…just not the one I expected
I’ve been hired, contingently but on grounds I know I can make. The job I’ve gone with is in almost every way a step up from my last one. The one issue that’s messing with me is I have to relocate, and this has been a high-stress year with other moves in the family as well. At least the move I have to make is back in with my parents, since they live in an area my new job will accept.
I didn’t “go” with this job in the strictest sense. I actually had a verbal offer 3 weeks ago for a different job I could more easily get into, but the job I now have was offered in writing just 2 days after the last interview. That was before the earlier would-be employer could draft their written offer. I was a complete wreck emotionally during the window I had to get a counteroffer that never came, and as I type this I still feel restless.
While it’s no use crying over spilled milk, the job I lost would have kept me in my condo but exclusively working on ATMs in casinos. At that, my condo is close to most of their customers! This would be a far easier job to adapt to, and the company I would have worked for is a lot smaller. However, long-term stability would have been a concern since the number of customers could be counted on one hand. Both this job and the one I got have far less scary security policies than my past employer, though.
The job I did get is with a bigger company, with a far broader customer base that likely numbers in the low hundreds. Not as broad a customer base as my past employer’s mid-hundreds, but far more cohesive. I will actually be working the same region I did before, but will need to be more centrally located and work an all-weekends schedule. The equipment I will be working on is up a size from most of the equipment I worked on in my previous job: I’ll now be working on the heavy- and industrial-duty tiers primarily, where my previous employer was mostly light- and medium-duty in this industry.
What has me such a wreck is I’ll be downsizing, right after my grandfather did the same. Some heirlooms will be completely lost, and I’m doing what I can to find good homes for them. Admittedly, about 80 percent of what I will be throwing out is not valuable to anyone in the family, but I have a long history of throwing things out right before I need them.
I’m wanting to revisit my favorite places before I go, but that basically amounts to Washington Park (Anacortes) and Whatcom Falls. Today I went to Washington park, and I plan on going to Whatcom Falls tomorrow unless the pandemonium from relocation messes me up further.
I consider this shot at Washington Park a good form of closure. Kinglets are often tricky to get a picture of, but late in the morning a whole flock was right on the loop road’s edge in good light.
Hopefully in time this move will prove a good thing. If this were 2 years ago (where I had a landlord dispute and also didn’t have anywhere near as much of a hoard to clear out) I would be ecstatic at the chance to make this move for a job like this. Also, at some point in a few years, I might have had to make this move anyway as I am aging considerably and my parents even moreso. Hopefully I’ll get enough footing to be able to buy another condo close to my parents down the line, but first I need to sell my condo and the mortgage market may need me to rent for a few years before buying a condo again. (There are comparably priced condos down there, but mortgage estimators say I can’t afford the same on a new mortgage; even with the equity surge my condo has had over the past couple years.)
Joe R. Stead 