T1B

I've been working on scoring a new gig in CA for about a month. Things are going well and moving along (Application, background check, etc) and there's just a couple of formalities to get through before they schedule a face-to-face interview and have me fly out to the Bay Area.

Then yesterday a representative from the company's HR Dept calls here and says, "I'm from XXX Medical Foundation and I'm conducting a background check on Michael. I need to verify his employment there before we can process him." What the hell?! Try to get a guy fired some?

See, the thing is, there's only two people that answer the main line here: The hot single mom in the call center and the CEO's executive assistant. 50/50 chance and fortunately for me the call went to the call center skank and not the executive assistant, who would have sprinted down the hall to rat me out to a VP or the CEO. Fortunately for me, I'm cool with the mattress back call center chick, so she told me that they called and what the chick said.

Anywho, when they put on an application "Can we contact your current employer", you don't want to check "no" because you don't want them to think that you've got something to hide, but you're apprehensive to check "yes" because you might get some retard who will call up and pull the shit she did. All she had to do is call up and ask if I worked here and at most what my position was. Bitch.

What's it been? 1-2 years you've been in Texas? Texas sucks that much?

You should always check "no" unless you want to let your current employer that you're out looking. That can be a strategy to let them know that maybe you need a raise.

But checking "no" will not give the impression you have something to hide. What it does convey is that you are not necessarily unhappy where you are and you're not going to burn any bridges before you have a concrete offer that has been agreed to by both sides and you're well into the hiring process. Any HR person will understand that.

They pissed me off at the gig bigtime one day, so I went home and put my resume up on Monster, CareerBuilder, Hotjobs, etc. I checked the box that says "no" next to "relocation", but a headhunter called me up anyway because she saw that all of my previous jobs were in CA.

She said she had a position that I was qualified for that would pay roughly double what I'm making now. Uh...less turning down that kind of scratch. On the other hand, the cost of living in the Bay Area is off the charts, so a lot of that extra $$ will go towards housing costs, but it's a great career move for me. The same company said they'd also be interested in interviewing the OL, as she has more than 10 years experience in the HMO/medical industry as well. So with dual incomes at a company that pays very well, we should be able to make it even with the high COL.

To answer your question directly... Texas sucks horse cocks, but the Austin area is very nice and the humidity and weather in general is very tolerable and much more mild than the rest of the state. If I lived in Houston or San Antonio, I think I would have run a garden hose from the exhaust pipe to the driver's side window a looong time ago. Most of the rest of the state, other than the Dallas/Ft Worth area is hee haw-ville.

Besides, we loved CA, we just got tired of SoCal. I grew up in NoCal, so all of my family is there. And also, my two older step-kids live in SoCal with their old man, so we'd get to see more of them as well. It's pretty much a win/win/win.

Oh, and the company that I work for now, even though they pay well for this area, is micromanagement hell and full of backstabbing assholes, so lob another "win" onto the pile.

Mikey wrote:You should always check "no" unless you want to let your current employer that you're out looking. That can be a strategy to let them know that maybe you need a raise.

But checking "no" will not give the impression you have something to hide. What it does convey is that you are not necessarily unhappy where you are and you're not going to burn any bridges before you have a concrete offer that has been agreed to by both sides and you're well into the hiring process. Any HR person will understand that.

The HR lady at my last company, who was a friend, told me to always check "yes" because CA law states that all a company can divulge to an anonymous caller is that you work/worked at the company. They aren't allowed to say anything about your performance, why you left, etc.

OCmike wrote:I couldn't resist the lure of the Castro.

FTFY. ;)

But seriously, good luck.

The other department that tends to attract assholes, especially at large comapnies, is purchasing.

"You don't really need that $4.59 engineering paper do you? I know you can get by with the $0.69 spiral notebook."

BSmack wrote:

OCmike wrote:I couldn't resist the lure of the Castro.

FTFY. ;)

But seriously, good luck.

The Tenderloin District is calling my name as well. Errr....oot.

Thanks, though.

The job is in the south bay, so I won't have to deal with the SF freaks unless I go to Japantown for some kickass sushi or something.

OCmike wrote:
The job is in the south bay.

My old stomping grounds. When I left in....uh....a long time ago to go to college I promised that I'd be back someday. Never made it for more than a visit. If you can afford to both live and work around there you're doing pretty well.

OCmike wrote:To answer your question directly... Texas sucks horse cocks, but the Austin area is very nice and the humidity and weather in general is very tolerable and much more mild than the rest of the state. If I lived in Houston or San Antonio, I think I would have run a garden hose from the exhaust pipe to the driver's side window a looong time ago. Most of the rest of the state, other than the Dallas/Ft Worth area is hee haw-ville.

Austin is by far the best and most tolerable area to live in in regards to climate. Its also got all the attractions in the surrounding areas to entertain almost any type personality type.

Yeah, Houston is hit or miss depending on the area you frequent. The Woodlands is probably your best bet as far as avoiding people with some serious underbites from their lower mouth. Although, I do find Houston a lot more friendly than the honks of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.

Anyways, good luck with the job. Yeah, you can pretty much take that pay raise and kiss it good-bye to the cost of living in Cali as compared to Texas.

Never spent any real time in Houston...mostly just drove through on my way to Louisiana a few times. My main reason for taking a shot at the city is it's horrible gang problem, crime rate and oppressive humidity (which I can't stand).

Oh, and the company that I work for now, even though they pay well for this area, is micromanagement hell and full of backstabbing assholes.

Sounds like most workplaces.

Hopefully the new Gig won't be that way.

Welcome back to the dark side, Mike. :)

OCmike wrote:Never spent any real time in Houston...mostly just drove through on my way to Louisiana a few times. My main reason for taking a shot at the city is it's horrible gang problem, crime rate and oppressive humidity (which I can't stand).

Try adding 200,000 people to a city overnight and overcome the crime and violence. They really didn't plan that out too well. To top it off, all the Houston Police Department baby boomers retired right around the time the city received an influx of the nogs. They were so desperate, they were handing out $3000 signing bonuses to county sherriffs in the area. That still doesn't help when you are adding to a thin police force by taking away from another local police force. Idiots.

Mister Bushice wrote:

Oh, and the company that I work for now, even though they pay well for this area, is micromanagement hell and full of backstabbing assholes.

Sounds like most workplaces.

Hopefully the new Gig won't be that way.

Welcome back to the dark side, Mike. :)

Oh, this place goes above and beyond.

Every e-mail that you send is required to be CC:'ed to "corporate", which goes to the CEO, COO, VP and CTO. EVERY e-mail. In addition, just to be extra sneaky, every e-mail that you receive from outside e-mail sources gets blind forwarded to "corporate".

Add to that, I commute with the OL so I leave at 5PM every day unless they tell me ahead of time that they'll need me to stay late or come in on a Saturday. Even with that, I usually get here a half hour early and work through my lunch, so I'm working 9 1/2 hour days. The CTO told me that that wasn't good enough because I wasn't willing to stay after 5PM and because I only stayed late when asked. ??? He also complained because I did everything that was asked of me. Again, ??? He couldn't come up with anything specific, but said that he was sure that there was something more that I could be doing and that (again, nothing specific) he was sure that there were times that I should have stayed past 5PM, but didn't.

This is the LAST time that I'll work for a small/startup company. They've only been in business about 4 years and have 25 employees. The work is challenging and it's at a pretty high level tech-wise, but all of the extra bullshit makes it just not worth it.

Nothing wrong with small companies.

It's the people that make it or break it.

The company I work for has about 32 people in four offices and for atmosphere and how they treat the employees it's by far the best place I've ever worked.

The call center skank is also the dept manager. She just got her annual review and received what the COO described as "the most glowing review the CTO had ever given". Her raise? Zip. Add to that, when they promoted her and made her salary, she ended up making the same amount as her original hourly wage plus the regular overtime.

The benefits are horrid here too. They said when I got here that I was without insurance for 30 days, therefore the fact that I was half-crazy was a pre-existing condition, so they wouldn't cover me for anything related to that for two years. I provided paperwork showing that that wasn't true and they responded by cutting that down to 9 months of non-coverage. ??? Fortunately, the OL has kickass insurance, so I got benefits through that. Oh and if you want to add fambly members to your ins here it'll run you an extra $300/month for a family of four.

This place blows.

OCMike wrote:Call Center Skank

FUKKIN RULES DAMN IT!!

Mikey wrote:Nothing wrong with small companies.

It's the people that make it or break it.

Rack that.

I am the operations manager for a small financial firm. We have about 10 employees and about 45 reps spread out all over the country selling securities. It’s all about the right amount of infrastructure in those small capacities. In your case, Mike, it almost sounds like they have too much infrastructure. Practicality seems to be a concept overlooked by bureaucrats, which leads me to think your company poses as "big business" rather than what it really is.

We have an employee handbook, procedures, guidelines, the whole kit and caboodle that a big business posesses, but we don't enforce all of that crap. Everyone pretty much has their own schedule and we just make sure the bending of the rules is not taken advantage of. With that approach, we actually have more productive days than not.

For me, I usually stroll in around 5:30 am most mornings and accomplish everything I set out before that first employee walks through the door at 8 o'clock. The rest of my day is pretty much support if needed. Nobody seems to mind how I get my work done as long as it gets done in a timely manner and vice versa.

Sounds like you need to get out of there.

The place I'm at covers 100% of the insurance premium, plus 100% of the deductible in an HSA and funds an FSA for other expenses.
I think that's somewhat above average, though.

RumpleForeskin wrote:

Mikey wrote:Nothing wrong with small companies.

It's the people that make it or break it.

Rack that.

I am the operations manager for a small financial firm. We have about 10 employees and about 45 reps spread out all over the country selling securities. It’s all about the right amount of infrastructure in those small capacities. In your case, Mike, it almost sounds like they have too much infrastructure. Practicality seems to be a concept overlooked by bureaucrats, which leads me to think your company poses as "big business" rather than what it really is.

We have an employee handbook, procedures, guidelines, the whole kit and caboodle that a big business posesses, but we don't enforce all of that crap. Everyone pretty much has their own schedule and we just make sure the bending of the rules is not taken advantage of. With that approach, we actually have more productive days than not.

For me, I usually stroll in around 5:30 am most mornings and accomplish everything I set out before that first employee walks through the door at 8 o'clock. The rest of my day is pretty much support if needed. Nobody seems to mind how I get my work done as long as it gets done in a timely manner and vice versa.

Sounds like a good company to work for. In the past, I've worked for medium to large-sized corporations and once I've been at a place long enough that they recognize that I'm a valuable employee, they give me a task and leave me the hell alone until I finish it. That's what I'm used to and that's how I've always excelled in the past.

I'm just not used to kicking ass and then being told that it's just not good enough.

In fact, I haven't had any sort of negative review since about 1995 when I was in the Navy, got really shitfaced while on liberty, got in trouble for being drunk on duty (even though we were in port) and told a CWO4 that he and his cronies were so incompetant than they couldn't manage a fucking Jack-in-the-Box. THAT went over well...

Mikey wrote:Sounds like you need to get out of there.

That's the plan. Problem is, 90% of the tech and healthcare jobs in Austin are in the northern part of the city and I live south of Austin. My commute is already 45-60 minutes and would be closer to two hours if I went to work there.

BTW, in case anyone wants to know... I mentioned the websites that I put my resume on and with the exception of one call from someone who saw my post on Monster.com, all of the interviews I've been offered (about 10 to date, all in North Austin...grrrr...) have been from CareerBuilder.com.

Neely8 wrote:

OCMike wrote:Call Center Skank

FUKKIN RULES DAMN IT!!

I know, I know... But I ain't pulling out the cell phone camera and getting caught snapping a pic for you fuckers.

I'll do the best I can. Her face is about a 6, she's half white/half light-skinned hispanic, with black hair and a kickass body. She just had her second bastard less than 3 months ago and has already lost all of the weight and is down to about 120. Tits are a C-cup.

She always wears form fitting clothes that show off her figure, ass and tits.

Very cool chick, the kind that anyone would like to date, if it wasn't for the fact that she's got two young kids from two different fathers.

OCmike wrote:

Neely8 wrote:

OCMike wrote:Call Center Skank

FUKKIN RULES DAMN IT!!

I know, I know... But I ain't pulling out the cell phone camera and getting caught snapping a pic for you fuckers.

I'll do the best I can. Her face is about a 6, she's half white/half light-skinned hispanic, with black hair and a kickass body. She just had her second bastard less than 3 months ago and has already lost all of the weight and is down to about 120. Tits are a C-cup.

She always wears form fitting clothes that show off her figure, ass and tits.

Very cool chick, the kind that anyone would like to date, if it wasn't for the fact that she's got two young kids from two different fathers.

Thats ok. I will let them watch.....

^^Awkward silence

Hey, OCM, might the constant interweb posting at the office cut into your performance?

Sayin'.

My posting here is hardly constant. According to my profile I'm posting at the "brisk" pace of 2.76 posts per day. And, I probably only post here about twice a week from work...most of the time during my lunch hour or something. I'm usually too busy to post any other time of the day.

I get what you're saying, but you're off-base. The people in charge here are just generally dickbags.

OCmike wrote:My posting here is hardly constant. According to my profile I'm posting at the "brisk" pace of 2.76 posts per day. And, I probably only post here about twice a week from work...most of the time during my lunch hour or something. I'm usually too busy to post any other time of the day.

I get what you're saying, but you're off-base. The people in charge here are just generally dickbags.

with fat wives that suck black dick.