Over the past couple weeks I had kind of dropped off in my usage and visiting of the site. Life has been pretty insane, and I've been doing everything I can to keep homelife running as usual. Anyway most of the sources of stress are coming to an end over the next week, but I wanted to share what's going on at my job because the entire thing has become the sequel to Office Space.

Just some quick history for you. 11 years ago I started a marketing job at a small medical supply company that was working out of a warehouse. They were small but started to become very successful thanks so to some very driven and talented management and employees. Anyway we started to attract some attention, and 6 years ago we were bought by the biggest competitor in the industry. Lots of good stuff came from that. The only real downside of the whole situation is I had to go work in a new place. I had started working from home, but the new company said I couldn't do that anymore. So I had to go back to one of their local locations, and they basically set up a table in the back corner of a small room where I've been working ever since.

My little marketing team continued to do our thing, but also started doing jobs for other small companies that this billion dollar company was buying. That turned out to be a good thing for me, because at the start of April they decided to let go of my division. 25 people were let go with no warning, except me. The head of IT called me that morning and said they wanted me to work for them since I could build websites and I know a few other CRM programs. So I'm safe right?

Well 45 days later I still hadn't heard from my new manager, except for a single reply email from her that said she was busy but would get back to me. Let me tell you, when you hear from your boss once in 6 weeks and get no direction in the meantime, you start to worry. And the fact that I'm still working in this one little office away from corporate eyes has made me completely invisible. I have been forgotten about. My days have essentially been taking long lunches, replying to the ocasional email from other employees, and playing a shitload of Hearthstone (let me tell you, my deck is fucking amazing people). Oh yes and stressing out like hell. All my free time has been focused on sharpening my resume and sending it out, but I'll tell you the job scene is very different from when I was last looking for a job a decade ago.

Apparently a new thing is recruiting is done by Indian call centers. THere's one that claims to be in New Jersey that reaches out to me almost daily. I call bullshit that they're in Jersey though. I think by now I would have heard from one guido sounding guy rather than someone who sounds like they work at 7-11 (the racial sensitivity award winner of 2017 thanks you for still reading). And they clearly have no idea what they're doing. They offered me a contract job in Coconut Springs, FL that is about 200 miles away from where I lived. When I pointed out how far that was from me, the call center recruiter still had the balls to ask, "yes but would you commute?"

And more recently another one of these guys called, and tried to conduct some pre-screening questions at me. Problem was HE CAN'T FUCKING READ ENGLISH!!!!!  He kept asking me "what is a conversation me on Google."  After the 5th time he said it, I realized he was trying to say "conversion." The other questions were just as problematic for him, so eventually he gives up and asks he can email me the questions and I just fill them in and send it back.

Job hunting is not quite what it was.

Anyway there is finally good news. I have 4 legitimately good job interviews lined up with good companies in just the past 24 hours after making a few big changes to my resume. And finally the new manager of mine set up a conference call with me for tomorrow after weeks of radio silence. So I'm confident now that one way or another this is finally going to get resolved, either staying with the company or going to a new one.