I had a friend at a Very Large Company in silicon valley get me in touch with one of their new sub-companies (recently renamed last fall) that does Life Sciences type work. I spoke to a few people there. They move glacially so the process took months.

The next thing I know, the prez of my current company is on the phone with someone from that same Life Sciences company because they are interested in becoming a customer. I was very confused and amused concurrently.

The job prospect went nowhere but it was still interesting.

 

"Hey Abe, Dave is saying that his office is on fire. When you get a chance, could you check that out?"

I love how casual this workplace is sometimes.

 

The company I work for right now is the most casual company I have ever worked for. Flip flops, shorts and t-shirt is the attire for the majority of the company. Tomorrow when I am interviewing a guy for a job one of the things we do is say "****" several times to see how they react. If it is negatively we automatically boot them from the running. Never before have I been encouraged to cuss in interviews.

 

I need out of the Buckle of the Bible Belt desperately.

 

Here is our career page, not sure if we have anything close to tech writers or not. We can also bring in dogs to work, and have 3 beers on tap in the office at any given point in time. Generally one beer will be a crappy light beer, then the other 2 some sort of craft brew.

 

Talked to my boss and it went well. He said he understood and would be happy to be a reference. Also said that if he had an offer for even the same money over at this other company, he'd probably take it too.

 

Precisely why I'm going to get a copy of my college transcript this week and enroll in the 2-year college here in town for an Associates in Computer Programming.

I'm hoping my Tech Writing/Documentation + knowing coding will help my transition into some type of documentation/test type position that I see frequently with software companies.

 

I am not involved with a bunch of the dev interviews or hiring, but I can say if you have a strong tech writing background and decent coding skills the combo is very desirable. You might want to skip the local community college and do some sort of coding bootcamp. The Iron Yard is a local one here in Charleston and they put out some decently skilled people. Generally it is people like you that have some sort of other skill that pairs well with getting into development.

 

That is a fantastic idea, sir. I do have an incredibly basic idea of coding from doing the super simple W3 HTML/CSS short courses, and working in XML-based publishing systems.

Could I possibly talk you into talking with some of the developers and see if there are any respected online options? I'm currently checking out The Iron Yard to see if online is an option, or only one of their regional locations.

EDIT: From some quick perusing of their FAQ, that particular school wouldn't work for me. Buying a new multi-thousand laptop and quitting my job for 3 months isn't something that is really financially feasible for me at the moment.

 

Nerd test:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...y_active_popes

 

Recently i watched the House MD episode where the building collapsed and the chick had to get her leg cut.. i randomly get flashes from the episode and the my stomach isnt responding well. Ugh.

 

That was the episode that they shot entirely with a Canon 5D SLR. Very good stuff.






For some reason, seeing graphic depictions of disembowelment, limbs being cut off, etc., have never bothered me. Which is weird, since extremely sharp knives (scalpels, straight razors, etc) actually do freak me out.

 

For me its always the thinking of pain. like what is this person feeling right now. I'm not afraid or grossed out of the blood or tissue, its the feeling behind it.

 

Have you seen 127 Hours?

 

Never.

 

Yeah, don't.

I've helped do CPR while waiting for an ambulance, I've taken people to the hospital with significant soft tissue damage, I've held compresses on people for whom standard bandages and wraps won't stop the bleeding and i did (fairly) fine. I will say the nightmares still visit me from time to time even though it's been 20 years ago in some cases.

Show me my own blood? Watch puke myself and black out with a quickness. Just being in a hospital makes me queasy.

 

Meh. I watched one of my buddies get killed in a motorcycle wreck in front of me, 4 of us went down. I still like scary/gross/disgusting movies, but they don't exactly "scare" me anymore.

However, looking over the side of a building more than a few floors up, damn near induces fainting.

 

They showed me pictures of my girlfriends 7cm ovarian cyst 2 weeks ago. At 5:30 in the morning. After I had been up all night while they did surgery. She was super excited (EMT, nursing school soon). I didn't feel queasy, but definitely wouldn't look at them for pleasure.

Love heights. Hate snakes. Can't stand em. Even garter snakes. I bring a shotgun when we go on rafting trips in case we get rattlers in camp.

 

You kids should go hunting.

 

I do.

The inside of my girlfriend was too much though lol.