Tag Archives for networking

Heads Down

I try to make friends with as many people in the office as possible. As previously I worked in Tech Support, it’s good to know everybody and their common issues. Working in an office with less than 200 people, it’s still possible to get to know everyone. One of my best friends in the office got fired last week. Unemotional, parting of the ways, let go. I’m finding it a little to deal with.

I’ve had a couple of days to think about it and some good advice from my manager. About the most I can do is just continue to be a friend, help him job search and network, and go over to his house to watch the NFL Playoffs. I’ve tried vouching for coworkers and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. For a collegue who’s already been let go, it’s a no win situation and potentially a career damaging move. I love him like a brother, but after giving it a few days and taking my emotion out of it, it’s fairly clear no one is defaming him and everybody is just moving forward.

In the last few days, I’ve tried to work “heads down” as much as possible. We’re starting to hit out stride with our site conversion schedule, so this week I’m neck deep in backups and custom reports. A couple of times today someone walked up to my desk to ask a question and for a second, just for a moment, I was hoping he was back. And we had to decide where we were going to lunch. The good news is I try to know everyone in the office, I still have plenty of company for lunch, and I still have a place to go watch the playoffs.

KILANFest

I’ve been camping out 3 out of the last 5 weekends and so far the weather hasn’t let me down. But soon it’s gonna be freezing cold. My weekends will soon be a mix of ramping up on my SQL DML skills, learning all about joins and temp tables. And Fable 2, Fallout 3, and Guitar Hero World Tour all just released. Not to mention I just got an email about KILANFest happening again in January.

The last KILANFest was October 4th & 5th, it was a blast, but only Travis & I drove up to Louisville for it. I’m hoping to bring some more folks from Tennessee with us for KILANFest 5.0, potentially 2 cars. And I really want to stay for more of Sunday festivities. Last time we arrived on Friday night even though the event starts on Saturday morning. But hanging out on Friday night was a good time. We got to help setup for the event, which consisted mostly of crimping network cables, tearing off duct tape, wishing I’d brought my fishtape, holding open doors, and “field testing” the Rock Band setup.

But it was fun spending time with the IT crowd at Summit Energy. Every IT department has to meet unique requirements for the business. I’m in a group of about 40 IT professionals that focus on the development, implementation, and support of clinical applications and infrastructure for over 150 locations. They run a shop focused on corporate user support & proprietery internal enterprise systems. It’s probably just a change of wardrobe, but it’s fun to sit down with them and talk shop and maybe do some networking.

That should be one of the highlights of KILANFest in January. In the meantime, I need to get my Guitar Hero skills up to par. It’s my understanding there will be a GH tourney and I don’t intend on finishing 2nd.