Decisions, Decisions

This afternoon at about 4:40, my desk phone rang. It was the woman I interviewed with last Friday. She was calling to offer me the job. So we talked for a few minutes, and I told her that, while I was pretty sure I'd accept, I'd like to think about it over the weekend. I am still not completely certain it's the right thing to do. Well, who better to ask for advice than the interwebz?

So here are some good reasons and bad reasons, to stay and to go.

Good reasons to go:
I'm being offered a 6% pay increase. Shazayam!

The work appears, on the face of it, to be a better match for my background and overall career goals, inasmuch as I have any.

My current work group is permanently bogged down in one pointless, fruitless project after another, and as far as I can tell, this is largely just because the panicmonger's boss dislikes her so much.

No more panicmonger, no more hourly and daily and weekly and monthly status reports, no more documenting the documentation, no more Scotland Yard... at least, not as far as I know. I have to admit I didn't ask that in the interview. ("Would I be expected to show up on time at this job?")

I'd get to travel a lot more!

Jobs don't seem to open up very often in the new division, which would kind of tend to indicate that people aren't leaving. And I do take it as a positive sign that they move so quickly.

Bad reasons to go:
Practically everybody else has, and I really want a happy hour.

I beat the newbies! Ha ha! In your face, newbies!

Robbie wants me to make the PM cry.

The building has better lighting. And it's closer to home!

The prospective new boss seemed really, really happy and excited when she called to make the offer. (I don't know if that's really a bad reason, but I'm putting it under the emotional reasons vs. rational reasons column, anyway.)

I wouldn't have to share a ladies' room with those stuck-up girls from Bridge anymore.

Good reasons to stay:
In the new job, I would be the third person in line to answer phones to the general public in case of an emergency such as Hurricane Rita. That sounds so not fun.

The job overall is entirely administrative - "soft" work, whereas what I'm doing now is partly technical - "hard" work. I'm probably better suited to "soft" but the "hard" work makes me feel smarter. And overall this would put me back on the "softer" career path.

I enjoy a significant portion of my current work, and those particular job duties excuse me from the bulk of the hopeless, endless, pointless projects mentioned above.

I'm on the short track to promotion and am generally treated extremely well, including being exempt from a lot of the tracking and checking up that many of my coworkers - and for that matter the PM - are subject to.

I like the people I work with, particularly Robert, with whom I work very closely, who recruited me to the agency two years ago, thus rescuing me from Corpus and from underpaid marketing hell, and who will be seriously left in the lurch by my leaving.

Bad reasons to stay:
The great unknown. What if I don't like it? Is there an "undo" button?

Guilt. Agh! The walloping, horrible, awful guilt.

Though it's closer to home, the building is further from the break spot as well as Dominican Joe. And will I still be able to take three-martini breaks? This is another important question I didn't ask during the interview.

I'd still be with the agency, so I couldn't spend 43 seconds on LeatherDreams.com on my last day.

What if the new division doesn't have people who snore all day or walk around with antennas sticking out of their heads?!? I'll be seriously short on blog fodder.

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And on a superstitious note: If you want to be sure you're offered a position, call in sick with the runs when you go to your interview. So far, this tactic has a 100% success rate.

Professional Muse

About this job I interviewed for yesterday: I'm actually wondering if it's really a good idea.

I do think it went very well. There were even a couple of tests, one of them being to proof and edit a mock press release. Of the five applicants interviewed, who do you think is most likely to know the difference between "compliment" and "complement"? Huh? Who's your mama??

The main thing that's hanging me up is the fact that it's a step back into an administrative field. My job position right now is - well, nominally more technical. The one I interviewed for would do meeting planning, organization, customer service, some writing and editing, and even - this is a bit scary - answer phones to the general public, from time to time.

Phones! The general public! Eewww!

But I'm trying to figure out how much of my resistance to this is just that I perceive administrative work as being lower status than technical work. It's "soft" - women's work, you know? Yet I've always been best at this type of work, and arguably happiest, too, if you dismiss the fluffy image concerns.

I've been with the agency two years and am eligible for tuition reimbursement, if the current budgetary environment will allow it. I'm, oh, say two years away from my bachelor's. This newfangled internet thingummy will probably make it a lot easier for me to go back to school, and finish up, than it would have been ten years ago. But of course the agency would want me to get a degree relevant - nominally - to my work functions. So in my current position, my best bet would probably be computer science or GIS. If I were offered and accepted the other job, I could probably swing something more like public relations or maybe even journalism, which I think I'd enjoy a lot more, and would probably be able to finish much more quickly.

When I had my review this week, my supervisor said a grade promotion was in the works. Systems Analyst III doesn't sound bad - but then again, it doesn't really mean much outside of my immediate work area, and certainly not outside the agency. I couldn't be hired as a systems analyst at a real company. Why, I couldn't analyze a system if it came running up and kissed me on the ass! Also, it feels unfair to me that I'm treated as well as I am when others I work with really kind of get the shaft. I do a really good job with my particular duties, which are somewhat specialized - and administrative! - but I really think they're a bit lighter and more pleasant than what everybody else is doing.

I can also think, off the top of my head, of one or two people who are at the same grade I am who deserve a grade promotion - in this particular classification - way, hay, hay the hell before I do.

I guess it's silly to start agonizing when there's no guarantee the offer will even be made, but how else can I avoid getting started on that sink full of dishes?

The Tell-Tale, Um, Heart

My interview is tomorrow morning; and, horribly, Robbie has reminded me that I have a certain obligation - sort of a debt of honor, if you will. When he interviewed for his current position, a woman we know told him she'd pay him $5 if he called in with the shits.

He earned that $5.

So at some point I laughingly promised to make a tradition of it, and do the same, if I ever got an interview. Hell, I'd never gotten one yet. I never thought it would really happen!

Okay. The terms of the deal don't say I have to be graphic. But I do have to do it. I'm more nervous about this than the interview, frankly.

Oh, and I've been suffering huge whomping glups of guilt all day. I just got a really good review. And one of the top-level division bigwigs, who has to sign off on it, sent me such a nice email telling me that upper management (with whom, unlike most of the others in my area, I often work directly) are very happy with the work I've been doing. He said they also like my sense of humor. I got all misty.

The panicmonger was obviously excited to be able to do something good for me. She said I needed to bring in doughnuts to celebrate my time there. Meanwhile, the staffing situation in our area isn't getting any better: Bitching Bubbly Nonsmoker has no-called and no-showed for two days running, which can't be good. The candidate to whom the PM offered Robbie's old job backed out, so she has to start the whole interminable hiring process over, even assuming she can get the posting approved again. The three newbies - well, frankly I'm kind of surprised they're still there (hello! what is with you people??); but I'm sure one of these days I'll turn around and they'll be gone.

Frankly, I feel like shit for even thinking about another job. But I suppose that feeling will come in handy when I call in tomorrow.

I Finally Found the Right Breath Mint!!!

20 points for the reference.

At lunch with a friend today, I was lamenting the fact that I put in* for other agency jobs all the time, and never get interviews. How is this fair? I'm really smart! I'm ever such a good worker, really I am, if only I have stuff to do! I'm gosh-darned nice to work with. Bosses always love me.** Why doesn't anybody want to hire me?

My friend explained that at the agency where we both work, HR is staffed by the sort of people who need detailed written instructions (which they move their lips while reading) on how to scratch their butts. I nodded a little impatiently. I knew that; that's HR pretty much anywhere.

"But you have to completely change the way you think about this," he went on. "You must remember that the hiring process is not intended to find the best person for the job. It's intended to keep the agency from being sued. Any other consideration is secondary."

Valuable advice, then, from a valued friend.

I turned in another application today, this one for a job at another campus in a different part of town, maybe a bit beyond the reach of my bike, or at least its sorry excuse for an engine. Still, I'm a little antsy to get out. My boss, who already demands monthly and weekly status reports, recently suggested it would be a good idea for us to start documenting our time by the half-hour each day, as this would be helpful in determining where we could be more efficient. "It would be for your own reference, just so you could see where improvement is needed," she hastened to add, "not for you to show me."

Oh whatever. Like I haven't been around long enough to know where this is headed.

The HR representative who received my application wanted to know why I was submitting a printed paper one, rather than using the online form. I explained that I had heard from reliable sources that the online application did not always come through successfully, sometimes blanking out fields which are required for the application to be considered.

"That couldn't happen," he said huffily. "If we gave applications with blank fields to the hiring supervisor, they'd be calling us to know what was going on."

Which is why any such application is immediately discarded by HR during the pre-screening process. But I didn't want to argue. I just wanted to turn in my application and smile and nod and go back to my desk and not incur the mountainous, paper-rattling wrath of the HR flunky. You know how bureaucracy works, right? You do not want to piss these people off.

I have three other active applications out: a love-to-have, a like-to-have, and an eh-I-guess-I'll-take-it-if-it's-the-only-thing-going. The first two I submitted on paper - and fortunately a different, non-bitching HR flunky was on duty when I did. The third I submitted online, because, you know. Eh.

And today, late this afternoon, too late in fact for me to bounce around squealing at any of my friends because they all go home by 4:30 (you slackers!!!) the love-to-have called! I have an interview! Next week! Details tomorrow morning.

Hallelujah! Could it be? Am I possibly not a complete loser after all?

Tomorrow, an interview. Next week, the state!

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*As opposed to putting out. Why! The very idea!
**Except for that company in Corpus, but everybody knows they were batshit insane.

Bright-Tailed and Bushy-Eyed

What an ungodly hour to be awake on a Sunday morning. I didn't get to bed until four. Did you know that Oilcan Harry's gets to be incredibly crowded? And that Magnolia Cafe after the bars close down isn't much better? And that, if you drive down South Congress at 2:45 a.m. in a decked-out Happy Fun Car, some drunk guy in a pickup truck might scream and moon you? Honestly, after Friday's happy hour, I'd already had my fill of crack.

I so totally meant to blog about that and forgot. It was heinous. There's not enough spackle in all the Home Depots in the world. No one we know: just some guy at the next table who apparently isn't averse to a bit of a draft.

Last night I had a dream about interviewing for the job I applied for on Friday. This is, of course, entirely Tony's fault. I dreamed that I was attending some high-level frou-frou meeting at a picnic table in the mud, but then the pilot arrived and the picnic table took off, and once we were airborne, one of the high-level frou-frou attendees began asking me interview questions.

Picnic tables are less than ideal, aerodynamically speaking. The flight never got very high, and was shaky and shuddery, and we kept narrowly missing trees. And of course our feet were sort of hanging out the bottom, so I felt a little vulnerable. It was hard to concentrate. But I think I did well!

We'll take the dream as a promising sign. Maybe I'll be picking up some new interview duds at Mall of America in a few weeks. Fingers are crossed!