A byte of success

So here it was end of May, our babysitter, Sarah would finish out the month. Hannah, our weekend babysitter would fill in for two months and then Iza, our au pair would arrive in August. We basically were set with child care for the next fourteen months. This was when the thought of July 2011 started to come to me.

Maybe if we really focused for the 14 months, paid off some loans, we would be able to make the jump at the end of July 2011. I really hesitate stating that "God said this" or "God said that", because its just so hard to know. Unless an audible voice spoke to me from heaven, I still question in my heart is it me or God? So not knowing if this was the Lord or not, July became a line in the sand to strive for.

As I mentioned earlier, my husband really started looking for a career change the second time he left construction. When we got married, he worked in construction and even then I could already see the up and down cycle, the dependency on weather, the changing of jobs consistently just to chase the work. Shortly after we got married my husband decided to pursue a degree in computers. I had gotten an associates degree in computers and had a very successful career in the field. My husband pursued a 2 year degree at the same college I had attended. When he graduated, I suggested trying to get his foot in the door of a large company that he would then be able to grow with. He landed a job on the help desk of a large insurance firm. Little did we know at the time, that because it is such a large company you only get exposure to little pieces of work. He spent the next five years on the help desk, never getting the chance to do any hands on computer work, which is really what he wanted to do. After 5 years of just taking phone calls to solve people's computer problems, it basically only made him qualified for a glorified customer service job. He became very frustrated with his job and tried looking for others outside of the company. As I mentioned, with no hands on experience, he really wasn't qualified to do anything really technical. A maintenance job came up in his current company, so he jumped at the chance to just do something new and something with his hands.

Now making templates for marble and granite surfaces got him a little exposure to technical things. The computer/laser setup he was using was pretty high tech and fascinated him. Even still, he was keeping his eyes open for computer related jobs, classes, opportunities, anything!!

An email came out from our church that a local computer shop was hiring a level 1 technician. Okay, okay, I know you know he already got the job from the previous posts, but it was a cool road to get there. So hang with me...

He decided to apply. Not really having any computer experience except for those initial five years and that experience being almost five years old in the computer industry meant that getting this job was a long shot to say the least. But it couldn't hurt to try right? Plus God was already moving in miraculous ways in our lives and we were fully trusting Him to direct our paths.

My husband's current schedule consisted of very long days and lots of traveling, sometimes near 12 hour days. Trying to fit in an interview schedule was going to be tough. Plus he had only been at the company for 4 -5 months, so its not like he had vacation time to work with. The owner of the company called and requested an interview. My husband explained his situation and the owner graciously offered to interview him on a Saturday! How cool was that!! He didn't even have to miss a day of work.

My husband went to the interview dressed in his best suit looking all spiffy. The owner interviewed my husband and proceeded to tell him during the interview that when he saw this large insurance firm on his resume, he called a good friend of his who also worked there on the help desk. Would you believe, this "good friend" was the guy that sat next to my husband for well over a year! They were both Christians and basically totally hit it off. AND the "good friend" grew up with the owner and had known him for years. The down side of the interview was that my husband really lacked the skills they were looking for, go figure!

My husband came home pretty sure there was no way he would get the job. He did his best to convince them that he could learn quickly and pick up the skills they needed very fast.

Surprisingly, Monday morning, they called him back and requested a second interview. They also offered to have the interview over the phone during the lunch hour on Tuesday. We were both shocked and just thought, "Ok Lord, this is totally in Your hands!"

The second interview went as well as you could expect. My husbands knowledge was pretty much on a bunch of old technology. The only plus is that somewhere near the end of that five years on the help desk, we forked out a bunch of money for my husband to attend a Cisco networking certification course. My husband had taken the test at the end of that week and came close to passing it, but we didn't have enough money to pursue it further. His CCNA (Cisco certification) knowledge and relationship with this good friend was all he had going for him. Oh of course it helped that the Creator of the Universe was going to bat for him too :-)

Amazingly they offered him the job. The owner and other managers that worked at the company shared that they had prayed and felt like my husband was who they were supposed to hire.

Praise the Lord, my husband had gotten a job that could really be a career path and as an added bonus, it was only 3 miles from home!!