Give me your opinions and thoughts on what to ask this asshat tomorrow, when I return the VM he left me tonight laying out my having been laid off from the company.
Bear in mind that this has quite literally come out of the freakin' blue; this is the first job that has actually GIVEN me energy the first week of work instead of sapping it from me, and kept me in a good mood too. I'm generally a pretty nervous and anxious person in new social settings, so for me to be this comfortable this soon with new people has been quite an achievement for me, and it seems like it all came naturally too; I haven't had to force any smiles, kiss any asses, or any of the general hogswaddle that comes along with beginning new jobs sometimes.
'The Company' - A technical consulting and service corporation owned by the older of two brothers, whose second-hand man is his younger sibling, both of whom are in their mid 30's, and it's been around for four years, give or take. They do everything from home visits for those who can afford to step up from The Geek Squad (read: VIP's and Corp Execs in high-income areas) to full network & technology infrastructure building/design/installation/support for small and mid-sized companies/corporations including custom backup solutions, databases and any associated proprietary applications, security, and sustained support solutions, scheduled or appointment based.
They are the only employees of the company, aside from one lower level technician type whom they hired on from PT contract to FT W2 just about the same time they hired me, however, they have a large, mainly word-of mouth generated, friendly, high-class sort of client base.
Me, I?m an IT professional, and have been for over five years. I have a decent résumé, one that some might call impressive, for a 23-year kid, with IBM, Siemens, and a couple other well-known companies on it, spanning a gamut of knowledge and experience that I can verifiably back up with my A+/Network+ and MCSA 2000/2003 certifications.
Under almost all circumstances, I dress and act professionally and with the utmost courtesy, yet all the while being able to read how people react to me and/or my actions, and adapting as necessary to a given social situation, whether it may be through dropping a joke or politely opening a door for someone.
Anyways...
- Phone interview (part technical, part feeler) for a network/server consultant/engineer position about a month ago; goes extremely well.
- In-person interview & informal lunch following shortly after with the two brothers in the company goes very well too. Chemistry is there between personalities, my skills and experience are a great match for the position that they're filling, as is my location, professional image, etc... (They confirmed this after I was hired Monday, when we relaxed a bit and I asked the owner straight out why he picked me instead of one of the other candidates.) No alcohol involved in this lunch.
- Two-three weeks later (they're busy guys), i'm offered the position. The initial pay rate was a bit lower than a position of this stature would nominally command, as the hiring was done through a contracting agency as a loose, open-ended temp-to-perm opportunity with the expectation of being hired on as an employee in 3-6 months at a higher rate. They wanted to do the hiring themselves, but they're fans of outsourcing smaller non-IT tasks, and the lead headhunter is a friend of theirs.
- The two brothers are/were genuinely looking to grow their company further, and are/were looking for employees that they think can A: help substantiate new ideas and opportunities for change and evolution, B: have the vision and ability to do so on a regular basis, and most firmly, C: help establish standards and regulations within as many of the current and future client sites as possible to help further the client relationships, establish more uniformity, and generally, simplify the procedures behind supporting these clients.,
'The Company' already has in place, for it's own productivity, a reasonably well organized (and very well designed/implemented) technology-driven infrastructure for keeping track of time spent, expenses, client billing, et al.
- Mon-Thurs this week, I spent (almost consistently on-time or very close to it) meeting with either of the brothers @ their homes or sporadic Paneras (free Wi-Fi, used copiously by them for remote connections to their "office" network for it's resources, and to clients networks for small tasks), and then driving out to client's sites for a variety of IT tasks, but mostly lower level stuff, at most, something that somebody fresh out of getting their A+ certification could tackle head on without screwing up.
- Wednesday night, after an unsuccessful attempt to hold a meeting in a library conference room to further discuss the goals/aspirations/direction of the company, myself, the two brothers, and the other part time technician go out to dinner, on the bosses. We shoot the sh|t, rip on the tech for being a White Sox fan (Go Cubs!), have some great Mexican food, and let loose a bit, which we hadn?t had the chance to do previously, because of all our busy schedules. None of us had more than two drinks, but we definitely all relaxed and I thought we had a fun night getting to know each other better.
- Thurs night. As usual, I?m waiting on a phone call to find out where I?m working the next day. I get a VM from the ?lead? brother, my boss by all practical means, stating in essence, ?I?m sorry to have to do this? blah blah? you don?t seem to have the higher level server administration experience that we were looking for in the role that you were supposed to fill.?
Hold the phone, chump, I haven?t even DONE ANY SERVER ADMINISTRATION!!! I?ve been employed with you for four freakin? days!
Checking the event viewer for the last month and looking for anything out of place? Creating a new backup schedule in Veritas? Learning the in?s and out?s of the software ?The Company? uses to track time/expenses and generate invoices? Sitting in Panera and listening to one-sided conversations you?re having on your Treo? Nah, not quite?
I didn?t do anything to my knowledge that would?ve offended or pissed any of the three off, I didn?t screw up any customers computers/servers, and in my opinion and to the best of my knowledge, I put on the best game face that I?ve ever done the first week of ANY job.
*****
Bleh, I?ve ranted enough? Sadly enough, that?s the quickest
Q) way I could explain it while leaving all the pertinent info in.
What I want to know from anybody with an outside perspective and an attention span long enough to read this piece of sh!t, or other IT professionals who can probably sympathize with the same sort of situation, is this: What in god's name happened? Why do you think they decided to terminate my contract? After FOUR days? I didn't kill anybody's dog or screw anybody's wife...
I drove over 200 miles in four days, went to six different client sites, dragged out and eventually declined another job offer from a company that was foaming at the mouth to employ me *and* to add insult to injury, probably screwed up my chances of getting an unemployment check for this period too? All for what, one four-day paycheck for $550 or so? Boo-fvcking-urns...
Other IT pros, feel free to vent with your own stories of B$ like this in the industry too :evil:
Bear in mind that this has quite literally come out of the freakin' blue; this is the first job that has actually GIVEN me energy the first week of work instead of sapping it from me, and kept me in a good mood too. I'm generally a pretty nervous and anxious person in new social settings, so for me to be this comfortable this soon with new people has been quite an achievement for me, and it seems like it all came naturally too; I haven't had to force any smiles, kiss any asses, or any of the general hogswaddle that comes along with beginning new jobs sometimes.
'The Company' - A technical consulting and service corporation owned by the older of two brothers, whose second-hand man is his younger sibling, both of whom are in their mid 30's, and it's been around for four years, give or take. They do everything from home visits for those who can afford to step up from The Geek Squad (read: VIP's and Corp Execs in high-income areas) to full network & technology infrastructure building/design/installation/support for small and mid-sized companies/corporations including custom backup solutions, databases and any associated proprietary applications, security, and sustained support solutions, scheduled or appointment based.
They are the only employees of the company, aside from one lower level technician type whom they hired on from PT contract to FT W2 just about the same time they hired me, however, they have a large, mainly word-of mouth generated, friendly, high-class sort of client base.
Me, I?m an IT professional, and have been for over five years. I have a decent résumé, one that some might call impressive, for a 23-year kid, with IBM, Siemens, and a couple other well-known companies on it, spanning a gamut of knowledge and experience that I can verifiably back up with my A+/Network+ and MCSA 2000/2003 certifications.
Under almost all circumstances, I dress and act professionally and with the utmost courtesy, yet all the while being able to read how people react to me and/or my actions, and adapting as necessary to a given social situation, whether it may be through dropping a joke or politely opening a door for someone.
Anyways...
- Phone interview (part technical, part feeler) for a network/server consultant/engineer position about a month ago; goes extremely well.
- In-person interview & informal lunch following shortly after with the two brothers in the company goes very well too. Chemistry is there between personalities, my skills and experience are a great match for the position that they're filling, as is my location, professional image, etc... (They confirmed this after I was hired Monday, when we relaxed a bit and I asked the owner straight out why he picked me instead of one of the other candidates.) No alcohol involved in this lunch.
- Two-three weeks later (they're busy guys), i'm offered the position. The initial pay rate was a bit lower than a position of this stature would nominally command, as the hiring was done through a contracting agency as a loose, open-ended temp-to-perm opportunity with the expectation of being hired on as an employee in 3-6 months at a higher rate. They wanted to do the hiring themselves, but they're fans of outsourcing smaller non-IT tasks, and the lead headhunter is a friend of theirs.
- The two brothers are/were genuinely looking to grow their company further, and are/were looking for employees that they think can A: help substantiate new ideas and opportunities for change and evolution, B: have the vision and ability to do so on a regular basis, and most firmly, C: help establish standards and regulations within as many of the current and future client sites as possible to help further the client relationships, establish more uniformity, and generally, simplify the procedures behind supporting these clients.,
'The Company' already has in place, for it's own productivity, a reasonably well organized (and very well designed/implemented) technology-driven infrastructure for keeping track of time spent, expenses, client billing, et al.
- Mon-Thurs this week, I spent (almost consistently on-time or very close to it) meeting with either of the brothers @ their homes or sporadic Paneras (free Wi-Fi, used copiously by them for remote connections to their "office" network for it's resources, and to clients networks for small tasks), and then driving out to client's sites for a variety of IT tasks, but mostly lower level stuff, at most, something that somebody fresh out of getting their A+ certification could tackle head on without screwing up.
- Wednesday night, after an unsuccessful attempt to hold a meeting in a library conference room to further discuss the goals/aspirations/direction of the company, myself, the two brothers, and the other part time technician go out to dinner, on the bosses. We shoot the sh|t, rip on the tech for being a White Sox fan (Go Cubs!), have some great Mexican food, and let loose a bit, which we hadn?t had the chance to do previously, because of all our busy schedules. None of us had more than two drinks, but we definitely all relaxed and I thought we had a fun night getting to know each other better.
- Thurs night. As usual, I?m waiting on a phone call to find out where I?m working the next day. I get a VM from the ?lead? brother, my boss by all practical means, stating in essence, ?I?m sorry to have to do this? blah blah? you don?t seem to have the higher level server administration experience that we were looking for in the role that you were supposed to fill.?
Hold the phone, chump, I haven?t even DONE ANY SERVER ADMINISTRATION!!! I?ve been employed with you for four freakin? days!
Checking the event viewer for the last month and looking for anything out of place? Creating a new backup schedule in Veritas? Learning the in?s and out?s of the software ?The Company? uses to track time/expenses and generate invoices? Sitting in Panera and listening to one-sided conversations you?re having on your Treo? Nah, not quite?
I didn?t do anything to my knowledge that would?ve offended or pissed any of the three off, I didn?t screw up any customers computers/servers, and in my opinion and to the best of my knowledge, I put on the best game face that I?ve ever done the first week of ANY job.
*****
Bleh, I?ve ranted enough? Sadly enough, that?s the quickest
Q) way I could explain it while leaving all the pertinent info in.What I want to know from anybody with an outside perspective and an attention span long enough to read this piece of sh!t, or other IT professionals who can probably sympathize with the same sort of situation, is this: What in god's name happened? Why do you think they decided to terminate my contract? After FOUR days? I didn't kill anybody's dog or screw anybody's wife...
I drove over 200 miles in four days, went to six different client sites, dragged out and eventually declined another job offer from a company that was foaming at the mouth to employ me *and* to add insult to injury, probably screwed up my chances of getting an unemployment check for this period too? All for what, one four-day paycheck for $550 or so? Boo-fvcking-urns...
Other IT pros, feel free to vent with your own stories of B$ like this in the industry too :evil:
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