Hope
If you follow me on twitter, you probably know I have occasional intense bursts of job hunting. Unfortunately, I’m not able to quit my job to be all housewife at the moment, otherwise… tempting.
Things are moving along in the Kiels household. In January Mr. Kiels finished his PhD and became Dr. (of Electrical Engineering) Kiels, and at the end of June he finished up all his papers and transitioned to being Dr. Kiels househusband and job hunter.
Mr. Kiels is interviewing for several jobs this month. I now give us more than a 50% chance of relocating to Portland in the next two months. I could probably keep my job, but I think it’s time to move on. I’ve been applying to jobs in Portland, but so far no nibbles. Being non-local is not optimal in my field.
I would like to work for a smaller company where my projects are with the same people. Learning to work with one, sometimes two, completely new teams every 6 months is frustrating beyond words. Having projects canceled at the last minute is depressing. Having my pay lowered (and health care rise) and vacation taken away after a merger is just… irritating. Our process runs us, we don’t run our process. There is no opportunity for staying current in my field and no career growth (not that I want career growth in the typical sense, but I do want knowledge growth). I can’t use the tools I want because my boss doesn’t want me to set higher expectations for our department. I can’t give my team the deliverables they want for the same reason. I have developers on my team telling me 95% of the things I suggest have no value (they do, but our perspectives are radically different and that statement just gets so fucking old after a while).
So yeah. New job time. I hope. New city time. I hope. I have so much hope, I bought a ticket to a Seattle event in October.