Got a job in an afternoon

[Lord Evermore]

Weirdest thing. Got a call at 12:30PM about a job I applied for, they'd thought they were done with interviews but discovered that they had left one opening in my area. So the guy that was doing interviews happened to be available that day, set up an interview at 4PM. Went in surprisingly calm (yay Zoloft! I'm normally nervous as hell in interviews). Had to drive 45 minutes to get there, but that was okay. Then found out the interviewer lived 10 minutes from me too and had to drive to the hotel he was doing the interviews at, too. Interview went okay, I hate the best trait/worst trait questions.

Before I left he was saying he'd offer me the job right then if he could, but needed to interview one last guy. They needed to make a decision fast to get the last person into training. He called me around 6:30PM and offered the job.

Only worry I have is that it's a contingency-basis job. If they decide in the middle of my training that they just don't have enough clients for all the techs, they could let me go (though I expect to be good enough that there will be others let go first). The job is field tech doing repair/troubleshooting/installing for point of sale and ATM equipment. I apparently live smack dab in the middle of the area they needed to get covered. Rotating shifts and on-call nights, but that's okay with me -- good pay for being on-call and even more if I actually get called. And they're part of a major company so I at least know the company isn't going to be folding overnight.

I've been on unemployment for over a year now, it'll be good to get back to work. Base pay is only a touch over half what I was making before, but the on-call and weekend pay will bring it up to about two-thirds. Bad part is, even with all of that I'll be bringing home less than I'm getting on unemployment, since I haven't had taxes taken out of the UI. And I just got onto another extension of UI that would have lasted to October. Difficult to make myself take a job that isn't paying tremendously better, but I'm tired of sponging off the state and feeling depressed every time I look through job listings and see absolutely nothing.

Oh yeah, I also will get sent to Dayton, OH for training, either 5 days or 16 days depending on what exact part of the business I'll be handling. Possibly also sent to Atlanta, GA for more training. Airfare, hotel and 20 dollars a day for food provided. Good thing I can eat cheap food and don't care about siteseeing.

 

[sk560]

congrats..... good to hear more ppl getting jobs lately

 

[Chaotic42]

Whoa, that's pretty cool. I hope you like your new job!

 

[tontod]

Sounds pretty good. You should go for it. I'm sure that if they like you they will give you a raise in the near future.

 

[MichaelD]

Excellent news, L.E. Go for it! With your experience, you'll be up for a raise in no time. I"m sure there will be opportunities to pick up shifts/overtime, etc. Plus, it's good for the body and soul to get back out into the working world.

Best of luck.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Apparently I start Monday. Had to do a piss test a couple of days ago. Also got a copy of my driving record just to be sure of how many tickets were on it. Only one in MA. I've had tickets in Georgia and Florida in the past few years, none of them showed up on my record because of the way states share that sort of information. Go bureaucracy and territorialism!

Conference call Monday morning to get everybody access to the systems. Tuesday through Friday is one round of training. Then I think I go to Dayton next week, still don't know whether for 5 or 16 days. It'll depend on whether I'm assigned as an ATM tech (clearing paper jams for 13 bucks an hour, woohoo!) or a POS tech. Then the manager mentioned possibly going to Atlanta for more training but hasn't said anything else about that yet. After that, on the job training for awhile, then on my own. It sounds like it'll be pretty nice. Nearly zero supervision, no office to go to. Wake up in the morning, check a Blackberry or RIM Handheld device for my jobs for the day, go do them, come home. Manager gets together with everybody in the area once a week for a meeting, sometimes lunch meetings (company expense). If we don't hear from anybody in management during the week, it means we're doing good.

Also nice is that the job is entirely hardware fixing. No screwing around with terminals that somebody has screwed up Windows. Use the terminal to figure out what's broken, replace it, check if it's working, leave. Managing parts inventory is the only thing it might take me awhile to get used to, since it's done by the techs themselves based on their estimates of needs for each day.

I'm halfway getting excited about this. Anxious and nervous about starting a new job and everything, but I'm glad to be doing it. If it paid more there wouldn't be any lack of excitement. But I think with overtime (mandatory during busy season), weekend and on-call pay, my checks will actually come out pretty nice.

I searched for "job" on the forums to find this post again. I noticed a lot of other threads about people getting jobs. Wonder if that's a good sign for the country and the industry. Or just a fluke. My cousin with a Master's in CS also got a job, in New Jersey. He's moving up from Florida for that. I feel sorry for him having to be in New Jersey though.

 

[Yossarian]

Dude! ATM tech = FREE MONEY!!! Congrats. But that's really screwed up that unemployment would pay you more. What a messed up world.

 

Sounds like an AWESOME job! Full of geeky gadgets and no management!

 

[Storm]

Congrats

 

[Lord Evermore]

Unemployment is paying me based on the hideously inflated salary from my last job. On the last one, I was hired during the days of the dot-com boom (though the company wasn't that type, it's a telecom), and at the start of a new department, AND luckily enough, everyone hired at that time was hired at the wrong, overly high payrate. They couldn't reduce our salaries when they figured it out several months later. People hired after that were making 2 to 4k less than I started at, and I got a lot of raises and bonuses because I'm damn good. Unemployment counts bonuses towards salary, so according to them I made several thousand dollars more than my actual salary (over 50k in fact). Because of that, I am getting the highest UI rate possible, which comes out to about 1/2 my usual paycheck.

Now, there's pretty much no way that I could get a job paying anything like that, which is really the only reason I'm still on UI. They take into account your previous salary, and won't necessarily come down on you if you can only find jobs that pay half as much, even if your previous salary was out of whack. Even my new manager when he was talking about the pay was saying he took a huge pay cut when he was laid off and started this job.

Of course, I fear for what all the unemployment payouts are doing to the economy and the government. If I'd finished out the current round of UI, I'd have been on it for a year and 5 months I think, at the maximum benefit rate. And other people like airline industries are going to be given the chance to be on it even longer (and I may have ended up as well). I know that companies pay into the fund based on their employee salaries and stuff, but it's got to run out sometime. And I think the companies only pay into state UI, most of the extensions are federal, don't know where that money comes from.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Well, I started getting paid today. Was supposed to have a conference call at "9am sharp EST" to get us logged into the company computer system. Called in, sat with 4 other new hires for 20 minutes before one called our manager. He left a message for the person who was supposed to be running the show, and told us she was in Texas so she probably got the time zones wrong. So he said try again at 10 when she would think it was 9. Called back at 10, still no show. Then got an email rescheduling the call for 11. Called at 11, still no show, our manager didn't answer his phones. The same guy called the woman directly, she joined the call and told us that it was rescheduled for Thursday (which will require our training schedule be rearranged this week) because she got the time zones wrong, and then they were having problems with the servers that we were going to be getting into.

So I got paid a day's wage for waking up a little early and sitting on the phone for about an hour chatting with new coworkers.

But now I have to wake up at 5:30AM tomorrow to be sure and get to training at 8. I'm not used to commuting anymore, not sure what traffic will be like. It's normally a 30 minute drive during normal hours, maybe 45 minutes, but I'm going to give it at least an hour and try to give it an hour and a half. Then we get out at 5PM, just in time for more rush hour traffic.

Then Sunday we fly to Ohio for 5 days of training. Then a week of on the job training, possibly in Atlanta. Then we go live and we're on our own.

 

[CrazyPerson]

:beer:

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Good luck and make sure to make sure those ATM's get cleaned out really nice. Leave a few cents though.... j/k

 

[alkemyst]

Good luck LE, best UI pays here is 50% of income UP TO $250 per week , to much abuse here in S. Florida I guess.

My wife is looking for a programming / database job still in west palm beach .... she worked in Japan (she just move here, she was a high level programmer there for nearly 20 years now) on some really big programming projects (the Japan's National Pig Farm was the funniest one to me), but the market is so barren with listings here and neither of us know where to start looking door to door

 

[Lord Evermore]

Well, Massachusetts has a VERY high cost of living. Even getting 2 grand a month on UI, I could barely afford to live by myself if I had to, considering car payments, health and car insurance, et cetera, along with the rent that's at least a thousand bucks just for a decent apartment outside the ghetto. Other states like New Hampshire and Maine have much much lower UI limits, like Maine is around 250 as well. I could have moved to Maine and lived like a king pulling in the Mass UI rate, but I wanted to stay here because of the obvious fallacy that I could get a job easier if I didn't live in hicksville.

We've already plotted how to rip the ATMs off several ways. We could coordinate and have everyone go to a job at the same time and that way we get 5 ATM contents at once. Or for a bit less money, our manager can put on a mask and rob us. (For the stupid, we're not seriously considering stealing money, it's humor.)

We all get to do ATMs for awhile, then they'll move some to doing POS stuff when they determine the need. The only worry I have doing ATMs is the policy for if you're being held up. If the door hasn't been opened yet, we're supposed to tell the robber that we have to call in to the central office to get a pin code that opens the door (for some types we use a digital security code to get in). When we call we use a code-phrase to tell the call center to call the police. Then they give us a code that opens the ATM and we're supposed to cooperate fully and let the thief go, but try to get a description of the perpetrator, his/her car, license number, and wait for the cops.

I can just imagine what sort of response I'll get when I say I have to make a call with a gun to my head.

Other than that, it sounds like it'll be a cool job. (And there's apparently one other person on AT who works for the same company. ) And I'm getting paid for not doing anything quite a bit this week. Due to scheduling issues and system failures, we didn't have to do anything but make 3 aborted attempts at a conference call Monday, and Thursday we try the call again and that's all for the day.

Oh, and I used to live in South Florida. City of Belle Glade. Most of my life there, till I moved here.

 

[Codewiz]

Congrats!!!!!! I finally got employed in May. Took me a year after graduating with my CS degree to finally land a job.

 

[Soybomb]

we're supposed to tell the robber that we have to call in to the central office to get a pin code that opens the door

If you're doing this is public areas in the day time I wouldn't think it would be a problem but if does ever occur just remember to give them the money without telling them you have to phone in. Its not wise to jerk around a guy with a weapon, besides is the 20 second lead on him running going to help any? Or tell the guy you have to phone in and get a code, but you'll split it 50/50 with him

Congrats man, hope the new job is cool.

 

[Lithium381]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
Whoa, that's pretty cool. I hope you like your new job!

 

[Lord Evermore]

Actually we learned about the locks used today. We CAN'T give them the money without phoning in. The locks are digitized now, they're really pretty frigging cool. There's a dial you spin that charges a capacitor with enough power to run an LCD and a keypad. You use that to get the lock serial number; call the management center and get a one-time combination code for that lock, and also use magnetic keys which are coded to your personal technician ID and seems to be used in the generation of the combination code. Enter the code, it unlocks. When you close it, you reset the lock and it gives a close code which you have to call in. The close code I think is like the "seed" for generating the next combination when someone else needs to open it.

The power knob can be hacksawed off if the keypad fails in order to replace the outer part of the unit, but you still can't open it unless the keypad is attached and working. Without that, it has to be drilled open. If a tech forgets to program it properly during installation (either a new ATM or replacing a standard lock) and closes the door, then it has to be drilled out too.

To give the tech some sort of credibility, there's a big label put on the ATM as well stating that we can't open the safe alone. We had to watch like 6 hours of the dullest training videos ever today. The first one was actually amusing, just because everything was so badly acted and so exaggerated. Then the next 3 hours was interminable, we were heckling the people on the video, who badly needed a course on public speaking. (What we uhm, have right here is uhm, some data on uhm, the rates of uhm, crimes per uhm, thousand people in the uh, US.)

 

[Freejack2]

I'm noticing a lot of people on here (myself included) are getting Field Tech jobs.
I went through something not unlike what you did...had 3 weeks of training, 1st week was in California, then Ohio, then Florida. They only paid for lodging and a rental car when I had one.
Can't say I'm thrilled about putting 50k miles a year on my car, but they do compensate me for it, and the job pays enough for us to survive.

 

[wyvrn]

Congrats on the job.

 

[BCskunk]

congrats man..

i just had my 3rd and final interview today.....really hope i get the job..

wish me luck!

 

[Lord Evermore]

I don't mind putting miles on my car. Commuting to work every day before was putting 250 to 500 per week on it anyway. All my jobs will be in the area I live in, so I won't normally need to drive extremely far, and we do get paid mileage. I don't see the wear and tear and maintenance costs being so high that it takes all the mileage payment away.

Good luck BC. I can't imagine going through 3 interviews and still not even being sure I'd get the job.

 

[T3C]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Weirdest thing. Got a call at 12:30PM about a job I applied for, they'd thought they were done with interviews but discovered that they had left one opening in my area. So the guy that was doing interviews happened to be available that day, set up an interview at 4PM. Went in surprisingly calm (yay Zoloft! I'm normally nervous as hell in interviews). Had to drive 45 minutes to get there, but that was okay. Then found out the interviewer lived 10 minutes from me too and had to drive to the hotel he was doing the interviews at, too. Interview went okay, I hate the best trait/worst trait questions.

Before I left he was saying he'd offer me the job right then if he could, but needed to interview one last guy. They needed to make a decision fast to get the last person into training. He called me around 6:30PM and offered the job.

Only worry I have is that it's a contingency-basis job. If they decide in the middle of my training that they just don't have enough clients for all the techs, they could let me go (though I expect to be good enough that there will be others let go first). The job is field tech doing repair/troubleshooting/installing for point of sale and ATM equipment. I apparently live smack dab in the middle of the area they needed to get covered. Rotating shifts and on-call nights, but that's okay with me -- good pay for being on-call and even more if I actually get called. And they're part of a major company so I at least know the company isn't going to be folding overnight.

I've been on unemployment for over a year now, it'll be good to get back to work. Base pay is only a touch over half what I was making before, but the on-call and weekend pay will bring it up to about two-thirds. Bad part is, even with all of that I'll be bringing home less than I'm getting on unemployment, since I haven't had taxes taken out of the UI. And I just got onto another extension of UI that would have lasted to October. Difficult to make myself take a job that isn't paying tremendously better, but I'm tired of sponging off the state and feeling depressed every time I look through job listings and see absolutely nothing.

Oh yeah, I also will get sent to Dayton, OH for training, either 5 days or 16 days depending on what exact part of the business I'll be handling. Possibly also sent to Atlanta, GA for more training. Airfare, hotel and 20 dollars a day for food provided. Good thing I can eat cheap food and don't care about siteseeing.

congrats

 

[Lord Evermore]

Bleh. The "contingent offer" part came into play today. The hiring was rushed because they had a deadline to have new techs, but the number of open slots was dependent on how many techs from the parent company decided to take a pay cut and come work for us, as opposed to being laid off. The techs had to decide by today, and unfortunately the one who covers my area decided to take the job, so I'm gone.

At least I don't feel too devastated. It was made very clear this was possible, and the management guys were genuinely sorry about having to do it. They'd never had to do any sort of contingent offers and don't want to do it again, it just had to be done this time due to pressure from above. There's a possibility the field manager, who is leaving to go to another company as district manager, may be needing techs to work under him at his new job, so he may call me then, but he's got a few others ahead of me in the conceptual line.

At least it seems I won't be screwed over on unemployment for this. The job was never made permanent, and only lasted one week, and I was let go at no fault of my own. The UI pages indicate that temporary employment is acceptable as long as you don't try to claim benefits for any time you were working, and hopefully the contingency issue and the impermanence of the job will be in my favor. But of course, what could I expect, on a Friday when people might be getting paychecks and needing to think about UI, the offices close earlier than the rest of the week so I can't verify anything till Monday.