It's too late to turn back, here we go....

Took the first step in a major life change today. Trying not to be maudlin. This year I'm officially going to undergo at least three of the major life stressors that a person can have. Hopefully no more than three.

So I most likely got the job that I interviewed for. I was told I'm the top candidate, and they contacted my current supervisor at the job I have now [not something I was thrilled with but my manager actually was really nice about it and promised not to tell anybody else, especially not the CFO] and I understand it's being passed on to HR now. I'll probably get a call sometime next week. If my previous experience with this agency is an indicator, I'll then get a tentative offer and will undergo a background check, and then will get an official offer and a start date. I hope the process could drag out later in the spring, but it's more likely that I have maybe five or six weeks.

It's a lot to digest. I know the job is going to be difficult and I'll have to work harder than I've been working. At my last couple of jobs I've tried to kind of work at an average pace and only really worked hard when I needed to meet a deadline. I didn't ask for additional work and tried to really have downtime as much as I could. I know I can't do that anymore.

This will probably be my Forever Job. I'm happy enough with the pay scale to retire here and I'll have the option to do so in about 15 years though it'll depend on health and if I want to try to make a little more if I stick around longer. My past career with the Post Office helps because I already have time in the retirement system. Still, I'm not really happy about it and I think I'll probably be ambivalent about the whole thing until I actually am settled in.

Watch the whole thing fall through. Doubtful, though. The funny thing is I'm actually getting along a lot better with my current manager [who has only been my manager a few weeks] and have been somewhat happy at work over the last couple of week.

Speaking of the Post Office, I don't believe I ever have written much about that, and maybe I should start. Or maybe I should continue to catch up over the last seven years. Funny that I called it a Brief History of the Last Seven Years. RIP Andy Gill. Going to go play some Gang of Four right now.

This trip down Memory Lane interrupted....

I guess this is full circle. After many, many posts [see the archives] of me writing about job interviews, I have a new one. Agency for which I once worked, in a location where I've always wanted to live. I think I have a good shot, though it's going to complicate my life a lot if I get it...similar to seven years ago when I first took a job with this same agency. But it would be good to return, even if it's a new location in a new city.

Things are different now. I have an okay job and have a lot more experience than I did back in the late 00s/early teens. I'm way better at interviewing. I'd prefer this job to the one I have now, but the timing as usual is all wrong. But sometimes we have to just go along with it.

A Brief History of where I've been the last 8 years, part one:

"Previously, on De Minimis..." Sick of unemployment and underemployment, I'd taken a job with a federal agency in my home state, and had to live apart from my wife for just over a year. I was fortunate to be able to rent a furnished house in a town about 30 miles from the health clinic where I'd be working. It was a college town, home to one of the major universities in my state. The house also had three cats--my landlady had adopted the cats and was trying [not very hard] to find homes for them. She had a family member come by every so often to change litter boxes and keep them supplied with food, but I often took care of a lot of the feeding. My wife joked that it was like I was renting from the cats.

I was an accountant. I worked with an older lady who was planning to retire in a few years. I was the succession plan. She had worked there a long time and had worked all over the country for different agencies over the years. Her husband was retired but had been a CEO of different clinics and hospitals in the Native healthcare system. He had started out as a Medical Assistant, working for the tribe that lives at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. She said the government paid for the helicopter to take them down into the canyon, but if they wanted to leave it was on their own dime. She cried and cried when they first got there due to the isolation, but when they left a few years later she said that she was very sad to leave.

The pace was very slow, which suited me fine. The people were friendly. Although the clinic was located on one tribe's land, there were 10-15 other tribes who were located in the area. It was an interesting mix of people. I had never lived or spent much time in that part of the state, so it was a new experience for me. I liked the college town I was in, but felt bored much of the time. I often got depressed on weekend and missed my wife, who was trying to disentangle us from our various obligations in Detroit of the West. It took longer than we thought.

As Harvey Pekar once wrote....

"Brand new decade, same old bullshit."

I'm still on the fence about whether to contribute more to this blog or to just start a new one, but right now I'm thinking I'll just stay here. If anyone does end up reading this, just know there's a lot of years of posts about being unemployed during the Great Recession, trying to find work and failing, and reading a ton of library books. Working now, but still looking for another job. Lots of personal upheaval this year though I'm not one to go into details about it. Been reading blogs by full time RV people, and feeling the urge to wander, to do something different, to hit the reset button [again.] My buddy Ben Hamper wrote about his father having "a habitual lean for the nearest exit" and that's how I often feel Never mind the reset button, I'd like to hit the fast forward button and move on to a year from now.

Christmas Eve

I'm feeling especially melancholy this year, for reasons I won't go into just yet. Christmas Eve was a big deal when I was a kid. We had a big gathering at my grandparents, where I'd visit with all my cousins. It has been 11 years since that's happened, and sadly I missed the last time because of my stupid job at the Big Firm. One grandparent passed away, and it was just too much to manage to continue to have the family gathering there. Occasionally they had one at the local community center, but that came to an end once my last grandparent passed on [somehow, he hung on until a couple of years ago] as the family has dispersed and the grandchildren have started their own families and some of my generation are even grandparents themselves at this point [it's rural Oklahoma, par for the course.]

It's been difficult for me to travel to visit my parents, sister, and nieces. I will probably try to do so next year. But for this year, I'm thinking about the past, and what has been lost, and wondering what the coming year will bring. Merry Christmas, Imaginary Reader.

Back from the dead....

AFter seven years, it's hard to know where to begin. I worked at the job in my last post for a few years, then financial necessity caused us to move to the Bay Area. We puttered along for a few years. I found a job working for a non-profit. It had good points and bad points---since it was a small organization I was also responsible for HR busywork and some general office manager stuff, neither of which I liked. But I liked a lot of the people and supported the mission. I wasn't planning on staying forever, but hoped to at least last a few years.

The 2016 election changed all that. We were dependent on grants from the Department of Education, and had been doing well for the last few years. We'd actually had a lot of support under Republican administrations in the past, and had hoped that we'd still be awarded the funding we needed. Unfortunately, that didn't happen with Betsy DeVos.

My salary was cut by 40%, and I left as soon as I found something else. It required us to move, though not out of the state. Unfortunately, it was a frying pan/fire situation. I was a federal contractor for an agency where I really didn't have any interest in the work. It was the worst environment I had since my experience at the Big Four. People not working together, even within the same departments. Horrible coworkers. Being assigned work without being given the tools needed to do it. Just an overall feeling of futility. I was fortunate to find my current position after eight months. Back in non-profit, back in healthcare, back working with the Native community though this is considerably different than my previous work in that field [we started off in Native health but have developed more as a provider for the under-served community in general, which is something I view more as a necessary evil for us to be able to continue to provide the services we do for Natives.]

And without going into too much detail, I find myself about to undergo a major life change that I didn't really want, but will probably be for the best in the end. 2020 is going to be a difficult year, and I'm not sure where I'll be on the other side of it all, but I've decided to try and write again in order to make sense of it.

A final update.

2012 ended up being a year of major changes. In June my wife was at a breaking strain with her job, and I knew my part-time bookkeeping job would never develop into anything that could support us. I happened to see a government job with an Indian related agency back in my home state. I decided to apply, was interviewed a few weeks later, and got a tentative offer the next day.

Although I had said we would not do so again, my wife and I had to separate for work, and instead of it being 150 miles away this time it was around 1500 miles away. I've been living alone for a little over four months. I'm hoping my wife can join me this spring.

It has been very difficult. I know I was out of work nearly three years and needed a secure job that I was not going to find in California, but I still often regret my decision. Not long after I left there was a promotional opportunity that would have been easier on my wife, but she could not try for it because I had made the decision to leave. She is leaving her job in a couple of weeks, and will work to get the house for sale over the next few months. The housing market seems to be improving, and we're hoping that things will work in our favor. She will have to do the work by herself, which makes me feel immensely guilty.

After a rough start due to lack of guidance, the job is going fairly well. I like what I'm doing, and I am more suited to the pace. But I know I don't want to settle in my home state long-term, and this job has no promotional potential. The step increases will be yearly for the first three years, then they will slow down. At that point, I think I will probably search for another job with another agency, because I do think at that point I will need to find something where I can at least get to the next highest pay grade [which would be good enough for the rest of my career.] But it's good enough for now, and it's good to not feel work stress. I know this is what needed to happen, but I still often wish it worked out some other way.

I spend a lot of time reading. My life feels pretty empty other than that. I'm hoping things will be better this spring, although there will still be things to deal with. Best to you, Imaginary Reader.