First Day at the New Job (397 Days to Go)

I survived my first day at my new job.  I didn't even have trouble getting to be on friendly terms with my new coworkers.  It was a little dull, but most first days usually are because it's all training and reading.  The work itself though doesn't sound like it'll be too overwhelming, which is good.  One can only hope they don't bite off more than they can chew.  But it will be a slight challenge since I'm completely changing the field of science that I'll be working in (biochemistry to analytical chemistry).

The biggest challenge is going to be restructuring my schedule.  I'll be working 6:30 am to 3 pm now instead of roughly 9 to 5 (which was nothing like I actually worked anyway).  I have a feeling it'll be tough for the first few weeks, but I'll end up really liking it because I'll have some free time to get stuff done in the afternoons after I get off work.  Which in the long run will be helpful when it comes to the wedding.  The worst part is that Jeff will keep working late and therefore I'll barely be up much longer after he gets done for the night.

What's funny is that Jeff tried to send me flowers for my last day of work.  Of course, the florist screwed up.  I found out from one of my old coworkers that apparently they did deliver them on my last day--to the first empty desk they could find on the wrong floor.  This happened to be an administrator's desk (and they typically take most of Friday off) and so on Monday morning she found them and delivered them to the address given on the flowers which led right to my old desk.   So, my old coworkers contacted me by phone and Facebook to let me know that I had a gorgeous flower arrangement waiting for me.  Luckily because my new job gets done at 3 pm so I was able to drive back up to the hospital and get let back in.  So I was also able to pick up the items that I'd forgotten on Friday.

So despite the fact that I went back to visit after not even being gone a full day, I don't miss it.  Not a bit.  I was in fact reminded how much I don't miss it when my old supervisor appeared out of thin air and started asking me a bunch of questions about this, that, and the other thing as if I still worked for him.  No, they weren't conversational things at all.  It was, what happened to this order you placed? And I didn't realize you were coming back (not at all joking).  I couldn't get back out of there fast enough.

Last Day at Work (399 Days to Go)

Yesterday seemed like a pretty big milestone in my life.  Not only was it the rollover point of 400 days left before the wedding, but it was also my last day at my old job.  It had a surreal feeling to it all day.  I went in and worked on the same things that I've been working on for the past two weeks--catching up on paperwork.  I took inventory and transferred files and put in a full day's work despite putting in overtime all week long.

So despite the fact that everyone was teasing me about working too hard on my last day and that they took me out to lunch, it never hit me, not even when I was exchanging hugs goodbye for the last two hours.  Even after I went to pick up my car so I could come back and collect my things, I didn't seem to come to a realization that I wouldn't be coming back.  Which really stinks because I was halfway home and locked out  of the hospital's research building when I realized that left behind two pairs of shoes.

I have to admit I'm going to seriously miss the girls I work with.  They are absolutely fantastic.  No one could ever ask for a more supportive group of people to spend five days a week with.  That's why I know it's going to feel weird on Monday morning when I go to my new job for the first time.  I can only hope for that my future coworkers are half as great.  If they are, then I'll be doing pretty good for myself.

Starting a New Career (409 Days to Go)

So I can officially announce that I've gotten a new job.  I received the offer by phone last Thursday and the offer packet in the mail this afternoon.  I gave my two weeks notice to my supervisors yesterday with a resignation letter and to the best of my ability, an in-person chat as well.  My middle supervisor was more or less a little shocked (that I spoke to him first) and wished me the best and gave me some words of warning about ever wanting to move up into management type positions.  All I could do was arch an eyebrow and say that I'd keep it in mind.  Personally I find my ambitions to have the option to move up into management to be healthy.

My direct supervisor didn't get to work until late (this is actually a norm for him and part of the reason I'm moving on) so therefore I didn't get to tell him until later.  When I did speak to him, he hadn't even noticed the e-mail dangling at the top of his inbox titled "Resignation" but instead talked to me for over an hour about the results I'd e-mailed him late last Friday and then about what work was ahead for the next several months.  I sort of just "uh-huh"-ed my way through the conversation without ever getting a word in edgewise to mention I was quitting.  When I did finally tell him, it was sort of like a little "oh" and that was about all.  Then a few questions about where I was going to be working now.

I still haven't told my head supervisor.  That'll be later this morning.  That's when all of the shit hits the fan if you will.  I'll be informing him of exactly why I sought out new employment elsewhere because of my direct supervisor being a jerk to put it mildly.  All of my coworkers have begged and made me promise that I will do this today.  That in itself should tell you that his "management skills" are a concern.  The past two days I've been at work very late because when I gave my two weeks notice it was apparently waving the flag that said give me two months worth of work to do and don't give me time to catch up on paperwork that has to be done.

Apparently in the sciences, it's not often that they have a technician who actually leaves with things in order (let alone wanting to leave things in order).  So I guess my supervisor better get used to the idea that he's going to owe me some major overtime in order to insure that everything that I used to do is in order and ready to be handed over to one of my coworkers.  I'm crossing my fingers that this week will be the last for experiments and they'll leave me an entire week for just paperwork and bureaucracy.  I'm sure I'm being way to optimistic.

It's Friday, Friday! (421 Days to Go)

Just in case you haven't heard, It's Friday!  I am in no way a fan of Rebecca Black, but if I have to be subjected to it on every local radio station as I drive to work, I figure you might as well get a small dose too.

So, wish me luck as I have my job interview this morning.  Hopefully it goes well.

But just in case I need cheering up later, Jeff and I are going to be in the Mellon Arena lot watching game 2 of the Penguins playoffs on the jumbotron.  We'll be the crazy couple screaming the loudest (I'll be making up for whatever volume Jeff is lacking much like I did when we went to a game in person last year).  I'll also be going with one of the girls from work and the two of us will be hanging out saving our "turf" until her friend and Jeff can join us after they get done with their respective jobs.  And after Wednesday night's nail biter (at least the first two periods), it should make for a great game tonight.

I've been keeping myself busy.  The past two nights were spent studying up and getting ready for the interview today.  I attempted to make Jeff fulfill his promise to be my personal wedding assistant by sending e-mails to venues requesting an appointment for May 1st.  He lucked out on Wednesday night because our internet connection was on the fritz.

Aside from that, work has been keeping me for crazy hours.  Wednesday night I didn't even get to leave until 7 o'clock.  I guess that more than makes up for the extra hour I took at lunch to deal with the bank, but it certainly makes for an incredibly long day.  And after that, I'd had to meet Jeff for the Steel City Dive Club's meeting at Eat n' Park.  That turned into the most relaxing hour I'd had the entire day.

Oh, and I've decided to open a shop on Cafe Press.  I was inspired by one of the auxillary members for the fire department who wore a t-shirt that had the drink name on the front and had the recipe on the back.  It was a little "Plain Jane" (aka, non-amusing cocktail name) and the recipe was for a drink I'd never heard of nor could imagine ever ordering but it did start my wheels turning.  There are so many crazily named drinks out there that taste great, and yet, anytime I go to a bar and try to order one, the bartender looks at me like I'm nuts.  Thus, the start of Mixers R' Us.  I even have a design for the "Blushing Bride".  I'm slowly adding new pieces of inventory and different designs.  Are there any drinks that you can think of that would be fun?

OMG, Monday was Good? (424 Days to Go)

So Sunday, my mom came to visit Jeff and I and took us out to lunch (right after she helped repair what was an ice cream shortage and near crisis in our freezer with some fantastic Turkey Hill Ice Cream).  We went out for lunch at Bahama Breeze and caught up on everything that's been happening: my cousin's new baby, my mom's shop, lack of wedding plans, my job hunt, Jeff's wrist, etc.

While we were sitting there chatting my mom suggested I try Google-ing for barn dances to see if there's a location that would be suitable for our wedding but not necessarily marketed for weddings.  So, yesterday, I had a few spare moments to try searching for her suggested "search terms".  I got nada except for some college group trip to some place in Westmoreland county.  Couldn't find that farm once I tried to narrow in on it.  So I broadened back out and found a catering website with a ton of different farm and outdoor reception sites.  Carson's Weddings may have just restored my faith in being able to find an outdoor venue that I can afford and fall in love with.  Thank you!

So, Sunday night Jeff and I ended up having only what I can describe as an argument.  Only because I was super frustrated.  This weekend I'd had the bomb dropped on me that Jeff would not be available to go with me to venues, cake tasting, or anything unless I was able to make all arrangements be in the evenings or on Sundays that weren't "too busy".  Otherwise, everything is now on my shoulders to bear pretty much alone.  Because as much as I'd love to delegate looking at venues, I can't--not really at least.  I mean, let's be practical, would you let your mother go alone to view a possible venue and base your decision on description alone?  Of course not.  You might as well base your decision on photos from a website.

And of course, I'm starting to actually be busy teaching knitting on the weekends which means I will have even less free time now, specifically, fewer Sundays to try and coordinate with Jeff.  So, Sunday night I was upset because I have too much to do and not enough time and yet more keeps getting dumped on me every time I turn around--such as a fall craft show for the fire hall, more confirmation that the wedding is all on me, and of course all the house hold chores because he's still a gimp.  So not cut out for this much domestication all at once.

But what came of the discussion is that Jeff said he'd be willing to more or less be my personal wedding assistant.  He would take care of calling vendors and venues and setting up the appointments for me to attend.  It's a huge load off my back since I have a supervisor currently who won't leave me alone for five minutes and I've been getting only barely enough time to eat for the past several weeks.  More frustrating: a lack of getting paid for the significant amounts of overtime I have.  In short, the HR system punishes the workers if we are overtime because supervisors don't want to pay it and don't acknowledge that they've caused us overtime either.  It's actually less of a headache to suck it up and ask for a day off and cross your fingers your supervisor allows it. 

Now I only have to hope that Jeff doesn't keep forgetting to make calls on my behalf.  It's certainly happened before and it's frustrating because it causes delays but I can't do any better myself so I guess I have to be grateful for any help I can get.

But, to make Monday all the sweeter, I finally got a call for a job interview on Friday.  This girl needs to dig into the attic and resurrect some analytical chem texts and study up.  Wish me luck!

Stress, Gah... (438 Days to Go)

This weekend was stressful in one of those overwhelming ways, you know when you feel as if the whole world is crumbling down on you but really it's only a few things.  For me it was two things.  The first is that I feel like everyone has some stress going on and it's getting directed at me.  Jeff's wrist is broken and he's in a near constant state of irritability, understandably.  His father is usually off and on stressed with the business and that usually gets directed at Jeff since they're business partners but this weekend it was on me because I had asked if Jeff and I could go visit my family for Easter weekend (so I can go visit my cousin's new baby!) but that would require Jeff taking a day or two away from the shop.  Plus, as spring approaches, we may need to take some time to look at venues as well.  Never mind the fact that he's been taking half days here and there to go to doctor's appointments and eventually for the surgery he needs on his wrist.  So essentially, I'm feeling kind of like a bad guy for wanting to have my fiance be a) involved in my life and b) involved in the wedding planning.

Count me double stressed when everyone keeps telling me to just plan the wedding by myself because Jeff doesn't care.  I don't like making big decisions without consulting someone else first.  That in and of itself is stressful to me.  The last thing I want to do is plan our wedding without consulting the other person whom this day is supposed to be about.  Because if it's left up to me, I'll pick a tiny venue to save a lot of bucks and tell him to figure out who in his family's not invited.  I can see that going over incredibly well--not.  Don't worry, I'm kidding--sort of.  But if he doesn't go with me, there isn't someone to ask the questions I forget to ask.  And he's such a critic (food in particular) that I don't want to be stressing out from now until next year about whether or not he's going to hate our wedding, or more specifically the caterer.  It's one thing for him to criticize dinner and say it's bland and then the next month when I make it again, it's got more oregano.  It's another thing when it's a once in a lifetime event and the caterer falls short of everyone's expectations.  I don't get a re-do the next month.

Top that off with dinner at my in-laws house the other night and having my eleven year old niece think my entire life revolves around dress shopping and cake tasting.  I wish.  Wouldn't it be great if one year of our lives could be dedicated to such fun, frivolous activities?  And better yet, if it wouldn't cost a fortune to do that and only that for a year.  And for dessert, my FMIL decided to tell me where I'm going wrong in looking for a new job.  Such as apparently I'm not looking hard enough if I'm not applying to Bayer, Fisher, etc.  I wish it were the late seventies when jobs were handed out willy-nilly.  Unfortunately, I can't mail in a resume for jobs that just aren't available.  Yes, those companies are hiring; they're just not hiring scientists.  They're hiring business majors to work in sales and customer service.

Which brings me around to the real underlying stress I'm having in trying to locate a more stable job for myself.  There simply aren't any in the Pittsburgh area that have much or anything to do with forensic science.  The closest forensic labs are Allegheny County and Westmoreland County.  Neither of which are hiring.  Trying to find a job in the private sector is turning out to be very tricky as well.  I'm over qualified thanks to my masters degree and under qualified thanks to my current job not giving me much in the way of experience to back up my degree and knowledge of biology, biochemistry, and analytical chemistry.  So it's starting to look more and more like I have to widen my search to outside the area which could very possibly mean my moving away for several years.  And after a few years, there's no guarantee that I'd be able to find a job and move back to the area.  Making it even more difficult: my fiance would not be able to move with me and in some cases refuses to even consider moving.  For instance, I could apply to be a state trooper, spend six months in training, and more likely than not be positioned in Philadelphia where I have to fulfill a minimum of three years before I can request a transfer to a state forensic lab.  Even if Jeff were free of the business he runs with his father, he swears he would never move to Philadelphia.  Granted, if I can hold out for two to three more years before heading in a more career related direction, he's willing to go just about anywhere (as long as it's not Philadelphia).

So what's a girl to do?  On one hand, I have my career which is going absolutely nowhere, except for down, down, down.  My current job is about as stable as a seesaw and most of coworkers are actually trying to help me brainstorm places to look for a new job.  The trouble with working in academia is that your paycheck comes from grants.  So, when the grants stop coming, so does the paycheck.  My lab group is dwindling right now because a bunch of grad students are finishing up their thesis and moving on.  When they move on, they take their grants with them and money was already a bit tight before.  That doesn't build a whole lot of confidence in the fact that my job may still exist by the time I go from Ms. to Mrs.  On the other hand I have my personal life which is for the first time in my twenty some years on an upswing.  That's not exactly something I want to put on hold right in the middle of planning a wedding.  I'm kind of stubborn and I don't want to put off our wedding or anything else that comes with married life.  I'm ready to settle down and buy a house and get out of our little three room apartment.  At some point, *gasp!*, I even want to have kids.  I can't do any of the above on my current salary and definitely can't do it if I'm unemployed.  I certainly don't like feeling as though I'm stuck having to choose one aspect of my life over the other with very little compromise.  I even recognize that I am my own biggest obstacle to finding a better job because I'm placing to much priority on my personal life.  But isn't that a terrible thing to say?  That my personal life goals are such a huge hindrance to my career goals.  I wish it was as simple as me quitting my current job and taking up waitressing instead.  I'd certainly be better off financially (an pretty terrible statement on the scientific community).  However, it'd be the same as career suicide and then I can really start to regret that pile of student loans that seems to be growing.