Dating: Professional-Style

No, I'm not becoming a professional dater! But, having been on several interviews recently, I can't help but notice how interviewing for a job feels remarkably like being on a date! I'm letting the employer know what I bring to the table, they're informing me of what they are offering and then we're seeing if it's a good fit. I show up, looking neatly pressed and presentable, they show me around the facility, we make small talk...

And since I haven't actually nailed down a job, there's dealing with rejection. I've usually coped fairly well with that in the dating world, so it's been interesting to see how I feel about it in a job interview situation. Mainly, I've been a bit more sensitive to rejection in a job interview. However, in general, I'm probably a little less sensitive to rejection than your normal applicant. I can only assume it comes from dealing with dating the last four years!

I think it's because I feel like dating is more of an organic thing... either we're going to match up or we won't. I don't think it's necessarily something that can be controlled, but I feel like an interview, I should have a bit more control. I'm smart and good at what I do, so why wouldn't they want me?

I recently applied for a sales position and during the interview, they asked if I would be able to cope with people rejecting me on the phone and I said, "Well, luckily, I've been dating for the last few years, so I've learned not to take it personally!" I think that's what I need to remind myself of in the job hunting realm. I shouldn't take it personally.

In some cases, I think I haven't had the exact experience in the field they were looking for or enough education/certifications or maybe I did, but I was too expensive. Or maybe I was geographically undesirable! Any way you look at it, it wasn't a good fit. And almost exactly like dating, it doesn't really matter why it wasn't a good fit, all that's important is that it wasn't and it's time to move along.

I guess the bottom line is that I need to be patient, because the right position will come along and we'll both know it when it happens! Finally! Dating experience helps in other areas of my life! I am hopeful about the sales position I interviewed for a couple weeks ago. I should be hearing back from them this week. I'm hopeful because like any good date, the chemistry was there right away, conversation flowed smoothly, it felt like a good fit. However, I've already mentally prepped myself for the possibility that maybe they didn't feel it, and if so, I guess it's back to the drawing board!

Life Update

The major life update is that as of March 31st (happy birthday to me!!), I will be job-free. Not necessarily by choice, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I've been working remotely for almost the last two years for a company based out of Dallas. They hired a new president last year and she wants to have someone working out of the main office in Dallas and I did not want to move there. There were other factors involved with the decision, but that seemed to be the sticking point.

The whole process has been extremely stressful which is what led me to my latest bout of silence on the blog. This situation has made me realize that I tend to become rather hermit-y when things aren't going well. I guess I'm following that old saying, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all!" Meanwhile, my friends I see day-to-day have been getting an earful. And then another earful...

I think probably the worst part has been the uncertainty of everything for several weeks. There have been other sucky parts, but I'll keep that part to myself for now. I was so stressed about it that I eventually got SO sick!! I've never been so sick in my life. I laid in bed for five days straight. I only got out of bed because I had to do our monthly payroll. After which, I promptly climbed back in bed. Thank goodness for Edward, who insisted I go see the doctor. I had been assuming I had the flu and was afraid I had the dreaded swine flu! When I finally went to the doctor, she informed me that I had bronchitis. She then prescribed me two inhalers and some nasal spray and instructions on how long to use them. Now, two weeks later, I'm feeling much, much better.

So, that's the big update. And with the free time I'll have on my hands you may get posts a little more often about random stuff I'm doing around my apartment. Some stuff I'd like to get done while I'm not working:

• Eat through my pantry & freezer. This will give me the opportunity to try out different recipes and eat everything up!!
• De-clutter my apartment! Wow, I'm REALLY looking forward to this. I've already started taking boxes of stuff to give to the Goodwill.
  
• Stick to a budget. I've started making my budget. I'm not sure if I should post it on here because I'm not sure anyone would even care about the particulars. But, I was thinking about trying to make it like a game... LOL - as John put it, "a game with limited resources"!
• Exercise more. With no job, I should be able to exercise more, right?
• Floss more regularly. I just had my cleaning today and again I promised my hygienist Mary that I would be better about flossing. I need to start setting up better habits. Time to write it down, FLYlady-style...
• Take some trips. Already planning on going to Atlanta in June for Oasis and Williamsburg in July for Gulf Games. I am contemplating taking a road trip out there and just killing time for the month in between with friends along the East Coast. I just need to find someone to babysit my kitty for a month!
• Get caught up on my reading & Netflix queue. Not very "productive," but fun!
  
• Go to the beach. I'm gonna work on my tan some... and maybe get some reading done while I'm at it!
  

Anyway, you'll see random notes to myself too as I clear stuff out of the apartment. The blog is the perfect place to record stuff that I don't want to lose! And then you get to see it too! I'm mentioning this because I'm about to post a list of restaurants from a newspaper ad/article that I've had stuck to my fridge for a couple years. I'm ready to throw it out, but I want to make a list of the restaurants in case I ever want to know what was on there.

I have no idea how long it will take to find a new job, but I intend to make good use of my time off and enjoy it!

Busy days ahead

I am home for Thursday, but have a TON of stuff to do, both work-wise, socially and to pack for my trip. For some unknown reason, I chose to leave LAX on Friday morning at 5:40 AM. Thankfully, I think Travis is going to give me a ride (thank you!!!), but that pretty much means everything needs to get taken care of tomorrow.

Things to do Thursday
Getting up early for hiking
Dropping off stuff at Travis' apt.
Eating/showering
Work, work, work - lots of phone calls
Dinner with Robert
Packing/cleaning

Yikes! I'm also trying to break my work down so that I have plenty of stuff to do on the plane so I can get that mundane stuff that I hate doing when I'm at home.

Once I land in Atlanta, we're going to Dragon*Con in Atlanta, a huge sci-fi/fantasy con. I am really looking forward to it since I've never been, PLUS I'll get to see Valerie & Tyler and Mark! It should be pretty fun. The first event planned in our evening there is finding Valerie in the Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog room!

Then on Saturday (and the next one), I get to go to my FIRST University of Georgia football games with Greg and 97,000 of his closest friends... I'm taking some of my "bacon-of-the-month" bacon with me as my peace offering to the tailgating gods! The Bulldogs are seeded #1 pre-season, so hopefully, they can do it and win it all! The whole town is obsessed with that college football. It's like straight out of the movies.

On Sunday, I get to see Greg sing (finally!) in the choir at church. He has a solo in the early service, so we'll be getting up early to make it to that!

Whew, I'll be ready for a holiday by the time Labor Day rolls around! It'll be nice to have nothing to do on Monday and have Greg all to myself. I'm really looking forward to seeing him. It's hard living across the country from each other!

Update from Dallas

It's been another week since I've been in Dallas and wow, I'm sore! Why? Because I took my first Krav Maga class. It's a style of fighting that the Israeli army uses. It's for close combat. I enjoyed the class quite a bit, but oh my, I'm so freaking sore!

Monday night I went to see the Sex and the City Movie. I liked it, hardly surprising considering I loved the show. One thing I always love about that show is that there's always some kernel of relationship truth in it. Something that is relate-able. In the movie, Carrie calls herself an "emotional cutter." I started dying laughing because I've been feeling like I've been an emotional cutter lately. Why? (Maybe I should rename this post to "Why?")

I got an email from 42 out of the blue last week and we've exchanged some emails since then. Mainly just catching up, but naturally I've been thinking about him and our relationship more. Sometimes it makes me sad and other times it just gets me thinking about the past. The last few weeks have been busy with dating in between work stuff, but I don't feel like going into all that. Especially since I've hardly written anything about dating stuffs since 42 & I broke up in March. I'll have to write an update on that sometime soon, I haven't quite decided about that just yet.

On Tuesday, I worked and then went to play games with the Dallas Gamers. I ended up playing Kingsburg, Rails of Europe and Race for the Galaxy. Man, I *still* really love that game!

I worked today and then spent the afternoon and evening playing poker! It was pretty fun. My table was good. There were a couple cool guys there and I was Nickname Girl. I nicknamed everyone at the table (whether or not they liked it or not). We had Golf Guy (who was quite the cutie), Fiance Guy (who got later renamed to Tat Guy at his request), New Guy, Quiet Guy, LA Guy, Oil Guy, and Tan Guy (who later was renamed to Raiser Guy because he kept raising all the pre-flops). I think I ended up down a bit for the trip, but I am definitely getting better. I felt like I was betting better and I'm trying to get better at reading people based on their actions. My problem is that I just go with my gut and not really with the logical assumptions. That is an area that I need work on.

Hello from Dallas

I've been in Dallas since Monday night. My first official day at work was Tuesday. I'm going to be here training until next Friday. This week I'm training with Robin, the current controller and next week, I'm in the office working with the manager of the consultants and various others I'm sure.

One thing I've been really excited about is the program that our consultants consult on. It's really freakin' cool. It's hard to describe how it works, mainly because I'm not really sure, but the power it holds is amazing. I can't wait to learn more about that!

Other than that, I went out for gaming last night and managed to squeeze in a game of Agricola, Race for the Galaxy and Jetzt Schlagt 13. One of the beautiful side effects of BGG.CON... When I showed up at the cafe where I knew there'd be gaming going on, I ran into Jeff, a fellow BGGer and someone that I met at my first BGG.CON. So, it was nice to see a familiar face and even nicer to see he had a copy of Agricola underneath his Louis XIV (not my favorite game at all).

He invited me over for games on Saturday, so my plan is to game. So much more fun than sitting in the hotel watching "Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead" for the umpteenth time. Although total side note: I forgot Josh Charles is in that movie and damn, he is quite fetching in it!

And another side note: BGG is down for maintenance or something or the other. Boo. I wanted to finally log in all my game plays from Gamex and last night. Oh well. Tomorrow I guess...

I'm officially done...

Friday was insanely busy. It started off with showing up to work to no internet, no printing, and basically no network because the corporate office decided that Friday was going to be the day they decided to change the router to a more "robust" router. The first thing the auditors said was "We can't print..." I was like, "Oh yeah? Me EITHER..." Luckily, it was resolved fairly quickly. While they worked on resolving that I started packing up my office.

The day wore on and it became clear there was NO way I was going to be able to finish everything up and clean up everything. I'm a stacker. I stack paper everywhere, so I had several stacks that needed to be sifted through, but I had to just deal with the auditors and closing the month because those were the priorities.

I went in to work today to finish up everything and finished everything up as much as I could! My desk is completely cleaned out, cleared off, and Marilyn now has a stack of papers to file.

I went out to lunch Friday with the president of the company and my old boss (the former president). It was really fun. They get together for lunch every Friday. I think I might start dropping in on their lunches every month or so just to say "hi"! I went out last night with Marilyn, the new girl and a couple other co-workers for drinks and that was fun.

This past week has been so busy that I haven't really thought about the fact that I will no longer work there. I think next week is gonna be rough. Although, I'm super busy this coming week too! So we'll see. I'm planning on keeping in touch with all my favorites, so I'll get all the good social stuff without any of the stress!!

And maybe I'll finally get to catch up on blogging about everything else!

One more day

I can't believe that tomorrow is my last day! This week has been a blur of auditing goodness... I have barely had time to do anything around the office. So much so that I'm seriously considering going in on Saturday to try to finish some stuff up. What is wrong with me?

I've been too busy to even feel sad about it being my last day. On top of that, I think I'm just so relieved that I won't have to deal with the stress anymore that it's hard to feel sad about leaving. I'm going out for drinks with Marilyn after work tomorrow, so that should be fun.

All I keep thinking is "I'm never going to get everything done!" I just don't think I'm going to be able to. Oh my. Tomorrow is going to be busy. Ugh!

Starting my last week of work

I'm about to start my last week of work. Let's see what do I need to get done this week?

• Close the month (ended 5/4)
• Deal with the four auditors who will be here all week to go over our year-end numbers
• Continue training my replacement
• Deal with my corporate boss who will be here Wednesday
  
• Clean out my office
• Make sure loose ends/projects are handed over to someone or taken care of

This is going to be the longest week. EVER.

I got the job!

I'm back from Dallas and... I got the job! I interviewed with three people at the company and they all went very well. I received my offer letter on Saturday and I signed and faxed it back today. Everyone at the company seems incredibly smart, happy to be there and just plain cool. I feel like I fit right in with everyone and just had a ball. I'm really looking forward to working with them. I think this is going to be a fabulous opportunity. I am really excited about all the possibilities! And apparently, I really need to practice my Call of Duty 4 skills. I really suck at that game!

I'll basically be doing the same type of work I'm doing now, but not for a manufacturing company. The company I'll be working for is a consulting company. I'll be the CFO/HR/recruiter. I'm especially intrigued by the recruiting because I've never actually done that before. The CFO/HR duties are very similar to what I've already been doing, so that should be no problem!

The best parts about the job:

• The new company is awesome and fun. We went bowling for two hours in the middle of the day on Friday. Somebody lost a bet and had to do a can-can up and down the bowling alley and let's just say it wasn't me! :-)
  
• I'll be working from home (or wherever I am at the moment) and the schedule is extremely flexible. As in, there is no schedule. So long as I'm getting my work done, they don't care if I work during the day, at night, four days so I can take three days off, whatever. They just care about the results. (Yay! More cons?)
  
• There is no vacation/sick pay/holiday policy. See Extremely Flexible Schedule above. If I'm getting my work done, that's what matters.
  
• I will have much more control over the direction of the company instead of just taking orders from the corporate office!
• Traveling to meet with potential recruits will allow me to explore other parts of the country!
• Less stress than my current job!

Overall, this is going to be WAY better than my current job. My last day there is next Friday, May 9th and I am counting down the days!!

And how can you pass up this view? Two of my interviews were held out on the balcony that goes along the whole office where this is the view:



The rest of the weekend was totally fun too. The Mavericks won the play-off game we went to Friday night, we played poker for 13 hours on Saturday and we saw the most amazing sudden death outcome at the Byron Nelson PGA tour! The winner, a hottie named Adam Scott, (and yes, I just called a golfer a "hottie"... if you don't trust me, OMG just check out that link!!!) sunk a 48-foot putt for the win. You should've heard the crowd, it was amazing!!!

I was exhausted by the time I got home, but it was worth every second! Oh, and I got that chicken biscuit on Saturday!

Upcoming Interview

I am very excited about my upcoming interview on Friday in Dallas. I fly out Thursday night, right after work. The schedule after that is complete and utter madness!

Friday: Interviewing with the three partners of the firm & probably meeting many other employees as they'll all be in the office for a training day. They have a PS3 and xBox 360 in the office, so I'm hoping to squeeze in some Rock Band and/or Guitar Hero too, although I'm SO out of practice that putting "Guitar Hero shredder, proficient at Rock Band" on my resume under "Special Talents" may be an overstatement at the moment!

We'll hopefully wrap up training early that day and go bowling for a couple hours. Then we'll be going to the Mavericks playoff game that night. We turned down invitations to two home poker games and being able to watch the baseball game from the office.

Saturday: We had several options, but decided on going to Oklahoma to play some poker! Yay! I'm happy with that. I believe I'm also getting a personalized driving tour of Dallas to check out all the areas with the really cool, older homes. I love those! Oh, and I think a chicken biscuit for Chick-Fil-A will be in order Saturday morning.

Sunday: I think we have a PGA 18th hole tent party to go to, but I'll have to check. I come home Sunday night and it sounds like I will be downright tired after running around all weekend.

But, hopefully - keep your fingers crossed for me! - I'll have a new job by the end of it!

I'm resigning

I've been at my job for what would've been 13 years next month. Unfortunately, the job functions and stress levels have changed dramatically during the last four months. I feel like I've turned into a report generating cog in a big, boring machine. Ick. Also, they frown on me taking time off. Double ick.

S0... today, I resigned. I gave them my notice that in two weeks, I will be moving on. I don't have a job offer yet, but I have a promising interview next week and I'm hoping that works out. That job sounds perfect for me. However, if it doesn't, I will find something else.

They're asking me to give them a month and I think that will be too long for me. However, I might compromise and do three weeks, to get them through an upcoming audit and closing of April for my company. I would basically be doing this for one of the guys on the East Coast that I do like. And I would feel bad for making his life a living hell if I really do leave in two weeks.

Scratch that, make it 77 hours!

When I was tallying up how much time I worked last week, in my brain mush, I must've totally forgotten about an entire day. Marilyn let me know that I worked seventy-seven hours last week.

I'm working on my resume tonight.

Sixty-five hours

OMG - I finally sent in both sets of books for my companies. I worked 65 hours this week! Wow! The only consolation is that I earned 15 hours of vacation time, but still, I don't think I've ever worked that many hours in one week for a single job. And there's still tomorrow... I really hope I don't have to work tomorrow. I have plans to play games ALL day tomorrow and I don't want to change those.

I gave the East coast people the option to contact me between 7 - 8 AM Sunday morning. If they don't call me by then, I'm outta here!

It's Crunch Time

Work has been insanely busy this week due to (a) the fiscal year closing on 3/30 and (b) it's the first time I'm completely responsible for the books of one of the other companies I'm responsible for. And their accounting practices are awful. I love the guys that run the place, but they are not accountants. I think I'm going to have to start coming down here once a week to check on things.

I'm down in the OC working right now and instead of wasting two+ hours driving back and forth to home, I'm spending the night at the president's house tonight. And getting up super early to try to finish these books by noon tomorrow.

But, to brighten my day, Marc sent me this bacon-riffic link that you HAVE TO check out!! It's certainly ONE way to attract a carnivorous man!

Changes at Work

My boss' final day at work was last Friday. It was a sad day... We all got together after work last Wednesday for his surprise farewell dinner, which, I'm happy to report, he thoroughly enjoyed. He was greatly touched by everyone who attended and said that it was perfect. I was thrilled that he enjoyed it so much because even though my gut said he would like it, there's always the chance that he'd hate it!

His last day, he went around the shop at the 2:00 PM break to say his final good-byes to everyone and then came up front to say good-bye to us in the front and of course, Marilyn started crying, which made him get all teary and then he came to give me a hug and say "bye" and then I started crying. After he left, Marilyn and I just sat at our desks just crying and crying. It probably sounds weird to a lot of people, especially if you don't care much for your boss, but he means so much to me and has been a force in my life for the last ten years. It's like getting a divorce almost, but from a non-romantic relationship!

Last week, I was offered his office in the front. There are three bigger offices right in the front lobby area. My office is in the hall area. I love my office. I put the floors in, picked out the color for the walls and all the furniture. My desk is beautiful birds-eye maple on top and everything is just the way I like it. But, because of the promotion and other stuff going on, I couldn't say "no" to moving into my boss' old office.

Here are some pictures of my office before I started cleaning it out. And this is a candid shot of exactly how it looked when I walked in, warts and all!


The view from the doorway:

I went in on Saturday to clear out my old desk, which took HOURS. Here's a list of things that seem to spontaneously multiply: pennies, paper clips and paychecks! I have paycheck stubs from over 10 years ago sitting in my desk. It's funny to look back and just be fascinated by how much money I made back then and think, that used to be "enough"!

My aunt Terry used to say about Jason, "He's cute, smart, sweet... he's the whole package!" So, when I found this note, I started cracking up and felt happy and sad at the same time... This was the funniest thing I found in my desk:


I have no idea when he called and said that, but I must've thought it was funny even then because I tucked it away. And, yes, it got transferred to my new desk.

Here is a "before" photo of my new office taken on Saturday:


It will end up looking different though because this morning, I came in and rearranged all the furniture. I liked the desk better in the office across the lobby, so I had the guys move that desk and the matching credenza into my office and move a bunch of other stuff around. Before we made all those changes, I was really NOT looking forward to moving into my new office because of the configuration. Plus, my old office was so much "happier" looking. It as bright and light! Now, I am much happier and will probably love this office too. Now I just need to get stuff on the walls!

Marilyn is thrilled with her new (and my old) office. She should be! I will miss my desk. If it remotely matched at ALL with my new office, I would've moved it in there. In the meantime, here's what it looked like after I took all my stuff off of it.

I was joking saying that I'll probably enjoy the desk even more, now that she's in there since she's such a neatnik, I'll actually be able to see the desk! I'm a stacker, through and through, but since my new office is so visible, that will be the big challenge. Keeping my desk cleared off. I'm really not looking forward to that!

I'll have to post some "after" pictures once I get settled in.

Work Update

Work has finally kinda/sorta calmed down. We finished up all the accounting associated with the sale of the company and finalized the last two months' books. I'm still pretty busy because now I'm trying to catch-up on everything that's been neglected over the last month!

The hardest part now is dealing with my boss leaving. I've worked with him for almost 10 years and I have enjoyed working with him. Every time he starts talking about when he's gone, or I start talking to a friend about him leaving, I just want to start crying and sometimes can't help myself. I've learned so much from him, both personally and work-related that it's hard to imagine not having him here to bounce ideas off of every day. I hope that we will still keep in touch once he's gone.

He's somewhat anti-social and hates going to parties and such, but Marilyn & I are organizing a surprise dinner for him during his last week here. I spoke with his wife and best friend and they're going to help me get him there. I know if he knew about it in advance he would not want us to organize something like that, but I know that he will actually enjoy it once he's there. His best friend thought it was a great idea. He's worked here for so long and taken care of the company and its employees that everyone wants a chance to say good-bye and wish him well.

Man, I am going to miss him!!!

The Worst Week Ever

I usually don't blog much about work. Mainly because I've had a pretty cushy job for many, many years. I know what I'm doing, it's a piece of cake, I felt like I got paid well. Since the company was purchased at the end of November however, it's been SO incredibly busy that I can't seem to even enjoy my job.

I almost started writing out a detailed bitch-fest about what's been going on this week, but the bottom line is this: I want to do a great job. I feel, at this point, like that will be impossible to accomplish. It's only going to get worse before it gets better and I feel like it's sucking my life energy out of me. I'm not the type of person that lives to work. I work to enjoy the very full life I have outside of work. And as previously mentioned, I don't think they're paying me enough money for the amount of work they're asking me to do. I can only hope that this is only transitional and it will all calm down over the next few months.

I don't need (or want) to be told by a peer that I should start "checking my emails on the weekend." It's not happening. I don't need someone to joke around saying, "Vacation? What's that?" When he said that, I just gave him the death glare and said, "Don't even joke about that. Because I will quit. Right. Now." And I would.

I laughed (I really am awful at hiding my feelings about anything) when he was trying to calm me down by explaining to me that my success at the company was totally dependent on me. "You control your own destiny," he said. I looked at him and said, "Yes, I do control my own destiny." Translation: I don't need this job or any shit from any of you!

And then finally, events today: My boss announced today that he has resigned as president of our company. I am completely sad to hear this. I've worked directly for him for almost 10 years. I am going to miss him SO much.

Wow, this week has totally sucked work-wise. And I know it's just going to get worse. Ugh.

Working for the Weekend

I've never tried to make it seem any other way. My job used to be a pretty cushy one! This week has been crazy! With the promotion has come more work!! I'm hoping it's more of a transitional thing, but I can't be sure for a few months. Now I'm just working on the more money aspect... I apologize for not being in more contact with my friends. Work has been using more than its fair share of energy out of me!

However, I had recently been thinking that my job wasn't challenging enough. I guess this is the answer to my ponderings! It's been stressful, but I'm hoping it will be challenging, fun and a great learning experience. The CEO of the new parent company came out yesterday for a "town hall" meeting. It was pretty informative and the atmosphere they endorse is a good one. So far, my experience in dealing with several other people out-of-state is that the intent seems to be the actuality with regard to helpfulness, lack of politics and teamwork. It might turn out to be better than I had hoped!

That said, I have worked WAAAAAY too much this week, so I can't wait to escape from here this afternoon and run down to LAX to hop on a plane and visit with my sister and nephew this weekend! My nephew turns 8 next week, but he's having a birthday party on Sunday. I'm also going to a holiday party with my sister on Saturday night. I haven't been out to visit them in a while! It's supposed to be downright cold too. My sister called to warn me that the high for Sunday would be in the 20s!! I'm definitely taking the wool/fur coat and the long underwear! Not to mention, gloves, scarf and hat! It'll be nice for a change of pace. Speaking of, I need to run home at lunch and pack!

Game-wise, I borrowed Apples to Apples Jr. for the birthday party. Since it'll be 20 degrees outside, I doubt we'll be turning the kids loose outside!

Work Update

My company was purchased by another company yesterday. They bought us and two other companies in the Southern California area. I think it will be a good change for me. The good news for me is that they want me to be in charge of the accounting for the three companies, which would be a promotion for me. The upside potential is unknown at this point. They gave me a decent raise in my salary, but it's not as much as I thought it would be, but is it ever?? Additionally, it looks like I'll probably switch out of the current bonus pool for all employees at my current company and participate in one for the management of the corporation. My new boss said the "new" bonus pool will pay me more than I'm getting now in the general bonus pool. The other perks I have are staying the same.

Making a lot of money is great, but I have a pretty rich life outside of work and I really don't want to feel like I'm sacrificing that just for more money. For me, life is about more than money. I have no problem working hard. I just don't want to be stuck at the office for 50-60 hours a week and driving all over Southern California and being so exhausted from work that I can't enjoy my real life. If it's for short bursts, fine. But if it was consistently like that, I'd have to look elsewhere. The good news is that I have been working with a woman who works for another company owned by the same corporation and she really likes the corporation and my/our boss. She also seems very together and is a great worker. I enjoyed the last couple days she was in the office. So the signs are good that I will like working for them. But since it's an unknown, I've been considering all possibilities.

The big question is what the change in my workload and responsibilities will be. That can only be really assessed over the next few months. So my plan is to see how the next 90 days go and go from there.

Changes at Work

I seldom talk about work on my blog. Mainly because it's a pretty low-stress, good place to work and I get paid well. I have worked here since 1995. It used to be privately owned until the owners decided to sell it to an investment group in 2004. The sale of the company didn't bring about any changes. However, there are some changes brewing that may bring about real change. BIG change. I don't know whether that will be good or bad for me, but all signs indicate that they will be good. I think the new owners will be a good fit for the company and I am thankful for that. I'll post more details once I find out what they are!

It's been very comforting to know that if they're bad, I can always leave and find another job. Thankfully, since I don't live paycheck-to-paycheck, I have the freedom to have options. If I had to, I could take my time finding a different job. I doubt I'd have any trouble landing a new job, but I realize that it's been a long time since I've looked for a job and the job market is tough. I know more than a few people who were out of work for over six months!! That said, I'm certainly not looking to jump ship because I genuinely like my company and my co-workers.

I should have a much better idea of what the general plan is by the end of the week. Until then...