Yes, you heard right. I Found a Job. With Southern Company, here in Birmingham.
I thought it would never happen. But I finally got an opportunity. I just hope I can do well and impress them enough to hire me full time. I've got 6 months to do that.
It'll be two years since I finished the Appalachian Trail on the 10th. As I think back about these past two years, I have to admit it's been pretty rough at times. I've often felt like I was useless, that I wasted 4 years and a lot of my parent's money in college and that I'd spend the rest of my life going from crappy job to crappy job.
I've been on several interviews in the past two years, but none seemed to work out. Some of them were my fault because I'm just not a very good interviewee. Others I know I should have gotten, but they just had a slightly better applicant.
I determined a while back that there are three criteria to getting a job in today's world.
1. Experience
2. Knowing Somebody
3. Skill
Almost every job I've gotten an interview for has been from a reference. I stopped applying to jobs blindly because I knew I had little chance of even hearing back from the company. Same applies for the Southern Company job. A friend from high school and college whose dad works for Southern Company let me know they would be interested in hiring a non-engineer for CAD work so I went and "interviewed" which basically consisted of me talking to him a bit and seeing what some of the CAD guys were doing. And that was it.
I'm working through a temp agency for the first six months and if all goes well, I'll get a full time offer in April. I really hope it works out because Southern Company is a really good company to work for so I hear. And I'm positive based on my former classmates who are working now that this is the pinnacle of jobs. There's no holding out for a better job...this is the top.
So I can't believe it worked out like this. I'm not going to say how lucky I am yet, I'll wait till after the six months before I start really celebrating. But I have to sit back and laugh about how life works out. It took two years, but it seems like things are finally looking up for me.
I start tomorrow. Gulp...
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Life
Well, since November when I last updated, things have been pretty uneventful, so I have not bothered to write. I've been at Park Rite now for almost 8 months. Seems like it's been forever. I've had various job interviews, but nothing has worked out, mostly due to my poor interviewing skills. But whatever, I'm getting over it. It was hard to face the facts that I wasn't going to end up some successful business person (what I imagine most everybody things they'll be when they finish college) And I've come to terms with it.
I talked to Hawkeye, who thru hiked with me, yesterday on Facebook. He's in Africa right now doing the Peace Corps. It sounds tough. I think he's ready to be done already, but still has a year and a half or so to go. I know he'll make it. Anyway, he told me it would be time to do the CDT when he got back, in spring 2013. If you don't know, the CDT is the Continental Divide Trail, one of the other long national scenic trails in the US. It's a daunting task...a lot more so than the AT ever was. He asked me to join him and I'm going to, of course. It's only fitting, since we started and finished the AT together...not even knowing so until we had completed half the trail. It was the strangest part of my hike. There was this other guy, whom I'd never met and here we are...hiking more or less together, and never running into each other. And now we are talking about embarking on another adventure.
I seem to be having a gear problem lately. Bought a new pack a while back and its great besides the fact that the hip belt feels way too high. I got the size made for my height, but i dunno.. Also, shoes. I got a new pair of Solomans which I love, but the right one feels weird on the arch of my foot. So those are two big gear problems that need resolving.
I haven't been working out like I should. It's just very hard these days for me to get out and do it. I blame living at home. It's like I'm stuck in a hole here. There's no sign of me getting out any time soon.
Damn it.
I talked to Hawkeye, who thru hiked with me, yesterday on Facebook. He's in Africa right now doing the Peace Corps. It sounds tough. I think he's ready to be done already, but still has a year and a half or so to go. I know he'll make it. Anyway, he told me it would be time to do the CDT when he got back, in spring 2013. If you don't know, the CDT is the Continental Divide Trail, one of the other long national scenic trails in the US. It's a daunting task...a lot more so than the AT ever was. He asked me to join him and I'm going to, of course. It's only fitting, since we started and finished the AT together...not even knowing so until we had completed half the trail. It was the strangest part of my hike. There was this other guy, whom I'd never met and here we are...hiking more or less together, and never running into each other. And now we are talking about embarking on another adventure.
I seem to be having a gear problem lately. Bought a new pack a while back and its great besides the fact that the hip belt feels way too high. I got the size made for my height, but i dunno.. Also, shoes. I got a new pair of Solomans which I love, but the right one feels weird on the arch of my foot. So those are two big gear problems that need resolving.
I haven't been working out like I should. It's just very hard these days for me to get out and do it. I blame living at home. It's like I'm stuck in a hole here. There's no sign of me getting out any time soon.
Damn it.
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