This is the long-awaited penultimate step in the attempted job-jump I've been hinting at and/or throwing my hands up over since last fall. Of course even the most recent positive developments have been a bit on the farcical side. A week ago yesterday, the 10th, I received a work e-mail announcing that one of my colleagues had accepted a new position elsewhere and there would be a going away luncheon for him on Friday the 21st. I have nothing against this particular colleague (don't work directly with him very often or know him very well, but he seems like a solid dude) and I'm happy for him, but I admit it did seem a bit like salt in the wound to know someone else was not only capable of but well and truly living out the career-upgrade scenario, while I seemed to be stuck in limbo. Fortunately, less than 24 hours later, I finally heard back from the HR guy I'd been waiting on, and he proposed an interview time of 9:00 a.m. on ... Friday the 14th.
But then, of course, came Pax. When the winter storm started churning up from the South on Wednesday, I e-mailed the HR guy to make sure that he had my cell phone number just in case roads were impassable, his office was closed, or any other set of circumstances impacted the interview and I needed to be notified. The storm was supposed to blow through overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, and the interview wasn't until Friday, but stranger things and all that. To my chagrin, the HR guy took the opportunity to ask me if it might not be better to reschedule the interview for some time other than Friday, just to be on the safe side. Thankful that the entire exchange was happening via e-mail, which filters out my teeth-grinding and face-palming, I responded that of course that would be no problem, as I was wide open from Tuesday through Friday of the following week.
I was a little worried it would take another few weeks or months to reschedule, but luckily his counter-offer came through almost immediately: Tuesday (today!) at 11:00 a.m. So again, if all goes as it should (though I note with some foreboding that an inch or so of snow is being predicted for Monday night), I'm on my way there. I have no idea how long it will be after the interview process for me to get any kind of offer or "thanks but unfortunately" to settle the matter once and for all. But be assured, when I know, you'll know.
So originally I was going to take a personal day on Friday for the interview, and then come in to work today to kind of make up for it. I had even gone so far as to inform both my government boss and my contracting boss of this arrangement (though of course I provided a non-interview reason for needing the day off) and gotten approval from both of them right before I e-mailed the HR guy about inclement weather scenarios and he quickly rescheduled the interview. It turned out to be just as well, because the snow kept coming and coming all day on Thursday, and on Friday both the federal offices and the office where my interview was supposed to be had two-hour delayed openings. In the end I went in to work on Friday, you'll recall. And I'm here today, although almost no one else is, nad certainly no one is asking me to get anything done today. But I'll claim it as a full eight hours on my timesheet, thanks very much. And then tomorrow, rather than burning eight hours of personal leave, I do believe I'll use one of my floating holidays. Normally there would be some concern and calculation involved in weighing using the time now as opposed to later in the year on Columbus Day or Veteran's Day or some other disparity between federal and corporate paid days off like that. But if all goes well, I won't even be in this job come October (come much sooner, I should certainly hope) so I might as well save my accrued leave time to cash out when I give my notice. These are the little gambles that make life interesting!
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