Right after changing jobs, it seems I’ll be once again changing jobs. Yes, It’s completely voluntary – the folks I’m presently working with didn’t get tired of me this quickly. But I do have to admit, this will end up being the shortest I’ve worked at any one place since leaving the Navy.
After the years of living in Mississippi where I had to constantly struggle to find work, I pretty much felt like my skills weren’t worth much. It was a frustrating experience having acquired years of military logistics skills, not to mention a lot of electronics knowledge and a college degree, only to have prospective Mississippi employers ask me “so what marketable skills do you have?” I thought it would be different here in the Washington, D.C. area which was one reason why I focused on selecting this area as our new home.
When I decided to leave the job that brought Winnie and I up here, I hoped finding new work would be more pleasant than back in Mississippi. In fact, I was overwhelmed by the response. Literally within hours of posting my resume on an internet job site, I was receiving valid inquiries from really solid companies in the D.C. area interested in my logistics skills.
One of the first companies to contact me, via one of their in-house recruiters, was a major U.S. consulting firm. I followed up on the contact, and gained a 20 minute phone interview/screening. I thought it went well, but honestly never expected the hiring process to go any further. I was just pleased to have been contacted.
I didn’t hear anything else, interviewed elsewhere, and ultimately accepted an offer from the company I started working at the first of February. It was a company with a solid reputation and the work offered was right in the area I wanted to pursue.
Two weeks after starting my new job, I received a call from the consulting firm inviting me in for an actual real live interview. I accepted, in shock at being invited.
The interview was a nearly three hour ordeal comprised of an pre-interview brief and then four teams of people, one team at a time, coming in to ask me questions. I thought I did well, but once again never expected the hiring process go any further. I was thrilled just to have the chance to be interviewed by this company.
I apparently underestimated myself. Several days later I did receive a offer from this company and I did accept.
I informed my boss the day following my acceptance of the formal offer. I felt bad leaving so quickly after starting, but my boss was understanding of why I decided to leave, and did sincerely congratulate me on my new job.
So I’ll once again be moving to a new job. I actually hope this might be the last time I change jobs. My new employer is a big enough company, with enough present contracts and expectations of more in the future, that I should be able to find challenging projects for my remaining pre-retirement years.
I still have mixed feelings still about leaving Mississippi. My career there was at a dead-end. Here in Virginia, my career seems to be leaping into new and previously undreamed of heights. But I continue to miss the home I had in Mississippi, my friends there, and the community that existed before Katrina. Here’s to hoping my new job will, at some level, make up for that loss once and for all.
Related Posts
My Educational Autobiography : Initially a grad school assignment, this turned into an autobiography focused on my life-long learning.
A Sense of Entitlement : Throughout my life, I’ve had to deal with self-centered self-entitled jerks who think they’re way smarter than they really are.
A Forty-Year High School Reunion : I went back to New York for my first and only High School reunion, forty years after graduation.
