古崇賢的学报

Hey, yall. Quick update. Slow week for me at work, though i'm learning a lot.

Monday - listened to calls being handled, got a feel for general process

Tuesday - Got in was handed an email by a coworker n the middle of a call. Paper said to go to another facility to pick up my paperwork. So at 08:30 i went to that facility and got the paperwork. I identical paperwork to the piece of paper already in my hand. Took paper back to my facility and got a badge. Spent 2 hours with my manager learning a new process - then general training at yet another facility, happily one closer to home.

Today - On-line training, chatting, some explanations of the Level 1 [clearance] checklist - now 80% complete, more chatting and a nice lunch with a coworker from another facility. Spent some time seeing how a partial system-down is handled - a system-down that required reverting to paper for about 14 hours - i'm guessing - today at land ports of entry.

Tomorrow - More listening in on calls and learning how to do things.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. This days thing is tiring. I'm wondering if i'll get used to days just in time to start working nights. Guess we'll see. More on my schedule tomorrow or Friday.

A friend's company is seeking a flexible contractor for web work. If interested, please reply with your email in screened comment, and i'll send you the info on where to send your data. The job is in DC area or Chicagoland, your choice. At least you need to be available for face-to-face meetings in one or the other.

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We're looking for a contractor or a small firm who we can build a relationship over time, who will grow to understand our internal goals and business model. If you are a placement firm, we are open to looking at your candidates. Big firms can feel free to reply as well, but we're really looking for a few hours at a time, not a complete site overhaul.

( We have a few basic needs: )
If you are interested in working with us, please provide me with the following:

1. Your resume/portfolio/ client list.
2. Your rates.
3. A sample deliverable or two (a url reference to this is fine).

Last night's Pride Week Interfaith Service went fabulously. The whole thing ran only 1h35, the MCC Combined Choir (Gospel + Standard Choirs) was fabulous, Katrina Messenger's message on the Four Archetypes of Spiritual Vocation was inspiring and on-target. If you go to read it, she has it posted to click through at points where she paused during her speech. Rev. Abena McCray of Unity Fellowship Church gave a rowsing, and entertaining Appeal, we'll see how deeply pepole dug shortly. The most surprising participant to me was the Right Reverend Father Rusty S. Smith, CSB of the Evangelical Anglican Church. (That title is Bishop for those unfamiliar with Anglican nomenclature.)

As for the work bit, in a daily team meeting the other day, my supervisor stated that he found my tevas, which i was wearing with jeans, inappropriate footwear. I challenged that on the basis that he did not find my female teammate's open-toed footwear offensive. Well, today he gathered us together and read us the Dress Code. With occassional exception, it turns out we may not only wear open-toed shoes, but also knee-lenght shorts. Heh.

Ok. I posted to Dice today. Ninety minutes later, a recruiter in Nashville called me for a position on Riggs Rd in Hyattsville. I said no thanks, as it's a commute from hell from Reston, though i phrased it more nicely for him. Apparently he gets a lot of 'the commute's too long' from people around DC. Imagine that. Anyway, he rang back 15 min later. Turns out the position is on Riggs Rd in Gaithersburg, not far from the airpark as it turns out. I told him that that's still a very lengthy commute, and unless the shift starts before 7 AM or 10 AM or later, that i was not interested. It's a MS helpdesk for the Executive Office of the President. Heh. We'll see what comes of it, but what with the location, seems rather less than ideal, as riotous as it would be working for the EOP.

On a happier note, my resume has been passed on to the hiring manager at Approva. Thanks to annezieger for her assistance with that. She showed me a job posting, and my reaction was "OOOH! That's exacly what i'm looking for!" Hopefully the hiring manager finds me worthwhile. It's at Tysons, so the commute would be easy.

So, in short, things are looking up a bit. I also want to thank fixx for totally saving the day for me this week.

Bad me. I’m not doing 100% job stuff all the time. Today i went for an eight-mile hike along the Potomac. Earlier today a friend of mine highly recommend ResumeViper.com. He said, “I had to take my resume off because I'm still getting calls and emails from the blast last year that ended up getting Hire Demand in PA to hire me for webMethods. It’s well worth the $75 or so.”

So, this meme i encountered in catalana’s journal. ( My list )

I only underlined the ones I'm most interested in, but I'm not opposed to reading the stuff I didn't underline. Then there's numbers 67, 73, 77, 80, 84, 96, 104, 108, & 109, of which I had never heard. I'm guessing you know of at least one of them. Are any of those worth my time?
As for #107, if you've read Stranger in a Strange Land, you should read The Original, Uncut Stranger in a Strange Land. The editors removed 1/3 of the book the 1st time it was published and adding in the missing bits makes it make sense, and makes the female characters less one-dimensional. This recommendation presumes you can stomach reading Heinlein, which I know many people cannot.

This was a fun meme, though since my HS based much of its English curricula on banned books while I was there, I had a bit of an advantage.