Wednesday, January 11, 2006

A Lot More "New" Than Expected

Happy New Year to you all.

It's been kind of quiet on my part lately. There was a good reason for it: it's a little hard to talk when you're holding your breath.

For the last month or so, I was being considered for a position in another pharmaceutical company. This was entirely of my own doing, since I went and applied to the job posting. It's a validation specialist position, which is more in line to what I'm interested in doing. I didn't tell anyone (outside of my family) in an effort to avoid jinxing the entire process. The last time I was this excited about a job prospect, I didn't get it, and then afterwards everyone I had told asked if I had gotten it. It was like reliving the disappointment over and over.

It wasn't like I was actively looking for a new job. I just casually glanced around here and there for the past few months. If it weren't for the fact that my current job didn't utilize much of the knowledge and skills I had paid so much to learn in university, I would have stayed there for a long time. There are also some personal perks associated with this new job which helped me with my decision:

1) the company is 15 minutes away from my house,
2) I'll get to work with new products, and the duties are more applicable to my goal of becoming a professional engineer, and
3) despite first appearances, and after doing some calculations, I'll actually be making the slightest bit MORE (per hour) than I am now.

They offered me the position yesterday and I accepted this morning. The only thing left to do was to break the news to my boss and co-workers. There was some degree of surprise, and a little sadness mixed in with the happy from everyone. I will sorely miss this group when I leave in two weeks. One of my co-workers was slightly more distraught over my leaving than the others. Of course, she's the one whose workload will probably double until they hire my replacement, so it's understandable. Even the director of my department expressed his sadness to me personally. I think he's gotten used to my quick responses to his requests.

I've got a few days of recreation scheduled after my last day, and then it's straight to my new place of employment. Onward and upward.

Stage 1 of Plan B complete. Proceed to Stage 2.

"It's like the calm before the storm, you'd better swim"