Optimistic about Resolution

It looks like BOTH things that I had been hoping to pan out actually will pan out. Not 100% chance but at least 90% chance.

So my husband has been looking for a new J-O-B for a while now. It's probably been about a year although he was initially exceedingly picky about what jobs he'd actually apply for. The main reason that he's been looking for a new job is that his company is going to close his current location at some point. They have a few locations across the nation, albeit less locations than 5 years ago because they keep closing locations. He knew it was only a matter of time. Plus he works in a dying industry.

Back in December he got pretty far along in the process with a company that writes A --> Z on its boxes that they send you. If you don't know this company, then you live under a rock and don't use the Internet so then you wouldn't be reading this, now would you??? THAT company was a pretty far drive, they expected 12 hour days, and my husband expressed his personal preference to have more of a life. However, the job WAS pretty cool. Well, that didn't pan out, which actually was good because I'd never see my husband.

During 2012 he had a few phone interviews. Two were at different gaming companies; one I was particularly excited about because I play their addictive games All. The. Time. He didn't get past the phone interview stages at either company. Oh well. A few other applications were sent in without phone calls. Such is the job market unless you're in an "in demand" field.

Well, he got a call about 3-4 weeks ago for an in-person interview at a company. It seemed odd because I thought phone interviews were the first step. Before the interview, he had to do a case study. They sent him a case, and he had a few hours to complete it and send it back. He had a panel interview. This was all on a Monday. It turns out that he knew someone who works there, so that could have eased him in. By Thursday they contacted him to come back to a second interview and testing. The second interview was the next Thursday. It was also the day after Julia was up all night puking. She has great timing, that girl. Last month she puked all day before her birthday party. Impeccable timing.

So with maybe two hours of sleep, my husband went to his second interview that started sharply at 8am. It was a series of interviews with various directors. Then he had to take a series of tests on Excel, Access, SQL & Visual Basic. It lasted until after noon.

What surprised us was that they offered him a contingent job offer (contingent on the results of his tests and references) before he left the interview that day. I'm not sure how often that happens these days, but I would think they would want more time to make a job offer. However, we were very excited and he was intrigued about the contingent job offer.

Then comes Friday at his work. The new job hadn't yet gotten back to him about his test scores and references (they wouldn't end up getting back to him until Monday). His current job, however, announced that they are offering people severance packages if they tell HR by August 3rd that they will vacate their jobs by August 17th. The severance package isn't that great, but it's definitely something.

So he was hoping that he could firmly line up the new job and then take the extremely well-timed severance package offer at the old job. He could work the old job until the 17th, start the new job on the 20th. Funny thing, this is kind of like deja vu because this is what happened at his job before his current job. They ended up closing the Seattle location, and his last day was a Friday and his new job started on the subsequent Monday & he also got a severance package out of the deal. Nine years later, this would essentially be a repeat.

One wrinkle this time around. You could apply for the severance package, but they could deny you. Why? They had some vague excuse that if you were deemed too necessary by upper management, you couldn't leave under the terms of the severance.

Early this week it's been kind of crazy. My husband's trying to line up the details of the new job, including salary and start date, trying to feel out management in his current job to see if they would deem him "necessary" or if they would let him take the severance, not let the current job know that he actually has a new job lined up (because why would they give him the severance if he was going to leave anyway?), and otherwise be a nervous wreck.

Thus far, we're optimistic. He's starting the new job on the 20th. It looks like he's sweet talked his current management into thinking he's not necessary, so he thinks his severance is going to be approved. He negotiated a slight increase in pay in the new job.

I'm very proud of him and his new adventure. Some other good things about the new job: the new job is about 10 miles away (pretty decent given this area), he gets a new and better title, there are more opportunities for growth in the new company, and it's NOT in a dying industry.

Oh, and on Tuesday his current company announced they would be completely closing this location by the end of the year. So instead of having imminent unemployment looming, he'll be out for beforehand. Still, we're sad for everyone who's left there knowing that they will be jobless right around Christmas. Ugh!

Anyway, this is all great timing for my husband, and we're both very relieved at how things are working out.