WetLeather Motorcycle Rider Information

My trip to interview in Ft. Lauderdale on Tuesday the 18th went well. It looks like a good company, good opportunity. They are good people, and gave me very positive feedback on my interviews. I had good rapport with the guy who'd probably become my boss (they have 2 equivalent positions open). They don't expect to make a decision/offer until the first of the year. The job there is a "Sr. Manager, R&D" - very much in line with my career history and experience and comfort zone. It's a solid job, with a company that looks to be solid - some good ideas for new products, and a big installed base. I fully expect a good, fair offer from them.

Interviews Thursday at Itron in Spokane also went well. I'm *very* impressed with this company's changes and actions in the past 5 years or so. I had no idea what they'd been up to until I started researching. They made several very strategic acquisitions, including $1.6Billion-with-a-b they paid for Actaris, major European former competitor, this year. They look like they could really be a great company. They are now the world's #1 supplier of automated meter reading, meters and infrastructure. Over 50% of the US market. On this one, I'm actually more sold on the company than on the specific job.

The job at Itron is a classified a Program Manager, but is actually a new opening for a brand new kind of position that doesn't fit their job classification system. Would give me an opportunity to get in and learn about the company before taking on a more appropriate dev management job, which should become available as the company is in growth mode. Prospective boss Mike seems like a really great guy, and I liked everyone else, too. Good team. I got good positive feedback from all of them.

Mike also followed through on his statement to me that they would get together on Friday and make a decision immediately. Unfortunately, the decision was to choose their "internal candidate" over me. I didn't know until the end of the day that I was going up against somebody who already worked there who'd applied for the job. It's never really a fair shot when you're competing with an incumbent employee. If the skill sets are even anywhere close, the internal person has to get the job. It's only fair to them. And if you DON'T choose them, you have a disgruntled employee to deal with. "Those idiots gave that job *I* wanted to some outsider!" Plus, realistically, I was over-qualified for the open position.

Oh, well. Life's a bitch and then you die. Mike said to stay in touch, they really would like to hire me on, if something else comes open pretty soon, etc. etc. Who knows how much reality there is to that?

Awaiting word from Florida in early January. Fretting about the possibility of moving to South Florida and hurricane country.