On July 29th I learned that my last interview had fallen through and there was still no sign of anything coming up. I was almost out of money and it looked like the run was over. I began to make plans to retreat back to Oklahoma until I could get back on my feet. I even went so far as to tell Kricket it was over and I was on the way out. Needless to say I felt devastated. Then all of a sudden the phone rings and it's the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. They wanted to interview me the next week. It was for a position with their Operations Training and Tech Assistance Program. I thought to myself, "Hell. It just so happens I've been doing that for the past 5 years!" So now there was a ray of hope. The only catch: the job was in Richmond. Big deal. A job's a job. To make it even more interesting, I got a call the next day from Celera Genomics in Rockville, MD that they wanted to inerview me the day after my DEQ interview for an Environmental Health & Safety Tech position. I thought, "Hmmm what the hell. Even though I've got zippy experience, I'll give it a shot."
I won't bore you with the details of my DEQ interview but let me just tell you, confidence can kill. It's okay to be confident about things that don't matter alot, like trivia and Halo skills. But in matters of money, work, and even love, always double-check things. I walked into that interview ready to get an offer and instead got blind-sided by the panel. The position was more for a consulting engineer and not a trainer like me. It was officially the worst interview I've ever had...period. I drove back from Richmond and started a mental checklist of what I would need to do to move out in 3 weeks. I was so down I completely discounted the Celera job as pointless. But since I made the appointment I should at least follow through...couldn't hurt.
Life is a funny animal. Just when you think it's a mammal, it'll lay an egg...a golden egg. I walked into that interview and was interviewed separately by four different people. At the end I was sitting there contemplating what I would eat for lunch and how many boxes I would need to pack my games, when the HR rep came back in and said the following:
"To be honest I'm not sure you would want this job. So here's something we can try. You can come in as a temp for a couple of weeks and see what you think. For that time I think 25$ an hour should be good. After that, you let us know if you want to stick around."
My expression can be described as follows: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
After the shock I realized I was esentially being offered a job. So I said "Hell Yeah!" (in a more appropriate manner of course). So there it was. A brass ring to grab on to. A chance to stay in the place I've come to enjoy. And I grabbed it like a crackhead on a pipe. Although things aren't quite that great with this job (I don't even want to mention the commute or the problems with the temp company), I have a job and will be off temp status on the 27th of this month. This means I'll be around to hang with the boys and play Halo 2 this November. I now plan to take up some less sedintary hobbies like camping, and hope to start fresh. As I learn new things for my career, I want to do an learn new things in my personal life as well. I have a huge checklist of changes I want to make and I've already started on them. Posting back up on this website is one of them. I'm not promising a New and Improved Super Site Extravaganza, I do promise to keep up with the weekly or occasional post and article and not vanish for 3 months. After all...not all the lazy cells have been purged from my system.
Thus ends the Unemployment Chronicles............................for now.