paulWTAMU wrote:are they letting you keep the mask??
Oh yeah. It spent a week on my desk at work. Every time I got the urge to slack, it was there... staring at me. Reminding me of how I got the job.
Speaking of which, I should probably explain that. When I found out about the lymphoma, I was being cut loose from my project at the CNC due to the project shrinking. My company maintains a list of people who want to move projects, so my manager placed my name on the list and I started getting calls from the managers of various projects. I had a few good interviews and then I was offered the position in Iraq. I interviewed for the Iraq position and they told me I had the job if I wanted it. I then had the unpleasant task of turning down the other projects who wanted me to come work for them, including a couple really primo development jobs. The Iraq managers tell me I'll ship out in the middle of July, my current project told me I'd be off the project at the end of June, so I was pretty much all set.
In the middle of June I got the diagnosis about the lymphoma. This explains the mad rush to find out what kind of treatment I needed. When it was determined that the treatment was not available in Iraq (not many linear accelerators in a war zone, no matter what you read playing Mechwarrior) I was pretty much disqualified from that position. At this point, it's now June 20th or so and I'm off my project on June 30th. So now I need a job. Fast.
So the word goes out among the managers at my company. "Darkmage needs a project. What do you have?" All the projects I had turned down since May when I accepted the Iraq job had filled those slots. I didn't have time to interview the projects that had openings become available since May. In steps "Steve D." Steve is the contract manager for a particularly large collection of projects with a fascinating client whom I have worked with in the past, specifically on one of those projects. There is usually an extensive process to join one of his projects due to the high-stress/high-importance of the job. Steve is also an Army reservist who a couple years ago spent a year in Iraq, during which time my wife and I sent him care packages full of beef jerky, movies, magazines, handy-wipes, popcorn, etc. (He
still gives me flack about sending him
Amazon Women on the Moon) Steve had the power to talk to one of his projects who had a recent job opening and say "You: You're getting this guy named Darkmage. He's a little green in Java, but he worked on this project a couple years ago. He's filling one of your open positions." And the people of that project kind of had to go "Umm... okay."
So I sit at my current job, day in and day out, realizing that I am there because a friend bent the rules for me when I was in a tight spot. And I have to prove to my boss that Steve D.'s faith in my abilities were justified. It's quite motivating.
In other news... I'll take a picture of the mask where it currently resides, on the wall in my house. I'm on vacation right now, so it will be a couple of days. The reason I'm on vacation is because my wife had surgery last Friday to replace the VNS implant that controls her epilepsy. She came through the surgery just fine and is recovering nicely in our room at the resort.
Heh. Between the two of us, we're just a mess of medical issues.