Random Musings (i.e. whining and moaning)

I'm looking to relocate to NC from VA.

I've been focused on Raleigh, but things have been slow. I'm thinking this is for two reasons.

#1 Raleigh is a big AIX and Linux town (as is probably obvious, I'm a HP-UX guy that can work with Sun)

#2 I was/am an idiot that wasted about 7 weeks with my current head-hunter (contracting agency) thinking they could place me down there quicker than I could find a position.

I say idiot in #2 because I know my current agency is a bottom feeder that charges the client a crazy overhead on my rate and won't give raises out of that overhead nor offer decent health coverage (eHealthInsurance rocks for private insurance (cheaper than some employee health coverage I've had in the past)). Also, for some stupid reason I've been patient with the NC rep I'd been referred to even though for the past seven weeks the dude has been to two out of state conferences (one was one week and the other two). Stupid.

I sort of blame my stupidity on my constant state of exhaustion that comes from my commute that, as of 4 months ago, takes 4 to 6 hours a day. Yes, I purposely live in the boonies (approx. 66 miles from my current jobsite), but the current cost of housing in VA has sent such a hoard of people out my way that my 1.25 hour one-way commute has grown to 2-3 hour commute (and that is at off hours (like 5 FREAKING am)).

On the plus side, my house has nearly tripled in value (on a mountain and on a dirt road no less). One of the many reasons for living out here was to be able to pay off my house early (I've got over 80% paid for).

On the sorta minus side, my wife and I have to sort through 15 years of accumulated stuff and get that thrown out or put in storage. Then we need to get the place painted and a few other things.

Now, here's where the good part comes in...

You see, NC has a few tech centers and from the headhunters I've come to learn that the pay rate is just about equal to northern VA but at a cost of living at 85-95% the rate of the town I live in (and 69-79% of the town I work in (Arlington)). Also, the houses are about one third the cost (more so if comparing housing around the DC metro area). So, I'm looking to sell in VA and buy outright in NC. I was hoping to take a little while longer to get my house in order, but my commute is just killing me.

Note: I'm not some rich dude. It's just that during the boom days of the dot com era, instead of getting a mortgage on some $500-700K house like many of my old co-workers (who subsequently had to get a second job or go bankrupt after the dot com crash), I chose a very rural sub-$100K house that I could pay off quickly (living beneath one's means is a wise thing to do).

Anyway, I'm starting to look in Winston-Salem and Charlotte. I'm not keen on Charlotte as it has a crime rate index of nearly three times the national average (as point of reference, Washington DC is five times the national average).

All of this leads me to a phone interview I had with a prospective employer. It was a tech interview with a Brit. I've worked with Brits in the past but never interviewed with one. He was pleasant enough, but gave me no feedback as to what he was looking for in the interview. He would ask a question and I'd answer it and he would say something like "yes, thank you" and move on to the next question. Beyond answering the specific questions that he posed to me, I had no clue if I was the kind of Unix admin he was looking for. I was so flustered that after the interview I googled some of his questions to make sure that I did answer them correctly. If it had been an American (assuming that he wasn't a US citizen), I would have asked a few questions seeking to determine if I wasn't a fit and then thanked him for his time. I just didn't know what to make of the guy. To make matters worse, I had been suffering from a monster sinus headache that morning and I took a triple dose of decongestant. Well, that alleviated the pain, but left me all squirmy (glad it was a phone interview) and had me saying "uhh" or "err" after nearly every word during the interview.

It's been my experience that Indians conduct interviews in generally the same way (aggressive probing of specific command/scripting/programming syntax (almost a "gotcha" hunt) as opposed to the overall solutions to business needs the candidate brings to the table). Outside of specific ethnic groups, your average northern Virginia tech interview tends to be one of three: 1) cult of personality test, 2) a "gotcha" hunt, or 3) probing what solutions a candidate brings and/or bringing up common problems that the shop faces and asking the candidate how he would approach them.

This Brit guy, assuming that his was the way that most Brits conduct tech interviews, just rattled me with the lack of feedback.