New Job

The past few days at work have felt like it was my first week all over again. After work on the last program was pretty much wrapped up, I was shifted to a completely different division of the company to work on a new project. So, I've spent most of this week meeting my new managers and reading up on the stuff they gave me, to get up to speed on this program's efforts.

I kind of miss the meeting of new people, shaking hands and actually walking through parts of the building I've never even seen in almost a full year of working here. One thing I definitely don't miss, though, is the interviewing that comes along with starting fresh.

Officially, I wasn't being interviewed, but basically every new manager I had to meet with started by asking those kinds of questions. What kinds of skills do you have experience in? How much experience do you have in each skill? What projects did you work on in school? What area do you prefer to work in? Analog? Digital? RF? Do you like design, testing, both?

Of course, they were just asking me that stuff to get a better idea of what assignments to give me, which is fair enough. I must say that being asked all those questions without having to wonder, "is my answer gonna screw up my chances of being hired here", takes a lot of pressure off and makes is so much easier. Still, I've never enjoyed or felt comfortable in the process of being interviewed.

I think a big part of it is that I'm not used to "tooting my own horn", which is kind of key to being a successful interviewee. Unless I feel very confident in something, I hate to tell someone that I'm good at it. And the list of things in life that I feel "very confident" in is fairly limited:

- NFL Blitz
- Mariokart 64
- Math (up through multi-variable Calculus only)

That's all I can think of right now. Pretty sad, eh? But seriously, for basically everything else in life not listed above, I just rate myself as being "average" to "below average" or "piss poor".

Anyways, for the time being, I'm quite thankful that my interviewing days are behind me. I definitely don't envy those of you out there who are either about to begin the grueling job-hunting process, or are continuing in the hunt. All I can say is, good luck, and let me know if there's anything I can help you with (not likely, but still). And I'll offer you the words of 2pac:

Keep ya head up
ooooooooh child things are gonna get easier
Keep ya head up
oooooo child things are gonna get brighter