Bizarre Bradyisms

A New Job

So many of you have probably heard directly from me or through the grape vine that I got laid off from my job about two weeks ago. Things were starting to get really tense at the company and I was about number eight to have been let go in about a two month time period. I honestly felt like I had to watch my every step and watch my every word. I don’t believe the layoffs were due to any financial struggles the company was having, but due to some recent changes in management, it was simply reevaluating its needs and I ended up being on the lower end of the totem-pole and thus was let go. Granted, I did make a small mistake and they used that as part of the reason for my termination, but what occurred was not anywhere near the severity that would justify firing someone. In short, my mistake became their excuse.

While the whole experience wasn’t a complete surprise (after 5+ people go, you start to notice), it did come as a bit of a shock. It was just like read about and that you see in the movies. My boss asked to see me in one of the conference rooms. I walk in to see the HR lady waiting for me with a letter of dismissal. They took my three badges, my office keys, handed me a box to clean out my desk, and then promptly escorted me out of the building. It was really humbling and not something I would ever wish upon anybody.  While this may sound odd, I’m glad to have experienced it for that is how a person grows.  It happened on a Friday afternoon so I took the weekend to just think about things and cool off a little bit so as to not have hard feelings against anyone there. 

Honestly, I was very calm about the whole situation of not having a job.  I would have liked to continue to work there because there were some great people from whom I learned a lot in the 9+ months I was there, but it was not to be.  Plus, the company stock had tripled in value since January and I did have a fair amount invested with them which I will probably hold on to.  Anyways, on the following Monday, I had the “pleasant” experience of filing for unemployment benefits.  Again, a very humbling experience to have to ask the state government for money.  I could have survived on my own for about 6 months without any assistance, but when I thought about it I came to the conclusion that those benefits are there for that specific reason and I shouldn’t be ashamed use it.  Unfortunately, I had about two weeks vacation time saved up and thus was ineligible for unemployment until after that time was up.

After sending out mass copies of my resume, I was contacted by a brand new start-up company to interview for one of their openings.  Over the course of two weeks I had about 4 in-person interviews and a couple of phone conversations with the CEO and also with the COO.  All of the interviews went really well and the CEO, COO, and the one (yes, one other) employee seemed like great people.  I learned that the CEO recently sold off a major part of a FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) company he started about 10 years ago and the COO has a few companies of this own that he is still slightly responsible for.  In short, they are fairly well funded so I wouldn’t have to worry about not getting a salary if things didn’t go well.

On Friday last week just a couple hours short of two weeks of not working, I was extended a job offer that I’m quite excited about. Basically, I will be responsible for the systems and network engineering for the whole company and the plan is for me to eventually move into a Vice President position over IT if things go well.  This means profit sharing and being responsible for hiring guys to work under / with me as well as building their whole infrastructure from the ground up.  The company hasn’t launched its product just yet so some of the details are still confidential but they are a VoIP (Voice over IP) solutions provider for small businesses searching for an integrated phone system with additional and related marketing features. 

I officially start tomorrow and will hopefully be able to hit the ground running while not getting too stressed about the lack of structure of being in a startup.  I’m excitied and feel good about the opportunity.  Thanks to all who have been thinking about me and keeping my situation in the front of their minds for it is much appreciated.  Really, thanks.

PS – I guess I won’t “get” to claim any actual unemployment benefits this go around.  Hopefully I never will!

Father’s Day

I unfortunately couldn’t be there with my Dad for Father’s day this year, but was glad to talk with him nonetheless. He is such a great person and the more I get to know myself, the more I get to know who he is because of the qualities I continually realize I that I have picked up from him due to his great example. (Not trying to promote myself there). Love you Dad!

Well, in spite of not being able to be there with him, I went to my Grandma’s place in SLC and spent the day with her and my Uncle’s family who came up to her house as well. We had a nice barbecue and enjoyed the ever-changing weather (I think the clouds came, dropped rain, then disappeared leaving the skies crystal clear blue at least 5 different times in a 3 hour period). There is nothing more to say except that I couldn’t help but post this picture of my uncle who was trying to make fun of his daughter’s shoes. Being the type of person he is, this is an extremely odd occurrence, but he had no idea my camera was ready, so I think I got a good shot considering he was only walking around like that for ~30 seconds.

Wedding Day

The house I live in is owned by a guy named Jake who happened to have purchased the house and exactly the wrong time as far as the housing market is concerned.  He was looking to buy it brand new and then quickly sell for a generous profit.  That was over three years ago.  Anyways, when I first moved almost a full year ago, he was living in the house with four other guys that were renting out the extra bedrooms so that he could may the mortgage.  Then about two or three months later everything changed when he girlfriend and her son moved in and took over the basement area of the house.  That was little frustrating for me because I never expected to have to live in a house where women would be living at as well, but such was life.

Fast forward 9 months or so.  This evening they finally got married and are are starting to put their lives together again in order to be sealed in the temple in due time.  The wedding was good and they were married by the local bishop, but it just made me think of something a good friend once told me.  He said, “You don’t ever not want to get married in the temple.  You just don’t want to do that.  It is not worth it.”  Not that I didn’t already know that, but it really rang true for me when he said it then and again tonight during their wedding.

I didn’t participate much in the actual wedding / reception except for being the on-site nerd to help fix the technical stuff when things weren’t working correctly.  Congratulations to Jake and Amy and the best of wishes to them both.  They are now off on their honeymoon down to one of the those famous beaches in Mexico for a week or so.

SLC Chalk Art Festival

Today I went up to Salt Lake City and visited the Chalk Art Festival taking place there that was sponsored by the Utah Foster Care Foundation. It was really fun to watch all of the artists creating these amazing works right in front you.  Supposedly a picture says a thousand words, so I’ll just let the following photos do the talking.

 

  

 

Oquirrh Mountain

I took some time and went to the open house for the Oquirrh Mountain Temple that is currently taking place.  It was great and really beautiful inside and, as a plus, the architecture is different than a lot of the temples that have recently been or are currently under construction.  Of course, the architecture is not the important feature of the temple by any means, but still, it is nice to have a little variety.  When I arrived at the temple, I was kind of just walking around for about 10 minutes because I wasn’t sure how the tour was organized or where to start.  At the Draper Temple open house back in March there were lines of people all going in and out so it wasn’t hard to figure out where to go.  Probably the same was true here, but I came at a non-peak time of day and that is why I got a little lost.  Any-who, I found my way in and through and enjoyed the experience.  As I was walking out I also over-heard the security guards talking about how the statue of Moroni was recently struck by lighting over the last weekend.  I took a picture and if you look closely you can see the black that is there.  (Not to be misunderstood, but since the temple is still un-dedicated, trying to read too much into the event is just wasting your time.)

And in other (completely unrelated) news, I was finally able to use my handgun and shotgun after having them for two months and not ever firing them.  My old roommate Bryant called me up randomly and asked if I wanted to go shooting with him.  Of course I said yes.  We went around to the west side of Utah Lake where there are no houses and just kind of went at it.  He had this .40 handgun and brought along another friend of his.  I had some really old monitors I took from work a couple of weeks ago with this in mind which I took with me as a target because it is great to be the vacuums inside the monitors implode when you shoot them.  It was great and knowing that my guns actually work is good to know as well.