Arbitrary Rant After A Long Absence

[Guest Edu]

Greetings everyone!

I haven't posted for several months, and I just came back and though I could share the reasons for that. For anyone who is not interested, feel free to navigate away from this post and find something more interesting to read... I'm just posting this out of an impulse, without any 'actual' reason.

Long story short, I have been increasingly busy since October last year. At first I kept posting when I had some time to spare; later I barely had enough time to read some posts and vote on a few polls, and afterwards not even that. Over the last month, I couldn't afford (time-wise) even thinking about the playground. And, honestly, I'm still quite busy (and it's going to get worse), but I'll try to at least post every few weeks, even if just to remind the world that I still exist

Now, long story long, I have quite a lot I'd like to share.

Roughly by September last year, my therapist had a nice idea to start working on my blatant lack of social skills. After a bit of bureaucracy, I joined some activities (addressed to young people with all kinds of mental health and/or social integration issues); which caused me to have some regular schedules to commit to (not too much time-consuming, but at least re-building good habits), and forced me to interact with people. I mean, really living, carbon-based beings, with no sillicon-based pseudo-intelligent systems (a.k.a. computers) as intermediaries ^^,

At first I didn't think that would help too much, besides bringing some structure to my routine (which used to be "wake up near noon, do stuff on the computer for many hours with just some pause for lunch and dinner, then go to bed at 3:00 am or later"); but now I'm so glad I was so wrong .

The first thing I noticed was that, being constrained by some schedule forced me to prioritize tasks, encounters with friends, etc. Which led to focusing on the really important stuff and setting aside the trivial.

Also, I met some people who have become quite good friends.

But that was just the beginning. Given my situation, one of the things on the top of my priority list was finding a job. And, despite having less time available, I started looking more efficiently for it. Gradually, I have been getting more job interviews, even if I wasn't lucky enough to get any. Actually, I got a few minor projects (building some small websites as a freelance). Now, I think I wasn't really unlucky: luck was building up to come all suddenly.

The turning point of events came in April: I decided to apply for a job offer I didn't seem to match very well (after all, e-mailing a CV is free, so there was nothing to lose).

The job asked for a programmer with Perl and Visual C skills. I am a programmer, but I had never even looked at a single line of Perl code. I had some skills with the C/C++ language, but hadn't touched it for years and had never used the Visual C tool...

All of this could be deduced from my CV but, to my surprise, I got phoned shortly after to arrange an interview the very next day.

I went to the interview and took the approach of blatant honesty. When asked about my Perl skills, my answer was slightly arrogant, but true after all: "I have never touched it, but I don't see why that could be a problem: I just need a weekend to find and review some references and I should be able to code any algorithm on it."

Said and done: the day after the interview (which was a friday) they called me to start working next monday ^^. So I spend that weekend refreshing a bit my C and swallowing some material about Perl. The first month I'd be on "test", so I had to make sure I'd do better than my best.

So, after 28 months without a regular job, I began working; just to find out that the atmosphere on that office is wonderful: everybody mostly focus on their tasks, but they are always ready to help anyone else if the need arises, and friendliness floats around. Actually, most of time I'm having fun with the work I'm doing.

Of course, nothing is perfect, so the office is a bit away from home and it takes me over one hour to get there every morning (and over one more hour to get back home every afternoon), which gets a bit annoying; but it's a rather good trade-off .

There is more stuff I'd like to share, but I had to wake early tomorrow to go to work (oh, my, it feels oddly good to say that ), so I'll try to post a follow-up, hopefully before this week ends.

Regards,

Ethain

[Guest Donna Jean]

.

Hey, Ethain....

Oh my, it's good to see you again...It's been a very long time!

And what a wonderful update...You got yourself into a vcery good job..Good on you!

It's goodf to have you back, Hoin....don't be such a stranger....OK?

HUGGS!

Donna Jean

[Guest Opal]

Hi Ethian,

Nice to meet you! One of my past jobs involved modifying some Pearl script, so really glad that you took the approach you did and landed the job!

I am a bit surprised that there were not more responses to your update. Sometimes that happens in the General Forum.

I found your read quite interesting, and hope you will continue to check in with updates.

Huggs,

Opal

[Guest Elizabeth K]

Ethain

WHAT A WONDERFUL POST!

I am so glad things are working better for you! I commuted 2 to 2 and a half hours a day for a long time - it is hard - but go where the money is!

Glad to have you update us! Do come back and just say a few words now and then - we wanna know how you are doing!

Lizzy

[JJ]

Hi Ethian

Nice to meet you.

What a great update!

Congratulations on your new job. Sounds like you handled the interview situation just right and found a job and atmosphere just that is perfectly suited to you and your talents.

That as such a massive effect on everything and I'm very happy or you.

JJ