Reflections on the Job Hunt

I've been busier these last couple of weeks than I have been in a long time. Looking for employment is an all-consuming set of tasks.

Finding a job is like starting a small consulting firm combined with multiple final exams. You are responsible for sales, marketing, public relations, copy writing, and product development. If you're interviewing for a technical position, you also need to have nearly instant recall of diverse bits of arcane information and have the ability to make comprehensive oral arguments demonstrating your mastery of the topic, much like a member of a debate team.

However, when you get down to what makes a successful job hunt, it is very much like what makes a successful sales representative (my first job after graduating from Drexel was in outside sales). The more companies that you contact increases the number of interviews you will be invited to. The more interviews you attend, the more polished your "why you should hire me" message becomes.

Like hitting a baseball or riding a bicycle, becoming a good interviewee requires lots of practice. By the time you get an offer, you'll be presenting yourself and your experience in a confident and professional manner. If you're looking for a job, get out there and make some calls today!

Resources:
I've found a number of free resources that have helped me in these first couple of weeks. Not surprisingly, they are all provided by Google. You will need to sign up for a Google account in order to use any of these.

• I had been sitting on this domain for a long time without doing anything with it. I did not want to use my ancient Yahoo! mail account for this job hunt, so I began researching inexpensive options for hosting and email. I was pleasantly surprised at the comprehensive set of utilities Google Apps provided me with. I am using them for hosting, a customized start page, email (just like GMail), and documents/spreadsheets. An additional bonus is that I am getting all of this for free using the Standard Edition. There is also a paid Premier Edition level of service, which has additional options such as extra email account storage space.
• After I configured my DNS settings to have iangoodsell.com work with Google Apps, I pointed this blog (hosted by Blogger) to a custom URL at iangoodsell.com. This was very easy, and gives my blog an easy to remember address. Instructions on how to do this with your Blogger blog are here.
• There were approximately 70 members of our technical staff effected by the layoff. Fortunately, one of us was forward-thinking enough to set up an invite-only Google Group that we have all been sharing information on - posts to recruiters and job leads, documents, resources. I have been very impressed with Google Groups, it's like SharePoint's little sister. It is also free.
  

Stripping Wallpaper - the real deal!

Ever since my adventures with Ask This Old House, a number of people have asked me how I was able to remove 3 layers of wallpaper off my old plaster walls. In a number of nights and weekends working in my kitchen, I cobbled together a fairly decent process of removing wallpaper from plaster walls, which I wanted to detail here for posterity. WARNING: There are different techniques for removing wallpaper from drywall which I am not going to discuss here. You'll have to do your own research on the different techniques needed to remove wallpaper from drywall. Additionally, I was fortunate enough to have walls that had been painted with a primer prior to the wallpaper being put up. If you aren't as lucky, I feel sorry for you. Again, you'll need to read up on how to deal with this situation on This Old House or another home improvement site.

Research:

I read a number of articles on the This Old House web site and a great book called Sheetrock & Shellac: A Thinking Person's Guide to the Art and Science of Home Improvement. S&S isn't a home improvement book, but a collection of essays detailing the author's (mis)adventures renovating a 150 year old Connecticut farmhouse. Pages 36-37 detail his experiences in removing wallpaper, which I found to be really handy. The first two-thirds of the book are a great read if you're living in an old house, the final third details his experiences building a vacation home. I strongly recommend it.


Tools and Chemicals:

1. After trying a number of different wallpaper removal solutions, I discovered that the enzyme wallpaper glue dissolver named DIF seems to work the best. You buy it in a small bottle that you then mix with water. This appears to be the most cost effecient solution - they also sell it pre-mixed, but that doesn't work as well, and is more expensive.
   While you're in the aisle with all of the wallpaper removal chemicals, you will be tempted to buy a bottle of DIF gel which is smurf blue. I didn't have great results with it; it also made a blue stain on the wall wherever I used it (nothing permanent, the blue residue washed off with hot water).
   If you've decided to mix your own solution, you'll need to buy a utility spray bottle. Ace hardware has one with measuring lines marked on it that you can use to easily mix the DIF with the water. It costs about $1.50, and is worth every penny.
   The bottle has a 24 oz capacity, you put in 2 oz of DIF and fill up the remaining 22 oz with tap water. Use hot water to mix up your DIF solution; the hotter, the better - hot water seems to make the solution work faster.
2. In order for the the DIF solution to work, it needs to come into contact with the wallpaper paste. The paste is inconveniently located behind the sheets of wallpaper. I bought a little tool called the Paper Tiger, a handheld device that has three rotating wheels on it with lots of fine, sharp teeth used to make holes in the wallpaper. The holes will allow the solution to penetrate behind the wallpaper and get into contact with the adhesive. Because of this, the more holes in the wallpaper, the better.
3. To actually remove the wallpaper from the wall, you'll need a wide-blade putty knife or a long-handled wallpaper scraper. You'll also need a narrow putty knife to get into small areas, like the edge of the door molding and the corner of the room.

Safety:

1. If you ignore the safety instructions on the DIF bottle and spray the solution in a poorly ventilated area (like my pantry, for example) it can actually make you light-headed (feel free to ask me how I know about this). Because of this, I really recommend buying some sort of breathing mask, or at least get a fan to pull air into your location.
2. You should also wear eye protection and a pair of chemical-resistant gloves when you're spraying.
3. Don't forget to wear your old painting duds too, since the solution smells a little when you're right on top of it.

My Technique, for what it's worth:

1. Score the wallpaper with the Paper Tiger. Do it in lots of circles, and don't press too hard on the tool, the teeth are really sharp and will penetrate the wallpaper easily. If you push down on the Paper Tiger, you run the risk of making hundreds of pinpricks in the plaster - which you will then need to cover up with joint compound prior to painting.
2. Mix up your DIF solution following the instructions above.
3. Spray the walls! Since this technique is for plaster walls, make them really wet. The wetter, the better. Remember what I noted about having good ventilation in the area you're spraying.
4. Spray one area at a time - no more than you can scrape off prior to it drying (meaning don't spray the whole room at once).
5. Go and do something else for 15 minutes. The solution needs some time to soak in and start breaking down the adhesive.
6. After 15 minutes, spray the area again. Go and do something else for another 10-15 minutes.
7. Grab your preferred scraper and go to town attacking the wet wallpaper!!!!
8. Depending on how many layers of wallpaper there are, you may need to repeat steps 1-7 a couple of times. I had three layers of wallpaper in some areas, I had to do some areas two times, others three. Your mileage may vary.
9. When you're done scraping off all of the wallpaper, there will most likely be some glue residue left on the wall. Reapply more DIF, wait for it to work (only 2-3 minutes now since you're applying it directly to the glue) and scrape again.
10. When you have all of the big bits of glue off, scrub the wall with a wet sponge to remove any leftover chemicals and glue residue (your results may vary, some walls are easier than others).

As you can see, removing wallpaper is a time-consuming pain in the butt. However, this is a good example of something you can do-it-yourself with a really low probability of breaking anything!
And don't forget the motto of the DIY-er:

There isn't anything you can do to your house that you can't pay someone else a
lot of money to fix.

So get scraping!

Resources:

Here's some good articles from This Old House, my source for all things broken:

• Stripping Stubborn Wallpaper
• New Way to Strip it Away

I also have a subscription to This Old House Magazine. Every issue is packed full of useful information.

Adios, NuMega

Compuware made the decision to close the NuMega lab in New Hampshire on Monday, so I am out of a job for now. You can read about the reasons why they closed our lab and two others here.

I worked with the talented group of people at this facility for 9 years. I had a lot of really good times there, learned a lot, and worked on some really amazing products. I'm really sad to see it go.

Farewell, NuMega. A lot of people will miss you.