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Fiery Millennials

Financial Independence from a millennial's point of view.

Career Update: Hurry Up and Wait

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tea_break
Warm­ing a stroop­wafel on my mug from Ecuador

The last two weeks at work have all fol­lowed an eeri­ly sim­i­lar pattern:

  • Get into work
  • Make break­fast (instant oat­meal and tea)
  • Attend dai­ly standup meeting
  • Make anoth­er cup of tea
  • Write blog posts/Twitter/Reddit
  • Play bags
  • More inter­net
  • Eat lunch
  • More inter­net
  • Chat with coworkers
  • More inter­net
  • Leave work

I’m not say­ing I’m bored, but I am say­ing I have a lot of free time dur­ing the day. If you’ve noticed me being a lot more engaged and respon­sive on Twit­ter, this would be why.

I came back from vaca­tion to find my (admit­ted­ly small amount of) work had been parceled out through the entire team. My job is now to find a new job.

Which would be great, if there were any new jobs being post­ed to the inter­nal job board. HR still has every­thing frozen, so nobody can do anything.

How­ev­er.….….….. I unex­pect­ed­ly got some good news on Thurs­day! My man­ag­er and I were hav­ing a brief chat since he missed our bi-week­ly one on one meet­ing. He asked if I had heard any­thing, and I told him I had­n’t heard did­dly squat from HR. I said I did­n’t even know if I was on the list to inter­view for the posi­tion, and he assured me I was.

I appre­ci­at­ed the vote of con­fi­dence from him but it was a bit out of char­ac­ter for him. I asked him how he could be so cer­tain. He told me “Oh, HR sent me a mes­sage say­ing you were on the list.” Nice to know they let him know before me. You know, the per­son who’s actu­al­ly the focus of this whole process.

I’m still thrilled! I made it past the first round of cuts! Woot woot!

Now I get to wait.

Wait for HR to con­tact me to sched­ule the interview.
Wait for the interview.
Wait to hear how the inter­view went.
Wait for my new and old man­ag­er to decide when my start date is.
Wait for the start date.

Jokes on Mega­Corp though. I’m an expert at hur­ry up and wait thanks to 6 years with the Air Force. It does­n’t mean I like it.

If/when I get the job, my start date will be before Jan­u­ary. They have a strong incen­tive to get me good to go as fast as pos­si­ble since the oth­er lady on the team is retir­ing at the end of this month. I would like to start soon­er rather than lat­er as their divi­sion gets the two weeks off between Christ­mas and New Years’ and mine cur­rent divi­sion doesn’t.

There’s also the rent. As of today, my rent jumped 60% to $1749 a month. Worst case sce­nario I pay the high­er rent on my apart­ment for two months if I get the job. If I don’t get this posi­tion, I feel bad about gam­bling and will prob­a­bly move to a cheap­er option some­where in town for a few months until I fig­ure out where I’m going. I’ll wor­ry about that when I get there though.

I’ll be sure to keep you all updat­ed when I move on to the next step! Thanks for all the hap­py thoughts and good luck wish­es thus far!

UPDATE! Mon­day, Novem­ber 7th 815a:

I have an inter­view! It’s sched­uled for this Thurs­day, Novem­ber 10th at 330 pm. It was wait­ing for me this morn­ing when I got into work and checked my email! YAY!!!

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Comments

  4. Wait­ing is the hard­est part, right?

    Your day sounds pret­ty sim­i­lar mine. Peo­ple think I’m nuts for want­i­ng to have a job where I’m more busy…who would­n’t want to get paid to have time to play on the inter­net, right? But the day goes by slow­er and I want to feel more pro­duc­tive dur­ing work hours.

    Con­grats on the firm inter­view date. That is super duper exciting!

    I actu­al­ly start­ed look­ing at some non-prof­it music operations/finance posi­tions over the week­end and got a lit­tle excit­ed about what’s out there, but I won’t let it bypass the upcom­ing fake-retired road trip oppor­tu­ni­ty. There will sure­ly be more posi­tions open­ing up next year. Knock on wood.
    TJ recent­ly post­ed…Demys­ti­fy­ing the Tax BracketsMy Profile

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  5. I can’t wait to hear how the inter­view goes! I’ll be pulling for you to land that job! 

    Yii­i­ikes sor­ry to hear about the rent. We had that hap­pen at our last apart­ment tran­si­tion. The rent was going up by $300/mo, so we moved to a cheap­er area of town to save hun­dreds of dol­lars a month. You still have to put up with the costs of mov­ing and liv­ing fur­ther away from your desired area, but it was worth it for us.
    Mrs. Picky Pinch­er recent­ly post­ed…What a Fru­gal Weekend!My Profile

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    • Thanks Mrs. Picky Pinch­er! I appre­ci­ate the good vibes! I thought about mov­ing but I did­n’t want to have to upend my entire life twice in a short time span.

      Reply

  6. No fair putting this big news in a post with a gluten-free stroop­wafel, because nor­mal­ly I’d be all, “Yay, stroop­wafel!” But instead I’m much, much hap­pi­er to know you’ll be inter­view­ing! (Poor stroop­wafel.) 😉 I hope they hur­ry for real so you don’t have to deal with that big jump in rent. I’ll be send­ing you good vibes Thurs­day! xoxo
    Our Next Life recent­ly post­ed…The Priv­i­lege of Retir­ing When We Want, How We Want // Three Case StudiesMy Profile

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    • Haha sor­ry! I went to the one place in all of Ams­ter­dam to get these stroop­wafels! Totes worth it btw.

      I think I should know some­time late next week if I get it. Eeks!!

      Reply

  7. There’s many days in my mega­corp I can relate to your day-in-the-life. Then, you get on some project(s) from hell, and no time to pee. This is part of why I’m on a mis­sion to bust out.
    Good luck in your job sit­u­a­tion, Gwen!

    Reply

    • I’ve been in the slammed stage. Only good thing I cans at about that is the day goes by super quick! Thanks for the luck!

      Reply

    • I’ve been in the slammed stage too. Only good thing I can say about that is the time moves by super quick. Thanks for the luck!

      Reply

  8. Con­grats. Hope you get the news soon­er rather than later. 

    I do have a ques­tion. I’m in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion in terms of being bored. Only instead of mine last­ing weeks, its been going on a year and a half now. Does it ever make you just not want to be there? I dread get­ting up in the morn­ing because of this. Sor­ry for the off-topic.

    Reply

    • Lit­er­al­ly every sin­gle day. A piece of my soul dies when I get into the office. I cope by find­ing some­thing else to do. I start­ed this blog almost 2 years ago because I was bored. Learn a new lan­guage, read books — any­thing you can do to dis­tract your­self from lack of work.

      Reply

    • Thanks FF! I’m cur­rent­ly read­ing up on STAR respons­es and what sce­nar­ios I want to use. Gets me out of an all day meet­ing that has noth­ing to do with me though so I’m happy.

      Reply

  10. Break a leg on Thurs­day! Break both (no, that real­ly does­n’t have quite the same ring to it at all)!

    60% increase? WT-everlov­ing‑F.

    P.S. My sis­ter is vis­it­ing and came bear­ing a pile of stroop­wafels. I warmed one on my cof­fee this morn­ing. And then ate anoth­er with­out warm­ing it at all. Stroop­wafels are evil, insid­i­ous crea­tures. I might have to eat anoth­er one just to be sure they learn their lesson.
    Mrs. BITA recent­ly post­ed…How to Com­bine Chase Ulti­mate Rewards PointsMy Profile

    Reply

    • Maybe I’ll just twist an ankle haha.

      Lit­er­al­ly every sin­gle per­son I know has called it exces­sive (to put it mild­ly) but it’s not ille­gal. Woo. 

      Yes. Stroop­wafels are bad. You should give them to me so they don’t harm the qual­i­ty of your life. I’m will­ing to sac­ri­fice myself!

      Reply

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