The Job Story

"When I first met you I couldn't love anyone..., oh oh, but you stole my dreams, and you made me see that I could, walk under the sun and I can still be me and now I can't deny..., nothing lasts forever, but I don't want to leave, and see the teardrops, in your eyes..." -Hootie & The Blowfish- (Goodbye)



Good evening everyone.  Okay, I have a new gameplan for the next couple of weeks...  While I'm commuting to the new job, and then moving and getting settled in, I've decided that I'm going to try to post every day, with those being shorter posts than normal (and you didn't think that you could POSSIBLY find any great news on a Sunday night or Monday morning)...  This was the case when I moved to Las Vegas last August (for only the month of August as it turned out).  These posts will mainly keep you updated on where I'm at (with a few laughs thrown in of course), and after I get moved in, I'll get back to making you suffer through less frequent but longer posts...  Oh, and the football predictions of course - we're just over a month away!

Okay, so I flipped my sleep schedule this summer and lost some weight (which is code for, I repeatedly put off searching for a job for over a month)...  Rewind to a week ago Thursday, when I FINALLY made a few afternoon phone calls to the University of Texas at Austin, where I worked two years ago.  All three calls went to voicemail, which didn't bother me in the least, because I knew that I'd be making the trip up to Austin on Friday.  After stopping by a West Campus restaurant on Friday because I have a friend who knows somebody that works there, I made my way to the Human Resources Department on campus.  After getting squared away on what I needed to do to make sure that my online application and resume were up to date, I decided to stop by my old workplace to see my friends, as the afternoon was wrapping up.  The first person that I saw was my former boss, and after shaking hands and saying hi, he asked me, "are you looking for a job?"  (I was wearing a ballcap, a short-sleeved shirt, shorts, and my famous knee braces, so it's not like I was in "interview mode" - it was about 100 degrees on campus, and my intention was to make the stop at HR)...  Needless to say, I was stunned by the question, and answered, "YEAH..."  Long story short, he made a call back to HR, who then contacted me before I left campus and told me what I needed to do over the weekend (a list of several things, which included permission for a background check).

Skip to Monday, where the list of chores was in my rearview mirror, and I was visiting campus to do some paperwork.  I was told that because I had moved out of state (YES, that ONE MONTH MOVE to Nevada), my background check was going to take longer.  Otherwise, I would have been able to start the job immediately...  I was told that even though the check was being rushed, it could be Thursday or Friday before I heard anything.  I ended up returning home late on Monday night, and being greeted by the famous feline Freia (search her name, I've written about her).  Freia now walks up to my vehicle if she sees me pulling into the parking lot...  :)  Well, she followed me when I unloaded my things and walked up the stairs to my apartment, but she went past my floor and continued to the top when I reached my doorway.  Deciding to give my air conditioning a shot at cooling my apartment after having been gone all day, I thought that my best course of action would be to go and bother Freia...  I went up to the next floor and started petting her when the door across the way from me opened up (OH, and by the way, it's after MIDNIGHT now - OOPS)...  This is when I met my upstairs neighbor Jasmine, and her trio of cats that never go out...  :)  As stressed as I had been recently about finding a new job and planning my move up to Austin, meeting a new friend turned out to be just what I needed, and I ended up chatting with Jasmine for about THREE HOURS (because I didn't have ANYTHING job preparation or moving wise that needed to be done).  AHEM...  :)  Our conversation actually allowed me to RELAX for the first time in a while, as I told Jasmine the story that you just read above, and about how I was in a "holding pattern" while we waited for the background check to come in (they could find out how horribly I write or something ya know)...  ;)  Jasmine herself was taking a break from being productive, as she has been both searching for a job and preparing to graduate in a few weeks, so don't think that she's an awful person - the sabotage of productivity was mutual...  :)

Skip to the next morning, where I wake up at about 10:00 a.m., and receive a phone call 10 minutes later from the HR Department at UT, informing me that my background check was good and that I was "ready to go" and that I would be starting TOMORROW!  Uh oh...  Time to rush back up to Austin and buy myself a campus parking permit...  :P

And that's how I got my first job this time around in the ATX...  Have a great Monday and I'll see you sometime in the next twenty-four hours (definitely..., maybe..., I hope...)...  ;)