and no I'm not talking about the new president getting ready to take office. I do not talk about politics to many people let alone to an audience of my (gasp) blogger followers.
I am talking about all the changes that start this week in our house in the burbs. I should probably back track a little just to get you all up to speed. If you know all this already skim up until you can see the typing become shaky.
I know I mentioned in past posts that my hours had been cut at work. A few weeks before Christmas I thought I was gaining a couple hours because we were restructuring a few different people's jobs. I was beyond thrilled and even told my supervisor it was an early Christmas present. Well folks that lasted all of 72 hours. I had worked an extra day to fill in for a coworker and then went home. I heard the phone ring, saw work on caller id and figured they had a question about something that had happened. No big deal right? WRONG. Dead Wrong!!!
I could hear my office managers voice shaking as she told me they had to cut my hours. She told me that they had also let two other of my co-workers go. She said business (as I knew) was beyond slow. She also told me that my hours as well as being cut had changed too. My heart feel to my stomach and I didn't know what to say or do. She told me she thought it was temporary and that I would eventually get more hours than I knew what to do with. We hung up and I started to sob and called my bff K. She would keep me sane until Dave came home with the kids. We talked, she did the pep talk thing. She told me not to break down in front of the kids and told me that we (Dave and I) would make it through. The irony of all this you ask? I had quickly typed up my resume just that morning and submitted to a company for a full time job. I knew I would never get that job but I had done it.
So Dave gets home I tell the kids to start their homework and tell Dave to follow me to our room. I shook as I told him. He looked at me in utter disbelief but in typical Dave fashion he said we would be fine. He told me we would get through it and reminded me of all the other things we had over come in the 11 years we had been together. I tried to believe him but was not nearly as certain as he was. I tried my hardest to act normal in front of the boys. I do recall even eating a little bit at dinner that night.
I did see an ad on line for a job that looked perfect for me. I polished up the resume and submitted it. A few days later the agency called me and asked me a few questions. She liked my answers and asked me to come in for an interview. I was terrified. The interview went relatively well and I realized she was impressed with all I told her. I took a few tests (typing, data entry, and MS Word) and was sent on my way. I went over to K's house feeling confident.
I called a few days later to touch bases with the agency. She assured me the office manager hadn't made any decisions as to who they wanted to interview. The Friday before Christmas the agency calls me and asks me to come in for an interview the following Tuesday.
I won't go into the lack of sleep that weekend. The day of the interview I get a call before 9am cancelling my 3pm interview. The weather is bad and the office manager doesn't want to put me under any stress in getting there (is she serious????). I am told she will be out of the office until the 5Th of January and she is not interviewing anyone else until she gets back. I go on with my life of working the new horrible schedule and spending time with family and friends for the holidays.
I go on my interview the 6Th of January. I leave unsure of how to react. I am confused and not sure what the office manager thought of me. I am relieved that it is done. I get a call from the agency asking me how it went. I tell her the interview was good and she informs me the office manager was beyond pleased with me (which did really surprise me). I get a call later that afternoon asking me if I can meet with the head doctor the next day for another interview. I say I will move mountains to get there.
I was beyond impressed with the doctor who interviewed me. She is sweet and accommodating yet has an air about her that you just have to respect. She asked me thought provoking questions but nothing that was hard at all. I felt comfortable. I left there feeling like I was a definite candidate for the job but not as confident as Dave was that I had gotten the job. He told me before I left for my interview the job was mine for the taking (he really can be a good cheerleader!).
I get to work after my interview and it was like a whirlwind. The agency calls me to see how I thought things went and asked if I was still interested. I say yes and she says she will be in touch. I don't expect to hear from her again that day. About an hour or so later my cell phone rings again and its the agency. I know now that I will have an answer and I begin to shake uncontrollably. I can't talk at the moment so I have to call her back. I do what I need to do but honestly I couldn't tell you what I did in the time between me hanging up with her and then calling her back. She tells me she is officially offering me the job on behalf of the office of.....I am flabbergasted and don't know what to say besides "YES, YES, YES!!!" I tell her I will go tell my office manager before she leaves for the day.
I give my immediate supervisor notice before I can even comprehend what I am doing. I am still shaking and I am full of every emotion you can think of. She tells me to tell the the office manager who actually calms my fear (somewhat) by telling me she's relieved because she is certain there are going to be more negative changes happening in the office and she fears she would have to let me go soon. I had proposed to staying on a few Saturdays a month and to copy charts still which she says fine too. She then tells me to go tell my husband.
Poor Dave, my biggest cheerleader is the third to know I got the job. He will tease me until the day I die about that but I know he knows I really had no choice. When I got home from work that night he reminds me that he promised me just a few weeks before that everything would be okay. I smile and tell him I know.
So Tuesday I start at my new office. I go from dealing with pediatric patients and their parents to dealing with patients who are mainly older than me. I will spend one week working at both jobs and it will be scary and sad and exciting all at the same time.
I wonder how long I will continue to work at SPA on a part time basis. I wonder if I will fade away from there or will those hours fade because someone else needs them. I wonder if I will forge the great friendships I that I made in my six years at SPA. I wonder if those friendships will survive now that I'm not there as often as before. I wonder how quickly I will feel comfortable at FPMG. I wonder how my family life will improve when I'm not secretly waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wonder how long it will take until we really see the financial difference in the steady hours not to mention the better pay I will be getting.
The only thing that I don't doubt in all of this God. The way this whole thing went down I can not equate it to anything else. Why else would I have wrote up my resume the same day my hours were cut? Why else would that have been the only job I truly wanted and then in the long run gotten? Why else did I feel at ease (for the most part) during all three interviews when I hadn't been on an interview for 6.5 years? I know that God was there the whole time answering my prayers to help keep my family afloat. This is why I am certain this job was meant for me.
Stay tuned for more changes that are in the works in our house in the burbs.....
This post is part of "Laughter Lives! Tuesday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check our their blog to read everyone else's "Laughter Lives!" posts.
