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Job hunting in the time of Covid


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It turned out she wanted an outsider because she is also a bit of an outsider and wants to force a bit of a cultural change. I had what I call my career rumspringa about 5 years ago where I picked a very different path and stuck it out for 2 years before coming back. I ended up hating it but I learned a lot of new skills and also that our organization was kind of dysfunctional. (Granted, most of them have a certain level of dysfunction just because they are run by humans, but ours had a couple of toxic people in key positions. I finally decided that I would only have to put up with them for a few more years and came back to work that I enjoy. Turned out to be a good gamble because the last of them is retiring by the end of this year. My current manager is also pretty toxic but he's career limited. He won't grow any higher because he has a limited mindset.) In any event, I was the ideal candidate for her because I actually have outside experience, and I told her I completely welcomed the opportunity to change the culture because I see some of the same problems. So I think she was able to argue my past experience. All the managers know I'm a good lead and have been disappointed that I had refused to go back to that role when asked before. This is the only lead role I was willing to take, and I had a lot of friends on the team asking me to apply.

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  • 1 month later...

Have you started the new job, Destiny? How’s it going?

I’ve been feeling deflated. I get interviews, but I’m either up against former VPs of Insurance companies or the jobs are $15k less per year, and I can’t do that. I was close to taking one because they paid all insurance, I wouldn’t have union dues, and in general the benefits package would’ve  been close, but there was still a 5k gap that we couldn’t bridge.

Last week the company I most want to work for posted a job as a compliance auditor. Which is very similar to my current job, only right now I basically audit individual cases for any insurance company, and this would be auditing processes for a single company. But it’s a perfect fit. I’m really hoping it works because I’m at the end of my rope with all this. I’m hoping to at least hear something next week. 

But of course as soon as I am waiting for an email, everyone I know decides to email me about something.

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I did start the new job. Its interesting. Manager wants a culture change, but she's admittedly not very accessible and distracted by her other team that gets much more visibility. I don't interface with them much, though, so I'm not sure if the issue is that they are so high visibility or maybe they're not that good? She has largely delegated a lot to me and has kind of jerked me around a bit, which she has been apologetic about, but ultimately it looks like I will be doing a lot of fending for myself and my team. I really like my team with one exception and I think I am beginning to win them over. Its also a high visibility position for me and that's something I need right now to move to the next level. Unfortunately right now I am not as technically involved as I would like but I think that is part of getting up to speed. I'm also not as interested in doing grunt work anymore. I would rather be more of an architect than a ditch digger, but I realize that occasionally I may need to dig a ditch or two.

I'm realizing that the culture change is needed because my co-lead is an old school guy with a closed mindset and has a chip on his shoulder about his distrust of management. When I first showed up, he tried to dump every one of his shitty tasks on me with the argument that I lead 9 people and he leads 3, and I basically told him no, we work together. This isn't my first rodeo and this isn't hazing. He doesn't like that I'm not a doormat, and he's occasionally tried to leave out details that made me look bad, but its pretty clear my team likes me and that the manager probably realized what happened. Really lousy communication, so that's something I can help with.

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So I officially need a job. Trevor is going back to school full-time starting in January, so he's going to take over the bulk of homeschooling (after I plan and schedule everything out for Noah) and stay at home to do school stuff. 

We're still going to be buying a house a moving to Austin in 2021, so I'm actually tempted to start with a part-time job in Austin. One of Trevor's classes includes an in-person lab in San Marcos, so he'll have to travel there at least one day a week anyway. If I could snag a part-time job with a set schedule in Austin, we can spend half the week there and half here, and that should also allow us some time to start some of the demo work on the house. 

We're also looking at taking in "roommates". We have a friend who was forced to move in with her parents last year. She's a single mom, and she and her son have to share a room at her parents' place because they don't want the dog to have to give up his room. And they're toxic. Last week they told her son that he was being kicked out of their house for being disrespectful, and they actually literally locked him out in the cold until his mom got home. Trevor, in particular, has a real soft spot for them because much of the same happened to him and his mom when he was a kid. They were forced to share a room in a 4 bedroom house and subjected to a whole bunch of crazy restrictive rules and curfews and bedtimes (like a 6PM curfew and 9PM bedtime...for him AND his mother). Plus, her parents refuse to help her monitor her son's virtual school while she's working, so he's just been logging on and going back to bed for over a month now. 

So if we do a half-Austin half-Houston living thing, we might invite them to come live here. Her kid and Noah can share a bedroom. They're the same age and in the same scout patrol in our troop, and Noah's room is plenty big enough. We can move her into Luke's room, and Luke can move into our room. He already spends half his nights in there with us as it is, but our room is also big enough to put a twin bed in as well. We're thinking that we can make this work for a year. Help them both out and split all the living expenses to allow us to save some for the move and renovation. 

But first...I need to update my resume. And I don't wanna. It hasn't been updated in 6ish years(?), and I know that I should add a lot of my volunteer positions and whatnot to it because I honestly have done more large leadership projects as a volunteer than I ever did as a paid employee, but I just really don't have it in me to figure it all out and write it all out. :(

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Break it into chunks. Like, start with a list of positions, and be done. Later, go in and fill in dates and such and take a break. Then go add details for a couple, and take a break. 
 

The company I really want to work for had posted the Compliance Audit Analyst position and took it down quickly. They then added a Compliance Analyst position, which is definitely lower, so I thought maybe they had promoted someone to the Audit position and I applied for the regular analyst job as well. Today I got an email to schedule an interview for the Audit Analyst position. It’s Thursday at 1. I’m super psyched. I really need to get away from my current boss, and I feel like things are going to end badly with my current job soon. I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll be one of the people told to stop reporting for work as soon as I give notice, whenever that happens. Hopefully sooner than later. The work anxiety is so bad that it’s hard to even function. And I also really want this job because it’s auditing internal processes and not dealing with the public. I’m over that.

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Thanks. I got an ADA request in to HR a few weeks ago that’ll make it harder to fire me, and I have a union, but my supervisor wants me gone so it’s just a matter of holding on until I can land somewhere else.

She started berating me today and brought up that I’m saying there are medical issues involved but since I haven’t asked for an accommodation she’s going to have to do something disciplinary. I was able to shut it down by telling her that I had submitted a request on November 11. Then it was stunned silence.

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She has no clue what she’s doing. Whenever I have a question for her, she has to go to other supervisors for answers. Every time. And I suspect it isn’t just me, since we lost one other person from our team already this year, and she was adamant that she wasn’t leaving for 5 years. No other team in our division has lost anyone this year.

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Had interview #1 today. It was a phone interview and I have no clue how it went. I think it went well. Last time with the same company, the recruiter didn’t get into salary, this one did. There are also two positions, and they’re both specifically in my field. So hopefully it works out, before my current job kills me.

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Just now, Darth Kid said:

You: Work is so toxic.

Also You: Microwave fish in the break room at 9 AM.

 

2016-12-02-1480719823-2522186-EvilKermit_Header.jpeg

Ha. I kinda wish we were in the office so I could.

 

I have a second interview on Friday! This one is a video conference, and will hopefully be the last one. I’m really good at interviews when I can see people, and the job is a perfect fit for my current position, only with better benefits, and better atmosphere, and less dealing with the public. 

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Interview seemed to go well. We got off topic a little bit, but I was able to do some homework on the manager before the interview (thank you social media!) and I know a lot about the company, so I was able to focus on the exciting things about the company that I knew he would want to talk about. He interrupted me a few times to say that he really liked my answers, so I feel really good. Unfortunately, they're interviewing through next week and then the holidays will hit so it'll be January before I'll get a potential final interview. But I feel good about it, this was the actual hiring manager and I feel like I connected with him, we laughed together and shared our excitement about the social justice moves the company is making, and it was good.

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IF anyone wants to send prayers, good juju, and what have you my way... I KNOW I already have my dream job, and I am much better off than a lot of people in the world right now-- but I am always under pressure to book the next job, and the next one, etc. As of now, I don't have anything lined up for 2020... I am up for a couple things, and it's not easy to be positive right now... so happy thoughts are appreciated.

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Sending you super good jujus!

I myself have started to think about playing the lottery as an out. I've bought four tickets. Not one single number yesterday. It's a waste but it gives me hope. Because I'm not sure of my future. Because I won't go in to teach they're cutting my paycheck (furlough a day a week) and that's okay but I get money stresses. 

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I am desperate to get to the actual mountains so I have already applied to a few jobs there, but they are fiercely competitive.  This year I got a new boss and it has become totally clear she wants to bring in her own people next year.  School administrators are, unlike teachers, on year-to-year contracts.  Anyways, I think she likes me, but I don't know if it is because I am the most tech savvy member of her team and I am supporting multiple schools in that regard (an asset that is unlikely to be as highly regarded next year) or she actually likes me.  Either way, I think I need to start looking at non-mountain jobs...ugh....

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I hope the hunt goes well.

Our union is negotiating our next contract that starts at the beginning of the next fiscal year. We already lost raises this year. Now a 4% pay cut plus 1 cost saving day per month, which means basically an 8.6% pay cut next year, plus a continued hiring freeze. More work, less pay. At the end of three years, they’ve agreed to bring us back to our current pay rate.

I need out, and I’m ready to take just about any job. If I’m looking at that kind of pay cut, I can accept a lower pay that’ll be a better job with raises.

The company I interviewed with also posted a claims job, too. Hoping for compliance, but claims should be possible.

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Well, it looks like I’m skipping the first two levels of interviews for the claims job. Doing it online tomorrow, and hopefully they’ll offer me a job soon. Of course I have to survive COVID but that’s cool.

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