8.16.02

Hey folks. Sorry there was no update yesterday. I was home all day. I was sick, but not so much physically ill as I was mentally and emotionally.

Ya see, Wednesday night, Monte comes home from work and says to me, “So how pissed would you be if you found out the GIS job DID make it through mid-year budget, but they’ve already given it to someone?” Obviously, my response was, “Pretty. Who?”

Some kid in the accounting department is getting the job. Why? Because the new GIS job is kind of an odd amalgamation of GIS and accounting. You have to go out and measure all the city streets, pinpoint where all street signs are, and where all water/sewer pipes are, using a GPS system. Once you have that data, you have to put it on a map in GIS so you know where everything is, and then you can say “Ok, we have 300 Stop signs that are worth $XX each.” So, basically, I would have needed to know how to add to get this job. However, in all the city’s infinite wisdom, they’re instead giving the job to this kid who doesn’t even know the GIS aspect of the job and are trying to lump the GIS onto our already over-worked GIS manager to do. Needless to say, his boss, the person who was going to recommend me for the job when it came up, was not a happy camper.

Doesn’t that seem like a waste of time? You’re going to hire someone who can only do one aspect of the job and try to give the rest to someone who is already complaining because he’s over-worked? Wouldn’t it make more sense to give it to someone who can do both aspects of the job? Probably for the same salary?

So, needless to say, I was pretty pissed off Wednesday night and immediately called in sick for the next day. Yeah, I was feeling a little physically ill after all that went down, but it was primarily emotional. I spent Thursday morning looking for some job prospects (found about a dozen), fine-tuned my resume some and now I’m just waiting to get recommendation letters from a few people here at work before I send them off.

It wasn’t a fun Thursday for me at all. I did get a lot of thinking done, however, and I decided I’m going to try to find a new job, but am not expecting to get one. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I just don’t have enough GIS experience for someone to take a chance on me. I can understand that from their point of view, so it doesn’t really bother me. I just have to keep plugging away, taking classes and trying to learn the skills necessary to get someone’s attention. And in the meantime, I’m going to keep concentrating on my writing; both my fiction and I might start looking into doing some freelance stuff for magazines. So, all is not lost, though things are definitely looking pretty dark for me right now.

Going to the doctor today to have my shoulder looked at. Of course it isn’t bothering me at all this week. Go figure. We’ll see if anything can be done or if it’s just going to be one of those things I’ll just have to deal with and take it easy on for the rest of my life. I’ll let you know.

I think that’s about enough for now. I’ll talk to you next week.

Space Monkey X