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I'm Back!

Wow. How long has it been since I last blogged? Whew, probably at least a few months. Yeah, I kinda let work and other things in life take over so I really didn't have a chance to blog. I will try to catch up w/ this posting so get ready for a long read.

First off, I think I mentioned I switched jobs back in May. I now work at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP as a Practice Support Specialist. I won't get into too much details on how I got this job (maybe another time), only to say that I was really lucky in how I found out about the company.

I was originally hired as a consultant but now I'm a full time employee in the company. As the site above should tell you, it's a law firm. What do I do as a Practice Support Specialist? I basically helped out in alot of the database related issues on a day to day basis for all the cases that Paul, Weiss has. It's a quite a bit different than what I did in my last job, but I still deal w/ a lot users in a regular basis, so that's always interesting and fun.

Here's a couple of interesting things. The NY headquarters of Paul, Weiss is in the same building as my previous job. Well, to refresh, I used to work at UBS. I started out @ 1285 Ave of Americas but I moved to 299 Park Ave for a few months. I then got moved back to 1285 in September of last year. I was there til April when they moved me back to 299. I then switch jobs in May so I ended up back in 1285.

Here's another interesting thing. I never knew Paul, Weiss was headquartered @ 1285 Ave of Americas during most of my tenure working @ UBS. It's crazy. I always thought that there were just different departments of UBS that worked in the floors that Paul, Weiss occupies. I just thought they were cover by another IT team. It wasn't that far fetch of an idea, since UBS took over quite a few companies and it sometimes take time to merge those companies IT team into the UBS fold. I also only worked for onsite vendor @ UBS, which incorporated into everything, explains why I had no idea how the IT infrastructure is. Well, I had a pretty good idea near the end as I was dealing w/ UBS IT teams from London & Austrailia on regular basis over the phone. But I still had no idea about Paul, Weiss being headquartered here.

One day after working @ my new place for several weeks, I realized something. Paul, Weiss has more floors than UBS. It's incredible when I first counted the number of floors. But it doesn't seem so crazy now since UBS has their ppl spread out over a dozen other buildings in NYC/NJ (I covered a bunch of them).

Okay, enough about work. Well, just one more thing. They gave me a Blackberry now that I'm a fulltime employee. It's fun I guess. But since I had a smart phone for a few years now, it's not all that special. Just another gadget I have to carry on me. It's not heavy, but everything adds a little bit. The best analogy I can think of for a 21st Century IT workers like me are the knights in the middle ages. Althought we don't physcially go to war (some ppl might disagree), we wear our cellphones, blackberries, laptops, iPods, flash drives, battery chargers & AC adapters like the knights of the past wear their helmets, armor, swords, and shields.

So what else happened in the last couple of months? I moved. I'm still in NY, just moved to a different boro. I now live in Astoria in Queens. There's a lot of reason why I moved, but the best one is I'm closer to work. I'm only 30 min away from work now instead of over an hr when I was in Brooklyn. I thought I would have more time to blog now that I can get home earlier, but maybe it's cuz I haven't quite settled in yet. My place is still a mess (well, I did some major cleaning today). I guess I will eventually adjust and find the time. At least I can sleep in a little more now that I'm closer to work.

Astoria is really nice and diverse neighborhood. I live in the quiet part of Astoria. When my sister was helping me look for a place, she pointed out that I shouldn't be moving from one quiet (and boring) place (Bensonhurst, Brooklyn) to another quiet (and boring) place. Since she used to live in Boro Park, she really like that there's so many things to do in her neighborhood. I almost moved to Broadway in Queens (yes, there's a Broadway in Queens, Manhattan is not that special) near the F, V , and G train on Steinway Ave. But I couldn't really decide that day and didn't put down a deposit down for the place. So I losted it to some one that did. It's a pretty nice place. Close to everything since it's practically in the center of everything. They even had a Independence Bank (my 1st salaried job) 2 blocks away. I so regret it for the 2 weeks before I found my current place. Actually, I became really glad that I didn't get that place on moving day. It was decided that I would help my sister move back to my mom's place since her lease is up and she is moving to London for Grad School soon. Here's what happened. It took me less than an hr to move my stuff from my old place to my new place. It took about 3 hours to move all her stuff just into the U-Haul van. There's a lot of reasons why (she has more stuff, I'm moving out from my mom's place, so I don't have to one-shot everything), but this is the main reason why it took so long. She lived in a 4 flight walk up. On moving day, it was at least 80 degrees but the humidity was really high up there. After moving her stuff for like 5 minutes, I was already sweating like a dog. I can't believe I didn't faint from heat exhaustion after the 3 hours of moving. You should now know why I don't regret not geting the other apartment. It was a 4 flight walk up too. That definitely wouldn't have been fun. I probably would have had suffered from heat exhaustion if I did, considering I had to moved stuff up and down 4 flights of stairs for 2 different location.

So how do I like my new place. I love it. Well, there's almost something. Its not too big. That's the price you pay for living in a crowded city close to Manhattan. I been to my friend Peng's place in Lodi, NJ to pick up a few items from him since he was moving to China. His place is huge. I would say it's 2x as big as my place. But he is at least 1 hr away from Manhattan between driving and taking the bus/train. And he is really in the middle of nowhere. His neighborhood is nice, but really quiet. Good luck finding a nice restaurant within walking distance in that neighborhood. My friend Hilda also moved recently. She decided to moved to Bensonhurst. She used to live in Manhattan and was within walking distance from work. I warned her she will hate the extra amount of time she puts in to get to work (probably close to 1 hr trek everyday). I used to work within walking distance from Independence Bank so I knew first hand how lucky she had it. Then when I started working @ UBS, I lost that luxury. I'm so glad that I gain some back by moving closer to work.

Now that I experience living extremely close (walking distance), pretty far (an hr travel by train), and sort of close (current situation, 1/2 hr trek), I have to say my current situation is the best. WEll, not the best, but close to. That's not to toot my own horn, and here's why. When I was walking to work, I was such a home body. I didn't need a metro card so I ended up not feel like going anywhere even when my friends called me to go hang out. It was straight arrow to work and straight back home when shift is over. Not a very interesting life. That's why I really love the excitement and energy when I started working the city last year. I might be breathing in more smog, but I never felt more excited. But then I eventually hated how much time I waste each day going to work. Tagging 2 hrs of travel time each day to work is no fun. By the time I get home, it's usually 8 ish, and I haven't had dinner yet. After dinner, it's 9 ish, and a couple of hrs on the phone, chatting on AIM or just surfing the web and the night is over. I hardly get anything done. So I rather hang out than stay home. At least I have more fun. Now, I'm close enough that I still have to get a metro card to get to work by train everyday. But at least I don't feel like I'm shelling out extra cash for it. Also, I'm close enough to work that I only spend 1 hr travel time each day. That 1 hr can be used towards many things (doing chores, working OT). I sometimes just plain waste it, but at least Its there for me to waste. Couldn't really do that before.

I know ppl that live in Pennsylvania and travel over 2 hrs to work each day. That's 4 hrs round trip. If you only work 8 hours & sleep only 6 hours, you still only got 6 hours to do various things during the day. I didn't even include prepping dinner and breakfast. If you sleep 8 hours, forget it, your day is already over. How monotonous does that sound?

Hmm, I was going to spend 1/2 hour blogging and I always go over. I'm now more than an hour over that time. Oh well, at least I cover some of the major things that happen to me in the last couple of months. I hope to stay current and blog more often, but things don't always go according to plan...

Good Luck...

I just want to wish the best of luck to my good friend and co-worker Michelle on her new job. She is leaving the company that I just started working for this week and will be working at Citigroup starting next week. Congratulations and good luck. I hope this new job is exactly what she's been looking for.

Time to start fresh...

I'm very happy to announce that I'm moving on from my current job at UBS as Workstation Renewal Technician to another position. I will still be in Midtown, in fact, not very far from UBS. I will give more details in due time. For now, my first start day is Monday, 5/1. It's bittersweet though, because I work with a lot of wonderful people in UBS. But in the end, this upcoming position is better for my career. I'm so excited. I can't wait to start. Wish me luck.

I passed the Network + exam

Actually, I passed it 2 days ago. I  thought I did great on it until I saw the score. I got a 670 out of 900. The minimum passing score is 552. It's still not a bad score, but it does confirm one thing: The questions are weighted. How did I figured that out? My co-worker took the exam on the same day as I did and he got a 674. If each question is worth the same, we figure each question is worth about 10 points. The fact that he got only 4 points higher instead of a minimum 10 point differential shows that the questions are weighted.

I truly had problems with about 14 questions out of the 85 on the test. But most of the 14 are situation question where they ask you what happen if a server is moved from one part of the network to another, and stuff like that. I guess these are the questions that are worth more than the others.

Well, I did some digging and found a interesting article by Monster Tech Job Expert Allan Hoffman. In the article, Allan interviews Johnathan Thatcher, director of business integration for skills development at CompTIA. Here's a quote from Thatcher on certification exam questions: "The days of memorizing one fact, and looking for that one fact in one answer, are really gone". Thatcher further explains that situation questions are more useful to employers to better judge someone's real world skills than simple fact based questions.

I guess it's good that they do that. The problem is from all the study materials that I have used prior to the test, there were so few that actually have sample situation type questions that it's really hard to be prepare for the test. In fact, most of the study questions that I came across were exactly the kind that Thatcher said are no longer on the test: The one fact in one anaswer type of question.

I am Hired!

Yes, as my somewhat mysterious post yesterday hinted, I have been hired as a backup technician for AMC, which is subcontracted to work for Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS). I had no idea that's what UBS stands for until Friday when I went into the interview.

Finally an opportunity to do what I really wanted. Well, I like what I did for Edge Review but the pay was almost non-existent. This is a totally different story. The pay is better than Independence and I get to do what I like to do. This is so awesome!!!

For those that have been and still are looking for jobs in the IT field, this is the best time to try to find the job that you want. I just got another call today from another IT staffing firm (a lot of them sprouted up overnight, didn't they?). I don't plan on going to that one to even take a look because I am pretty happy with the backup technician position. But here are my tips for fellow job hunters:

-Have your resume professionally redone (don't be cheap about it, it's like not wearing a suit to the interview. You can do it, but would you? Don't answer, it's rhetorical. Well, unless you double major in Comp Sci and English, then you should probably write it yourself.)

-Spend time weekly to post your resume to different companies. (Don't be afraid about experience requirements. If you believe you qualify for the job, and you know you can do it, go ahead and apply for it. Don't let the experience requirement scare you from applying for the position.)

-Work on your interview skills (You got to impress the recruiter before they can trust you enough to hire you. I feel I still have to work on that too. All this really does is to help you effectively communicate your knowledge to the recruiter. If you are flustered by the recruiter's questions, it makes it that much harder to get the job.)

I am set to start the job on Thursday. I can't wait. I just got to finish some of my work at Independence and I am good to go. I am still kind of shocked that I got hired. Like I said on my Friday's post, I didn't think my chances were that good. But that's over now. Had the drug screening test today, and then just got a call a couple of hours ago that I am hired and to report in on Thursday. I am so excited!!!!

Wow...

I think I might have to change the name of this blog soon...

Went to one interview, missed the other

So here's the scoop. I went to the staffing company that gave me a call yesterday about a tech position. I found out late last night that the staffing company name is United Staffing Systems. I had no idea the company name and wanted to dig a little bit to find out how legit they are (some "staffing" companies are just tech schools that help you get internships).

Fortunately, they are a legitimate staffing company. My first interview was a recruiter that they recently hired. But it was good because he used to be a programmer so he knows the geek language. He felt I was qualified enough that he wanted his boss to talked to me. He tried to get her a couple of times but she was in a conference call. So we ended up just calling it a day and I thought I was heading back to Brooklyn for my 2nd interview.

10 minutes after leaving the building, he gave me a call telling me that his boss finished the conference call ahead of schedule and is able to see me. So I went back. His boss, like he said, knows how to grill people. He admitted that she frightened him a lot when he went to interview to work for her. Yeah, she was pretty intimadating. She speaks pretty fast and I got flustered easily by her questions. I didn't know what to say. But it was good, she really helped me out by giving me a lot of interview tips. We even roleplay on what to say to the UBS recruiter. After a 20 minutes session, she felt I was ready. So off I went to Park Ave to meet w/ the UBS recruiter.

The UBS recruiter was much gentler than I expected. But I felt I made one critical mistake. I didn't know that she was specifically looking for a hardware technician when I was playing up my desktop support skills (software, OS). So I don't know if she feels I have enough experience as a hardware guy. That's the one thing that we didn't discuss too much at United Staffing, the title of the position. The official title, according to the UBS recruiter, is a backup technician. Had I known about that before, I feel I would have aced the interview. As is, I recover as much as I could on how much I know about hardware, how much I like to work on hardware, and how I been working w/ hardware since I was a kid.

Hopefully, I will find out whether or not I am hired for the technician position soon. The UBS recruiter had two other people to interview after me so I have no idea what my chances are. I just want to get a definitive answer so that I know whether or not my plans for California will be put on the backburner.

P.S. After the UBS interview, It was already 2:30pm. Good thing I called ahead to let the other manager know that I can't make it to see him. I have no idea what the impact of that is. But I did went to my friend's branch to speak to his Market Manager for a little while. I might be able to set up an interview with him next week.

Ughh... Either nothing is happening, or everything is going off simultaneously. Between my branch closing, looking for a new branch in both Brooklyn and Manhattan, the interview w/ UBS, my plans to go to California, and the electronic technician test for USPS (probably didn't mention that on previous posts, but I don't know if I am going to take it), I have way too much on my plate.

Hold the phone...

Ok, I mean literally stop everything. I just got a call from a staffing company (Def: companies that handle the hiring for other companies) that they are looking for a desktop support guy. Yes!!! Finally something in my field that I know I can do. Not that I can't do other things but this really sounds like something that I would like to do. Let's hope I get hired for it.

I also got another interview later on the day. That's just getting me introduced to the manager of branch that I will be working in. It's mainly formality. It's just something to secure my position for the time being.

This really wrecks my plans to move to california. Just got to wait and see. Good thing I didn't book my plane tickets yet.

Can't Believe it's so hard

As if it's not bad enough that the position that I was hired for was eliminated, now I found out that I am not going to know where I am transferring to either. The next closest branch don't need anymore CSRs over there so I have no idea what to do. Just waiting for HR to call me back to let me know what other openings are available...

Sent out some resumes

Finally got the final version of my resume yesterday morning. Sent out a bunch of them to prospective employers (if you received 2 emails from me, one was a mistake in formatting, sorry) last nite. Haven't received one call yet. I guess the re-write was just a waste of money. Had to send out some more to really judge it.

Just had one of those nasty headaches. Kind of knock me out completely. I was still doing my job and answering fone calls. It was just so annoying that I couldn't concentrate on doing anything. Anyway, took tylenol (1 pill 375 mg, only had 1 in my drawer), no effect. Then took 1 excedrin from my co-worker. That finally killed that headache after 1 hr (give or take 15 min, lost track of time).

Got to send out more resumes tonite.