Wow! Now that I am done with “this place” I am a little excited and off. I walked into the store to turn in my resignation letter and when the girls in the personnel office asked what I needed I said, “I am here to quit.” They got weird looks on their faces and asked what I wanted and I said, “I am here to inform someone that I am no longer going to be employed by [this place],” and then handed the more senior (in position not age) of the two the resignation letter Erin wrote for me because I was far too lazy and then she handed me a piece of paper to fill out – exit interview.
Real exit interview’s are an interesting thing. I’ve been in a real exit interview in the past where the representative of the company I was leaving made sure that I’d turned in all security cards, laptops, and other company owned merchandise to include cell phone while also presenting me with my last paycheck and having me sign all sorts of papers that, in theory, should stop an exiting employee from suing. However, “this place“‘s exit interview consisted of my handing a letter, filling out the top 1/8th of a piece of paper, signing and dating at the bottom, initialing next to me name in the check register (payday is Thursday, they decided to hand me my check yesterday – not a standard part of the exit interview) and then, “Goodbye.”
As soon as I was done with that, I gave them my name badges and my box cutter, the only two things I was given as a part of the job, I walked to the front of the store, grabbed a car, and did some shopping.
What makes all of that interesting is that as soon as I got word that I was hired at the new place, Erin and I made a list of things I needed to do, copied here for your enjoyment:
- Resign at “this place“
- Send writing samples to Fairfield University*
- Fax registration for classes to Fairfield University
- Get tested for illegal drug use**
As a result of this, I spent a good portion of the morning and early afternoon reworking a piece of fiction I wrote a couple of weeks ago. Erin read through it a couple of times, made some edits, suggested some changes, and as I was frantically re-working the piece I finally got to a point where I literally had to say, “It’s time to say goodbye little piece of fiction,” print it out, shove it into an envelope, and mail it off to my program.
In between all of that, I ended up reading some of the “you are officially accepted to Fairfield University’s MFA-Writing program” paperwork to see where I needed to fax the registration forms to only to discover that I cannot do that one minute before June 1st. As a result, that item was unceremoniously ejected from the list – though the paperwork is sitting next to my desk.
As for the testing for the use of illegal drugs portion, that seems to be a pretty consistent thing in this part of the world. I have yet to apply for a position where willingness, let alone actually being tested for, illegal drugs hasn’t been required. In fact, I was told that “this place” actually has a 70% fail rate for drug use which also means that the company interviews quite a lot of people before they can offer jobs to a select few. What is really interesting to me about that isn’t the number of people that fail, but that “this place” has the ability to maintain an employee base at all. Though, with that said, I think a big portion of that is legacy employees that never seem to leave and don’t care to advance beyond their current position as grunts.
Once everything was done I was a bit tired, as was Erin, and yet we also got to deal with CAMPER who has not been feeling well of late. We learned, today, that it is probably just allergies and since he is sub-2 years old he gets to suffer with them, which means we get to suffer with them, until the season changes enough that he is no longer dealing with the pollens and whatnot’s. Regardless, the trip to the doctor and the tiredness as I attempt to readjust my internal clock to being awake during the day and asleep at night is proving to be interesting.
And the real news to ALL OF THIS is that I start a new job tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. I will have a commute, but we’ve decided that is okay; and the company is good with me taking off for two weeks in July so I can be a student again. The outcome of all of this is that I think life is good and I think Erin and I are heading in the right direection. Now, if Harvard’s Divinity School would please accept my wife as a student we will be a bit happier . . . though, if not Harvard than one of Erin‘s other top choices. Though, I guess I can stop trying to jump to gun on this one as she is just starting the process.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly
*When my harddrive crashed the other week I lost all of the fiction on my computer. Since the writing program does not allow science fiction, fantasy, or anything that doesn’t lean toward a literary bent, I had to come up with something (other than the first 18 pages of Finding Jack Mulvaney (requires a log-in to read)) as a writing sample. The outcome was a short story of about 12 or 13 pages titled, Life Begins at Birth. Erin tells me it is the kind of good and confusing story that makes you wish you understood more about everything with the hope of possibly understanding what it is I am writing about. I am not sure I intended that in the story, though I did get to a point where I literally said to myself, “I think the protagonist needs to die,” and then, “and I think there needs to be a drive-by shooting,” and then proceeded to write to see if and how I got to those two things. As a result, no, the story is not available to read – though after the July residency, barring any other currently unknown hurdles, I may make it available at /story/ to read.
**Apparently, drug use in the north-east is so prevalent that you can’t go to work somewhere without being tested.