people there put me at ease. People were friendly, they seemed busy, but not cuthroat and it truly looked and felt like a team environment. I knew I wouldn’t have to slave for 12 hours a day everyday of the week, I’d just have to do my job and if I wanted to further my career, I could do so on my terms and at my own pace…and I would be evaluated fairly. So, I took the offer…and I suddenly felt like this big weight was lifted off my shoulders.

We came up here on a holiday week and checked the area out…found a nice house to rent for a fair rental price, in less than 3 days. Everything happened quickly and seemed like it happened so easily. The relocation package was more than I could have asked for and things went pretty smoothly. The only bump along the way was that the moving company was a couple of days late delivering our stuff to our house…which left us next to no time to unpack and launder work clothes for Monday morning…but somehow we managed to get it all done…probably had to do with the help we had from my mom and a couple of friends.

All I can say is that I’ve been taking that first path ever since I made the decision to take the offer for this job. This has been a really good move for us! I didn’t realize how depressed and miserable I was in our previous situation until now. I know it was kind of a no brainer that I didn’t like my job, my apartment, or the city we were living in…among a plethora of other things I’d rather not discuss. But now I know how badly I was treated at my last job and how much I just swept under the rug and shrugged off, so I could silently and strategically plan my escape. My last two weeks there I was called a “Putz” with a smile from my then, former manager (not my last manager there) multiple times…and you know, even though he said it in a joking way with a smile, it didn’t really feel like he was joking. He wouldn’t have said it if he wasn’t thinking it.

Its just nice to be at a place where my gender isn’t an issue. My former manager didn’t know how to deal with young female engineers…because I was officemates and friends with another girl (who wasn’t an engineer and someone he valued more than I), he thought I was like her…so he treated me “like a girl.” When he finally figured out that I really didn’t go for that, he tried to treat me “like a guy,” hence the “putz” comment and several other palsy boyish comments he made to me in his time of being my manager. He just couldn’t treat me as a fellow engineer/human, he had to make a subconscious issue about gender. At this new job, the work population is so diverse that no one can make a gender issue, a race issue, an age issue, etc…and people work together with mutual respect for one another. I feel like I died and went to heaven! Finally, I feel as I did when I was in college. I’m a female engineer and no one is making an issue about it, because I am just another engineer, I have a brain, I have a lot to offer, and my qualities are being recognized as such.

So, what more do I have to say? Follow the path that gives you comfort and feels right, because that is the path you were meant to follow, don’t force yourself to go down the path thats uncomfortable…its uncomfortable because you aren’t supposed to follow it!

We did it! We moved North! And so far, we love it! I love my new job! Lots of friendly, nice people! We love the house, like MAJOR LOVE THE HOUSE!

I know a lot of people don’t like to be labeled or like to have a job that is soo “in the box,” but it is really nice to be in the box for a change. Its nice to know what your job entails, what you will be working on, what the expectations are, some formal training as opposed to lackadaisical on-the-job training, and that this action will yield this result, some actual procedures and organization…a plan on how to do things. I could go on and on…and I could go on some more about Engineering good practices that I’ve observed, that I’ve never had the opportunity to observe before…but none of that would make sense to a majority of my readers. Lets just say that this new company is doing things the way they should be doing them for an Engineering company and the old place I worked for rarely did a portion of what they do and if they did it, they did it in poor practice.

My co-workers are very friendly and nice, it seems like everyone genuinely cares about one another. My new boss is super cool! I really like him…mostly because he has confidence in my abilities and he has given me an assignment that is challenging and completely up my alley. It seems like the workforce is a lot younger too. Most of us are new, I’d say about 50% of the people there were hired within the last year and those that have been there a while are no older than 50 and if they are, they aren’t old white men who hate young people. Its a rather diverse workforce, which I really like…I think it fosters more creativity and brain power…everyone can learn from one another and everyone has something to add, even if its just a different perspective.

The only downside to the new job is that it isn’t close to a lot of places for lunch. My quick choices are the Subway down the block, or the Roach Coach that swings by 3 times a day. If I can afford a longer lunch, there is this really nice outdoor shopping mall that has some good places to eat at…and its a couple of blocks from my house…but it gets packed busy and parking is limited…so, its better if you take a long late lunch so you don’t have to deal with lunch time rush.

I have to remember to take some pictures of the house. I told Mikey to take a week off, before he starts to look for another job. He hasn’t had time off since our honeymoon and he really needed it. I figure that it isn’t a big deal if he goes without a job for a month and it would be a nice break for him. Well, this week he has managed to almost completely unpack all the boxes and set everything up. And he is already talking about how he wants to go back to work already! He can’t relax at all! I did manage to look for some jobs for him in my company, because they have a lot of union jobs and such. I only just sent those over to his email today…so he will probably have another week off before starting anywhere.

Signing off a much happier and more relaxed

Today was my last day at my old job! Hello new job! I’ve got a week off in between.

Tonight, the young co-workers of mine are having a happy hour celebration at a local bar. Then tomorrow, I’ve got lunch with my grandma and then later on that night I’m having a get together with my friends who are in the immediate area.

Monday, the movers are coming to assess our apartment to see how much they have to pack and all that. Thursday, Mikey and I are on the road to our new location, Friday we get to move in…then the following Monday I start work at the new job!

I can’t wait! I’m telling you, I was beaming when I left my office…I was trying not to be so obvious about my enthusiasm for leaving the place, but I really couldn’t help that stupid grin on my face. No more drab decor! I swear, if I had to stare at those cubical walls and pink wall behind it anymore, I was going to go nutz! Decor of an office can make it that much of a better place to work. I don’t know if you know what I mean, but at least if the decor isn’t drab, it won’t make a bad day worse, you know?

Anyhow, Miss BB and Scout definitely notice that something is up, eventhough we haven’t packed any boxes up. They’ve been getting increasingly more needy throughout the week. I’ve been trying to walk them more, to get more of their energy focused into a healthy activity, rather than encouraging them to whine and try to kill eachother while vying for all my attention. I started training Scout yesterday. So far, she knows ‘sit’ pretty well. Then today, I also was doing doggie Zen with Scout…where she won’t receive a treat until she backs away from it…I was also trying this with BB. So far so good.

Hopefully, I can continue with this walking and training regiment when we get up there. I think it totally helps in the long run.

Take Two – because of reasons I really won't miss this place much at all. I'm really not at liberty to explain that statement for another week and then it will probably be a private post for the special few anyhow.

Onto better things! For about a month now, I've been permanently humming the Carpenter's song, "Do You Know They Way To San Jose," and I've also been holding out on all of you. I've been holding out on you because companies have come a far way from the last time I job searched and they are better at finding blogs now adays. I still have no idea whether or not my company or any company that I interviewed with was able to find my blog, but just in case, I backed away from the blog. Because, just as much as I wanted to blog the whole experience, I didn't want to see it backfire. I take dooce's heeded advice on talking about employment, especially when you aren't employing yourself.

The job search has commenced! The relocating will start in less than 10 days. Looking back, my requirements for a new job/new location were the following:

1. The new job would have to have something to do with what I studied in Grad School…I didn't want to waste my education any longer.
2. The new location would have to be a place where I could eventually afford to buy/rent a house.
3. The new salary would also have to be enough to allow me to buy a house.
4. The workplace had to be an environment that had a light air to it, a place I would not mind staring at the walls in for 8-12 hours a day, with professional people who follow standardized policies and procedures, a no-finger pointing atmosphere and a place that would allow me to reach beyond my potential. It couldn't have gray cubicle walls, drab decor, intrusive decor, or oppressive signs in the workplace (I like to read signs and a sign can ruin my day).
5. The location had to be far enough away that it would take our potential visitors a minimum of 3 hours to get to. The purpose would be that they would have to plan to see us, no dropping in or expecting that we would meet up with them at the last minute anywhere in the city. This will greatly improve our quality of life and marriage.
6. The location had to have a few LYS (Local Yarn Stores) that I could choose from and immerse myself in yarn, fiber arts and everything related to it.
7. The location also had to be a place that I wouldn't mind raising kids in and that would have a rich sense of culture, art and history along with the possibilities of different technologies.

There were probably a few more to add to that list, but I'm trying to make this quicker so I don't loose this version of the post the way I lost the last version of this post.

Anyhow, every single requirement was met except the fact that I will be living in a city whose cost of living is just piggybacking NYC and has the highest cost of living in all of CA, but the salaries are a lot better. You heard it, I'm staying in CA, just going waaaay North! That little song I was humming was a hint on where.

We found a three bedroom house that we will be renting until we find a house at the right price that we want to buy. The house has a huge backyard that Scout can romp in, Miss BB frolicks more than romps, froo-froo dogs don't romp, they frolick and when they hit ground that is damp, they act like princesses and beg to come inside. Scout will have a blast in that backyard and Miss BB will enjoy it sporadically, I suspect. Our dogs are like night and day. In addition to the bedrooms and the backyard, the place has a washer and dryer! No more laundromat!!!! We have a garage that Mikey can tinker in!! BIG PLUS! We will have built in surround sound in the living room and all new electrical work throughout the entire house! The only thing we won't have is a dishwasher, which they were talking about putting in anyhow, its not a real big deal.

Our Neighbor on the right is an older woman with a Basenji Dog, which is an African barkless dog, we were told that she howls like she is dying of a horendous murder instead. Anyhow, supposedly the dog is pretty friendly to humans and dogs alike. The neighbors on our left are a bunch of college students that are rarely ever home. The neighborhood is really nice and it is about a mile or two from the office I will be working at.

The day we move in, I'll take pictures of the place and post them up here as soon as we have internet access. Hopefully, this new job and location will leave me less stressed and more time, so I can resume my blogging activities. Let there never be cobwebs as big as these again!

And just a sidenote, no one at this new place of work will be allowed any blog viewing priviledges or myspace/facebook priviledges. I want to keep strictly professional relationships if you know what I mean. I like my private life very seperate from work. To me, close friendships in a working environment can really upset the balance of a professional atmosphere…things aren't as clear cut and it gets sticky. Hence, why I couldn't take that job in that small Nevada town where I'd work, live and have a social life with my co-workers because the town consisted of either people who worked for the company or people who were related to people who worked for the company. If the nature of my work was a lot different, I might be able to handle that. But its not and some jobs are just not suitable for close friendships like that…plus, you'd never get to get away from the people you loathe on the weekend! A COMPLETE AND TOTAL SHAME! I guess what it is, is that from working for the company I work for, I've learned not to trust people, especially people who consider you friends…its easier to backstab a friend that you work with and have it really hurt than it is to backstab a friend you don't work with. BTW, nothing like that ever happened to me in the place that I work right now, but I've seen it happen.

So, I talked to the HR guy and it seems that the interview went better than I felt it did and he reassured me that the choke up on technical questions happens to most people. So, the next step is to send them a code sample based on a simple coding assignment they emailed me.

Seems fair enough, because now I can showcase my talents in a form that I’m more comfortable with. I also got a call for another Software job in MA. So, I’m pursuing that possibility as well…seeing as they would pay at least as much if not more than the other company I interviewed with…they would also throw in relocation costs! So it would satisfy the money issue, the interest issue, and the escaping CA issue. Did I mention how much I love the cold…and snow?

I also have to say that I thought my resume was going to sit and expire on Monster, and I didn’t realize it would get so much play. I haven’t even applied for a job on their job search yet. The last time I went job searching it took me 6 months to get an interview and then subsequently get a job offer. That was back in 2003 and it was the same issue when applying and searching for an internship that I was never able to get. The J-O-B market really sucked from 2001-2003 for engineers. You just took what was offered to you, because the jobs just weren’t there.

Add to that, it seems my hardwork, blood, sweat and tears for this current project at work is not going unnoticed. I almost had a nervous break down over it last week. That’s when I said enough is enough and piped up at management about how all this stress is affecting me. We’ve been working through things and I’m feeling much better…I’m also starting to see a nicer side of “Mr. Drama-Queen-who-uses-the-reply-to-all-button-for-added-drama-and-visual-effect.”

Things are looking up my friends.

But, I can not stand our new officemate, who will be moving out soon…or so we were promised. I can’t tell if this guy has no social skills or if in fact he may seriously have Tourettes. If he does, then I feel real bad for being a hater, but on the other hand, its really hard to work in an environment where someone constantly burps, farts, makes rasberries, makes incessant noises with the same tune (think Close Encounters of the Third Kind where they make that same tune over and over again at the alien space craft — thats the same noise he makes).

I was really tolerant at first, because I really thought he couldn’t control it…because if he could, why would he make those embarassing and annoying noises and irritate the four other people who share a small cube farm with him. But, when one of the guys confronted him, he didn’t realize he was being that loud…and when one of the two guys is in the room, he quiets down. If its just me and Lost Lexie in the office, he goes nuts. We don’t quite get it.

The other thing he does, is he talks soooo loudly on the phone that you would think he is trying to break the sound barrier with his voice. And, he cusses on the phone when he is talking to guys…and everything is, “Brother Man!” and “Brother John” and “Brother (insert name here).” I can’t tell if he is trying to be African American or if he is one of those hard core Christians that calls everyone brother and sister so and so. Either way, African American he is not and the rest of us in that cube can hardly stand the Orange Curtain and all the damn “good Christians” (said with sarcasm) running around…so its hardly tolerable to listen to. He is a nerdy, Star Trek loving white boy, who wears dark pants and black shoes with white socks.

He also pep talks himself through the work day and talks himself through every step he performs for every task he does everyday. Any program or computer he works on he refers to as “she.” If a computer is giving him an issue he says, “She ain’t givin me NO love!” Or he says, “Why’s she arguing with me?” This is very annoying when more than one of your office mates is female.

Now that I know he can control his volume level and annoyance level, it is so annoying me when he doesn’t. Since I hadn’t worked a full workday in my office last week (because I was too sick to last there a full day), and since I had been working out of the quiet and serenity that is my home during the day…it was really hard to get adjusted to his noises again today. I got next to nothing done today, because I couldn’t think…and of course, he was in full force…its like someone gave him 10 caffeine pills and told him to be more loud and annoying than any other day.

If we girls tell him to keep it down, he gets louder and more annoying, even though he apologizes for being loud. In all honesty, he is a really nice guy…just a bit over the top for a closed in cube environment.

I almost threw something at him today…I AM DEAD SERIOUS! I ALMOST THREW A CRUMPLED PIECE OF PAPER AT HIM TO SHUT HIM UP!

I should have, I just should have thrown it at him and told him to “Shut UP!” and put that sad little nerd in his place. The sheer sliver of kindness got the better of me…but it was oh so sheer!

I’m beginning to look at that cube like the “Defense agains the Dark Arts professor in Harry Potter”…the position was cursed by Voldemort and I think someone cursed that cube, because we can’t keep anyone in that cube for more than 6 months at a time.