skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Burned company shirts.
Why are my lungs burning so?
Deadly, toxic fumes!Tomorrow I have an interview that, unless I'm mistaken, will accomplish nothing. I don't really know what this job is (yes, it's THAT disorganized), but I think it's something for which I'm poorly qualified.
After that, though, I continue south to the State Capital for the Austin City Limits Festival. Mrs. The Jim will join me Friday afternoon, as she has some classwork to handle Friday morning. Anyway, I haven't been in a couple of years, and I always enjoy it immensely.
Until next time,
The Jim
So, I've got a little update on the job search front. My boss came in today from the home office in Louisiana, and decided to announce that, sure enough, they're closing the office here in Dallas. They've decided they don't have the resources to market in a second location, ignoring the fact that they were supposed to be finding jobs for us for 1.5 years, and didn't bother to do so. And let's not forget last year when I tried to do some marketing on my own, given that no one else would do it. That's when I got my hand slapped for doing something outside my job description.
In retrospect, they may not have had the greatest business plan in the world.
Fortunately, I've been told that the engineering firm next door - a firm with whom we've been working off and on - will gladly hire me on immediately. I haven't had that meeting yet (I anticipate it'll happen the beginning of next week), but I wouldn't be surprised at all if I actually end up making more than I do now, as well as receive whatever severance package my current firm is putting together.
All in all, things could be a whole lot worse. I'm still not sure this new firm is where I want to be working long-term, but I'm not in a position to be picky right now. Plus, it's possible that this new employer could really work out to my advantage.
All that being said, that still doesn't mean I don't have a little bitterness and anger for being transferred and immediately abandoned over here in Dallas. So, in that vein ...
THIS is my grill ...
THESE are my company's logo shirts ...
THIS is my lighter fluid ...
(You probably know where we're going with this.)
Let's see what happens when you light this candle:
By the way, these shirts ERUPTED into flames. They were clearly not flame retardant. I think if I had ever worn these things next to an open flame, I would have lit up like Johnny Blaze.
Until next time,
The Jim
I just thought I'd give everyone a little update on things.
Item #1 (Will Work for ... Well, Lots & Lots of Money, Actually!): First of all, I had my meeting/interview on Thursday, and I managed not to look too foolish. This wasn't a real interview, as this company doesn't have a job available right now. Rather, this was an attempt by me to network through the alma mater's alumni base to see if these guys knew of anyone who would hire me.
So far, nothing ... but these guys did seem pretty genuine in their desire to help look around and pass along my résumé to folks of importance. They also indicated that their company is about to get a lot of highway work, and may, in fact, need to bring in another engineer to handle the workload. If that's the case, I may already have a leg up.
On Saturday, I received an e-mail from another possible contact. I had talked to my last employer back in the Bayou State, and he told me that he had sold his company to a firm that has a Dallas office. E-mails and résumés were transferred around, and the manager of the Dallas branch said he would call me this week after he returns from a business trip.
I also just got off the phone with someone at HR from a third company. As I'm driving out of town towards Austin for the ACL Festival next week, I'll have to stop in at their office for an interview. I still don't know what the job would be or with whom I'm meeting, but I guess it's a good sign in any case.
Item #2 (Poor Performance): After I posted my last column, I made the realization that it's not easy to write something slightly coherent and somewhat entertaining when you haven't done so for a while. That was POOP! Even I didn't want to read it, and I usually think quite highly of myself. I can only imagine how dull and uninteresting that was for the average consumer.
As pointless as most of my ramblings are, I had gotten into a regular flow and schedule. Hell, it took me forever to write this crap, and there's NOTHING in here but my Job Search Diary. It's funny how lazy and worthless I can become when given the opportunity.
Anyway, I hope that I can get back into a regular rhythm of posting, so I can reattain my previous level of moderate semi-competency.
Item #3 (Better Really, Really Late Than Never): As everyone may recall, I held an incredibly sad contest to drum up readership. Even though subscribers grew by a mind-blowing 0.0%, I still promised to create individualized artwork for all current subscribers. Well, everyone will be happy to know that I've finally started working on them a mere 2+ months after the fact.
Yes, I'm sketching out comics panels and cutting out construction paper. It's a weird little crafting workshop over here.
Well, that's about it. I'll keep everyone posted on my progress on the job search, and I'll also finally get around to discussing some more wacky adventures (including mind-altering photographic evidence.)
Until next time,
The Jim
When the Cowboys lose,
Brian always says, "You're fault!"
What did I do wrong?The Metroplex continues to struggle through the week after my favorite Jedi played like dog poop Saturday night.
Of course, it could be worse. At least the team's owner wasn't caught picking his nose on national TV.
Oops ... never mind.
Until next time,
The Jim
Over a month ago, I decided to rent a couple of movies. Bear in mind we have an enormous backlog of unwatched DVDs, as well as a ton of stuff on the DVR; however, I just felt like picking up something new.
Film #1 - Green Lantern: First Flight For those of you above the age of 5, you may not know that DC Comics has recently started making straight-to-DVD animated films. I guess since Super Friends is no longer out there, they want to make sure their primary characters and stories get out to a new market so that their blockbuster Warner Brothers movies continue to do well.
Some, such as New Frontier, have been pretty solid. This, however ...
I love me some Green Lantern. He's probably only second to Flash in my personal pantheon of superheroes. I like the idea of the interstellar police force with crazy aliens all with the same superhero name and kick-ass ring.
Mrs. The Jim knows I'm a fan, and as this was an origin story of a hero unknown to the general masses, it was a chance for her to better understand the character.
Except it was AWFUL!! Green Lantern: First Flight was boring, poorly written, and voice acting that sounded like a bad drama club read-through. She stopped watching after Minute #1, and I still wonder why I struggled through the rest of it.
It's not worth it to recap the character, story, plot, any of it ... just avoid this dreck at all costs.
Film #2 - Hot Fuzz Fortunately for our sanity, I picked up two (2) films, and left Hot Fuzz for last. For those of you that don't recall, Hot Fuzz was made by Simon Pegg and his group after the success with Shaun of the Dead. (This is not to be confused with Super Fuzz, which is a brilliant piece of cinema in its own right.) In this one, Pegg plays the best cop in all of London, Nicholas Angel. He's so good, in fact, that he's drastically affecting crime statistics and, in the process, making all of the other cops and districts look bad by comparison.
The solution, of course: send the Super Cop out to the country, where there's nothing of interest.
Inspector Angel discovers the new town is boring & his coworkers are inept. Strangely, though, there seems to be an ongoing series of suspicious deaths. As our intrepid hero investigates, he's not sure if he's going crazy due to the boredom, or uncovering some sort of crazy plot. All the while, he has to deal with a moronic partner who is obsessed with every cop flick ever made. Part of the movie actually revolves around the two of them watching Point Break and Bad Boys II. That's right ... you actually sit and watch people watching a movie.
The film eventually devolves into an insanely violent and funny shoot-out between the cops and the friendliest murder cult you've ever seen. It really gets good, as I just couldn't stop laughing for about the last 20 minutes.
For me, the reason Hot Fuzz (and, for that matter, Shaun of the Dead) is so good is because these guys treat their comedy seriously. Every shoot out with a florist or smackdown with a zombie is treated completely straight. They don't tell jokes or make snide satire about these genres. Rather, they just do funny things, and assume the audience is smart enough to understand that it's funny. It's really brilliant work.
Until next time,
The Jim
At an interview
Don't wear just a thong, unless
You're in superb shape!I have my first interview tomorrow. I'm hoping this process isn't too drawn out, and I can find something worthwhile. Of course, I'm sure I'll have plenty of wacky tales afterwards that I'll be sure to share.
I'm trying a rare double today, as I'll also be putting up an actual column soon.
Until next time,
The Jim
It's Wednesday today.
Birds sing and flit gracefully.
Time to write haikus.I have 2 distinct mental images after throwing this together. The first is me strolling around in a "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah"-type montage as birds are singing to and/or with me.
The second is me slaving away to keep up with this demanding haiku schedule ... almost like the "Time to Make the Donuts" guy.
I am a very odd individual.
Until next time,
The Jim
So, I took off about a month from writing on The Machine. It's been a ridiculous month, and it's been shamefully difficult to find time to keep my miniscule audience up to date on all my latest dealings.
First of all, Mrs. The Jim started school, but we had difficulty securing funding. Apparently, the stupid fools who kept buying houses they couldn't afford managed to not only destroy the housing market and the economy in general. No, the devastation has trickled down to the student loan market, as we couldn't find sufficient loans. It took us a while to figure out how to pay for her education, but we eventually pieced something together. Strangely enough, we managed to secure a loan after the fact, but that whole little drama took up a week of my attention.
Then, I spent over a week dealing with my pain-in-the-butt computer problems. After several completely failed attempts at saving my machine, I determined that it was a lost cause and would need to be formatted. Unfortunately, this was a computer I received from my dad, and I didn't really have licensed copies of Windows or much of my other software. After I did a little research, the amount I'd have to spend on software exceeded the cost of a basic, run-of-the-mill laptop. So ... that's what I did. I went out, bought a new laptop, set it up, and made sure both of our machines were completely protected and backed up. That little escapade took up another 1.5 weeks.
Over the past 2 weeks, I've had a ton of work to do at the office. Our branch doesn't have a bunch of projects (well, to be honest, there's not a ton of projects at the company's HQ either). Anyway, I've been putting in a lot of busy work from the other office, just to make sure we looked billable and valuable. The busy work, however, completely ate into my free time.
Just recently, my boss came over from the company HQ. He took my co-worker and me to lunch and told us about the long-term plans for the office. Just to sum up ... those long-term plans didn't exactly fill me with confidence. Apparently, the home office may or may not decide to get rid of my branch. Even if they don't, it may take years before this place is generating a bunch of work, and no one can seem to figure out how to go out and generate work in a new market.
Honestly, I've been ready to move on to something else for months now. My job search, however, had been relatively passive. I had talked to recruiters (a complete waste of time), and I had applied to some on-line postings that ended up going away. Of course, the current economy hasn't exactly made job hunting all too easy. My lunch meeting, however, emphasized a need to take a more proactive approach.
Of late, I've been doing a ton of research and trying to contact people at local firms who may be able to help. As you can imagine, this effort managed to occupy the rest of my time of late. I've managed to develop quite a few promising leads, but nothing concrete to date.
I'm happy to report, though, that my time has started to become less congested. My job search is now more systematic and less time consuming. The busy work for the office has dried up, so I don't have that over my head either. For the first time in a long while, I finally feel like I have enough free time available to begin my regular on-line blather again.
As you can imagine, there are a few things I've wanted to chronicle recently, but they've been stuck on the back burner. I still want to detail some of my thoughts from our San Antonio trip. I also have some cool pictures from the wedding we recently attended, and I had some more movie reviews. I've worked out a tentative schedule for my upcoming trip to ACL and my college football team finally won a game. Of course, I'll need to keep everyone posted as the job search progresses. Most importantly, though, it's about time America's favorite weekly poetry output gets back into gear.
So, faithful reader, we begin again. Next time, I'll put on my Siskel-and-Ebert hat, and give you the kind of hard-hitting film criticism you've come to expect.
Until next time,
The Jim
