August 15, 2004
End of the vacation
Tomorrow, I'm starting a new job. This has been in progress for a while and I'm excited about the prospects that this position offers. In many respects, it was simply the right offer at the right time, but during the process, I was seriously negotiating with one other company. One thing that struck me was how different these companies approached the prospect of hiring me. The company at which I'm starting is an extremely large company, the other company was tiny in comparison - less than 1% of the size. Yet, the larger company was able to make a quick and effective decision in terms of their needs and back that up with an offer. The smaller company was sincere and eager to have me, yet their internal communication was so ineffective that they spent weeks trying to figure out if my skills were as good of a match for their needs as their director of research thought they were. In the meantime, they kept coming back and asking me to delay making a decision about the offer I had in hand from the larger company. Eventually, they exhausted both my time and my patience.
I'm reminded of the Cluetrain Manifesto when I think of this. Size of the company means nothing: all that matters is how well you communicate, both internally and externally. My new employer understands this. They devoted an embarrassingly extravagant amount of their employee's time to making sure I had answers to any question I had. They interviewed my carefully and thoroughly because, as their research division president said, they intend for their research associates to be around for a long time.
The group I'll be working with is young, creative, and frighteningly intelligent. I'm looking forward to it immensely.
I am looking at a much longer commute now, though. I'm looking for some recommendations for CDs for learning foreign languages - spoken only. I can't be looking at books, obviously. I'm also looking for recommendations for computer-assisted dictation systems. I want to be able to record myself in the car and have a computer transcribe it to text. I'm already familiar with the system from MacSpeech. Does anyone have other suggestions or experiences with this system?
Sarah, Meg, and I have done several hikes over the past couple of weeks. Read on for some pictures.
We did two hikes along the Shut-In Trail. Both times, we started from the Sleepy Gap overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We went towards Pisgah the first time, which is a pretty hilly hike. Very fun, though. We ran into a yellowjacket nest slightly off the trail, but the bees didn't bother us. We were a bit concerned that it would rain and that the trail would become treacherous, so we only hiked about 3 miles round trip.
The second time, due to the rain from Hurricane/Tropical Storm Bonnie, we went the other direction, towards Walnut Cove. The trail is much safer and flatter, so we were able do a 4 mile hike quite easily. Meg loves riding in the pack, although she will shortly outgrow our current one. We're looking at a Kelty Kids pack to replace it.
This weekend was the Sourwood Festival in Black Mountain. We went over there to see what was going on, heard some decent local music, ate some greasy festival food, and perused the crafts stalls. Meg loved the sights , all the people, the sounds, the smells. She cackled most of the morning and charmed everyone she met. The child is such an extrovert.