Back in the Saddle Again

Here I am, blogging on my lunch break on my second day working for Conduit IT. I’ve already impressed the boss to a small extent, and have gotten to work with some interesting tech. I’m working on extracting data in XML format from a client’s parts catalog files (which were done in QuarkXPress 7), so that I can use XSLT to massage the data and standardize it so it can be imported into a RDBMS.

I’m not starting at as high a pay rate as I had hoped for, but it’ll do for now since I haven’t paid my dues yet. To be fair, the boss was receptive when I made my case for a higher starting rate, but she doesn’t have the authority to sweeten the deal. That has to come from the owner of the company. At least I’ve gotten more than a foot in the door, the cost of living in Pennsylvania is supposed to be lower than that of Connecticut, and the work has been interesting thus far.