Roller Coaster!

Well, the job saga is now both over and just beginning.

I ended up finding out I was the final candidate for the family-run business. Long story short, I did an all day personality test for them that left me feeling yucky, pissed off and like I didn't want to work there AT ALL. There were two interviews and the women who ran them were aggravating. I'm sure that was the intent, but it worked. So I came home not wanting the job at all. They called me back in for a third interview. We worked through our mutual red flags. Last week they gave me an offer. Creat1ve Director title at my current salary. Great. Not ecstatic, but willing to give it a try.

Then in an email, my potential supervisor mentioned that office hours were 8-5:30. We'd planned for me to drop off Brex, but his daycare opens at 7:30 and it's a 40 minute drive. Ignoring the part where getting him THERE by 7:30 would be miraculous, I still couldn't get in by 8 AM. I sent a casual email asking if that was going to be an issue. I offered to eat at my desk or make up the hours in the evening. Four days later (Monday) they emailed back to say there is NO flex in the work hours. Apparently my potential supervisor had been wrestling with HR that whole time!

I wrote back and apologized that I'd assumed 'office hours' meant 9AM-5:30 or 6PM. In a good faith effort (to make them the bad guys not me!), I said it seemed tragic if this was going to fall apart over 15-30 minutes. Well, it fell apart! Basically, the entire experience reinforced every red flag we'd felt on both sides and in the end, it was a gracious, kind parting of ways.

I am ecstatic! My final day at my current job is today and I am so happy.

The net effect of all of this is that I'm launching out of the nest and doing freelance. It should allow me, and us, much more flexibility.

After a flurry of phone calls and letting people know I'm available, it's feeling like there's blood in the water! My co-conspirator's company is calling Thursday morning with a job offer (I'm planning to politely ask if we can revisit the conversation in 6-months). Freelance work for them sounds great, but I really want to give it a try for a while. I've got three potential freelance projects lined up including one with Chicago Woman.

That's not even counting any ongoing projects with my current company.

I already called a local co-working space and they just had two people drop out so they have space available. My computer and monitor belong to current company and Jrex has used his educational d1scount to order replacements.

What was the point of the long detour with Family-Run? I think it forced Jrex and I to really talk things through and prioritize decisions. It's brought us both on board the freelance concept. I don't know that I would have ever really pulled the trigger to do freelance, but now that it's been 'forced' upon me, I couldn't be happier.

Of course, the fact that I've had trouble sleeping the last two nights shows me I'm anxious underneath the euphoria, but that seems like a normal side effect of jumping off a cliff! Yee-hah!