The last few months have been pretty nuts, and I haven’t been able to hold a thought for more than a couple minutes at a time, but it finally looks like things are about to calm down. Wait, did I say calm down? I meant they’re about to get more crazy. But probably more for Jessica than for me. I shall explain.
A while back, the management staff in the Fort Wayne center all either left or were fired. So to put it lightly, the center there has been without leadership and frequently without management coverage (which is required to keep the center operating). In addition to that, for the month of July, Zimm’s and my boss was on vacation. So that left the two of us in charge. That’s not a problem really, seeing as how we are awesome. But we had to factor in that we both had a few scheduled days off, and so did our training coordinator (who can also run the center when other managers aren’t there). Then we also had to cover Fort Wayne numerous times throughout the month. So that’s what’s been happening in Kokomo. Meanwhile, I applied for the center manager position in Fort Wayne.
The application process started in June, when our regional manager asked if I'd be interested in the position. Well, the center was an unmitigated mess at the time, and I knew it. But a promotion is a promotion, and getting the place into shape would be a feather in the proverbial cap, so I applied. I had my reservations at first because of the way the Bloomington situation was handled, but I got over it.
Well, initially things started out exactly the same as they did the last time. The word was that they needed a management staff in the center as soon as humanly possible…and yet no effort was really being made to schedule interviews. So I kept saying, “I’m not going to think about it anymore until I hear something else”. But how do you do that, really? I had to submit an “action plan” to give the regional boss an idea of what I would do should I get the job, and I sent in my resume so that it could be forwarded to whomever would be conducting interviews.
This was all going on around the middle of June. I heard toward the end of June that interviews were a priority before July 4, and so I offered up a bunch of possibilities about scheduling (I had a vacation planned around that time, but was willing to work around it). But again, it didn’t get done. And so the wait continued.
So you can imagine if you’ve ever waited for something like this, why I couldn’t put together a coherent thought to blog about over the past little while. And you might surmise, considering this lengthy post, that the Fort Wayne saga be over. And you’re kind of right. So let’s fast-forward through the stewing and waiting to last week.
On Thursday the 29th, after much hinting and speculation, I finally got a call from my regional saying that I had an interview scheduled for the third of August. (A quick note: I may sound like I’m bashing my regional for inaction, but good Lord that woman has a lot going on. And to try and coordinate this must have been a task.) So the fact that an interview as actually scheduled was a step in the right direction. I also found out that I’d be interviewing with five people in the same day. You can imagine my enthusiasm at this point.
We made the plan that Jessica, Luke and I would drive to Chicago (where the company is headquartered) on Wednesday night, I’d interview for five freaking hours on Thursday, and we’d go check out houses and the area in Ft. Wayne on Friday and Saturday. Everything was all planned out. And therefore something had to go wrong. We were packing up the rental car when the phone rang, and it was my boss, telling me that the person that was currently covering Fort Wayne was going on vacation, and they had no coverage for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday. Actually I already knew this via an email earlier in the day, but I figured I wouldn’t have to account for why I couldn’t cover, since everyone knew. Well, apparently all other options were exhausted, so it came down (as it always does) to Zimm and myself. He would cover Thursday from open to close (that’s a 15-hour shift, people), and I would do the same on Friday through Monday. I expressed my great displeasure at this development, as it served to inconvenience not only me (which would have been fine), but also my family and the realtor that was set to show us around over the weekend. But I knew as well as Zimm did when they asked him, that it was a foregone conclusion that I would cover the shifts. But I still had an interview or five to do, so we packed a few more clothes, decided to stay until Tuesday, and took off for Chicago.
The interviews were intense (but really only because there were five of them in a row), but I’ve never interviewed for a job and not gotten it, so I was pretty comfortable. Then to make a long day longer, we hopped in the car and drove six hours (Chicago traffic, people) to Fort Wayne.
In the midst of my first 15 hour day on Friday, I got a call saying that I got the job. So that was pretty exciting. I didn’t actually end up accepting the position until Monday because we wanted to get out and see some houses and check out the area. The area, by the way, is great. The size of the city is a lot more my speed than Kokomo. It’s not a huge city, but it doesn’t feel like a small town in the middle of nowhere either. The only minor issue I have is that the closest real major city is a couple hours away (Indianapolis). But all things considered, I’m really excited to be moving there. I don’t think Jessica is quite as excited as I am, because the city seemed a lot bigger to her than it did to me, but I’m sure she’ll come around.
I’ll continue to post updates as they happen so that you can experience the suckage of trying to sell a house and working 2 hours away to commute home on the weekends (I know some people do that regularly, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck). I’ve written this post over the course of like six days, so if it’s a little disjointed, deal wit’ it. I’ll also be back to talk football on the sports blog, but due to circumstances, my preview won’t be quite as in-depth this year as it was last year.
9 years ago
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