There is some news that comes with this post.  A little over a week ago I verbally accepted an offer of employment with a firm in the Los Angeles / Orange County area.  I received a formal offer last week and accepted by signing the offer letter and returning it on Friday.  My first day of employment will be October 1st.  The name of the firm will remain private until I put some time in, but I will note the firm provides public accounting and consulting services as it’s primary business.  The only downside to the job itself is its location.  It took an hour to get there for my interview, leaving at 8 AM.  I’m hoping that’s the extent of it or I might find myself driving my life away, which isn’t what I want.  Then again, I could just find a place to live closer to the office, which would put me in the Newport Beach area.  I hear there’s good eye candy there.

Depending on what side of the air mattress I wake up on, this is good news or bad news.  The good news being I will now have some positive cash flow, which hasn’t been the case since June.  The bad news is September 30th will be the last day of a 10-1/2 month vacation.  I tried, as much as reasonable possible, to treat this as a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Chances are I won’t get the chance to get a 6+ month paid vacation (in the form of a severance) again.  I was able to take various vacations during the first 6 months or so, which are outlined in a previous post here.  The last few months, with no money coming in, I spent time relaxing, moving to LA and getting to know the area.

As a present to myself for gaining employment, I bought an iPhone on Saturday.  The phone has met my expectations so far with no complaints.  I like having the phone, iPod, and internet all in one device with me at all times.  Although it would have probably been a good idea to wait until actually getting paid, I decided it was worth the risk.  I don’t think the same thing will happen this go round as it did after I accepted an offer back in June.

I always sit down with the expectation of writing a short post and it almost never turns out that way.  Oh well.  Enjoy!

So I started thinking about my options. One of these options would be to contact the company I declined. Another would be to make the move I’ve been talking about for a few months now. Although not official, I’ve decided to move to LA and crash with my brother until I find a job there.

There are some logistics that need to be taken care of. To start, I’m going to put my house up for rent starting August 1. Then, depending on how long it takes to find employment, I might be forced to sell the condo in Keystone, which would be a shame. And, at some point, I need to figure out what to do with all my stuff – mostly furniture. Craigslist seems like the best option right now. It would be cheaper to just give my stuff away – not that I won’t try to get some money out of it – then to put it all in storage for a few years.

So there’s the plan. I’ll keep the blog posted on my move and job status as things get clearer. Hope everyone has a Happy Father’s Day.

The first recruiter I contacted didn’t listen during our initial discussion and referred me to a company I didn’t want to work for. As a result, I’ve stopped working with him. So I contacted another recruiter here in the Denver area last week. Our initial discussion went well except for one topic. She asked me to provide references. I was very skeptical about doing this for a few reasons. First, have you ever received a phone call from a recruiter at your place of employment? The recruiter asks if you’re aware of any peers looking to move on. Well, I have. And I always wonder where the recruiter got my information from. Then, I started thinking about the references themselves. Say I work with a couple of recruiters. Are they all going to contact my references? Are potential employers going to contact my references? In most cases, my references are people I’ve developed good working relationships with and, in some cases, have become good friends with. Well, except for Joker . My preference is to keep these references on my good side, not have them inundated from recruiters and employers during my job search. Oh, and that doesn’t include what happens after I’m employed. Does this list go into a central repository for future cold calls. I’m sure they’d love that!

After talking to a few people and getting varied opinions, I decided to only provide references directly to employers. Hopefully this doesn’t hurt me during the job search process. I guess we’ll see.