Is the worm turning?
Humor: it gets you through everything... Read the Funny Times, if you can afford to. I cannot afford not to.
I wish I had my brother's understanding of the I Ching, the taoist art of divination, so I could comfort myself in times of transition. I do have the book, but I have not dedicated myself to it for years like him, listening with a quiet heart, for the sound and direction of the flow. It is one of the many things I really respect and treasure about Robert. He is going through much more significant changes in his life than me, and doing it with tremendous grace, and I have a lot to learn from his example.
Take a read through his blog if you are curious...
I had interviews with a seemingly vast number of people yesterday at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. I was interviewing for the position of project manager basically. There would be a bit of travel potentially, which I don't mind. There was also the potential for a temporary posting in D.C. for up to two years, which is also fine with me and Connie. I am pretty sure I struck the right balance of self-advocacy and humility to get my message through clearly.
The format was like so: the first thing was an hour long presentation of a slide show with questions, about me, my education, career to this point, with description of technical accomplishments, and where I saw my self going; then the panel interviews, four of them with different groups that could potentially use me, since it is a matrix organization that reorganizes itself around new tasks like immune cells if that makes sense.
About a dozen people took in the presentation, four of them were young wallflowers who asked no questions and gave no comment. Inscrutable techno-introverts. Who knows what they thought... the manager types were engaged, and asked good questions, that always helps with the energy. The youngers had 3-5 years of experience, the older set tended to be in the 20-30 years in the lab range.
The mission of Battelle, the non-profit that runs the lab, is pretty cool. They essentially are there to use technology to improve living conditions on the planet for all creatures. They have turned down money in the past, big piles of it, that would have been used to develop technology for purely destructive purposes. Not that they never do defense-related work, but they are not bomb-whores like SAIC.
I interviewed there (SAIC) once, in Austin, TX. It was surreal, discussing the projects they were involved in. " Do ya want the frickin' lasers or not? Bwah-hah-hah-hah!!"
Battelle felt completely different. They treated my with respect and curiosity, the best I could have hoped for. They wanted to know if I was a fuel cell guy, or a guy who had worked on fuel cells. I definitely see myself as the latter at this point. It is not the only thing I will ever be good at, it is/was a means to develop a skill-set. I really see myself as an energy person, particularly alternative energy when it fits.
One of the managers was looking for a big chunk of my time if hired, to modernize military facilities with alternative energy resources to give them partially un-interruptable power, and so that they would be "net-zero" energy within a decade or so. Not a bad goal, and a great opportunity to sharpen my skills in the wind/solar portfolio. Brian J., are you listening? I am going to have a lot of questions...
I hope.
I am hoping like I have not in months or even years. This feels so right. I should either get an offer or not, by Wednesday, so they are not leaving me swinging in the wind. It would have been great to stay in Spokane. It would have been great if zengineers had taken off. But none of that has happened, and in this society, you have to work or you are perceived as nothing.
So I will find a way. I hope this is it.
I wish I had my brother's understanding of the I Ching, the taoist art of divination, so I could comfort myself in times of transition. I do have the book, but I have not dedicated myself to it for years like him, listening with a quiet heart, for the sound and direction of the flow. It is one of the many things I really respect and treasure about Robert. He is going through much more significant changes in his life than me, and doing it with tremendous grace, and I have a lot to learn from his example.
Take a read through his blog if you are curious...
I had interviews with a seemingly vast number of people yesterday at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. I was interviewing for the position of project manager basically. There would be a bit of travel potentially, which I don't mind. There was also the potential for a temporary posting in D.C. for up to two years, which is also fine with me and Connie. I am pretty sure I struck the right balance of self-advocacy and humility to get my message through clearly.
The format was like so: the first thing was an hour long presentation of a slide show with questions, about me, my education, career to this point, with description of technical accomplishments, and where I saw my self going; then the panel interviews, four of them with different groups that could potentially use me, since it is a matrix organization that reorganizes itself around new tasks like immune cells if that makes sense.
About a dozen people took in the presentation, four of them were young wallflowers who asked no questions and gave no comment. Inscrutable techno-introverts. Who knows what they thought... the manager types were engaged, and asked good questions, that always helps with the energy. The youngers had 3-5 years of experience, the older set tended to be in the 20-30 years in the lab range.
The mission of Battelle, the non-profit that runs the lab, is pretty cool. They essentially are there to use technology to improve living conditions on the planet for all creatures. They have turned down money in the past, big piles of it, that would have been used to develop technology for purely destructive purposes. Not that they never do defense-related work, but they are not bomb-whores like SAIC.
I interviewed there (SAIC) once, in Austin, TX. It was surreal, discussing the projects they were involved in. " Do ya want the frickin' lasers or not? Bwah-hah-hah-hah!!"
Battelle felt completely different. They treated my with respect and curiosity, the best I could have hoped for. They wanted to know if I was a fuel cell guy, or a guy who had worked on fuel cells. I definitely see myself as the latter at this point. It is not the only thing I will ever be good at, it is/was a means to develop a skill-set. I really see myself as an energy person, particularly alternative energy when it fits.
One of the managers was looking for a big chunk of my time if hired, to modernize military facilities with alternative energy resources to give them partially un-interruptable power, and so that they would be "net-zero" energy within a decade or so. Not a bad goal, and a great opportunity to sharpen my skills in the wind/solar portfolio. Brian J., are you listening? I am going to have a lot of questions...
I hope.
I am hoping like I have not in months or even years. This feels so right. I should either get an offer or not, by Wednesday, so they are not leaving me swinging in the wind. It would have been great to stay in Spokane. It would have been great if zengineers had taken off. But none of that has happened, and in this society, you have to work or you are perceived as nothing.
So I will find a way. I hope this is it.
posted by wave_man at 9:32 AM
2 Comments:
good luck, i hope you get the gig; by the way, what do you know about algae as a source of biofuel?
Only a little. What little I know is that it is a small-scale process, that needs a lot of thinking and money to scale up to a reasonable production. That said, i am probably mis-informed.
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