Guess who has a new job!
And in many ways I could say “Guess who has a new life!!” My life right now is so dramatically different than it had been both one and two years ago. Two years ago I was screwing up the courage to pack it all in with regard to my life in Los Angeles and to make back to New York City. My career path [as a computer freelance consultant] was completely stalled, my love-life was nonexistent, and I was generally not a happy person.
One thing I did enjoy: I was blogging a lot, including articles about my political views on the world. Being a freelancer, I was able to create and live by whatever image I wanted. My decision to move back to New York and to try to find a “corporate job” meant, for practical issues, that I would have to prune (one might even say “neuter”) my blog. Why? Because let’s face it: the first thing a (responsible) HR department does is to Google a job applicant. And with my livelihood at stake, I wasn’t about to take the risk of being considered a job candidate who lacked discretion.
For many personal reasons, I didn’t write about the last two years here in New York, nor am I likely to go into it publicly. But I will tell you this: I have seen some of the brightest and some of the darkest hours of my life. The job search was an endless, soul sucking, ego-degrading toil that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I spent about a year and a half searching for a job. Then when I finally settled on a pay-so-low-it-didn’t-cover-the-mortgage job this last February, it turned into the worst employment experience of my life. Long story short, after they missed paying my second paycheck (and after getting in a shouting match with my evil superior) I walked out, and mystically my Dream Job appeared out of nowhere!
The abbreviated summary: I now work for Accenture, and specifically I work for the Accenture Marketing Sciences division, for the Digital Optimization group which consists mostly of a newly acquired company called “Memetrics”. My job is as an “integration engineer” which is really stimulating and exciting, and I even get to wear my “Statistician’s” hat every now and then!
The other great thing in my life is my boyfriend/partner Bill. This is the first long, solid relationship of my life, and it is incredibly enriching. (That also mean all the spare time I used to spend doing things like… er… blogging has dwindled away to something approaching zero.) I’m going to let that personal part of my life remain private, but I will encourage anyone to visit his website (which he maintains daily, and which I helped build and design) at http://www.scroggiestudio.com/.
Well, that’s about it for the recap. I don’t know how much blogging I’m going to do in the near future. I might write about the website design work I’m going to do for Bill’s website. It uses iWeb and Apple’s MobileMe right now, but I want to maybe integrate WordPress and direct hosting, strategic marketing, etc. Developing his site has really been a wonderful case-study for me in all these things. (And an important one—his livelihood depends on it!)