Post by colormist on Apr 25, 2014 15:18:56 GMT -5
Sorry I haven't been on the board in a while. I was checking in daily, but I had a major change in my life and I'm still trying to acclimate. I know someone contacted me a while back about visiting the board, but I haven't had time since I received that email. Fred just emailed me and reminded me that I still haven't visited. 
What happened was nothing extremely horrible, but a highly upsetting series of very stressful events that created a bit of a trainwreck of emotions.
My employer was grant-based--which means those who work in that office do not have jobs if we didn't have grant money. The grants they had eventually ran out of money and time and nobody really thought of going after new grants until it was too late. I worked there for two years and learned it was normal to receive 1 year contracts. While I was there, the contract durations gradually went down to six-month contracts, then to three-month contracts, then monthly contracts. Everyone in the office was stressing out and people started finding new jobs. However, because they didn't have funding for those jobs in the first place, they never filled those positions. I ended up doing the work of the people who left. I was doing the jobs of four people when my friend told me about an opening in her company. I applied, but it was only contract work. After the first interview, it sank in that it was contract work and I realized how awful tax season would be, so I declined the position. The new job wouldn't put me in any better of a position than where I currently was employed and still I would have no certainty for my financial future.
I sent a rejection letter to my friend's company to let them know I declined the position before they even decided on whether or not I would make the final round of interviews. (This always makes me happy--rejecting employers before they can reject me.) This clearly upset my interviewer and he called me to talk with me about my rejection letter. The next day he sent me an email saying they'd switched the position to a permanent full-time position and to call him. I called and he set up a second interview. They asked me how much money I wanted and asked me when I could start in the second interview. They didn't even ask if I wanted the job and didn't even negotiate the salary. It came with more vacation, I could work from home, and way more money.
Then I had to notify my current employer. I told my manager and she was not particularly happy, but she wasn't a crying sobbing mess like she was with the last person that left. There was no love lost between us. She told the director. The director is not a very nice man and he has a temper. He's told people in the office that he carries a concealed weapon with him into work. After he found out I was leaving, he interrupted a conversation I was having with a coworker by saying, "Shut up, traitor! You know what we do with traitors? Hang them." He then proceeded to give me the military history of punishments to traitors, which involved firing squads, hangings, etc. I walked away from him, but he followed. It was all extremely uncomfortable. I ended up reporting him to HR during my exit interview. I broke down into tears because of my stress level. The last thing I need to worry about was this trigger-happy not a very nice person shooting me because I got a new job. My manager had threatened us a few weeks ago to not interview for other jobs. That's NO way to keep employees!
Of course this all happens during tax season in the US. This is usually when I have to give the federal government at least $2k. One year it was $8k. That was a horrible year. This year it was $3k. Needless to say, we don't even have $1k. That was stressing me out and it was also my birthday. In the states you have to do your license and registration on your birthday (or the month before your birthday). I still hadn't transferred my title and plates over from living in Michigan and Michigan wasn't allowing me to continue pretending like I lived in that state. So, I needed to get my driver's license, title for my car transferred over to Pennsylvania, and new plates and registration, but I couldn't find the vehicle title. After hours searching the house and the internet to see who could possibly be holding my vehicle's title and having an hour-long panic attack, we just decided to buy a new car. Amazingly Subaru was able to find who held my vehicle title in about 10 minutes. I wish I could solve all my problems by buying a new car.
Last week, I started my new job. It's work-from-home, but they wanted me to come into their HQ office for the first few days to get to know everyone. Their HQ is in Michigan--back where I used to live. (Side note: had they hired me a few weeks EARLIER, I would have just got my registration while I was in Michigan.) When I finally got back home, last weekend, I had to buy a desk so I'd have a place to work at home. The only day I had free to get a desk was Sunday (as I was driving all day on Saturday) and I always forget Easter. I finally found ONE store open with a decent desk that only took me four hours to put together. I managed to get it put together before bedtime.
This upcoming weekend will be the first weekend in a really long time where I'll actually be able to relax. I am exhausted.
That's the short of it. It's been an insane month. I've always hated April (because taxes and Easter always falls on my birthday and then you can't do anything on your birthday because everything is closed) but this one was particularly awful. I think I liked Easter a lot more when Ducks, Chicks, and Bunnies did not contain BLUE and didn't have fructose in the ingredients.
I'll be happy when things get back to boring normalness.
What happened was nothing extremely horrible, but a highly upsetting series of very stressful events that created a bit of a trainwreck of emotions.
My employer was grant-based--which means those who work in that office do not have jobs if we didn't have grant money. The grants they had eventually ran out of money and time and nobody really thought of going after new grants until it was too late. I worked there for two years and learned it was normal to receive 1 year contracts. While I was there, the contract durations gradually went down to six-month contracts, then to three-month contracts, then monthly contracts. Everyone in the office was stressing out and people started finding new jobs. However, because they didn't have funding for those jobs in the first place, they never filled those positions. I ended up doing the work of the people who left. I was doing the jobs of four people when my friend told me about an opening in her company. I applied, but it was only contract work. After the first interview, it sank in that it was contract work and I realized how awful tax season would be, so I declined the position. The new job wouldn't put me in any better of a position than where I currently was employed and still I would have no certainty for my financial future.
I sent a rejection letter to my friend's company to let them know I declined the position before they even decided on whether or not I would make the final round of interviews. (This always makes me happy--rejecting employers before they can reject me.) This clearly upset my interviewer and he called me to talk with me about my rejection letter. The next day he sent me an email saying they'd switched the position to a permanent full-time position and to call him. I called and he set up a second interview. They asked me how much money I wanted and asked me when I could start in the second interview. They didn't even ask if I wanted the job and didn't even negotiate the salary. It came with more vacation, I could work from home, and way more money.
Then I had to notify my current employer. I told my manager and she was not particularly happy, but she wasn't a crying sobbing mess like she was with the last person that left. There was no love lost between us. She told the director. The director is not a very nice man and he has a temper. He's told people in the office that he carries a concealed weapon with him into work. After he found out I was leaving, he interrupted a conversation I was having with a coworker by saying, "Shut up, traitor! You know what we do with traitors? Hang them." He then proceeded to give me the military history of punishments to traitors, which involved firing squads, hangings, etc. I walked away from him, but he followed. It was all extremely uncomfortable. I ended up reporting him to HR during my exit interview. I broke down into tears because of my stress level. The last thing I need to worry about was this trigger-happy not a very nice person shooting me because I got a new job. My manager had threatened us a few weeks ago to not interview for other jobs. That's NO way to keep employees!
Of course this all happens during tax season in the US. This is usually when I have to give the federal government at least $2k. One year it was $8k. That was a horrible year. This year it was $3k. Needless to say, we don't even have $1k. That was stressing me out and it was also my birthday. In the states you have to do your license and registration on your birthday (or the month before your birthday). I still hadn't transferred my title and plates over from living in Michigan and Michigan wasn't allowing me to continue pretending like I lived in that state. So, I needed to get my driver's license, title for my car transferred over to Pennsylvania, and new plates and registration, but I couldn't find the vehicle title. After hours searching the house and the internet to see who could possibly be holding my vehicle's title and having an hour-long panic attack, we just decided to buy a new car. Amazingly Subaru was able to find who held my vehicle title in about 10 minutes. I wish I could solve all my problems by buying a new car.
Last week, I started my new job. It's work-from-home, but they wanted me to come into their HQ office for the first few days to get to know everyone. Their HQ is in Michigan--back where I used to live. (Side note: had they hired me a few weeks EARLIER, I would have just got my registration while I was in Michigan.) When I finally got back home, last weekend, I had to buy a desk so I'd have a place to work at home. The only day I had free to get a desk was Sunday (as I was driving all day on Saturday) and I always forget Easter. I finally found ONE store open with a decent desk that only took me four hours to put together. I managed to get it put together before bedtime.
This upcoming weekend will be the first weekend in a really long time where I'll actually be able to relax. I am exhausted.
That's the short of it. It's been an insane month. I've always hated April (because taxes and Easter always falls on my birthday and then you can't do anything on your birthday because everything is closed) but this one was particularly awful. I think I liked Easter a lot more when Ducks, Chicks, and Bunnies did not contain BLUE and didn't have fructose in the ingredients.
I'll be happy when things get back to boring normalness.
