Mysterious Ways

I mentioned in a previous post that things were not going well with my job. In fact, I would have been laid off October 1, 2008. The beautiful part is that I started my new job October 2, 2008!

The way that things collapsed at my old job was frightening. It was through no fault of our team that we were basically fired from the contract. A lot of political wrangling went on, and we all got caught in the middle.

Because Bridgeborn is such a small company, they couldn't carry us across contracts, especially since they didn't really have anywhere to carry us too. Of our 7 person team, 2 resigned (me and another developer) and 4 were laid off.

The job that I have now, though, is nothing short of a blessing from the Lord. I'm working as a contractor to ODU in support of 2 research scientists research for a 5 year contract with DHS. I'm contracted through a company based out of northern Virginia. I'm going to keep their name confidential for now.

What I can tell you is that I got a much needed pay raise and much better benefits upon switching jobs. I also learned a lot in the negotiation process when I was negotiating for my salary.

Better yet, this new job is a fresh project and I'm free to construct the software I'll be developing as I see fit. I'm still learning about the theory that I'll be working with, so once I have some more concrete understanding of it, I'll post a brief synopsis here.

Being in on a project from the ground up is an awesome resume builder. Being involved in (or, in my case, actually making) the architecture decisions gives you such an awesome overview of what it will take to build a project. I'm researching application servers right now, and I get to choose what other software we're going to be using. It's all very cool from a very geeky perspective.

All in all, I just wanted to let all of you know that the Lord has been providing for our family in a powerful way here recently. Being without a job for 1 day would have been disastrous for us, considering Cole's cancer. We have not been without insurance at all and knowing that we'll be able to afford the mini-van we're going to have to buy is really all that we could have asked for (and is in fact what we were asking for). The reality, though, is that the Lord has provided beyond what we were asking.

I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Bridgeborn.

They supported us through a very difficult time and they supported us with class. One of the things we kept hearing while we were in the hospital is that a lot of companies will initially support a family for a few months, then quietly let the person go.

Not so with Bridgeborn. We were in the hospital for no less than 7 weeks, and they allowed me to be with my son the entire time. They provided a laptop for us so that we could communicate with the outside world and so that I could work from the hospital (which I did). They also made it known to me that I would have unlimited personal/sick leave so that I could see to Cole's treatment.

All of that combined meant that we could focus on Cole's treatment and not have to worry about whether or not I was going to lose my job at the same time. That kind of assurance is so invaluable in times of trouble.

I'm going to miss our team, and I'm going to miss the other folks at Bridgeborn, but I'm happy that the Lord provided in such an amazing way.