The job thing...

Before I talk about my job situation, be sure to check all the other updates (they go all the way back to Christmas 2008). You will have to click "older posts" at the bottom of the page to view the Christmas pictures. Just so ya don't miss anything!

Alright people, I don't know who reads this blog or where you stand in your faith or whether you have a faith or not... but when you here this story it is pretty hard to argue that it is not a "God thing".

As you all know I was given a 30 day notice at the end of December telling me that my job would be deleted on Jan 31st. Well, as I'm sure you know, this is not a good time to be out of work as jobs are getting cut left and right.

So I went into panic mode. I remember what it was like before I got the training officer job and, financially speaking, being jobless is just not viable. One option was going on unemployment... but I would only be eligible for about $130 a week. Not enough by far! So what the heck was I gonna do?

Well, I simply talked to God and told him that I trusted him to provide for me and my family and asked Him to open a door for me. I talked to my friends and family and asked for their prayers about the situation. With my mom I was a bit more specific... I told her that February 1 was kind of D-day for me. If I didn't have something lined up by that point we would possibly be in a bad financial situation. So my mom and I prayed about that February 1st date.

To give you some perspective about the job market in Tulare County... we have a 15% unemployment rate and of that 15%, 20% are in my age group with degrees. So needless to say I was worried. To add to my anxiety I worked right next to the unemployment office (the PC name for it is the Workforce Development building) and they had a job for grunt work at the Land-O-Lakes plant in Tulare... these were production jobs making like $13 an hour. Almost 2,500 people showed up to interview... the line was across the street. OH MY GOODNESS... that gave me a picture of the unemployment issues in my area (and many of them looked like they had degrees... not sure if they were just snazzy dressers or not but they looked the part). So, yeah, I was worried.

I did all that I could. I applied to all sorts of jobs... some I wanted, others I didn't but they would have put food on the table. In the mean time there were even lay offs at Courtney's work. Luckily Courtney was not affected but it shows that even the health care industry is not untouchable. Overall I think I applied for somewhere between 30-40 jobs in under three weeks. I heard back from two.

One was working for a non-profit (taking a 20% pay cut) working to get gang members into jobs in the bad areas of the county. Not a fun job and not one that I was looking forward to. The other was a Community Relations Director at a senior assisted living facility. I figured I didn't have much of a chance seeing as I didn't have a TON of sales or marketing experience.

Well, I sent my application for the Prestige job (the sales and marketing job) on January 7th. I got a phone call from the executive director of the facility, Helen, on Monday the 12th. We set up an interview for the 13th. I went and did a really good job. She told me she was impressed and that she would set up an interview with me with the corporate marketing director and that I was to call her on Monday the 19th. I called on Monday and was told that she would call me on Friday. "Oh great" I thought... she is going to give me the run around and has found somebody with better qualifications. I gave it 20% odds that she would call... but she did! She set up an interview for me on Monday the 26th with the corporate director, Carrie. I went to the interview and thought it went pretty well (though the breath mint I had before left me with cotton mouth and probably bad breath). Things were going well until my last question... "What is your timeline?" Helen responded that she would be out of the office a lot over the next few weeks and still needed to interview some people and so she was thinking by mid to late February. Ugh... that timeline wasn't going to work for me. Disappointed I left the interview feeling pretty crappy, even though I knew I had done well.

So I decided to go the route of substitute teacher... which was my backup. I wasn't too excited about that but, hey, its $100 a day which is better than nothing. So on Tuesday, the day after the interview, Cathy and I went to the office of education to get fingerprinted. My appointment was at 10:15 and Cathy's at 10:30. We paid our $66 and sat down to be scanned. Cathy got called up first and got half was through when the machine froze. It took them about 20 minutes to get it unfroze. During that time my phone rang... it was Helen!! She offered me the position! It was January 27th, four days before D-day and GOD had provided me with a job. A job that pays me basically the same as my training officer job with the potential of more with bonuses!

So I went back into the office of ed and asked if I could have my $66 back because I was just offered a job and they said yes and gave me back my money. Think about it... Though my appointment was before hers, Cathy got called up first. If I had been called up first or the machine hadn't froze I would have lost that money. God not only gave me a job but he also gave me my $$$ back! How awesome is that?!

So, pending a background check (got livescanned on 1/28), reference check (not worried about it), and drug test (REALLY not worried about it unless soda and french fries have been made illegal) the job it mine. Hopefully I'll start the second week of February, giving me a week vacation!

God is good!

To check out the company I will be working for go to their site:
http://www.prestigecare.com/index.php