So Empire Life hired me on as a Computer Print Operator and so far, there is a lot of learning to do but the job is going well. I am currently working 7.5 hour days, Monday to Friday, but at the end of my three month training, I will be working 12.5 hour days or nights. it’s shift work, so it’s something I have to start getting used to again, but I think I can deal with it. Empire Life seems to be a great place to work. Tones of friendly people, and so many great things I can learn while I am there. The great thing about working at Empire Life is they really like training their staff. So I can apply for courses related to the insurance field, or anything else that might help their company out, and they will pay for the course and give me a bonus after I finish the course. This place is wonderful.
So what does a Computer Print Operator do you ask? Well, I am responsible for looking after the 5 huge printers we have, that combined, print over 8 million pages a year. I am also responsible for looking after the mainframe and the servers. Among the many things I do on the server, the one that takes up most of my time is running COBOL and JCL jobs for the other departments working at Empire Life. it’s neat being able to have so much power and yet at the same time it worries me because I don’t want to mess up and do the wrong thing and cause a huge problem for Empire Life. I have some pictuers of my work place over on my flicker account. (Empire Life has kindly asked me to remove my pictures from my flickr account. Sorry everyone)
I’m sure I will be making more posts about this place as time goes on. I also want to start posting more on this site as I feel like I am letting my cousin David down by not putting this site to good use. Since he is paying for the server and I think still is paying for the domain name, I feel like I need to keep this updated to show him I am getting value out of this site. Thank you very much David!
With so many people being laid off in the first recession of the new century, many people are in the market for a permanent job. This means that the competition is fierce for any company looking to hire. With the Bank of Canada officially calling the recession over, there are still many companies that cannot afford to hire their staff back. This means that many are looking for jobs else where. Some are having no choice but to take lower positions just to make an income. Some people are even going back to working at places like McDonald’s or Starbucks. People that, just the last year, were working as entry level software programmers or any other such entry level positions.
Many have even given the thought of being there own boss. I have started more and more thinking that this might be a good way to go. But sadly, I don’t know if I am willing to put in the 10-13 hour days, 5 to 7 days a week, in order to get my name out there. I am by no means a business man, so I would not be starting a store front business of my own, but rather as a freelance writer/ web specialist. After knowing two people that have been doing this sort of thing for years and both of them telling me how hard and frustrating things are, it really makes me wonder if this is something I want to do.
I have also given the thought of possibly doing this as a side project and still trying to find a job working part time somewhere. But after putting out at least two dozen resumes to different companies and not hearing a work back from ANY of them other then to let me know they received my electronic application, I am starting to give up hope of ever finding a job. I know that a majority of my content on this site has been all over the place and about my personal life. This is mainly because I can’t think of one thing I am really good at that I might be able to capture a niche market’s attention with. I think what I need to start out doing is possibly picking two or three topics that I like writing about, and try finding which one I have the most success with and go with it. I know that in order to get my name out there I will need to use application such as Twitter, Facebook, del.icio.us , digg, reddit and many other social media/bookmarking sites. I don’t know if I want to start doing that though. It all sounds very easy, but to put good content out into the world that people are will to read is another story. So the question is, should I start small, only working on one site and get that up and running while I continue to look for a new job, or should I just go all in and work on two sites and promote the heck out of them and see about making that my permanent job?
With the economy not looking that great in both Canada and the U.S, things for me are not looking that great when it comes to getting a job in my field. Yes, Canada is barely going to scratch by with a growth this year, but not much, and this makes many business owners nervous and still very apprehensive in hiring new employees. I have looked all over Kingston and sent out many resumes to jobs available in both Kingston and Ottawa and have yet to hear back from any of them. This has really started to put a damper on my spirits. I have not given up hope, but it feels like there is going to be no end in site for my unemployment.
My ONLY grip about sending out resumes is that employers do not need to contact potential employees if they are not selected. This means that I could apply for a job and never know if anything went wrong with my application or if I was not what the employer was looking for. I really wish it was mandatory for employers to contact ALL potential employees that submit a resume and let them know either way. This would eliminate the constant worry that I have been doing something wrong. I mean, I have taken the time to apply to your company, the least you can do is give me a 5 minute call stating that, “Sorry, we are not interested in continuing with an interview.” Give a very brief explanation why: “Over qualified”, “Not enough experience”, “Not the right fit”, etc. This would cut down on people calling in to the company to find out what is going on. Yes, I understand that not everyone takes rejection well and might have a million questions as to why they were not considered, but then the employer can just say that they wish not to discus the issue further and wish the now unsuccessful candidate a good day and hang up. This way people are not left hanging in nowhere land.
The title sounds like a music group but i assure you, it is not (As far as I know.) But I did spend Thursday and Friday in Toronto working on Migrating Laptops for the Pharmacy Liason Officers. There is a funny story that I have been telling people but I would much rather not say it to everyone. It basically involves a Porno CD, and I will leave it at that.
So I spent the time not working for the Ministry of Health with my cousin David who was coming down to Kingston anyway for some much needed R&R. We got to hang out and look around and hang out a bit. I decided to take in a play and went to see Jersey Boys again at the Toronto Theater for the Arts. I was lucky in that I baught my ticket at the door and was able to get a seat for $35 (Tickets are normally $65 to $130.) I was also lucky because I got a seat in between two people but one of them did not show up. This was good for me as I am very broad shouldered and dont fit into the seats very well. But I was able to enjoy the play and took the TTC “Red Rocket” back to the hotel room.
Then David and I boarded the VIA train back to Kingston to spend the weekend shopping for xmas gifts for my family and for Amy’s family. So far I only need gifts for about 4 or 5 more people then I should be all done. Hopefully I can get that done this weekend. It was nice to hang out with David and Amy as it gets very quiet in my apartment with only Edyy and myself living there.
As you can see, markwood.ca has a new look to it. This is a free Wordpress Theme that I found online and really enjoyed. I want to eventually hire someone to create my new custom design and then code it to work well with widgets and plug-ins. But till I find the money for that, this is what the site is going to look like.
I want to apologize for the lack of updates these past two weeks but I have been really busy at work and have been spending some over time at work to get things done. Also I have not had a lot to talk about since I have been not doing much other then working and playing Fallout 3 when I have a few minutes at home.
Just a small update. I wrote a qualifying test for the COBOL and JAVA SO2 positions in the ministry and did not end up getting a call back for an interview. I guess that’s just the way things work out. Hopefully I will be able to get another contract and stay with the Ministry of Health a little longer, but we’ll see how that all works out. I might be looking for a job in the next month if things don’t pan out.
Other then that, nothing else is new. Hopefully some new and interesting things come up and I can start talking about them instead of the horribly boring updates I am giving you right now.
Well, I missed my post date by two days, but that’s because I forgot about Showcase Ontario 2008 in Toronto over the past two days. So that is where I have been. I know I should have written a post prior to leaving, but I had not thought of that at the time. So, back to my normal update.
I am all moved into my new place. I still have a few boxes that I have to unpack because I just purchased a book shelf and I need to fill it now with the remaining items in the boxes. I also have some dishes to get done and some Laundry to do. I was going to do it this weekend, but I ended up taking a trip up to Ottawa for Amy’s oldest Sister’s Birthday party. We all took part in two hours of 5 pin bowling. It’s completely different then the 10 pin that I am used to. it was fun none the less. Then right after bowling, we went out to dinner at Boston Pizza. That is when we found out that (well, so of us) that Bill and Julie had gotten engaged. So congratulations to them and I wish them all the best.
After that Amy and I headed back to Kingston with the new bookshelf I purchased from Ikea. So I built it before I left on Monday and I got back from Showcase Ontario at 9:30 Tuesday night. So nothing has really be done with it. My fridge is still on the empty side and I have a bunch of things I have to get done this weekend. So I am thinking that I might ask to borrow either my grandmother, or my mothers car on Saturday and just get everything done that I need to get done. I should hopefully have some pictures up on my Facebook page soon enough and hopefully I can bring some of those pictures right to my site because I have finally updated my photos page with the new software and should make use of it since I have it.
The other big thing that happened to me last week was that there are two SO2 (System Officer level 2) positions open in the Ministry of Health’s Registration and Claims Branch. With a lot of work and help from my lead project manager, I over-hauled my resume and applied for the position before i left work on Friday. The closing date was Monday at end of business day so I am hoping to hear back any time now for an interview. I am very hopeful that I will get in with either group and be able to have a permanent position and not have to worry about an end date. I will keep everyone updated on anything that I hear or if I go in for an interview.
I applied for an Systems Officer level 2 (SO2) at the Ministry of Health almost a month ago now. I have yet to hear anything from them and am beginning to lose faith that I will even get an interview for the experience. I would love the job as I am doing ok for money, but am not able to get a part time job as there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done.
I know they said they will only be contacting those candidates that they have selected, but I have not heard any buzz around the office of any interviews in process. Hopefully things have just been slowed down by bureaucratic crud and I will get an email or phone call some time soon.
Getting this position will give me one of a few options. Either I take the job full time and forget my last year in CPA and everything else. Or I try and work something out with them so I can still go to school and finish my last year and still work as many hours as possible the rest of the week. This would mean I would have to drop my position as Director of Tech and Trades, but I would be willing to do that as getting a job with the Government is more important to me.
I just hope they call soon and it does not get to late.
Update: Does not look like I will be getting an interview. Guess I will have to keep trying.
The past four months work at the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has been the greatest time of my life. I have learned many new things and a completely new language. I came into MOHLTC not knowing anything and really feeling like I was out of place and not suited for the position. Over the past four months I have thought my self how to code in WebFOCUS and the ins and outs of some of its features. I have also learned how to write technical, architectural, business and system documentation. The past months have been a great learning opportunity for me. I have also been involved in many meetings and it really feels as though the rest of the staff have come to treat me as one of their own. They all know that I am still very young, (21 is young when it comes to programming computer programs) but they have all been there themselves and are helping me along as much as they can.
I have also strengthened my use of SQL as I have had to do some SQL pass-through for some of the programs I was writing for a particular project. I was nice to get to know something better as I was forced to use it even though I did not know it that well. I still feel like there is so much more to learn but it will all come with time and there is only so much I can learn at one time before I start overloading myself.
I would just like to thank everyone on the HNS team that I have been apart of for the last 4 months. Thank you.
Things have been going well since I started April 30th. I have been here a month and a half and I have learned a LOT of things while I have been here. I am always busy doing something for the proof of concept and for stuff moving forward. I am working with WebFOCUS which is a new spin on an old language. The mian purpose of WebFOCUS is creating reports to send out to clients that want them. Having no previous knowledge of this program before starting here, I think I have got the hang if it for the most part.
I am really enjoying the 8 to 4 work hours and having the weekends off. It lets me see Amy when she is not working on the weekends.
My boss is great. He is very laid back and very personable. I could not have asked for a better position for summer employment. I love coming to work and I get paid really well for being a new employee. I know it’s all the hard work that I have done over the years is starting to pay off and it feels good.
Well, my lunch break is over and I must get back to the grind of trying to build a new application. I will hopfully be updating more as I get more free time to myself. I am really busy with school and a possible move (I will talk about those in another post when I get the time to talk about them.)
That’s all I seem to be doing lately. If it’s not work, then it’s getting ready to go to work the next day. Sadly I don’t have much time to myself anymore and I still have lots of things I need to get done.
I basically have broken my 24 hours down to this:
I wake up at 6:30 and get ready to take the city bus at 7:15 I take the almost 30 minute bus ride down and walk the two blocks it takes me to get to work from the bus stop. I start work at 8am and then go until 4pm. I walk back the two blocks to catch the bus at about 4:15 to go home. It takes me another 30 minutes to get back home. By this time it’s about 4:45. I come home and say hi to my grandmother. We talk about my day and her day and then we decide on supper. That takes us to about 5:30. We make and eat supper which takes us about an hour. I then at that point have from 6:30 to about 9 for my time. After “my time”, which is usually spent playing World of Warcraft, I have to take a shower and get my self ready for bed. I end up taking about an hour to do this since I find myself surfing the net for things I need to catch up on before I go to bed (Cause apparently, they might not be there in the morning…). I put a movie on to go to bed and then fall asleep some where between 10:30 and 11:30. I sleep and do the whole thing over again.
I just don’t feel like I have the time to do anything and the 3 hours I have to myself is not long enough. I like playing World of Warcraft cause I have met some really entertaining people on the ventrillo chat program the “guild” has set up.
But when it does come to work, I love what I am doing here. I am learning a program called webFOCUS 7. It’s a program used to make reports using an SQL type query and it outputs it to many different formats such as PDF, Excel and HTML. There are others but these are the three I know off the top of my head. It’s fun learning a new language, but not so much when you only have a week and a half (if that) to learning about 75% of it. I am starting to get into the development stuff that the HNS (Health Network Systems) branch, where I work, is working on. It’s not all that big but is used to process millions of records on an oracle database. Very powerful stuff.
Hopefully I am able to make a few more posts as I start getting a bit more free time. I am venturing to Amy’s this weekend and hopefully we will be able to go see Spider-Man 3 either tonight or some time this weekend if she has not already gone with someone.
Other then that, life seems to be fairly routine. Starting to be the same thing day in and day out. I’m not much for repetitiveness. But hey, that’s life in the working world. And as my grandmother say’s, “Just wait till you have a family, kids, a car, a house and pets. Then you will have NO time to yourself.” So I guess I count myself lucky now that I have 3 hours to myself.
