This page has been massively out of date for some time (as near as I can tell, the last time I updated it was in 2000). I hope to keep it more up to date now.
Currently, I'm in the final stages of preparing to go to Laos for 6 months of volunteer work with CUSO. My placement is a Netcorps placement which is part of Canada's Youth Employment Strategy. The program works with various volunteer agencies to send youths (19-30) overseas to work with partner organisations in devloping countries. All of the placements invole work with IT in some way. The partner organisation gets the benefit of someone with computer skills. The volunteer gets the benefit of work experience. There is also the benefit of a cross-cultural exchange where both parties are able to learn more about different countries and cultures.
My placement is in the capital city of Laos, Vientiane. I will be working with the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs in their International Relations Training Center. My job title is "Network and Database Specialist". My understanding of the project is that I'll be working with training staff on how to maintain the systems they have as well as training government officials in how to use computers. I say "my understanding" because the nature of this type of work is that much of it is up in the air. Until I get in the field and have the chance to discuss the project with my partner organisation I won't really know for sure what I'll be doing. The key is to just accept this and roll with it.
I've been pretty busy getting ready to go. Everything happened pretty quickly. I was originally offered the position around the end of May but I wasn't approved until August and there were a lot of things that I couldn't start until after I was approved. Fortunately, I've managed to get most of it done so I'm feeling pretty good about my level of preparation now.
While I know that living in Laos for 6 months will be a tough adjustment, one oof the biggest worries I have is for when I come back. The reason is because I have no idea what I'm going to do when I get back. I really have no plans. So I'm going to go work for 6 months and then possibly do some travelling, probably come back completely broke and be out of work. It's a little scary. I'm really hoping that this work helps open some doors for me because it's really time for me to move along in my life.
Just before I got invovled with CUSO I had left my job with Eastlink where I had worked for 3 years doing Internet tech support in their call centre. The main reason I left was because it was taking too much of a toll on my health and well being. Particularly, the schedule was really having an impact on me. It was a 24/7 call centre and they had set up a rotating schedule to cover the shfits. The problem was that you were frequently transitioning from working until late at night to working early in the morning. Over time I found that I just wasn't able to adjust to these constant changes.
The other major reason for leaving was it just wasn't going anywhere. I had previously worked at Aliant doing a similar job and had left for some similar reasons (although the work conditions and compensation was far worse at Aliant). I had thought that the lack of advancement at Aliant was just an isolated case. When I went to Eastlink I was expecting to be able to move up within the company. This wasn't entirely naive either as I knew people who had started at Eastlink doing tech support but moved onto other positions within the company. It turns out that I joined the company after that "golden age" had passed.
I don't really blame Eastlink for the way things worked out. A lot of the problems with advancement are just the nature of tech support and call centre work in general. What happens is that you need a relatively large group of people at the bottom level to handle the calls. Above that bottom level though, there aren't many people required. What happens is that a few people move up to a "tier 2" position but then there's nowhere for them to go. So then the tier 2's get stuck in their positions. In the rare cases when a tier 2 position opens up, you have a large number of people competing for it from the bottom level so your odds of moving up are really limited.
Yes, there are things that can (and arguably, should) be done to help with this situation but it's not just Eastlink and Aliant who aren't doing them, it's pretty much the whole tech support industry. A big part of the problem is that it's extremely difficult to measure the quality of your work and what it's worth. With a sales position, you can easily look at the number of new customers that an agent brought in and you can develop statistics to tell you how much each customer is worth over a period of time. Tech support isn't like that so it's very difficult to get management to recognise what it's worth and why it's important to focus on quality support.
I have a copy of my resume available. I had toyed with the idea of having it available in various formats but I've stuck with PDF for now. Keeping various versions all up to date was becoming a big problem so it's far easier to have one copy available.