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We're moving to Austin! We hope!
projectmayhem
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Dear penny arcade;
Me and my girlfriend currently live in northwest arkansas with my parents. Spoiler alert! It's not that awesome! Recently I applied for a job at a gaming company in Austin for an entry levelish position. For what ever reason I have really high hopes that I will get this job. Today I found out that a friend of mine who lives in Austin just had a room open up for 380+80 in utilities. It all seems like a higher power is telling us to move to Austin. The room is a first come first serve meaning they are going to take the first person that can move in. However, since he is my freind he is going to hold off for about three days to see if I hear back from this job.
Some of you might say, well use that money you've been saving from your job and living with your parents, hop in your car and move already!
While that would be perfection, we have some hurdles ahead of us.
A: we don't have a car
B: we don't have awesome jobs but shit pay part time ones
C: between the both of us we have right around $1300 saved up due to paying back student loans and various expenses
Right now my girlfriend is looking at jobs online and if I get the call this week saying 'you have the job' or hell 'you have an interview' we would leave the next day. However as of today, we don't have for sure jobs lined up.
Like I said above, my friends room is only going to be held at best, till the end of this week and we are thinking about taking a leap of faith and just moving. Then of course the fears set in of, what if I don't get the job, what if we can't find jobs, what if not having a car keeps us from being able to do anything. Things of that nature.
So dear sweet penny arcade, I'm sure I missed some info but I would love some advice on all of this.
Should we go ahead and move? Or play it safe and risk not having a place to live? Pay him rent now to hold the room and take the chance we won't be moving?
Also, if any of you guys live in Austin and want to provide a rent free place for a few weeks I would bake you some cookies!
Any advice/help would be great. I really feel that this is a huge turning point in my life and if I don't get this job I honestly have no idea where to go from here.
Me and my girlfriend currently live in northwest arkansas with my parents. Spoiler alert! It's not that awesome! Recently I applied for a job at a gaming company in Austin for an entry levelish position. For what ever reason I have really high hopes that I will get this job. Today I found out that a friend of mine who lives in Austin just had a room open up for 380+80 in utilities. It all seems like a higher power is telling us to move to Austin. The room is a first come first serve meaning they are going to take the first person that can move in. However, since he is my freind he is going to hold off for about three days to see if I hear back from this job.
Some of you might say, well use that money you've been saving from your job and living with your parents, hop in your car and move already!
While that would be perfection, we have some hurdles ahead of us.
A: we don't have a car
B: we don't have awesome jobs but shit pay part time ones
C: between the both of us we have right around $1300 saved up due to paying back student loans and various expenses
Right now my girlfriend is looking at jobs online and if I get the call this week saying 'you have the job' or hell 'you have an interview' we would leave the next day. However as of today, we don't have for sure jobs lined up.
Like I said above, my friends room is only going to be held at best, till the end of this week and we are thinking about taking a leap of faith and just moving. Then of course the fears set in of, what if I don't get the job, what if we can't find jobs, what if not having a car keeps us from being able to do anything. Things of that nature.
So dear sweet penny arcade, I'm sure I missed some info but I would love some advice on all of this.
Should we go ahead and move? Or play it safe and risk not having a place to live? Pay him rent now to hold the room and take the chance we won't be moving?
Also, if any of you guys live in Austin and want to provide a rent free place for a few weeks I would bake you some cookies!
Any advice/help would be great. I really feel that this is a huge turning point in my life and if I don't get this job I honestly have no idea where to go from here.
projectmayhem on
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Funny thing, I'm moving out of Austin in about two weeks. Got an opportunity that I can't refuse.
Also, I was an intern at the Texas Film Commission last semester. They also deal with video game companies in Austin. Check out their directory on texasfilmcommission.com, they list various game companies and such in Austin...you could always use that to get an idea of companies to apply for.
You could absolutely "live" in Austin with some low-skilled job(assuming they're available, I don't know). The cost of living isn't that bad. However I would not recommend moving without getting the job offer first. Is this living arrangement particularly cheap, in a particularly good location? There will be other cheap options for rent.
The place my friend has would be 280 split between me and my GF as well as 80 split between us for bills. So pretty cheap. But he lives about 10min south of downtown (by car).
I also found some apartments near where I applied that are about 500$
Is there a way to find what buisness/companies are around 'X address'?
Austin does have a public transportation system that's alright, I have a friend up there with no car who uses the bus to get to work. But, it takes a heck of a lot longer than using a car and if you found a job too far off the route it would suck.
Sounds silly, but have you checked out the job offerings on craigslist and looked in the Austin American Statesman and Chronicle(I think they probably have that online) for want ads yet? At as low as you're talking you could get by with a minimum wage job if you eat cheap.
If your friend lives south of Austin and is only 10 minutes away from Downtown I'm guessing off Brodie Lane, which is right around here. That can be done via bus, but it will take you 30 minutes minimum to get to any place downtown and if you applied to Bioware it might be just out of reach for public transportation off of Mopac and 183.
I've been under the impression Austin isn't doing so well right now, because you have a) new graduates, b) graduates from ~3 years ago who were recently laid off, and c) older workers supporting a family who are all trying to get any job that pops up. That's what happens in a college city, you have this whole other group of people fighting for the same job (in Houston for instance, it would only be B & C in relation to Houston's size; the local colleges don't make that much of a dent like they do in Austin)
As for the job market in Austin I am not really worried, it cant be any worse than where I am. I live like I said, in Northwest Arkansas about 30min from the Univeristy of Arkansas Campus and everyone is competing for jobs with Walmart/Tyson/JB Hunt home office as well as all the seller/buyer spots for Walmart.
Do any of you Austin peeps have trusting souls that would be willing to put me and my gf up for a few days should we have to wait to get into an apartment?
Also, I know in same places it can end up being cheaper to rent a house than an apartment, is this true for the Austin area?
In general, east of Interstate-35 is known as the "east side" and is known for being pretty rough. They're trying to clean it up, but I'm not sure how it's coming. I know when the misses and I bought a house, we completely ruled out the east side from the get go. Since that area I linked is pretty far north, it might be okay. Places definitely will be cheaper on the east side to rent, however!
If you are moving south, I can give you a better idea of what's around shopping wise, etc.
As far as jobs, I'm not too sure what to tell you. Austin is huge in the service industry right now, so you could probably easily find a job doing that. If you're looking into a more specialized field, then craigslist/monster/dice/austin statesman might give you a better idea. The tech industry is hurting a bit right now here in Austin as a lot of the semicon fabs are scaling back.
Your ability to control your schedule and the ease with which you can do things in any Texas city is greatly magnified by having access to a car. That said Austin is pretty bike-friendly and there's an OK bus system.
Austin is doing allright (unemployment, housing sales, rental vacancies), but the incomes have always lagged the rents as far back as I can remember. If you have waitstaff experience there are a lot of restaurant/bars around though it is competitive.
As far as renting house vs. apartment, unless you're living someplace pretty sketchy or splitting the house with other tenants I don't see it being cheaper then apartments. Occaisionally you can luck out and find a landlord who hasn't reset his rents to market, but it's rare, and low rents usually indicate something (like it's crazy expensive to keep the house at a comfortable temperature or something).
East side (East of 35) has inherited a bum rap, it's not so bad and has gentrified considerably in the past 10 years, since there's still an increasing net population and there's no other close-in space available for building other then there. I'd want to check out any living arrangements at night time just to see how safe I feel. The new Mueller development is "east austin" and it's not cheap at all, French Place has gotten crazy expensive, and University Hills seems like a nice place to live. Highland Mall, Target, WalMart and either an HEB or Randalls should be close shopping to where you're looking, and you're not too far from the Mueller shopping area (BestBuy, Home Depot, Radio Shack, etc.).
Unless you're talking near Pflugerville, I personally wouldn't live east of I-35.
If you're really hard up for a job, check with Apple One temp agency and see if they're recruiting any program technician positions for the CHIP program. It's a crappy data entry job with long hours (if inventory is high, there's mandatory overtime, they were at 18 hours OT last I checked), but the pay is good for a data entry job (about $11-$11.50 an hour, depending on your test results). It sucks, but there's a lot of room for advancement here if you stick it out and aren't a moron. It's where I started, 3 years and 2 promotions ago. I pretty much love my job now that I'm out of that department.
The building is located in South Austin, and there's a bus stop less than a block away, which a fair number of people here use.
In my mind, I picture horrible probe-o-tron devices and strange, low budget sci-fi sitcom like transformations on a regular basis with this line of work. The lazer eyes prove useful more often then not, I'd imagine.
Eh, people think it's scary but it's really not. I've probably done 7 or 8 over the last 2 and a half years and no real problems. Plus, the drug I'm testing now will probably help a whole lot of people, so I get to feel good about myself AND make $4000 for a total of 6 days laying around.
No turning green? No strange, persistent ringing sounds in your ears? No startling hormone imbalances or mutant powers?
Sounds like a deal. Where can I sign up?
It looks like we will be moving to Austin anywhere from a week from today to October. I hate waiting to hear back from a job but if I get it, I will be soooo happy.
As for that Apple One Temp thing, does the class cost money upfront? Or is it something you are put in for free as long as you take the job? What sort of experience would I need to get hired there?
As for East Austin from what I have read it doesn't seem THAT bad, seems like as with anywhere, some areas are worse than others. Are there any like, known roads to avoid? Places to not be a night?
Any of you guys renting out a room?
If I posted my resume would anyone be willing to look over it and tell me of a place in Austin I might be a good fit? I've been trying to find what companies are in Austin and while I've found many, I dont know what a lot of them are.
Apple One is just a normal temp agency. Basically you would go in to the temp agency, they would give you an analytical test and a typing test, and if you score above a certain percentage (ie: aren't a monkey with one hand) they'll send your info to the company. I believe everyone sent up gets interviewed. You have your interview and if you get it (pretty easy as long as you have basic interviewing skills), you get hired full time by the company. You'd be in training for about 3 weeks, being paid your normal salary with your benefits starting either that month or the beginning of the next, then you would start your real work after that. There's nothing shady or unusual about it. It's just a data entry job. The company uses Apple One to weed out the obvious rejects to save them time, as training classes are usually about 30-40 people. It depends on turnover, but I've seen 2 classes a month before. They try to staff about 100 people in the position, I believe. The company is a contractor for the Texas HHSC, so it's on the up and up, moreso than most companies. If you want more info, feel free to PM me. I'm not sure just how much info I can give on a public forum.
Rundberg. That's like crack whore alley.
You will ~always~ find a better job by hunting yourself. Temp agencies will get you into call-centers, pyramid scheme companies, and worse. While they technically protect you from the negatives of these, they are not worth the time or effort you could be spending on an actual search.
I've been looking/applying to other jobs instead of just the one I have all my hopes and dreams on. It seems like right now South Austin and North Austin are in the running for places we will be living.
I will tell you what, applying for a job where following up is a no no is so frustrating. I just want to call them so bad and ask if I have a shot in hell.
Anyway, my girlfriend and I have decided that we are going to try as hard as we can to be in Austin by the end of August. It seems like for the most part, we are on track.
Next week we will actually be going through Austin on our way to SA for a wedding. We are hoping to be able to stop in Austin for an hour or so just to check out some of the apartments, maybe knock on the door to some of the places I've applied.
I got a pretty good lead yesterday. Southpark Meddows has a Gamestop that seems to be looking for a 3rd key, so I called them up and told them I used to work at Gamestop and if it would be possible that they were hiring. The Assistant Manager took my info and said he will get back to me. I think I will call again today to see how thats going.
And yeah, I would definitely check out some of the areas you're thinking about living in, as well as just checking out the city. I've lived in several and Austin is the best so far. Except for the heat. It's horrible right now. I don't even know how many record highs we've had this month (10?). Last week we hit 106. We had some rain the last couple of days, but the heat came back today. That's the only thing I hate about Austin.
This all does depend upon your lifestyle of course. I like Central cause there's plenty of places I like to go without having to drive far. Several pubs, coffee houses, parks, grocery stores, a library, a post office, a golf course, and a few convenience stores I could walk to.
The heat might take a bit of getting used to, but at least it's not Houston.
Anyone any advice for getting a job when you live 11 hours away from where you are applying?
And you really should be very careful where you live, without having a car. North and South Austin seem risky for that. You're already considering moving as late as August, I think you should take lots of time to map out the bus routes, and the stores etc that you'd have nearby.
Here's the bus stuff, in case you needed it.
Still looking for a job?
https://jobs.ea.com/jobs/jobposting.aspx?refresh=1&postid=a0z50000000Hwhn
It's contract, but it will be contract until release - a solid start and as long as you don't fuck up, a solid job.
They have others, as well:
http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/jobs/austin_jobs/
Blizzard is hiring for all of these "entry" positions. Some are more game oriented than others. Even if you're not a hardcore WoW/WC3/SC player, it's a great company to work for.
http://www.blizzard.com/us/jobopp/customer-service-representative-tx.html
http://www.blizzard.com/us/jobopp/texas-tech-support-rep.html
http://www.blizzard.com/us/jobopp/bilingual-tech-support-rep.html
http://www.blizzard.com/us/jobopp/texas-bilingual-csr.html
Less of a gamer job:
http://www.blizzard.com/us/jobopp/texas-admin-assistant.html
If this fits you:
http://www.blizzard.com/us/jobopp/texas-workforce-management-analyst.html
Use that to plan your public transportation route.
For you Zoolander I just put in Arboretum to 6th & Congress (pretty much heart of downtown) and it shows a bus route where you have a one bus route. Here's what popped up for traveling during the day next week.