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Introduction
Mar. 12th, 2005 11:51 pmSo what to say? How to introduce myself? These always seem to be the hardest questions, right up there with "So, what do you want to be when you grow up?" My answer to that last question seemed to upset people - what's wrong with "Umm, alive"?
So rather than going into more detail than anybody anywhere wants to know about me, let me fill you in on the excitement that has been my life for the last few months (with a little bit of background).
Background - Back in the summer of '99 I moved to the US courtesy of the company I was working for (running all their batch jobs in SAP). I knew it wasn't going to be too smooth when it took them about 4 months to get the work visa (normally it takes a lot less - as quite a few people took great glee in telling me). The first 3 years were pretty good - stressful but fun with a lot of good people in the office. Then the company took a financial downturn and lots of people got laid off. At which point, it all started getting a little nuts and my life began turning to shit.
Fast forward another 2 years, to July 2004. A new implementation starts to gain momentum (SAP APO) and people realize they need to get me involved to start running their batch jobs. This makes a change as they normally wait until the week before a new system is due to go live before involving me. So people start sending me information, I try and learn APO (which does things completely differently) and work out how I'm going to get everything done before it goes live (which keeps changing dates on us). In the middle of all this my mother comes over for her annual visit and we go to New York for a week (fabulous place, been there twice and I want to go back). Immediately after coming back, I come down with the chicken pox (for the second time - and yes that is possible). I eventually go see the doctor the day after my mother leaves (the following week) and find out it really is chicken pox, not just a rash that we thought it was for a week. So I get to have another week off work - except I don't. I have to work from home to get everything done. In the space of 3 weeks, I do 172 hours - dialing in as soon as I get home for hours, working all through the weekend, getting up at strange hours to do work. In the middle of this, the application we use to run the batch jobs decides to freak out and die on one server every night at 2am. The fact that it's only on one production server just makes it that much more freaky. Eventually, APO goes live and is fairly uneventful.
Two days later, I get laid off with two days notice - making my last day October 29th. As part of the lay-off I get told I have 10 days from my last day to get out of the US otherwise LSI Logic won't pay for my ticket home. Not 10 days to book it, but 10 days to be on the plane. There is initially no mention of my stuff is going to get home. After 5.5 years over there, I have quite a bit of stuff. A whole apartment full of stuff. During my two-day notice period, while I'm trying to sort out my stuff in the office and let my family back in the UK know what is going on, I have people wanting me to work because they're worried about month end (that's during the weekend immediately after my last day) with the new system and how all the batch jobs are going to run. They're not too happy that I'm not exactly keen to do any work. Then my boss wants me to train the guy who will be doing my job. Again, not exactly something I'm keen to do. My mother very nicely decides to come over and help me get home. I then find out that because of the type of visa I'm on, I don't have a 10-day grace period, I have a 0-day grace period. I become an illegal alien the minute that LSI withdraw their sponsorship. Talk about freaking you out. The company's solution - not to worry, 'cause it's not like the INS is going to move that fast. Just what you need to be told. Never mind, that it's their fault that I didn't know this. Because they have a stupid lawyer who doesn't know what she's doing, I keep getting the wrong information. Eventually I figure out how to fix it (fill in a form and pay $200) after much freaking out. Then LSI decides to do the decent thing and tell me that they will move my stuff home, but they won't be able to tell me straight away how much. At 5pm on my last day I eventually get told - 5000lbs. However, the catch, and it's a doozy, is that I must have the shippers in and everything packed up and shipped within 10 days of my last day for them to pay. 10 days - to sell a car, pack up your stuff, book a plane ticket, sort out the taxes, and do the million and one other things involved in moving home. Yeah right, like that's possible. Oh yeah, and those 10 days include weekends. So that makes it really easy. The solution? We cheat. The ticket gets booked for the 10th day. Then the airline gets called and the ticket gets moved to a later date - at the end of November. The shippers arrive on the last day of the 10 days and everything gets packed up. I get everything sorted out, get on the plane and breathe a very, very big sigh of relief.
Once home, my mother finds out that the company she works for has gone out of business. She was retiring in April anyway but it's still a shock. Then, within a couple of weeks, my stepmother's mother dies. Then my maternal grandmother falls over and breaks her shoulder blade. Somewhere in this, I (with my Dad's help) buy a car. We pick it up the day after the funeral and I drive up to Chester where my mother lives and where I'm spending Christmas. I get there 2 days before Christmas. At this point, the whole family has had enough of 2004.
2005 begins and I have no job and my redundancy money is starting to dwindle. So I decide to sign up with some agencies to do temp work while I try to find some work. Do not go anywhere near Reed or Brook Street - neither of them managed to find me any work. Adecco, on the other hand, got me a month's work with Proctor & Gamble, which may turn into something more permanent. So the money is coming in while I try to find a permanent job.
See, I told you it had been a fun few months.
So rather than going into more detail than anybody anywhere wants to know about me, let me fill you in on the excitement that has been my life for the last few months (with a little bit of background).
Background - Back in the summer of '99 I moved to the US courtesy of the company I was working for (running all their batch jobs in SAP). I knew it wasn't going to be too smooth when it took them about 4 months to get the work visa (normally it takes a lot less - as quite a few people took great glee in telling me). The first 3 years were pretty good - stressful but fun with a lot of good people in the office. Then the company took a financial downturn and lots of people got laid off. At which point, it all started getting a little nuts and my life began turning to shit.
Fast forward another 2 years, to July 2004. A new implementation starts to gain momentum (SAP APO) and people realize they need to get me involved to start running their batch jobs. This makes a change as they normally wait until the week before a new system is due to go live before involving me. So people start sending me information, I try and learn APO (which does things completely differently) and work out how I'm going to get everything done before it goes live (which keeps changing dates on us). In the middle of all this my mother comes over for her annual visit and we go to New York for a week (fabulous place, been there twice and I want to go back). Immediately after coming back, I come down with the chicken pox (for the second time - and yes that is possible). I eventually go see the doctor the day after my mother leaves (the following week) and find out it really is chicken pox, not just a rash that we thought it was for a week. So I get to have another week off work - except I don't. I have to work from home to get everything done. In the space of 3 weeks, I do 172 hours - dialing in as soon as I get home for hours, working all through the weekend, getting up at strange hours to do work. In the middle of this, the application we use to run the batch jobs decides to freak out and die on one server every night at 2am. The fact that it's only on one production server just makes it that much more freaky. Eventually, APO goes live and is fairly uneventful.
Two days later, I get laid off with two days notice - making my last day October 29th. As part of the lay-off I get told I have 10 days from my last day to get out of the US otherwise LSI Logic won't pay for my ticket home. Not 10 days to book it, but 10 days to be on the plane. There is initially no mention of my stuff is going to get home. After 5.5 years over there, I have quite a bit of stuff. A whole apartment full of stuff. During my two-day notice period, while I'm trying to sort out my stuff in the office and let my family back in the UK know what is going on, I have people wanting me to work because they're worried about month end (that's during the weekend immediately after my last day) with the new system and how all the batch jobs are going to run. They're not too happy that I'm not exactly keen to do any work. Then my boss wants me to train the guy who will be doing my job. Again, not exactly something I'm keen to do. My mother very nicely decides to come over and help me get home. I then find out that because of the type of visa I'm on, I don't have a 10-day grace period, I have a 0-day grace period. I become an illegal alien the minute that LSI withdraw their sponsorship. Talk about freaking you out. The company's solution - not to worry, 'cause it's not like the INS is going to move that fast. Just what you need to be told. Never mind, that it's their fault that I didn't know this. Because they have a stupid lawyer who doesn't know what she's doing, I keep getting the wrong information. Eventually I figure out how to fix it (fill in a form and pay $200) after much freaking out. Then LSI decides to do the decent thing and tell me that they will move my stuff home, but they won't be able to tell me straight away how much. At 5pm on my last day I eventually get told - 5000lbs. However, the catch, and it's a doozy, is that I must have the shippers in and everything packed up and shipped within 10 days of my last day for them to pay. 10 days - to sell a car, pack up your stuff, book a plane ticket, sort out the taxes, and do the million and one other things involved in moving home. Yeah right, like that's possible. Oh yeah, and those 10 days include weekends. So that makes it really easy. The solution? We cheat. The ticket gets booked for the 10th day. Then the airline gets called and the ticket gets moved to a later date - at the end of November. The shippers arrive on the last day of the 10 days and everything gets packed up. I get everything sorted out, get on the plane and breathe a very, very big sigh of relief.
Once home, my mother finds out that the company she works for has gone out of business. She was retiring in April anyway but it's still a shock. Then, within a couple of weeks, my stepmother's mother dies. Then my maternal grandmother falls over and breaks her shoulder blade. Somewhere in this, I (with my Dad's help) buy a car. We pick it up the day after the funeral and I drive up to Chester where my mother lives and where I'm spending Christmas. I get there 2 days before Christmas. At this point, the whole family has had enough of 2004.
2005 begins and I have no job and my redundancy money is starting to dwindle. So I decide to sign up with some agencies to do temp work while I try to find some work. Do not go anywhere near Reed or Brook Street - neither of them managed to find me any work. Adecco, on the other hand, got me a month's work with Proctor & Gamble, which may turn into something more permanent. So the money is coming in while I try to find a permanent job.
See, I told you it had been a fun few months.
