Crazy Crazy Days

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks. During my trip to Vancouver I had an interview with MDA, it went well but they were very slow and frustrating in giving me a definite answer. I went to Halifax in the last week of Sept to do an install for the simulator. I had told somebody at DRDC that I was unhappy and wanted to leave and they passed my name to someone at Greenley & Associates, a consulting company that does modelling & simulation work. When I got back on monday I had three voicemails from them saying they wanted to talk to me ASAP about an opportunity at G&A. Turns out they needed someone to work on a contract at DRDC, in the same area I worked at. They really really wanted me for the contract and after a morning of conference calls I had an offer from them by lunch. I accepted the offer: it's more money, a better future, and more respect for what I can do. So I spent the next three weeks closing out my old job with the helicopter simulators. I am so excited to be free of that project and my manager who I had severe problems with. But since I was going to be working in the same area on a different project they wanted me to do some work on it as well and attend a planning conference. Yikes! During this period we also went to the Finger Lakes, an excellent trip and highly recommended.

I think it's a bad sign at DRDC that everyone I talked to said I was doing the right thing leaving and coming back as a contractor. Very few technical people are happy there and alot of people are fleeing, like rats from a sinking ship. It's going to be interesting in the next few years to see where they plan on heading. To put things in perspective, I've heard it from three different sources, one is the head honcho of the lab, that they want to contract out all technical work on a project and only have permanent people do support. Majorly boring.

That last friday was the best day ever, freedom sweet sweet freedom. I admit, it's a little weird now watching people I used to work with working on a project I used to work on...but it got to the point were I hated that project so much I could barely turn on the computer to work on it. So it's not too hard to stay seperate.

I was in Ottawa last week on a training course for my new project. Can't complain about the travel...eating good food and meeting interesting people. And it was very productive, it will definetly give me a leg up on the new project. I also dropped by the Greenley office, met a bunch of people and got my new laptop. Things were a little disorganized, but it was because they've got lots and lots of work to do and everyone is super busy. Not a bad thing.

All in all, I'm looking forward to the future, lots of possibilities. And I'm staying in Toronto for the foreseeable future. Not great for the family in Vancouver. But it's better to come back feeling victorious and that the time out here was worth than to slink back home with the tail between the legs.
I also get to continue not having a car, saving lots of money and enjoying the fine company of my friends out here.