Interesting Tuesday

If you read the post titled Interesting Monday, you'll know that the human resources person at my place of employment pulled me into her office a week before the holiday break to tell me about a marketing position that was going to be posted the next day. And just so you'll all know how many times she contacted me about this job, she let me know a couple of days later that it was taking her longer than she had expected to get the posting out, but that it was coming. And then the day before we left for break, she asked me if I had seen it, because it had come out that day. And I had in fact seen it - Jamie printed it out for me. (That's three times that she had talked to me about it, and none of them were prompted by me.)

That was all before the holiday break. Then we had 10 days off to relax, and I didn't think much about work at all, including this job opportunity. Until this morning, when she e-mailed me to ask me if I was interested in interviewing for the job (that would be four). The job that I had never really told her I wanted to apply for. I said yes, of course, because I'm no dummy, and asked if there would be on the job training and what the pay scale would be. The answers were yes, and an amount that is only $1.07 more per hour than I make now. She set up an inteview for tomorrow at 3:00.

I have such conflicting feelings about this whole thing. I've never in my life been pursued like this by an HR person for a job opening. And I have to consider it being pursued - wouldn't you agree, based on the above info? And the thing is, I really like my current job. I am perfectly content there, and don't have any desire to leave. That being said, I am not about to turn down a job with more potential for growth, if it is offered to me. So, like I said, I'm conflicted. But only in a good way. I mean, I can't lose no matter what the outcome - worst case scenario, I keep a job where I am perfectly happy. Best case scenario, I get a new job with new challenges and a dollar more an hour pay.

But I can't help wondering - what alternate universe did I fall into when I got this job? I haven't written about this yet, so you guys don't know the history of this. I had a job I loved at Syracuse University, but I lost it when the journal I was working for moved to Illinois. But I had been there for five years, the last three of which were during a time when I was fighting a pretty mean depression after the loss of my Mom. So I wasn't too sad to say good-bye to that job (the time had most definitely come). But it was followed by a summer of unemployment and then a job that I hated from the moment I walked in and sat down on my first day. Seriously, I hated that job from that first moment, and had to fight everything in me that was telling me to run in the opposite direction. And yet I stayed there for just about a year, at which point I couldn't take it anymore, and I wasn't having any luck finding a better job, and I decided to go back to school.

When I made the decision to return to college to pursue my bachelor's degree, I was kind of jumping off a building without a net. I didn't have a job to go to, my school loan money would only take me through part of the first semester, and I had no guarantee that the situation would work out to my benefit. I was again unemployed for a couple of months, and then I took a job, out of desperation, at the local mom & pop grocery store - another job that I hated. And I had been there for a couple of months when I saw a listing for the job that I have now, only it started out part-time temporary while someone was on maternity leave. So I kept the grocery job and worked both while still going to school, until it was decided that the woman wasn't coming back, and the position was made permanent. And then someone got fired and I was made full-time (and they kind of pursued me for the full-time position, too), and I've loved every minute of it. So see what I mean? It just feels like I was somehow meant to end up in this organization. And since I work for the same college where I'm taking classes, I'm able to both at the same time, although I've gone part-time on the classes.

Sorry for the long winded story. The point is, this job I have seems almost too good to be true, after the jobs that came before it, and now this other position seems almost over my head, but I know I can do it if they'll train me, and it seems like they will, and that seems too good to be true. If someone wakes me up now and this whole thing turns out to be a dream, I just may shoot them. I'll update with interview news tomorrow, and after that whenever I find out what happens. And now, I have to go recreate my resume, because I don't have an electronic version, and I need to come up with a writing sample. Because, did I mention? This job includes writing as part of its responsibilities. (The one thing I've ever really wanted to be was a writer. This may not be the kind of writing I had in mind, but it'll do.) Wish me luck.