a strange experience

I received an email on Thursday 15 January in response to a resume I submitted. It asked to schedule a phone interview for Friday 23 January. I thought eight days in advance for a phone interview was strange, but of course I was agreeable. The interview was conducted by the HR person and lasted all of five minutes, perhaps seven. That was fine, though, because I received an email that very same afternoon scheduling an in-person interview for the following Thursday.

The company is housed in the Plug and Play Tech Center in Silicon Valley. It is a busy, bustling place with lots of people coming and going. In the parking lot you can see both new Mercedes and Hyundais that are a few years old. There’s businessmen in suits and programmers in T-shirts.

The interview was held in a quiet conference room, a stark contrast to the Plug and Play lobby. Present were the founder and CEO along with another company executive. If they had reached thirty years of age they had gotten there only recently. The interview was cordial, positive, friendly, and upbeat. And lasted all of twenty minutes.

A strange experience all around.

I should hear something by the end of this week.

(virtual) duct tape

My blog friend, Tahoe Mom, wrote about how her stage manager skills served her well at a picnic she helped organize. Her secret of success at the event, as well as in her long career as a stage manager, was, se wrote:

Organize, delegate, make rather quick decisions
and keep your eye on the duct tape.

That struck a chord with me. I realized that those are the same skills I employed as a Web content manager. I posted a response to her blog and told her that. She responded, “Even the duct tape part?”

Absolutely. Even the duct tape part. I can’t tell you how much HTML virtual duct tape I and my content team applied to the Web portal over the years.

So here’s to finding a new position in the world of Web content management, virtual duct tape and all.

yes, it can

That is, yes it can happen to me. I was never under any illusion that it couldn’t. Getting laid off that is.

I was notified on Friday. I can’t complain. I’ve dodged the bullet many times. This time I didn’t. To change metaphors, I’ve said for years that it’s like the children’s game of musical chairs. It’s all about where you happen to find yourself when the music stops.

That doesn’t make it any easier when it actually happens. As I wrote of Facebook, “Did you know that it is possible to cycle through denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance multiple times in a single hour?” That’s what Friday afternoon was like.

So I move ahead. I trust that this is the beginning of something bigger and better.

that’s not exactly true

“Ted Striker. Do you know him?”

“Never heard of him. That’s not exactly true. We were like brothers.”

— Airplane II

When I was direct assigned to my current role at work two years ago, right at this time of year, I had a counterpart in another organization with whom I was required to work closely. I found Jan (as I’ll call her) grating, irritating, and difficult to work with. In general I didn’t much like the job in those days (things have since changed). I was unhappy with my then-manager for her role in my being assigned the position, and I was looking around for other options, of which there were few.

Still, Jan and I developed a good working relationship over time and a mutual respect evolved. When it came time for performance reviews and my manager polled my peers, Jan’s praise of me was glowing, almost to the point of being embarrassing. When the company offered an early retirement program for which we both qualified, she told me one day, “Please don’t tell this to anyone. I’m telling you this as a friend, not as a colleague. But I’m thinking of taking early retirement.”

Eventually priorities in Jan’s organization changed, and the close collaboration came to an end. She was later assigned other tasks. Recently, however, interest in the project revived within that organization, but under another individual. Jan came to one last cross-organization meeting where we introduced the new person.

I took a few minutes to thank Jan for her contributions and mentioned how I appreciated her help in showing me the ropes in my early days in the new position, when I was a deer in the headlights or drinking from a fire hose (depending on which metaphor I was in the mood for). Which was in fact true, despite the other stuff that was also true. She said that this was one of those projects where ten years from now you would remember the people you worked with. She said it was fun in those early days.

I said that yes, it was fun. That’s not exactly true. It wasn’t. And I don’t like lying. But there was no reason for me not to maintain a cordial relationship with Jan. We can each go off working on our separate projects maintaining a good feeling about our past collaboration.

That’s not a bad thing.