outsourced and homeless

I can just hear people saying to themselves, “Why talk about such a thing when you have a donate button on your blog you idiot? Do you want people to feel that they are fooling themselves by donating money to you”? Do you wish to insult all those good people who give you advice and well wishes?

No, I don’t. This is just speculative anyway.

So, I was greeted by a man who led me into a conference room and began to tell me more about the company. I started to feel foggy, apathetic, and resigned to the fact that I was not going have one of my better interviews. After awhile, the next guy comes and leads me down a series of long, wide corridors. Eventually he led me into a large conference room where I was told to wait while he gathered up some people. I was under the impression that there would be two people interviewing me but, one by one they all filed in – a total of six of them. My mind took me back to Banks Island (I know a bit about some polar explorers and their experiences on this island e.g. Lorne Knight, Vilhjalmur Stefansson). I didn’t want to be there anymore. I didn’t want to have to ‘prove’ my knowledge to these people. My mouth started to get dry but I hesitated to take a sip from the bottle of water (bad body language – nervousness).
Unfortunately, many of the technologies which this company uses are ones which I have not used in seven years. I had setup Windows clustering in the past but could not remember the nuances and could not adequately answer the question. With each question, some easy, some harder, I began to hesitate more and more. I felt six pairs of eyes trained on me. Even when I immediately answered the question properly, I felt a total lack of confidence. I blew the simplest of questions about Norton Ghost, a product I used for years. A woman asked me to give a simple example of a SQL query. Incredible how I could mess this one up! I have written hundreds of queries for my financial application – some, quite complex. So, rather than give a simple example such as ‘Select * from Database_name’, I started to give an example of a slightly more complex query. All I wanted to say was ‘Select COUNT(*) Column_name FROM Database_name WHERE –some filter- AND –some other filter- like DATE Between. Anyway, I fumbled it and had to revert back to the most simple ‘SELECT * FROM Database_Name’ as my answer. I suppose there were about a dozen questions in all. If I answered one poorly, I could see instantly that the questioner was not satisfied. Mercifully, the thing wrapped up in about 20 minutes and I walked out with the guy who walked me in. It seemed to take an eternity to get to the exit and our parting was a little awkward. I left there resigned to the fact that I would never hear back from them – not caring one iota.
I am back in Vernon, NJ now. Blizzard here Saturday night. I only wish I had taken some video from under my blanket of snow while huddled in the dark back of my car. I will do it next time we have a storm. It’s a strange sensation to be in the back of a snow covered car, the only illumination being the LCD display from a laptop. There is an incredible feeling of isolation – not something which was wholly unwelcome.
I know I can’t expect help or sympathy from people if I am not even willing to help myself, but then again the blog was never about this. There was no intention to put a donate button on there. It was only after some urging that I decided to do this. The blog was, and maybe still is all about my projects. I thought maybe they were worth something and that if I could start to monetize them I would not be beholden to corporate America or ‘the man’ anymore. I wouldn’t be at the mercy of companies who outsource etc…
I already know what I am going to do to ring in the New Year. I am going to sit back there in the depths of depression, hopefully cloaked under a foot of snow, drinking a pint of some brandy or other alcohol, and feeling sorry for myself. I am going to lie back there and I am not going to think about Walmart or McDonalds, or ‘work for shelter’ jobs. I am going to think about being in New Caledonia, sitting on the beach, and speaking French to my beautiful Polynesian wife.

The shadows are already starting to get long here. I am going to take a walk while the sun is still up.
Something nice I just noticed while walking. Four cardinals (two males and two females) flitting around in a snow covered holly bush. Quite beautiful. 

Phone interview scheduled for 11:30 Friday morning regarding a Windows Engineer with SAN – Tape Library experience. They liked my resume but after speaking to the guy I had to be honest with him and say that, while I would have no problem picking it up rather quickly, I cannot say that, technically, I have worked extensively with configuring a SAN and a tape backup device. I know the technical details and the architecture and have run the fiber cables but when it comes to the nitty gritty, I could be tripped up in an interview. Nothing I hate more than people who lie about their skills just to get an interview. Companies ferret out these imposters by the droves, although – sadly, some do sneak thru the door by virtue of soft interviewers. Anyway, the guy said it was not a problem and they still wanted to do the phone interview. My only concern is that, as time goes by, I am starting to forget some of the terminology and acronyms, and of course, I am not up on the new stuff. Its one thing to do blogging and video editing from the car – quite another to configure a SAN from the car.

On another note, a disturbing thing happened recently which freaked me out and left me feeling as if I might losing touch with reality. I was in the sleeping in the back of the car a few weeks ago when, late at night, I heard sort of a thud on the rear window (behind the driver’s door). I woke up and saw a person staring at me from outside. Scared me to death. When I saw the face, I wasn’t sure if I was actually awake. These bangs on the window have happened before but it was always a cop. There would be a flashlight, Billy club, cop voices etc…This time, nothing but this ghastly and prolonged stare from this freak. Strange thing about the man was that he had these large wooden plugs in his earlobes. I have seen this sort of self mutilation on TV. I have also seen what the ears look like when the plugs are removed. Utterly grotesque. I am waiting for the day when some freak will take the self mutilation to the next level and begin to insert ever larger wooden plates into his lower lip.
I wish to hell I had been filming in the car when this happened. It would have been very freaky to catch it on film.
Anyway, he did not attempt to open the door (it was locked besides). A million thoughts were running thru my mind:

Will segue here and return to this incident later.

There were times back in the mid 90’s when I had terrible insomnia. I remember having this horrible job working the graveyard shift making cardiac catheters from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am. I was therefore forced to sleep during the day. Bright sunshine, loud chirps from nesting birds, garbage trucks emptying entire containers full of glass bottles, landscapers, and a land line which rang with solicitors. Add this to the ignominy of the job itself and massive self recrimination (how the hell did I think this job would right the ship for me?), and you have the ultimate recipe for insomnia. Yes, the job got me out of doing industrial painting and yes, I was working in a “clean room” (Wowee) making surgical products, however, I was bombarded for 12 hours straight with Rapp music. One of the lines from a song was LITERALLY “Lead to the head of crackers.” Somehow I had thought that, because this was a lab job where everyone wore clean room attire and worked behind glass, this MUST be a step up from painting! How wrong I was. Any ignoramus could do it. The old Polish women would not dare speak up against the music, so I was left to be the lone beacon of sanity in that insane room. My protestations were met by deaf ears.
Back to the insomnia:
I was taking up to seven Ambien when I got home in the morning. It had reached the point where even this amount was not sufficient to get me into a “real” sleep. It was this strange sort of in-between sleep. I sometimes felt like maybe I was dreaming, but at all times I felt that I could simply sit up in bed and be wide awake. I don’t think there was any delta or rem sleep taking place. I vividly remember having some very frightful thoughts of sitting up in bed and seeing “Regan” from “The Exorcist” right beside me. Horrifying thought but perhaps more frightening was that I was not 100% convinced that it would not happen!

Returning to my story about the face I saw in the car window. I thought, could this have been the result of this same sleep phenomenon? Perhaps I was hallucinating or I was in this pseudo sleep state? I have felt so weak lately, and have been so worried, there is no telling what is going on upstairs. I am 6’1” and was about 195 lbs when I started living out of this miserable car. I am down to 175 now. I guess it’s not too bad but I do feel weaker and more easily fatigued. One last thought about this. When one sees something which frightens them and which they cannot explain, they regroup, talk to people, and slowly begin to rationalize it. This is purely a human survival instinct. One MUST rationalize it in order to move forward. As time goes by and this memory fades into the past, it can even be looked upon with bemusement. However, if this thing happens again, a life can be shattered, especially if no one can offer any type of satisfactory explanation for it. One is then living in a constant state of fear, paranoia, agitation etc…Maybe they turn to Thorazine or God in these situations. I hope never to find out, nor to fall so far as to rely on these types of crutches.

On a more pleasant note (relatively speaking), its freakin cold up here at night now. We had 4 inches of snow a few days ago and it’s cold in the car. This very thick comforter does do a damn good job of keeping me warm however.
Thankfully, I did sell a SQL database (Stock Market Data) a week ago for $500.00. Very fortuitous of course. Each chunk of money like this allows me to not only eat and gas up, but to continue paying the minimum on the credit card and to pay my cell phone bill.

Ps, I have seen two black bears roaming around in this area since I drove up here. They are jet black. Quite an amazing contrast with the backdrop. I can’t stand the fact that they are hunted. I think black bears kill perhaps 1 person a year (in the entire country). Pit bulls certainly kill dozens or hundreds.
I will try to update more frequently. If they want me for a real interview after the phone screening, I will be sure to post that. Thanks for those who have expressed some concern about me.
Rob