3rd Longest Company I’ve Worked For

Today, officially marks (via LinkedIn at least :p) my 1 year 3 month period at Steelhouse. This makes it the 3rd longest company I’ve worked for. My next goal will be to hit the 2nd longest company mark, which would be in 8 months (again according to LinkedIn :p), beating out Hartford Life Insurance KK. I won’t obviously be able to do it this year. But that will come around March of next year (if my poor skills are correct).

On another trivial Keith Note, Steelhouse is the longest company I’ve worked for in America. Certainly, my current situation with my mom has forced me in some way to settle down. But at the same time, I wanted to settle down for a while at least with regards to jobs. I’m not someone who enjoys doing interviews. They really grate on my nerves since most ask you some silly technical question like the difference between an inner and outer join. Come on. My resume says 13 years of industry experience. Even if I don’t know the academic definition of an inner vs outer join, can you give me some credibility?

I think creating personal goals like this has helped too in making me settle down. It would be nice to see a company besides Nikko Citigroup go beyond the 2 year mark on my resume. Also, I’m very interested in seeing the company grow and expand. It’s fun seeing how a place has started and where it’s going. I can’t wait, for instance, to be able to work in the new building down the line. Our current spot is getting a bit cramped but to me moving into a bigger building is a huge thing. It signifies the concrete growth of a company. It’s kinda like when you place Starcraft and you upgrade the Hive each time.

I know the market has been volatile for a while. Part of it, imo, is the temptations offered by recruiters to snatch up talented engineers. But you really have to look at the big picture. Someone once told me that switching jobs just for a few thousand bucks isn’t worth it. He’s right I believe because there’s limits to that. You really want to grow inside a company and see yourself move up. And the only way to really do that is stick it out.

I think if more people attempt to stick it out at their companies the market can settle down a bit. At the same time, companies need to offer incentives back to employees to retain the top ones. The older, larger companies would provide things like college reimbursements, 401k matching plans, pension plans, stock options and career paths. Now, it feels as though people can’t grow, which is why people switch jobs.

But to make that happen you really need a collaborative effort both with companies and the employees. Of course, not every company can offer the same level of compensation. Yet the ones that have good prospects need to start thinking longer term. I mean, that’s how Google managed to grow in a period where other companies had faltered.

Either way, there really wasn’t much of a point to this post outside of some thoughts regarding my job, career and the work place in general. Gratz me.

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