Working the same job for over 13 years is a pretty long time in my book and if the last of those years made you more and more annoyed with the way stuff works at the office (not gonna spill the beans on that here) it might be time to find a new job. During the years I have been looking for a new job on and off, but with the crisis in the world and especially in construction in Holland it was not easy to find something nice, if anything. During the years I had a few options, but none were good enough. Also I did not have the courage to take the big step from an indefinite contract to one for a year or even shorter. Also the people I work with were a big part of why I stuck around, can probably not find a nicer group of people around.
This all changed after a day where I was pretty pissed about ‘stuff’, a day we all have once in a while I guess and I looked at a well know website for jobs in architecture and one jumped at me right away. What I found interesting was the fact that there was no mention of any education or age (just years of experience) instead of the high education they usually ask for my job and I don’t really have. I really believe that experience outweighs the education in this case, no way to teach structural drafting or modeling (especially detailing) other than just doing it, if you ask me.
Visited the company website and browsed through it a bit and found a ‘facebook’ of people working there which had one name I recognized on it. Had to think a bit about where I knew that name from and I quickly realized I knew the guy from www.revitforum.org, where he is a member too.
Then there is the question of what to do. Just send in a letter (or email) or contact the guy I ‘know’. Decided on the latter option and asked him if I had any change of getting the job with my credentials. That night I got a message back telling me he would plan a meeting the next day. So, that went pretty fast, but it was interesting.
After that first meeting a second one followed with 2 other people and this one also went pretty well, other than me saying something that might not have been smart and not really what I meant to say. Tried to explain, but was not really sure that worked. This was later confirmed by them telling me there were some doubts about that one thing I said, but they wanted to offer me a 6 months contract anyway and if I took the risk I would be able to prove that the doubts they had were unfounded.
Did not have to think to long about it and accepted the offer the same night and a few days later I was at their office signing the contract.
After that there was the small matter of telling my current boss and colleagues I was leaving the company and I had no idea what to expect. Pretty happy they all took it pretty well, they didn’t like it, but understood it, which makes the last month a lot easier than if they had started screaming and yelling.
So, today we are 1,5 weeks past that day and I’m trying to finish the stuff I need to finish and hand over work to other people so I can leave the company, to start my new job, in a good way at the end of the month.
I am sure stuff will be very different and I will miss the people I work with now. But the good thing is the new job is very close to the old one, so I will run into them all the time I guess and I was told I could still come to the company poker nights.
Exciting times ahead !
Old job:
New job:
