June 23, 2010

OK, it's been over a month since my last post here, but I've been busy. As noted on the March 21st post, we've been busy making the house our home. Since those last posts, the biggest thing we've done is have our windows installed (yay!) . It took two visits (May 3rd and the 15th), because they brought the wrong size slider for the kitchen the first time. They came back later to install that one -it has a built in doggy door. Pretty cool, in my opinion . We found some nice red curtains and I installed the curtain rod and put them up.

Meanwhile, at work, someone else was out sick so I had been picking up their slack (it happened right after her vacation, which always sucks). The day she got back, she asked if I could come to a short meeting (video conference, since she's in Texas). When I got to the meeting, her boss was there, too. I figured that she wanted to be updated on what I had done in her absence and her boss wanted to be kept in the loop, but her boss (a "C" level executive) immediately began talking. While I can't remember his exact words, it went something like "We've been watching how you've performed the last six months, picking up additional duties in addition to your normal position. We'd like to offer you a promotion to a new position (CE Analyst) we've created, along with a pay increase". It was a good pay increase (I shall say no more on that topic). Of course, I agreed (as soon as I picked my lower jaw up off the table). Part of the new position was that I would work no more overtime (I had been working between 5-7 hours a week overtime up to this point). So, now I work 7am-3:30pm (30 minute lunch, my choice) and currently still maintain my Tuesday-Saturday shift.

I think 3 promotions in 3 and a half years is pretty damned impressive. I was hired originally as a technical support representative (phone, chat and ticket support) in March 2007. I was promoted the first time a year later to Tech Support II. With that promotion, I had subordinates but still was responsible to perform much of the same duties as a Tech Support I. 10 months after that, I was promoted to Tech Support III. I no longer directly supervised anyone, but was responsible for handling the more difficult issues as well as being a liaison between technical support and both IT and development (there were 3 of us doing this work). Over the last 6 months, my role expanded into more direct work with the development team, specifically those who handle bug fixes. It was this work that brought me to the attention of my new boss and her boss.

Meanwhile, back on the homefront... On June 13th, Mrs. splorp! and I bought a couple new lights for the front of the house. The old ones were these ugly white and brass things. The new ones (pictures pending) are brushed nickel, which matches the door hardware. Her dad and I installed them the next day. I paid close attention because I knew I'd be doing more of these myself in the near future.

Over this past weekend, my father in law and I installed a new turbine on the garage roof (the garage has been extremely warm and this thing dropped the temperature by about 40 degrees) as well as a new ceiling fan in the spare bedroom. He also wired the outlet previously attached to the light switch to be always hot and then we fished a wire down from the attic to run over to the ceiling fan, so it now uses the light switch. He and I did the heavy lifting together, and then I attached the light fixture and the blades. Mrs. splorp! and I need to find new bulbs because these lit up like a nightlight.

On Tuesday, I installed a new light outside the garage door (replaced the old mason-jar style with a dual-lighted motion sensing one). I was confident I could do it after my father in law and I installed the standard ones noted above (as I noted above, "near future").

Below is Harley Quinn, our Green-Cheeked Conure


Harley Quinn in November 2005

To the left, you’ll see Drusilla,
the Vampire Parakeet, named after
a character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
because she bit like a vampire.
She passed away on 12/20/04.