Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012
8:49 p.m.
<< [ Oh My God How Did I Get To Be So Fucking Great? ] >>
It's a nonprofit spread across three countries, the biggest company I've ever worked for. They just scored a contract with a nationwide hospital chain and, as such, have a huge influx of patients. They're looking to expand to where I live, and they're looking to do it with qualified people, yesterday. I've been passed over for a promotion twice now, and I've stopped growing as an instructor, which I don't like. I'm also drastically underpaid despite our company being one of the most expensive providers. I love where I am and I love what I do, but I have a career to consider and blah blah blah I am being a strong independent money-grubbing bitch.
Not that the process has been without strife. I'm going to miss my babies so much. Losing children always breaks my heart, and I've had all of mine, raised them as mine, for a year now. Boyfriend keeps insisting it's just a job; I need to be less attached. Working on it. Maybe I'll get there some day.
Anyway, I'm finally standing up for myself, and I strode right in to their towering office building right on time. I left myself an hour and a half for a drive that should have taken forty minutes, but didn't account for the first rain since Spring or boyfriend needing a ride to mass transit, so I ended up on the dot to an event I like to be ridiculously early for. A recruiter caught me at the elevators, though, and told me in her melodic chattering that there had been a mix-up with the conference room bookings and they were about fifteen minutes behind schedule.
I followed her high, pleasant voice through the hall and down into their third-story office. In the lobby (bright red) I talked to an English gentleman interviewing for the same position as me. Much older, forties or fifties with gray hair, a quiet vibrance and a wide smile. He was involved in children's television in England, and when he moved here, started doing daycare. We talked about the benefits of 1:1 in-home sessions, and the recruiter danced back in and declared it "so lovely" that we were talking because "we're hiring for so many positions, there's no competition here". A shy little flower of a girl slinked in, eyes on the floor, and and when she remained quiet even after I introduced myself (instigator, always), the recruiter declared again, airily, "oh, shy, aren't we?"
I asked what she loved best about her job and she said "that I get to talk to people all day". More chitchat, and the recruiter drops that they've "hired 300 people and are looking to hire 300 more" to which my father said later, "Are there even that many qualified people in your field in the area right now?" Recruiter also sing-songs that Fridays like this are crazy because they're looking to hire so many people right now, and moments later, a hurried, ruffled clinical director struts down the hall and looks to Recruiter, his palms out, for who's next. They start sifting through the pile of resumes for mine, and I pull an extra copy from my folder because I'm a prepared bitch like that. Director leads me down to a conference room that's "now a work room", he says, because they've expanded so much lately. 20 minutes or so of him ooh-ing and aah-ing over my resume and asking me to tell him about this thing, that thing, what to do in this situation. He told me he could tell I was energetic and I wouldn't have any problem being silly and playful with kids, and that he thought I'd fit right in with the culture there. He shuffled me back out to the lobby where I met a couple more shrinking violets for a brief moment, then talked to the second recruiter who phone screened me. She greeted me with a big smile and told me to sit down. "Anywhere?" I asked, and she said yes, anywhere, and that "there's a certain psychology to chair selection but I have no idea what it is." I told her about the article I'd read on chairs in Times Square; how they set up thousands of chairs in the square and video cameras to record people, and every person that sat down, every single person who sat down, had to move the chair a little bit first. No one could just sit down. I watched myself rack up points; could see it right there on her fucking face.
We chatted about this and that, she said this field doesn't tend to pay much but it's so satisfying. I told her I was pretty sure it was Confucious who said, "If you choose a job you love, you will never work a day in our life." and again, I saw the points tally over her head. She stood up, beaming, and asked if I could start October 22nd. "I wish I could," I said, sad, "but I really need to give 2 weeks notice." She smiled wider, which I didn't think was possible.
"No, no, that's great that you're so conscious of that. Our next training after that is November 12th."
"November 12th would be perfect."
"Well then plan on starting November 12th. I'm gonna tell them that if they don't hire you, I'm going to quit."
I bid everyone goodbye, giddy, and got a job offer six hours later.