After more than four years of working for Totally Awesome Computers as a “Jack-of-all-trades” I have finally re-entered the web development world!

For those of you who know me well, you know that I’ve been involved in some aspect of web development since 1995 when I worked for the Escalations and Account Management Group at Prodigy Technical Support (as an aside, Prodigy is now apparently part of SBC Yahoo!). From there I worked as Iomega’s Online Support Web Developer, and then to Interactive Technology Director for BOWG Advertising. After that I did some contract work and freelance web development before I took a job at Totally Awesome Computers.

I knew from the day I started work there that it was just a “college job,” but I got sidetracked from completing my degree (which I’m now within a semester or two of) by the potential that the company offered. Unfortunately, potential is one thing, realizing it is another. I started back to school 3/4-time, and then full-time.

About a year ago, when TAC had an upper-management turn-over (all the district managers and the COO resigned their positions) and Dell Schanze passed out $2.00/hour pay cuts to virtually all non-technician positions (I was hit with a $2.25/hour pay cut). Ironically, because of my positive attitude about how I was going to prove my worth at the higher pay, Dell sent an email to the company listing me as one of his “personal hero’s of the day.”

It was about that time that I took Dell’s advice: “if you think you can get a better job somewhere else, take it. I’ll write you a beaming letter of recommendation.” So I turned on my Monster.com, Dice.com, CarrerBuilder.com, and other daily email alerts for Utah jobs related to the web and/or internet communities.

On Average I responded to one or two postings a week. A position came up advertising for a “Sharepoint and ASP.NET Web Developer.” I’d been TAC’s Sharepoint Administrator for 6 months or so, and had some basic experience with ASP, so I applied.

It turns out this position had been posted by a head-hunting firm (Management Recruiters), who were eager to set up an interview for me. After several interviews I was offered the position at Lifetime Products in the Freeport Center. I tendered my resignation to the VP of Operations at TAC, with just over two weeks’ notice.

Now that I’ve been at Lifetime for two weeks, I’m really enjoying the people that I work with, the professional atmosphere, and the challenges that I’m faced with every day. I’m now responsible for these sites:

• www.Lifetime.com
• www.BuyLifetime.com
• www.PerformanceDesign.com
• www.LifetimeMetals.com
• www.MammothBball.com
• and the corporate Intranet (Sharepoint deployment)

The project that I’m working on now is two-fold, the purchase and roll-out of GoogleAds and improvement in natural/organic search engine placement for www.BuyLifetime.com (specifically for 8×10 shed, outdoor shed, 8×5 shed, and shed accessories).