I haven’t said much over the last week, but not for lack of things to say! It’s just that there were some things that I shouldn’t have really talked about much until now.
Well, if you know me personally, you may know that lots of people are going through some type of change in their professional life. My friend Jeff (who has no web site) has recently resigned his position as my boss in order to pursue more interesting things. Brian is starting a new job at Microsoft on Monday. Gerry now has a new “partner in crime” (another programmer reporting to him). I know that there are a few other members of the WI .NET Users Group Executive Committee that are either looking, or have recently found new contracts.
Well, on Thursday (7/28), I officially became part of the group in transition. After ~15 months on the job, I was laid off. My company had been downsizing since I started. Over the last year, the development team had shrunk from 9 people to 3, and now 2. I knew I wouldn’t always have a job there, and for that matter I didn’t want to always work there, but I didn’t expect to be let go last week, though.
I was disappointed, but not devastated. In fact, I was actually pretty happy. If I had waited it out and quit on my own, I wouldn’t have got any severence.
Fortunately, I had been thinking about change recently (Chad, I was wrong — the Life 2.0 post was after the lay off), so I had been seriously looking for another position since the week before. In fact, I already had an interview scheduled for this week, and it had been scheduled for about a week. I had already talked to a couple different recruiters, and all were promising that they had leads that matched my skills.
Well, all of the recruiters I talked to were good people, but one in particular was very helpful. She was referred by a friend. I had started talking to her the week before I was laid off, but then she was out of town the entire week. She didn’t even know I was unemployed until this past Tuesday (8/2).
In that time (2 days), she has already found me a few really good leads. In fact, she found me a 4 week contract (and possible hire) yesterday. Normally I wouldn’t have wanted to quit a job for a 4 week contract, but given that I don’t already have a job, I figured that a 4 week contract is the perfect length. Either the company and I will agree to extend my contract, or they will hire me, or, if we aren’t a good match, I can keep looking for a few more weeks.
Personally, I’m amazed at the turnaround time. I was planning to have a couple weeks off
So, anyway, I have a new job starting Monday.
And I’ll have even more news to report sometime next week (probably Tuesday or Wednesday).