My Fate...
Jun. 30th, 2009 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badstarSo...I went to Colorado back in November to take a class for CVE certification (Certified Videoconferencing Engineer) for work. I posted about it.
I took the test in February. I failed. I posted about it.
I took it again in April. I failed. I posted abput it.
I took it again last Monday. I failed. I'm posting about it now.
It goes without saying that I'm feeling beyond stupid for not passing the test by the third try. I would happily pay to take the test one last time if I knew what my problem was, but when I can pass stuff that I failed before and now fail stuff that I did really well on before...none of it makes sense, and I don't know what would happen next time, so I'm not willing to eat the $250 testing fee for such uncertainty.
Had to pass it by the third try or else. No one was entirely sure what "else" would be, but we were pretty sure it would be getting kicked off the contract, if not fired. Well, last week, Rich was on vacation, and Chuck went to Vegas to get married, so I had to wait til this week to find out what would happen to me.
This morning on my way out, I ran into Dave who apparently had the say on what to do with me. I am off the contract (as well as two others who didn't pass on three tries). I don't know if the others will get the same offer as me, but Dave sat me down in his office, told me flat out that the company has no plans to fire me and flat out told me I could go anywhere in the company (within technical support) that I wanted. Really, that's quite an offer. He started listing upcoming training classes for other departments, including one that I used to work for and got out of in six months (soul-sucking, that.) and one that I'd done some work for (gen pop, a whole conglomeration of clients either too small to have their own dedicated team, or not willing to pay or one.) and a few others.
Then he asked if I had any training experience but moved on when I said I didn't. I was curious so I asked about it, he said he asked because there was a need for an additional person to work on developing training materials for various clients. I said I would be interested in that, if there was any chance despite lack of experience, so we talked about it a bit more and hey, it looks like it is quite the possibility.
It's going to be at least a week or two before I move over, but it'll probably be starting out with about 60-70% technical support in gen pop while I start working on training stuff, and he said I'll probably be starting out with soft skills (in other words, basically how to talk to people who call into tech support- yes, it's a skill. And something that I'm good at. Disturbingly so at times. Many stupid myspace game customers excepted.) And it will go from there....until I don't live in Baltimore anymore at least.
I will have to go back to a regular Monday-Friday schedule, he asked what hours I wanted to work, I said 10-6 or 11-7, which is fine. I'll probably lose the extra dollar per hour that I get for working overnight.
Yes, for those of you who read Gavin's LJ, you've seen her mention this while not really going into the details of my stuff. We're speeding up our move to Oregon to...well, pretty much as quickly as we can get out of here. For this and various other reasons, things just aren't right here anymore and it's time to leave.
On top of all that, I ended up taking a night off work tonight...on the way home today, at the train stop I was walking and somehow managed to take a mis-step and tripped and fell onto the train track. I've got a bit of a knot on my left calf, and my right ankle twisted a bit...and I landed with my left ribs on the edge of the train platform...I probably bruised them, it hurts a good bit. On top of all that, I woke up this afternoon with a migraine starting, so it seemed like a good idea. The headache was mostly gone when I woke up again later this evening, but I am still largely rather sore.
I took the test in February. I failed. I posted about it.
I took it again in April. I failed. I posted abput it.
I took it again last Monday. I failed. I'm posting about it now.
It goes without saying that I'm feeling beyond stupid for not passing the test by the third try. I would happily pay to take the test one last time if I knew what my problem was, but when I can pass stuff that I failed before and now fail stuff that I did really well on before...none of it makes sense, and I don't know what would happen next time, so I'm not willing to eat the $250 testing fee for such uncertainty.
Had to pass it by the third try or else. No one was entirely sure what "else" would be, but we were pretty sure it would be getting kicked off the contract, if not fired. Well, last week, Rich was on vacation, and Chuck went to Vegas to get married, so I had to wait til this week to find out what would happen to me.
This morning on my way out, I ran into Dave who apparently had the say on what to do with me. I am off the contract (as well as two others who didn't pass on three tries). I don't know if the others will get the same offer as me, but Dave sat me down in his office, told me flat out that the company has no plans to fire me and flat out told me I could go anywhere in the company (within technical support) that I wanted. Really, that's quite an offer. He started listing upcoming training classes for other departments, including one that I used to work for and got out of in six months (soul-sucking, that.) and one that I'd done some work for (gen pop, a whole conglomeration of clients either too small to have their own dedicated team, or not willing to pay or one.) and a few others.
Then he asked if I had any training experience but moved on when I said I didn't. I was curious so I asked about it, he said he asked because there was a need for an additional person to work on developing training materials for various clients. I said I would be interested in that, if there was any chance despite lack of experience, so we talked about it a bit more and hey, it looks like it is quite the possibility.
It's going to be at least a week or two before I move over, but it'll probably be starting out with about 60-70% technical support in gen pop while I start working on training stuff, and he said I'll probably be starting out with soft skills (in other words, basically how to talk to people who call into tech support- yes, it's a skill. And something that I'm good at. Disturbingly so at times. Many stupid myspace game customers excepted.) And it will go from there....until I don't live in Baltimore anymore at least.
I will have to go back to a regular Monday-Friday schedule, he asked what hours I wanted to work, I said 10-6 or 11-7, which is fine. I'll probably lose the extra dollar per hour that I get for working overnight.
Yes, for those of you who read Gavin's LJ, you've seen her mention this while not really going into the details of my stuff. We're speeding up our move to Oregon to...well, pretty much as quickly as we can get out of here. For this and various other reasons, things just aren't right here anymore and it's time to leave.
On top of all that, I ended up taking a night off work tonight...on the way home today, at the train stop I was walking and somehow managed to take a mis-step and tripped and fell onto the train track. I've got a bit of a knot on my left calf, and my right ankle twisted a bit...and I landed with my left ribs on the edge of the train platform...I probably bruised them, it hurts a good bit. On top of all that, I woke up this afternoon with a migraine starting, so it seemed like a good idea. The headache was mostly gone when I woke up again later this evening, but I am still largely rather sore.
