I’ll start with a quick recap of my previous post. Zach and I have been job hunting for the last few months, since the end of September/beginning of October. We’d even enlisted the service of some recruiting firms — TEK Systems being one of them. We had some meeting with our recruiting representative — or whatever they’re officially called — and talked about why we wanted to leave our current job, what we’re looking for in other places of employment, what kind of qualifications we have, etc, etc. Along with that we’d also put our resume’s up on job searching sites like Monster and Dice, and we even applied at some local positions online. That choice bared fruit in what happened next. iPay Technologies got in contact with both of us, as we’d both applied for some of the positions they had posted. We had our phone screenings, we even got interviews! Meanwhile back at work, nothing seemed to change. We’d told our management months before that we were job hunting, and now we’d told them we were interviewing with a company. They still didn’t seem to be doing anything — like collecting resumes or putting feelers out.

About a week later, Zach and I had another phone interview with someone else from iPay, and the next day there was an offer letter in our inbox. At first we thought the amount they were offering was a monthly salary until Zach noticed it was bi-weekly! So needless to say, we told our boss that we’d both found a new job, and we’d be starting there at the beginning of January. We then accepted the offer letters. Now is when things start getting interesting.  We told our bosses that we’d go through all our projects and document everything and write up abstracts on the projects themselves — we did this not because we were told to, but because it was the right thing to do — and we’d even screen any people they found as possible candidates. All these actions were done out of kindness and professionalism.

One Friday Zach calls me to tell me what he’s just overheard, management talking about how horrible we were, how none of our projects ever worked how they wanted, how all the reports were always wrong, how apparently we were just big pieces of shit! Even though it was Zach telling me this, I could feel that flame of anger building inside of me. We were going to help these people out, find them replacements for our positions, and they’re going to stab us in the back? In the big picture i shouldn’t really care, as i have a new job already lined up, and they’re expecting me after the new year. But just to hear what people really think of us after working with them for almost three years.. it just hurts. I thought some of those people were good colleagues if not friends. So in response to that action, i moved my final day of work up to yesterday. I still did everything else I’d promised, documenting code, writing overviews of our projects, going over submitted resumes. But i wasn’t going to work there for another few weeks in that kind of environment. I also wanted to cash out all my vacation time in one paycheck, heh. That’s almost 2 1/2 weeks of pay on top of my week of pay this week. Should be a nice paycheck indeed.

Now i can’t wait until my first day at my new job. I’m kind of anxious and nervous, but i think it will be a big step in the right direction for my career.

Last week I got an email from iPay Technologies. They wanted to do a phone screening for their interviewing process. I accepted. I had my phone screening on Thursday, and Friday morning there was another email in my inbox stating they wanted to call me in for an interview. Zach went through the same thing. And now we both have interviews with them. Good thing they have two job positions open , maybe we’ll be the ones filling them. The only thing i’m concerned about right now is the compensation. They never said how much or what range the pay would be. I’m hoping they’re not going to try to hire me for what I’m being paid now.

Depending on how the interview goes, I may or may not be giving my boss a two weeks notice here in the future.

In other news, my dad got his M1 Garand. It’s beautiful! I could only imagine lugging that thing around through a combat environment though. It’s quite heavy. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to go shoot it! I kinda want one now. ^_^

Over the weekend I played lots of Left 4 Dead 2. I’ve finished all the campaigns on normal, and am now working on some of the achievements. The game really takes the feeling you get from when you first played Left 4 Dead and refines it. The chills, the excitement, the freak outs. They’re all there! There were a few times where I actually yelled/screamed like a little girl! The new zombies really do add a whole new dynamic to the game, by not letting you take advantage of the tricks that you could in L4D. The new melee weapons are also awesome, there’s nothing like beating a zombie over the head with a guitar or frying pan. And Realism mode.. oh so awesome.

I also finished reading Helix by Eric Brown. It was a good read. It really sucked me in, which is probably why i finished it in two days (or so). The characters were really believable, and the environments were well detailed. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s into science fiction and likes a story about a mission gone bad, crash landing on a strange alien structure filled with thousands of different alien races.