Twenty days since my last post...in the 3+ years I've been running this blog I don't think I've ever gone that long. Hopefully the two of you that read this site haven't jumped ship quite yet.

Regardless...

The job that I was so incredibly stoked about turned out to be quite the nightmare, and thus my brief tenure there has ended. Long story short, I was actively seeking other employment opportunities, they found out (I wasn't exactly trying to be stealthy) and weren't too happy about it so we mutually agreed it'd be best to part ways.

Why did I want to leave? Let's just say that during my 7 weeks there I got very familiar with sites like bored.com all the major news sites, etc. I have never worked anywhere and had to practically beg for work. Lots of people would be fine with jobs like that (which I'll never understand...just sit there and collect a paycheck? Not for me) however I get extremely frustrated with boredom. Everyone around me seemed busy enough, but I wouldn't know any details as everyone who worked there stayed inside the confines of their cube walls. No random geek discussions, no code jams, nothing. I might as well have been in the middle of a deserted island.

Which brings me to my main point: I don't do well in environments where people aren't passionate about what they do. Don't get me wrong, the folks I worked with were good at what they do, but there was no passion, no spark, no ooomph. Just a bunch of knowledge sitting around not being shared with other people. Extremely disappointing. I could go on, however some of those guys read read my site, plus I try not to kiss and tell.

So what's next? I have my 7th (yes, s-e-v-e-n-t-h) interview in 5 years with Microsoft on Friday. It's similar to the position I screened for 6 months ago, except much more .Net oriented (go read Tess's blog for a general idea of what it'd be like, though not identical)...the 'official' title is Premier Field Engineer (Premier is a group within Microsoft that services fortune 500 companies, so it's not premier as in "we're better than you"). Needless to say I've been studying my ass off in preparation, and have learned lots of stuff that will come in handy regardless if I get the position or not. I really want it though.