My job

Apparently, I completely neglected to tell anyone what my new job is.

First, my old job. Or, how I ended up pretending to understand computers and working for a giant bank.

When I got out of school with four years at Drake University spent studying revolutionary periods in random countries throughout history with no discernible thesis or focus, I was working at a karaoke bar. I made pretty decent tips when indoor bars were in season (in the winter/during holidays) (about $400/a 2 night weekend), but during the summer, business was slow. A few months after graduation, my student loans bills started coming and I found myself during lean times with almost two rents to pay.

The bouncer convinced me to apply as a contractor through a temp agency at The Stage Coach Bank. Which shall remain nameless. For all of you potential child molesters out there. They were hiring for a scripted password reset position and since I can read and find my way to the office, I was more than qualified. I didn't know anything about computers, but they assured me that I could handle the job.



Then they called me back and asked if I could maybe do security updates (still completely scripted), instead. Since I could at least run a windows update on my computer, I figured, what the hell. Plus, it paid $2/hr more. Bonus. I was told I would move into the password reset position as soon as the updates were complete.

Two days later, I have taken a total of 2 calls on the 'scripted' security updates. This is not scripted, by the way, and the way Corporate Windows Images are re-written, nothing ever works as planned. And this was Win95. Hurray. Don't be fooled and assume that I only took 2 calls because I was being trained. The odd thing was that I was brought on during a lull - I sat for at least half a day with no phone calls at all.

Apparently, they decided I was friendly enough on the phone that they wanted me to start working in the all-call queue. Notice I did not say that I was knowledgeable enough - only that I seemed friendly enough. One of my two calls had been listened to by a supervisor and I was suddenly being asked to field any question that comes into the help desk queue. The Stage Coach Bank Help Desk is not a phone monkey job, for those of you who are curious. The calls that came in ranged from password resets (we supported 20 different systems with usernames) to 'My email just flipped me off, what do I do?' to 'I think I may have run over my laptop' - and we were expected to fix the majority of the calls.

I befriended some lonely geeks very quickly and through free candy and short skirts I learned. Oh how I learned.

And I survived. I became proficient enough that when they were 'firing' and 're-hiring' contractors from week to week, I was with the group for 11 months straight. And I was training and I was writing knowledge book articles for the n00bs. After 11 months, I really wanted health insurance and the guarantee of a steady job but one of the 13 supervisors didn't like me (I never found out why) and blocked my job application. I applied at a different help desk with the same company (we'll call it the Auto Stage Coach Bank) and was hired immediately to their help desk.

I really liked working at that help desk - we had a policy of overnighting everything and so our users really liked us. Plus, the group was smart; that help desk used to boast a 93% fix-it on the first call rate, supporting 15,000 users with about 30 help desk team members. So the group and the atmosphere was way more pleasant than the Home Stage Coach Bank. However, I did not like the work. A user is still a user and I really wanted to be doing the fixing in person. But without any formal education, I was going nowhere fast. And my personal life didn't lend itself well to continuing my education - more importantly, I wasn't sure I wanted to live in Des Moines and fix computers for the rest of my life. I just wasn't committed to technology.

After 2 years, last February, I moved to a different group, still within the same section of the company and still within technology. The job was dull but looked good on the resume, as far as filling out my skills with concrete examples. I knew that I wanted to move to Seattle, so I kept a bot going on the jobsite with the company as a whole, checking out job prospects.

Last November, I saw this job. It was with yet another part of the company - Investment Stage Coach Bank. It was billed as an Administrative Assistant position, but a number of things about it caught my eye. First, it paid double what every other position in Seattle with the Company paid. Staying with SCB was not a make or break thing, but it was at the top of the list. And since I didn't expect to actually be making the move for another 3 to 5 years, I had time to scout my options. Second, it wasn't a teller position.

Third, the job description was interesting: Research? One of my favorite things. Light accounting? Who doesn't like money? Updating a website? Never done it but it looks interesting. All around software guru? I heart software - it's easy to fake and still looks impressive to the computer illiterate.

Fourth, it wasn't in technology anymore. I was done with tech in the corporate world and didn't have the education to take it small scale. Therefore, I had to find a job out of tech. I contacted the manager and asked if she would be willing to consider an out of state candidate. She assured me that she couldn't pay for me to move to Seattle and I assured her that it was on my way anyway, so that was just fine with me. We got along swimmingly, I interviewed with a couple more members of the group over the phone and before I knew it, I had an interview in Seattle at the beginning of the year.

To the absolute delight of everyone who was in on it (my family, Will, and Will's family), my job interview capped off my two week Seattle Christmas vacation. The interview went very well, I thought. It was a series of three interviews and we all seemed to get along well. I felt like I convinced them that if I could learn computers with little background and excel within the SCB environment, I could probably do well with their group. They just needed to give me the opportunity.

That was January 3rd. My (potential) new boss said I would have an answer in 1.5 weeks. When I didn't hear anything in 2 weeks, I started freaking out. I had set my heart on the job and the move. I was sick of Iowa, sick of winter, and sick of winter. Also, I was sick of winter. I dreamed of running through the Seattle streets in balmy 40 degree weather, of working with intelligent people, of going to work at 5AM and getting off at 1PM. And it was slipping away.

I got up the nerve to call my (potential) new boss and got my first taste of how things are done on the west coast. She said (and I love this, I really do) "You know, it occurred to me this morning that I should probably call you and the other two candidates." They had had to delay the decision but she hadn't thought to update us. Turns out it's classic Boss Lady, but in a good way. She's got a lot going and, after all, the markets are tanking.

Anyway, she told me I would know in a week. Another 1.75 goes by and I am convinced. I will be stuck in Des Moines for the rest of my life. Actually, the call of the Pacific North West is so great at this point that I have started revamping my resume to apply for help desk jobs (cringe) outside of SCB. And then I get the phone call. The glorious, extremely late, gave me an ulcer, phone call.

On March 3rd, I started my new job in Seattle with Investments Stage Coach Bank. I am the equivalent of a legal aid, I think. The title (mentioned somewhere *way* up there) doesn't adequately describe what I do. Basically, I work for a group whose existence is solely to play google for SCB brokers. We research and stay informed on the roughly 10,000 individual stocks available for sale on the US stock markets. The group puts out a daily publication, a daily whittle down list of stocks, maintains a website, and is available to the brokers for advice and research. While they're out there selling, this group is inside keeping its fingers on the pulse of the markets.

I am not licensed and cannot give advice. But I can read (is this a trend or what) and I can learn. So I put out the daily publication (hence, the hours), update the website throughout the day and run the software that scrubs the 10,000 individual stocks down to 200. As I said in an earlier post, that leaves most of my day for me to fill. This is temporary. I have the important stuff down and now I start offering up my services to other groups. Once I have that mastered, I will be invited to work on random projects. In the meantime, they're really hot to have me get licensed. Then I'll be able to give advice to the brokers and take on more responsibility. As it stands, I can talk to the brokers and I can send them research reports, but I may not tell them anything or have an opinion.

And that's just fine with me. It's hard to be in this position again - I'm dealing with completely unfamiliar subject matter and eventually the fact that I'm comfortable around software isn't going to be impressive enough. So, I am working to learn a new field. In a new city. With a new lifestyle. I guess at least I'm not doing it at 50, right?

See what you get for asking? I will be posting more on what I promised before. Also, my first day of work was funny - at least getting there and the injuries incurred to ego and body. That will come up. Plus, I move into my 'permanent' home this week. I'm sure I'll have stories.