Well, I’ve finally got a new job!
I can’t even begin to express how very relieved and happy I am to be back amongst the employed again. Even if the work becomes stressful, it won’t be a patch on the stresses of knowing that you are steadily and inexorably going broke.
Of course before I went and told the whole wide Internet that I had a regular, paying gig lined up, I had to tell all of my folks. I called my parents, Joel’s mom (who’d tipped me off that this job was available and told me who to contact) and my sister. Joel was still home when I got back from my interview yesterday, so he was the first-first to know that things went well. My new boss called me this morning to let me know that the background check checked out just fine and to let me know where and when to go for training.
So I’ve told my parents, sister, and mother-in-law, Facebook friends, and now posted about it here, but I feel like I didn’t finish telling everyone about it because I was thinking, “I’m still a phone-call short.” I felt like I should be telling Grandma about the good news, as I always used to call her whenever I had anything new going on. I think that we also just used to always talk more frequently during springtime anyway, as there were gardening plans to discuss and notes to compare on what birds were back, what was blooming, what critters had resurfaced, what the weather was doing. We’re big springtime people in my family. My mom is one of the most avid gardeners I’ve ever known, and Grandma had the touch, too. I wish I had comprehensive photos of her roses at the San Jose house. They were impressive and glorious.
Anyway, I was wishing I could have shared the good news with Grandma today and then just shot the bull about humming birds, home-improvements, and family gossip, like we always used to.
I’m extremely grateful that my mom is taking up the mantle of Family News Dissemination. Now I hear from her about my cousins’ prom dresses, my great-aunt’s anemia, and the passing of a barely-known and very strange great uncle.
About the job: I’m going to be working as a cashier at the new downtown grocery. I’m actually pretty stoked, because downtown has needed a regular grocery store for ages, so I’m glad to be involved in something so immediately useful. I think it ought to be a pretty interesting job, and I bet I’ll end up seeing a lot of my old co-workers, clients, and other folks that I regularly interacted with when I was a City employee.
Congrats on being gainfully employed. I’m surprised that you need an interview and background check to work a cash register these days. Back in the early 80’s, freshman year in college, I worked the night shift (11pm-7am) as a service station pump jockey. Nights were mostly big rigs fueling up with 400 gallons of diesel. It was also a time when most people paid cash (those little green bits of paper). I would handle $20K cash, average, during my shift. As I recall they was no background check, and the “interview” amounted to a test of change making aptitude. Times have changed, and not for the better.
Anyway, it’s good that you are in a place where you’ll be seeing lots of people you know — networking is the best way to find work. Eventually someone will probably give you a tip on a cubicle monkey type job — if that’s what you’re after.