New job, Finally! Support Engineer

[Redline]

I've been unemployed since February 15th, and made the conscious decision to decline any and all jobs related to retail/manufacturing/food unless I absolutely, positively had no choice. The decision was made after realizing how irresponsible I can be with a job I don't like or respect. I hit that point this month after BARELY scraping car/cc/cell payments out of my checking account. Fortunately, in the nick of time, a guy named Thomas sent me an e-mail asking if I wanted to setup an interview, and possibly even attend a software reseller training and certification class for XProtect Enterprise, a product of Milestone Systems.

XProtect is an IP video surveillance management software package allowing you to tie your existing, and/or upgraded security system into a server/client database/archiving management system.

After 8 hours of training, I could see that the software could truely do just about anything. One of their examples was tied into a POS system using an add-on package called XProtect Transact. Each action taken on the POS logs a timestamp with XProtect Enterprise. You can watch a playback of the security footage, with a data window alongside which highlights each element of the transaction as it happens. You could also filter the video to show only specific events, such as employee login, to check that the user matches the credentials.

After the training, I had a quick interview with Thomas. He said to me that he had basically decided to hire me before I even showed up, based on my resume which he found on craigslist.org.

Now, a week later, I've received an official "Employee Letter" including my title, salary and start date (Support Engineer, competitive, July 1st). Thomas is dropping off a few grand worth of IP security cameras, and software, (at request) for me to tinker with until I start the job.

I couldn't be happier . I didn't graduate highschool, I have no formal education to speak of, and very little professional IT related work experience, and I finally caught a break. Yay me!

/gloat

[Belisarius]

You are lucky - it's hard for HR people to tell the difference between the people who know what they're doing and those who don't and so they usually fall back on degrees to act as indicators. It's great that you were able to find someone who was able to recognize your skills and interests even without those usual indicators.

[Redline]

Absolutely, I should buy a lottery ticket eh? I've always complained about how hard it is to find someone to hire you based on your knowledge and ambition, instead of your paperwork. That someone has found me, and now I'll be able to afford to go to school and get the paperwork in my spare time

[Redline]

Okay, so I got a few cameras tonight. Unfortunately only one of them has a working power supply. I'll get more up when I can. You can check out Milestones (deprecated version of) internet remote viewer running from my den here: http://67.189.104.92:2645/

The GUI is functional, but terribly ugly. I may decide to write my own as a side project; it's pretty straight forward. Heh, I could even tie it into my winamp remote project.

One of the cameras I got is a panasonic PTZ camera, but the power cord is just paired wire with stripped ends... I need to find out what kind of current to hook up to it and it should be good to go. I think it can even be controlled through that web site too

[teknomage1]

Congrats, there's nothing like getting a job that makes full use of your skills to improve your quality of life.

[sde]

awsome .. congrats josh! the link is down, but sounds like some pretty cool stuff.

[technobard]

Originally Posted by Redline

....and now I'll be able to afford to go to school and get the paperwork in my spare time

Congratulations! And it's great that you plan on going back to school. I've found two types of employers: those that could care less about my educational background and those who wouldn't consider me without it. It's nice to be considered by both groups.