Jobbing Blogger
I'm blogging again.
This is mostly because my daily commute on the train now affords a large chunk of time to such things as listening to fellow passenger's rants about brown people, stories about their dogs, and of course, blogging.
I've been thinking about moving my blog over to Blogspot. This is mostly because it's what the cool kids are doing but mostly because I feel like a new blog locale, at least for me, represents a sort of punctuation on the many time periods of my life. Who could forget the requisite post-mission blog, or the I-don't-think-I'm-coming-back-to-the-Church blog?
You see, the latest life event I'm referencing is hidden in the second paragraph. Did you catch it? No? Let me help you: commute. I think the thing about continuing to work at Weber State after graduating is that it never felt like work. More often than not, I would tell Bruce, "Hey, I'm headed to school."
Sure.
Freudian slip.
Other psychological term that has left my brain since graduating.
Now, everything has changed.
The thing about these jobs after graduating is that there are so many strings attached--at least it feels this way. It's almost like finding a job after you leave school validates the very education you undertook. It feels like life hasn't really started, that is, real life hasn't started. Like all of your dreams are kind of in limbo. Sure, it shouldn't be so seriously earmarked as the most life defining thing to happen on par with marriage or whatnot but it is. At least, it feels like it does so naturally, it sucks when it doesn't happen. I think most of my readership agrees that finding a job is hard whether it be your spouse or yourself. Some of you might be looking, still. And maybe, you've been looking for longer than I have. But, I assure you, I am not gloating. I am not rubbing it in your face. With most things that happen in my life, I merely feel lucky.
By the time I got the formal job offer, I had put in for 150 jobs since graduating. The position at Weber State wasn't materializing, which was demoralizing and killed my soul a little each day when I came to work (I mean, school). I may be a little dramatic (surprise!).
I had applied for another position with the company I am working with (sorry, trying to retain some anonymity) but after sitting down to do the assessment, and doing the assessment really quickly and accurately, the manager decided to look over my resume.
"Analysis?" she asked. "Tell me more about that."
I had piqued her interest!
I told her about the almost 3 years at Weber State where I had completed this and that report, survey, or evaluation. Maybe it was my passion for data analysis and research or maybe it was my crazed waving about of my arms as I speak, but she wondered if I would be interested in an analyst position instead.
Yes! A thousand times yes!
I think I applied for every analyst position that was even remotely related to my work experience and time and time again, I kept getting rejection emails. I blame this on the psychology degree scaring away the business degree recruiter types. However, I assure you, I have the analytical mind of someone with a business degree but the human, sociable, and empathy skills of someone from the social sciences--zing!
A week and a half later, I was in a conference room for the start of my two hour final interview in front of two panels. I don't think I'm the type of person to ever walk out of an interview confident that I got the job. I would rather be pleasantly surprised.
And I was.
I think the biggest thing about this analyst job is that it's what I wanted to do. Sure, I could have been a clinician of some sort, but numbers seem more appealing to me (curse you, Asian genes!). The most gratifying part is that towards the latter end of the 150 jobs, I was just trying to get ANY job. And it's a hard place to be in when you REALLY need a job but you also want to hold out for the job you deserve (not the pretentious kind of "deserve," but you get what I mean?). I was just trying to get my foot in the door and if luck would have it, my foot is in the door and I am at the table of the career of life (dramatic). It means a lot to have an office with my name on the door (sure, I share it with 3 other analyst but when we move to the new building, I'll have my own) and keys! I feel like Mufasa talking to Simba: this is my kingdom, everything the light touches, all that jazz.
So, the commute.
It's the train to and from Salt Lake for me.
And I like it.
Some people think it's crazy or the commute is too long, but I don't think they realize how much this job means to me; how much it means for our lives. I don't think they know the heartache of rejection email on top of rejection email.
I'm extremely lucky.