EPTI made the transition from a fraud detection contact center for a major retailer, aspects of it were interesting, but in reality I was little more than a fry cook with a headset and dubious benefits given the size of this company.
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I've used this before, I'll use it again, because there is nothing Bernard Black cannot explain.
After months and months of fruitless poking around internally, and turning up nothing, I was fortunate enough to run into an old friend who had graduated a few years before me with my brother. She is a manager at a mid-sized company (under 1000 employees), that is growing rapidly at a project growth rate of 20% annually. I applied, dropped the appropriate names, and was offered a position doing testing and certification for EDI (Electronic Data Interchange).
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Ballin (full circle)
What I'll actually be doing is a bit difficult to explain, but in a nutshell suppliers and retailers exchange purchase orders, invoices and a slew of other documents electronically. They do so, in a very particular fashion. Each retailer has to be mapped to their specifications, and in order to send documents successfully, the vendors must use those exact specifications lest the documents fail, and no one gets merchandise/paid.
My job is to make sure that vendors/suppliers who don't use our EDI products (most vendors are selling to retailers who use our systems), will be certified to ensure they can bill, and send orders to back end systems which will automatically update their respective inventory computers.
Sounds rather dull when you put it that way, but for the time being I am very content to be in a younger, growing company. My previous employer was, shall we say, stagnant in its hiring habits. When you are on the phone, and you have a meeting about the 40th work anniversary someone was on the phones, in the same role, you get to feeling a bit like you are surrounded by the walking dead.
Now this is not without its downsides as well. In some very notable respects, the youth of the company shows. Not that I am by any means dinosauric, but having been in a much more formal work environment for the last two years, being among newly graduated students in a training class was slightly off putting.
Part of me is distinctly jealous they have what I would call a comparatively good opportunity straight out of school (something which for the sake of hyperbole I'll say I did not graduating in 2011, though it is not ubiquitously true.), but when you are using a small, group lunch with managers and directors to talk about how much you hated your student job (seriously, swearing, talking about how much it sucked), it was hard to stop myself from saying,
" ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wS0FxWQ.gif)
,"
,"I am running with the Star Trek motif, I have really been consuming far too much of it, so sue me, I don't have a problem.
There is really only one recent graduate who properly annoys the shit out of me, and we'll not likely be interacting much beyond training, so I am making something out of nothing. but for the time being he is just a thorn in my side. Afterwards he is no longer a distraction, and I'll be filled in, or not, on gossip as to his employment status in short order I am sure. Either way:
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I am nothing if not persistent
I am really just ecstatic to be at a company with a reasonable structure, good prospects for development and advancement (I can expect to get a raise and bumped to senior, should I demonstrate the proper capabilities in the next six months), with a real plan for growing with staff that shows itself capable. On wards and upwards, I may just be an adult by the time my twenties are over.
