Brad's Soap Box

Last week, I wrote about how I’ve been looking for a job for eight months with no real success. Within about two hours, I got a message from a friend of mine. He told me about an opportunity I might be interested in. If you follow me on Twitter, this is what I said at the time:

@BradKimberly: Interesting. An old co-worker sent me a msg saying he had a job available for me. Pay: Ridiculous. Location: Afghanistan. Response: Maybe.

Cryptic, right?

Let me give a little background on this. The guy who sent this to me was a contractor I worked with while I was deployed to Baghdad during my Air Force days. He’s a great guy, and he really made working in Baghdad quite bearable during the six months I spent there. So, when he found out about an opportunity, he sent me a message. In fact, about a dozen people have sent me job leads in the past eight months, and I am truly grateful to everyone who has done that.

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Commodore 128

Growing up, I had a pretty good idea about what I wanted to do for a career. Where most kids would go into a department store and head directly to the toys section, my mom always knew she could find me in the electronics area.

I was fascinated by these machines called “computers,” and I would routinely stand in front of a demo area in the store and poke around on a Commodore 64 or Commodore 128. I would program them in BASIC and amaze the adults who would watch me make the screen scroll my name.

BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY    BRAD KIMBERLY     …

So, it’s obvious that I would want to be a computer programmer, right? Not so fast. Yes, I could mess around on these computers for hours at a time (once I got my own), and yes, I became an expert on most things computers. However, I didn’t really have the drive to pursue something so complicated as programming.

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So, it’s been nearly a year and a half since I last posted a blog entry. I should feel a little guilty about this, but I really don’t.

To catch you up, I did end up moving to Washington, D.C. to accept a prestigious job with the government. It was a pretty decent job with a good amount of stress involved. When you work at that high a level in the government, things that should be easy to do become monumentally difficult to accomplish. I’m not sure why this is, but something as simple as adding content to a website shouldn’t require fifteen planning meetings and concurrence from everyone from the janitor to the President of the United States.

Still, it was a great job, and I made lots of friends in the DC area. Unfortunately, I had to leave the job. My wife has a job that was looking at some business in the Atlanta area. She volunteered to move to Atlanta to pursue those goals for the company. We have family here, and the cost of living is much much lower than DC. So, I gave up my job in order for her to transfer down here.

She works out of the house now, and I am focused full-time on my cruise travel agency. It’s called The Cruise Hunters, and we have the best cruise deals. I’m still looking for public relations work in the Atlanta area, and I’m regularly applying to things. Money is okay, but I would feel a lot more comfy with a regular source of income. The travel business is good to me, but commissions can be sporadic depending on the supplier.

So, I’m living in Marietta now, and spending lots of time on Twitter. I hope to continue updating this site.

Almost immediately after deciding to quit the Air Force, my attention turned to finding a job to replace it.

My first decision was whether or not I should continue to work for the government. My only other options would be to work for corporate America again or go into business for myself.

I’ve worked for corporate America before (thanks to CNN and Paramount). I currently run a travel agency but not to the levels of being independent.

So, I decided I would go ahead and try to find a government job. The second decison? What kind of job should I get?

I’ve been doing public relations for nearly six years now, which is quite different from the television and radio production I did for the decade prior. Still, I’ve been able to integrate some of that broadcast experience into my public relations experience to help further my efforts in communicating the Air Force story.

I thought that my best efforts at finding a job would be to search for another public relations position. The trick in a tough job market is to not be so picky. The jobs are out there, but you can’t insist on only accepting a position in the town you live in. If I did that, I would be unemployed for years. A wise professor once told me that you have to go where the jobs are. Not bad advice.

I use USAJobs to search for these PR jobs in government. If there’s one thing the government needs is a good communicator. Every now and then, I see some bonehead in PR get in front of a camera and try to make some sort of excuses about something instead of handling issues the right way. I’m looking at you, BP. Obviously, the government is guilty of this, too.

Anyway, I would like to continue being one of those boneheads. It pays well.

So, I’m really close to locking in one job, and should I get that offer letter in my hand, I’ll be moving to Washington, D.C. in mid-August.

More to come…