Day 8......same :-O

As the title suggests....
Had a full on day on Tuesday, gee, it almost felt like a work day, got my stuff ready the night before, caught public transport into the CBD with all the currently employed commuters. It almost felt normal.  So why did I go into town ? Well, had 3 meetings with agencies, of which one had a job to put me up for ( which I'm still waiting to hear back on ), and the other two were more of a meet and greet.  It''s still grim, and I'm hearing stories from people that have been out of work since Christmas etc..etc...I'm applying for a diverse range of roles now, whatever comes up, irrespective of whether I have the skill sets or not.  Maybe someone will feel some compasion for me.  In additional to run further salt into the wounds were these two articles. How frustrating that these have only come to public attention now.  Anyone working in the industry in the last 10 years would be able to tell stories about what was going on here...

Gillard slams IT industry for 457 visa abuse

457 visas shouldn't be first option: govt

Day 3 and still no job

So its now day 3, and still no luck.  Not for a want of trying however, there are just no jobs, I guess it's a case of wrong place, wrong time.  I've been checking seek.com.au daily - multiple times, Telstra Career Website - multiple time, pinging colleagues on Google Chat to see if anything has come up.  So where to from here ? Well, I've taken the step and am now looking for work in Canberra.  It's closer enough to Melbourne to come back on weekends, and not a bad spot - nice and quite.  I'll discuss with the missus tonight what she thinks about me working in another state, but hey, if it pays the bills then it's a small sacrifice ( or large one ) to make.

Once I received the news, I made the customary calls out to past colleagues, managers etc.  Unfortunately, it's been a case of "there is nothing at the moment", or "we're just waiting on some big deals to close and we'll call you when they come through"  I've had a couple of meet and greets, and they have been all positive to date, but again, its the same old story, when something comes up we'll let you know. Despite all this I've remained positive and upbeat.

My name is Chris, and live in Australia's 2nd biggest city Melbourne.  I've been a UNIX sysadmin specialising namely in Solaris Admin work all my working life of 17 years, and have been in constant employment.  I've worked at vendors, and at customer sites so have experience in both camps, as well as working on salary and contract.

Late last year at my then current place of employment we were told that the bank I worked for ( which last year made a  6 Billion dollar profit ) decided that they were going to form a "strategic alliance" ( otherwise known as outsourcing - although we cant refer to this is outsourcing ! ) with a company based in India.  This company was going to do the work of many people more efficiently and we were even told by senior management its because Australia hasn't got the skill sets to complete the work in a timely fashion and that our "strategic partner" were going to achieve this.  Naturally, as workers we all knew what this meant despite the bank trying to convince us otherwise.

A few months went past wondering when we would get that tap on the shoulder to say thanks for your efforts, but now its time to get the "strategic partner" with all the skills missing in Australia to come in, and show us how to deliver on time !  Well....This happened to me a few weeks ago.  Despite many and ongoing efforts by the project/people I worked with to keep me there was no such joy. We/they were told "it's a numbers game, No need to keep us anymore, our "strategic partner" will provide everything and even more" Heck, they have the skills right ?

This is not a story about corporate greed, although could be interpreted as that, it's a story of a 42 year old family man with a wife and two young kids documenting a journey a finding a job in I.T to suit my skill sets.

Hey, I've got free time on my hands so I may as well blog right..

Just saying...