Hectic Month

THIS BLOG CONTAINS LENGTHY CONTRACTUAL DETAILS OF THE EMPLOYMENT HISTORY OF MY RUSSIAN. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE PUT DIRECTLY TO SLEEP BY THIS BLOG ENTRY, YOU ARE HEREBY WARNED TO READ THIS BLOG ENTRY ONLY AFTER A REQUIRED MINIMUM OF AT LEAST THREE (3) CUPS OF ESPRESSO COFFEE, EXTRA STRENGTH.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

-----------------------------

On February, we got some bad news from V's company: they were laying off V's software team by the end of April. It was actually not that shocking, because they had been planning to move the software jobs to Singapore ever since last summer, when they invited a bunch of Singaporeans to the US to train and learn (and then steal the jobs) from the software people over here. I was not that shocked either, since the Russian was a contractor and his contract was due to end in April anyway. (Although it had been renewed for a year and a half up to now.) No matter what though, he had to find a new job just in case.

So he started looking for job, applying to any software companies over here. At the end of March he still hadn't received any offers. I got more stressed out and stressed out (you totally can see it from the number of pimples on my face) - and decided to help him. (See my previous post, by the way, about which character traits I inherited from my dad...)

So I went around the office trying to find out if my company will be able to hire him, and also started networking with a couple of people. Luckily, someone from work knew that there were some openings with the main competitor of my company. I also connected the Russian with a new third-party company which contracts their people to work at my company.

Prior to this, the Russian actually went to a 2nd interview which we thought he almost got (since he got a second call). However after 2 weeks of waiting, they said that he was the runner-up to someone with more experience, whome they ended up going with. : ( It turned out another Russian colleague from V's work got that job, but was still nice enough to refer him to his first choice of job (the S.J. company) which could not offer him the job within a week.

So 2 weeks ago, V got bunch of interviews from 3 places: B.S., S.J. (both are my company's competitors) and actually another interview from another B.S. (the third-party contractor). On Friday a week ago, he got his first offer from the big permanent-employment B.S. competitor company (not the third-party other B.S.). I was so proud of him for getting an offer so quickly, because the interview was Thursday (actually 7 interviews in a row, for 6 hours) and on Friday morning he had an offer. But at the same time S.J. wanted to interview him again. Since we didn't want to lose B.S.'s offer, V called them Monday morning to get an extension and called S.J. to ensure they could give an interview in one day and answer by the next day. We were so lucky that day - actually V would say "the Russian was so awesome that day!!!" - because they both granted his requests, after much negotiation and begging and stuff.

So Tuesday he did his interview with S.J. (again a half-day series of interviews, much harder than B.S.'s interviews actually) and within 4 hours of the interview they called him and offered him the job there, as well! At this point, it was an easy decision to pick which one since he really likes the job from S.J. better than B.S. Well, it wasn't a *really* easy decision... B.S. had a much better benefits package. But in the end, he had to go with his dream job, working on complicated C++ and math algorithms. So on Wednesday, he had to break the news to each company rep.

Things we learned this month:

#1. Networking is totally important - it took us 2 months to get one interview and from our networking we got 3 job interviews within 1 week. V thinks this is ridiculous. The HR lady at S.J. actually rejected him when he submitted his resume online. Then his Russian colleague submitted his resume directly to the project manager, and *the same HR lady* called him 2 days later and said "hey we'd like to talk to you". He had some interesting words to say about that, none of which are appropriate for this family blog.

So networking works much better than job hunting online. That's one thing we learned. Next:

#2. PRAYER works much better than job hunting online, too! : ) We went to church for the last few weeks. And there you go. Let's call this "networking with God." So, in a way, it fits under item #1.

Now the Russian and I are bitter bitter corporate rivals, and cannot talk about about work at home.

Me and My Dad

My dad has his own way of showing care to his children. Every time we go to visit him and my mom, he always tries to buy snacks and my old favorite food (crab) almost everyday - so when I took the Russian back, he tried to introduce him to different Chinese-Indonesian foods. The Russian was well taken care of and spoiled by my dad there.

A couple of nights ago I started to think about my dad and what he usually does every day and how he tries to fall asleep, and I realized I got some habits from my dad. I always wiggle my left foot every time I have a hard time sleeping - that's how I fall asleep after a while. This habit annoys the Russian a bit - but I can't help it since it soothes me.

The other 2 things I inherited from my dad are my double chins - everytime I get chubby, you can't even tell that I have a chin. Another one is my temper - we are both not patient enough (not news for you guys, but a fun journey of discovery for the Russian) hehheh at least I can blame these bad habits on my dad ;)

This makes me miss my dad and his big belly.

Why?

A couple of nights ago when I was in bed and starting to close my eyes, my brain started to think its usual weird and random thoughts. Here is what it came up with, on the topic of messed-up English grammar:

Why do we call people who originated from Japan and Vietnam"Japanese" and "Vietnamese" but U.S. people "American" instead of Americanese, and people from Australia "Australian" instead of Australese?

I asked the hubby and he said maybe Asian ethnicities end one way, and European ones end in the other way. "But," I said (ready with a counter-argument as usual), "why are people from India 'Indian' then?" For this he had no answer. That's right! No answer. Where is your magic formula now, husband?

Then he suggested maybe it's because the name of the country ends with a consonant? "But," (here comes my other counter-argument) "how about ........" and at this point it took me a while to think of a country which ends with a vowel, but doesn't end with "an" when you talk about the people from it, or some country which ends in a consonant but the people are not "somewhere-ese." Then light bulb turned on! China! Why aren't China people "Chinan" and why are they "Chinese" instead?

Then my Russian sat up and was confused. He said "Wow, you are having some really really deep thoughts over there. But seriously, how about we just go to sleep now?"

What a lame Russianese husband.