Tag: work

BUSY, SO BUSY

So the blog is neglected. Apologies again.

I start my new job tomorrow, and decided to sign up for an online class in AutoCAD, because it will be helpful, and while I was at it, I added an Excel class because while I’m fairly comfortable with the basics, I know it can do much more than I know. So, yeah, this is me overscheduling myself yet again, but at the same time it’s kind of cool to be a 61 year old grandmother of three and get hired to work with a bunch of young engineers and get to mess around in AutoCAD. My new boss is around my son’s age, I think, and he’s very, very nice. I think it’s going to be a great fit.

Speaking of great fits, Gidget is absolutely fabulous, dahlinks. She’s fit into the household as if she’s always been here, and I couldn’t be happier. I confess I was a bit nervous about adopting an adult dog, it’s a bit of a leap of faith, but OMG, she’s just adorable and even the cat has conceded she’s okay. Everybody sleeps on the couch together.

And walking her is just so delightful! She’s so excited by OUTSIDE! She goes up and down the stairs like a champ now, and everything in the big wide world is just so AMAZING! SQUIRRELS! BIRDS! A man delivering newspapers! She trots along with her tail waving and her head just swiveling around, taking it all in. I’m guessing that in her old life she didn’t get a lot of leash time, though she has had some training.

But she loves her home – if I’m in my home office she’s on the couch. I keep saying I’m going to get rid of it, but like the living room throw pillows, she’s claimed it as her spot.

She follows me everywhere.

And of course it’s the holidays so planning time off and trying to squeeze in a trip to Epcot for the International Festival of the Holidays is challenging, but we just have to do it. It’s not Christmas if we don’t see La Befana!

And I’ve been spending money a bit like a drunken sailor, but I’m done now. My life is one big “deferred maintenance” situation; my wardrobe is tragic, I wear the same jeans to work damn near every day. Yay for being able to wear jeans to work damn near every day, but still. I needed clothes, so I did more than a bit of Black Friday sale shopping, and bought jeans in colors at half price, cute boots at OMG, like 66% off, and oh, yeah, a TV for my bedroom.

I couldn’t help it, it was SO cheap! A 43″ 4K UHD fancy Samsung for $229 and free delivery?? Merry Freaking Christmas to ME, and Thank You Costco! TV in bed with tea and the dogs is our new evening indulgence. And of course I have Disney Plus, I was “invited” to sign up ahead of time as a certified Disnerd. I love it, and it’s going to take me forever to get through all the content, between all the other things going on in my life.

I was not watching The Simpsons, that just happened to be on the splash screen for Disney +

The drunken sailor spending on myself is definitely done, from here on all spending will be on the deferred home maintenance issues, like the moldy carpet on my balcony and the decrepit appliances in the rental house. Fun spending is over, but honestly, there’s nothing else I need. I truly feel blessed to be where I am.

Validation. It feels so good.

So, I’m going to try to tell this story without being too specific as to the parties/business involved, while sharing enough that it makes sense.

I work in an industry that employs tons of contractors in all sorts of roles; I am one. A contractor is not the same as a temp; I’ve been in my present position for over 4 years now with no end in sight. We work side-by-side with employees, often performing exactly the same jobs (without the corporate demands, but also the corporate perks). I contract through a very nice company that gives me decent benefits and an hourly rate that equals a good, though not spectacular, annual salary. It’s fine, and in 4 years no employee slot for my job was ever available. I was okay with being a contractor, and I’ve had nothing but positive-to-glowing feedback about my job performance.

Then over the summer, an employee position became available. When the job was posted, it very precisely described what I do, what I had been doing for 4 years. I even asked my supervisor if the position she was planning to fill was for what I did, and was told yes. So I applied. And waited. And waited.

I finally interviewed for the position, aka the job I’d been doing for FOUR years, and it was an uncomfortable interview. Three people who had worked with me for 4 years conducted it, and treated me like they had no idea who I was, and it all just felt “off” and uncomfortable. I left the interview feeling off balance, like something weird just happened.

Weeks passed, I heard nothing. Then my supervisor finally called me into a conference room, where I learned that the job was given to an inside applicant who was (as my supervisor expressed it to ME) “A paralegal!” Um, so am I, with a degree from a legit university and 25+ years of serious experience, which she does not have.

Okay, so…”She’s working on her master’s degree in something!” Well good on her, but it has nothing to do with the skill set for THIS job.

Then, the deciding factor: “She’s so warm and bubbly!” WHAT THE ACTUAL CHICKEN FRIED FUCK??? Is this a job skill for this technical position now? And I’m also WARM, goddammit! People like me!! I’ve had nothing but positive feedback for the last four years. Apparently I lack the bubble? Something….

So, New Girl started in the job, and she is indeed tall, pretty, warm, bubbly, a natural connector and corporate type, and I really do like her as a person. And the other participants in the interview came to me privately and said that this wasn’t right. Then I started getting unsolicited feedback from damn near everybody in our group that, yeah, she’s warm, bubbly, and doesn’t know the first thing about the job, and is basically being trained from scratch.

She has had more intensive training than anyone on this team ever received in the years I’ve been sitting here. (I got two days of training from a chick who I swear was high, she’s gone now.) But she is 20 years younger than I am, so there is that. And before you say EEOC, let me remind you this is Florida. Yes, I may have had a valid case, but yeah, because I’m actually a paralegal with 25 years of experience, I can write the rebuttal to a complaint for them: We prioritize candidates from within as many companies do, she’s (barely) over 40 too, so no discrimination. Yeah, not worth fighting that.

But, PLOT TWIST!! A woman who worked in our group as a contractor and found an escape to another team, after interviewing six or eight times for a job in this group, told me there was an opening in this other group. She hounded the living shit out of me until I sent my resume to the manager. I interviewed last Tuesday. I was offered the position on Friday. He’s already said that when the current hiring freeze is lifted, if we still like each other the position will become permanent.

And the icing on the schadenfreudelicious cake? The supervisor who didn’t give me the job I’d done for four years is on vacation out of the country. She’ll find out about this when she returns next week. I can’t wait for the screams from the other groups we work with, because I’m actually kinda a go-to person. She’ll find that out when I’m not here just quietly taking care of shit.