I've got a new job, that's what's new. It's official now, I've signed the bits of paper, I can officially blog it. I've accepted a full-time position within the Evil Empire of MicrosoftTM, as a SharePoint Support Engineer. Quite how I convinced anyone I know SharePoint I really don't know, but that's probably a post for another day. For now, it's a toast to my new blue-badge status and ability to whine about The 'Soft without feeling like it's futile. Oh, and now I can call contingent staff 'Dash Trash' with impunity. I'm booked in for my Microsoft Loyalty Chip 2007TM fitting on Monday, from which time I will become a happy little borg with no thought in my head but for the benefit of the collective.
But seriously, I'm very happy, and somewhat relieved, to put my contracting years behind me and become entitled to some paid vacation for the first time in three years. Contracting pays well, but can get tiring, and getting paid less when public holidays roll round is also somewhat painful (especially as expenditure often goes up around those times). I'm also happy to have job security at, quite honestly, the best place I've worked in my entire career. The URL of this blog may claim my colleagues are idiots, but to be honest, and I'm going to whisper this, it's not really true. The Sydney GTSC is a great place to work. Not immune to the horrors of work, but great nonetheless.
I've already started on the transition road despite not having a fixed start date. I'm blogging this from a Tecra M4 Tablet PC in place of the clunky old Dell D600 I've been getting by on, and I've finally scored a window seat and widescreen monitor. It's the little things that really make a difference, I find. The Tecra is, ummm, nice? It's good to have the tablet option, which actually makes e-books readable, but I'm finding battery life needs help, and it runs very hot and loud. These two things may be related, as I'm running it in Vista's 'high performance', or 'please eat my battery', mode. Still, it's got substantially more kick than the old Dell, and that's good for me. Windows Experience Index comes out at 3.4, less than my Alienware, but better than my old D600.
Something I will be doing once I complete transition is to open a new blog over at TechNet Blogs, which I'll slowly fill with techie musings and various bits and pieces, leaving this blog entirely free for alcohol-induced rantings about The Pope and YouTube videos of kittens.