BrianJarrett.com

Well, I’m back from the dead, or so it would appear. I haven’t really updated for while, primarily because I’ve just been so busy. The main reason for this, of course, is because of the new baby. Trent is doing very well and I’ve been tracking his progress on his website. I’ve also been keeping up to date with Orson’s progress as well (we don’t want to forget him). The first six weeks or so were very, very hard; not because he’s a problem baby but because of the nature of raising babies, the time it takes to do it, and starting my new job. I wouldn’t recommend starting a new job at the same time as having a baby but unfortunately you can’t always have everything happen according to your schedule. The opportunity came along and if I would have passed it up it would have been one of the stupidest things I’d ever done. The new job has panned out beautifully so far and I’m really glad I jumped on it when I did. They were very understanding of the new baby and were accommodating.

It’s funny; it seems as if each time I start a new job I have another baby! Or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way it’s tough but, in the end, it’s worth it.

The new job. Ah, yes. The new job. What can I say? I’m …read more »

After two years back at CPI I’m leaving again. I’m disappointed that it didn’t work out this time because I really thought it would; that’s why I decided to come back in the first place. Unfortunately the company and I were unable to come to an agreement on a number of things and when I was contacted by a recruiter for another company that made me a great offer I accepted.

So on December 26th I will be starting work for …read more »

As I near the one year anniversary of my return to CPI, I’ve taken some time to reflect upon my life and my career now versus a year ago. Things had taken an apparent turn for the worst a little over a year ago when Maritz decided to cancel my contract with no explanation or consolation. Apparently that’s the way of things as a contractor working for a terrible company. Maritz was one of the best and one of the worst experiences of my working life. As a company I find it difficult to understand …read more »

So I’ve been back to CPI for a month now and things are still looking good. Two weeks into my return the ETL guy quit and I inherited the stuff he was working on. This is really a good thing, despite the extra work. I’m very psyched about the ETL tool they purchased and with my DataStage experience I think I’ll be productive much more quickly than if I didn’t have the experience. I’ll be working closely with sales data and then I’ll be working with the derived marketing data after that. I have a lot of experience with the marketing side of things and I’m looking forward to working very closely with them again. The good thing is that although I’m working with the same data as before I left I’m doing something completely different with it. Building this data warehouse is exactly what I wanted to do when …read more »

The news is out and it’s official; I’m going back to CPI. I’m sure many people who know me will be surprised by this; I’m even a little surprised. There’s a long explanation and a short explanation for my decision but, in order to save everyone’s time, I’ll go with the short one: I still feel like my decision to leave was the right one given the circumstances but I’m also happy to be coming back again.

I guess things that used to really bother me just don’t bother me so much anymore. I’ve also found that it’s very difficult to find a company that doesn’t have problems of some kind. Often times you find that you just swap one problem for another. Von Hoffmann had their problems and Maritz had …read more »

Things at work are going okay. We had a little shakeup less than two weeks ago where they fired my boss and the CIO. I was afraid it was CPI all over again at first but it looks like they still plan to go ahead with the …read more »

Work is great; I’m still enjoying the work and the new environment. The project I’m working on is going well and I’m looking forward to completing it. It’s very challenging yet still enjoyable. Much more enjoyable than where I was before but I guess that’s a dead horse. The good thing is …read more »

I love my new job! I’m doing exactly what I wanted to do: data warehousing. It’s been so much fun and I’m so glad I left CPI. I was on the fast track to nowhere there. At least this way I get critical experience necessary for my professional development. I now feel like …read more »

The new job is going well; I had a meeting with the CIO on Friday that went very well, I believe. So it appears that I’ll be going ahead full steam on the project I’m working on. Now that I’ve been at Von Hoffmann for four weeks things are becoming more familiar and CPI is becoming a distant memory. It was a …read more »