The New Job: Details

[jbsegal]

Ok. Details.

I'm going to be working for Smarter Living - producers of the websites SmarterTravel.com, BookingBuddy.com, and TripMania.com

I'm starting on Wednesday, June 22, 4 days after my 23-month anniversary of starting my unemployment. I'll be a full-time employee.

While officially a dot-com, founded in 97 or 98, they don't consider themselves a technology company, but rather a content provider. They were founded by an ex-Business Consultant who liked sending mail to his friends with the travel deals he found every week. He started SmarterLiving and, unlike 99.5% of companies founded the late '90s, made it profitable well before the end of the century. He's still the CEO.

They're a small company - about 35, I think - located in the Schraffts Factory complex in Charlestown, Boston.

I'm going to be the Sysadmin for the production side of things and for (I think) those users who have linux desktops, while the Windows side of things (most of the desktops, the exchange server ({shudder})) has its own guy.

I'm replacing the person who's been promoted to be my boss.

Of course, as their web and and (real) mail servers are the heart of the company, I get to go back to the joys of oncall. Ah well, life isn't perfection. :)

The ones I've met so far (all either developers, HR, or senior management) seem a really nice group of people. Most of them have been there at least 3 years, I think. At least 2 of the developers are Davis Sq. folks.

I'm pretty damned psyched.

(And I gather they've already found my LJ. Hi!)

Comments

[iamlisabee.livejournal.com]

congratulations! may this provide many happy work days to come!

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Sounds great - hope you'll be happy there!

[suecochran.livejournal.com]

Wow, 23 months is a l o o o n g time to be out of work. I'm very happy to hear that you're employed once more - it sounds promising. May you enjoy your work and workplace. Nice fellow employees make ALL the difference in whether or not you can tolerate working anywhere; certainly it's true for me. Mazel tov :)

[pumpkin-pi.livejournal.com]

Congrats again! This sounds nice - and having an inside track on great travel deals isn't too bad of a perk, either. Enjoy!

[donnad.livejournal.com]

You weren't out of work for 23 months, maybe out of a tech job for that long, but didn't you work last summer for Cirque? You did get paid for that didn't you or was it volunteer?

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Fair enough....

I've pretty much been looking at it as a question of jobs I'm putting on my resume.

Cirque gets brought up in interviews, but as it was a) the least I've ever gotten paid per hour, b) aggressively part time, and c) something I've forgotten since I started this paragraph, it's not what I've been look at as a "real job" - though it was great for once having a job that people envied me having.

[dmk.livejournal.com]

Yay! Congratulations!

[tcb.livejournal.com]

whee! yay!

[magid.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an interesting job (plus an easy commute :-). And as already noted, having an inside track on travel deals is pretty cool.

[cutieperson]

YAY!

say hi to Mike for me *grin* (he's a Davis Sq person who i've known for years. he started at SmarterLiving when he moved to the area, um, 5 years ago?)

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

W00! Congratulations :-)

[netpositive.livejournal.com]

Again, congratulations - I know it's been a hard road for you for a while now, but may this augur some good things for the near future. *hug*

[gingicat]

Congratulations! (I saw dancingdeer mention it, and wanted to come congratulate you directly.)

[ex-subverse169.livejournal.com]

how wonderful! I'm please as could be for you...you deserve it!

[jasra]

Many congrats on the new job!

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a basic Good Thing. My sympathy on the oncall; if it gets onerous, well, if your boss held your current job then he knows what's involved; you likely have an understanding person in management.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! I've been rooting on you finding a job for a while now.

[protogeek.livejournal.com]

And I gather they've already found my LJ. Hi!

Hi yourself :o) (This is Mo, one of the devs who interviewed you.) We're looking forward to you coming here! Especially since Tabor accidentally typed shutdown in the wrong window this morning...

There are rumors here that you were referred to the job by me... I know I posted about it in LJ and it made the rounds a bit, do you remember where you heard about it? Perhaps through bbbsg?

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Heya.
So, no, it wasn't you. I was forwarded Tabor's posting by Wadlow, who I'll avoid id-ing any more here because I don't know how much he likes being talked about on LJ.

bbbsg has been hopeful and supportive whenever we've actually chatted about my work situation, but I didn't get this one from her. :)

See you in a couple days!

[protogeek.livejournal.com]

Darn, there goes my referral bonus :o)

See you Wednesday!

[roozle.livejournal.com]

Hope the first day is going great! I had some sporadic lj reading going on and somehow missed the initial burst of WAHOO!!!!

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

!! I missed this! Congratulations!