Category Archives: Work

Moving on…

Posted by Florent Thoumie on December 3, 2010 1 comments

After nearly 5 years, I’m finishing today my employment at BT Ireland. I couldn’t be more thankful to the people who gave me the opportunity to join the ISP Systems team (you know who you are Dave :-) ) I’ve had a lot of fun, met a lot of nice people and learnt a lot but it’s now time to start something else, something new.

I’ll be starting my employment at Facebook next Monday and I can’t wait to meet my new colleagues!

I’m also hoping the weather conditions improve because public transportation has been fairly limited as of late…

AIB Bank account

Posted by Florent Thoumie on March 10, 2006 Comments Off

Yesterday, I’ve finally been able to open a bank account a AIB (they required the PPS number I’ve been talking about earlier). I left my passport there in the morning, so I had to go back to the bank before they close (5pm on thursday).

Again I have to wait for them to send me the details via mail (and from various sources, irish post service sucks). Hopefully, I should receive the letter by the end of next week.

New job, new life

Posted by Florent Thoumie on March 7, 2006 Comments Off

For those who talk to me on a regular basis on IRC, that won’t be a surprise but I finally found a job in Dublin. In early january I sent a mail to a mailing list to ask people if they know about some vacant position for a junior sysadmin in Dublin and got 4 or 5 answers the following day. The following week I came to Dublin for interviews which apparently went well since I got two definitive offers. I finally decided to take the British Telecom Ireland offer, which was more interesting because it was near where I would live, the salary was higher and there were some nice benefits (health insurance, company car, broadband connection, ...).

On 24/02, I moved to Dublin, fortunately since I had a friend here, I didn’t have to worry about where I would be living. Work started the following monday (27/02) and I had to fill some papers for BT and to apply for PPS number (that’s a number you get at the local Social Welfare Office).

On tuesday I got the mobile phone and the car. I was afraid of driving on the left with the steering wheel on the right but I got used to it quite fast, and drivers are  much nicer than in France.

Now I have to wait for the PPS letter to be able to open a bank account.

Dublin definitely rocks. I’d just like my girlfriend being here with me, but that’s quite impossible at the moment. So I’m coming back to France once every three week ends.

On a completely different matter, I’ve been contacted by a canadian company that wanted me to do some NanoBSD work for them which is quite cool (even I haven’t receive a single mail from them last week)

I’ve won an auction on ebay and the buyer doesn’t answer my mail (though he has a really good feedback). I’m not sure what I can/should do. I’ll have a look later.

Latest news

Posted by Florent Thoumie on November 14, 2005 Comments Off

It’s been some time since I posted anything in my blog, so let’s correct that.

FreeBSD 6.0-R finally was released, and I started deploying it on any computer I could find in my house. I decided some time ago to reinstall my home-server too. I finally used gmirror instead of gvinum because it appeared to be a bit easier to use. I’m working at replacing my actual mysql-based mail server with a ldap-based mailserver (in an effort to convert everything to ldap). I had to hack authldap.schema (provided by security/courier-authlib) to add attributes and change some things but it’s finally working nicely.

I have now one foot in Copenhagen since I’ve almost been hired there, but I’m still looking for somebody to host me while I’ll be looking for an apartment.

I’ve finished watching Nip-Tuck season 1 and starting to watch the second. I had a lot of unnecessary expenses these days, I’ve changed the speakers in my car, and put a new CD-player. The sound is now amazingly good, though I haven’t bought a subwoofer. I bought an IP-Bus to RCA cable on ebay.com (and just received it) so now I can plug my iPod in my car \o/ I changed my phone too, upgrading from Nokia 6600 to Nokia 6630. I spent a lot of time trying to find free software for Symbian, which is a tough task. When I’ll have some time and courage, I’ll try to port simple software.

Google Job Application

Posted by Florent Thoumie on August 23, 2005 2 comments


Finally, my first post in the “Work” category. Not really to talk about my actual work though (three days left, I’ve spent some quality moments here but I’m not unhappy to leave).


I just sent my application for a Linux/Unix System Administrator job opening at Google EU Headquarter located in Dublin, Ireland and got this friendly message back :

Dear Applicant,
We recently received your resume and would like to thank you for your
interest in working at Google. After reviewing your resume, a member of our
staffing team will be in touch if we find you may be a fit for the role for
which you've applied. Thanks again!

Sincerely,
Google Jobs
jobs@google.com


Though I’d really like to work there, I need to send some other applications. I’m obviously hoping for a positive answer. I’m pondering going to Dublin in september to look for a job in a more active way, if I got no (positive) answer in the meantime.