Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

That was interesting.

It is an ill-kept secret that I’ve been rather . . . unhappy . . . with aspects of my day-job*. Over the past two decades, the IT Industry, with its massive post-Y2K expansion and its penchant for constant retooling in both technology and methodology, has become the textbook definition of “churn.” It’s the poster child for the “Oh, look, a squirrel!” syndrome. I mean, how can any industry work efficiently when it spends a quarter or even a third of its resources just converting from one tool to the next?

Because of this, my enthusiasm for seeking a different post within the IT conclave has been stupendously lackluster. Leaving my current company—with my 5 weeks’ vacation and seniority—for a new firm that likely has just as much dysfunction as mine (with a possible side dish of crazy), well, it’s hard to get excited about that.

I considered changing professions. I spent a year (and more) trying to break into the editing game, but frank talk from folks who have that job, plus the hard facts I learned during my attempts, showed the unrealistic nature of my hopes. I really wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of an internship when I was pushing sixty and still needed a decent income.

To throw petrol on this fire, a couple of weeks ago my work team was informed that we were being disbanded. We’ve been struggling for a year, since senior management stripped us of our functional manager and put us under the aegis of a greenhorn who knew not a whit of us or our processes. Our team was down to three and a half members (one of us is part-time), doing the work that used to be done by nine people, and were now without effective management, so let’s just say that management dropping a nuke on our team was not wholly unpredicted. This week, we all went to our newly-assigned teams (though, true to form, no one has devised a plan for the transition of us, our applications, or our responsibilities).

While the mushroom cloud of this re-org was still climbing, though, I learned of an opportunity with another team, a non-IT team. Faced with increasing churn and decreased staff in our IT division, many business teams have added programming staff to their rosters to deal with extracts, reports, and such. The idea of escaping “Agile World” and the onerous duties of being on-call for one third of my life is intensely attractive, so I applied.

And yesterday, I had an interview with the manager, supervisor, and a team member.

I haven’t had a job interview since the Clinton administration (the first one), so I was a bit rusty at selling myself. Needless to say, I was nervous. I’m not, by nature, loquacious, and even less so when talking about myself. When it comes to tooting my own horn, you could go so far as to call me laconic. So spending seventy minutes talking with two strangers and a business acquaintance, telling them how great I am and about all the amazing things I’ve done in my career, well, it was a bit of a stretch for Yours Truly.

But I managed. It was a convivial conversation and, despite my ill-advised attempts at humor (my style turns a bit acerbic when I’m nervous so, when asked the standard question of “How do you deal with conflict?” my answer of “Hit men” fell kinda flat), I performed adequately. Not stellar. Not brilliant. Adequate.

I’m hoping that my thorough analysis in the “Data Analysis Skills Assessment” test will help bolster their opinion of me.

So now, its all about the waiting while they meet with whomever else has applied for the job and weigh their options.

Fingers crossed.

k

*I currently work as a software developer/ETL specialist for a non-profit medical insurer.