Good news ya’ll. I’m no longer unemployed. (New boss, if you’ve found this, I’m so very excited to be working with you. Old boss…well, I have nothing to say.)
My first day will be February 19th. This is an office gig, so I’m blazing a new trail for myself. Other than a brief stint working at Nora’s company doing a file scanning job, I’ve always worked in retail stores. Sometimes as the retailer, sometimes as a vendor, but always in the aisles. Nora isn’t convinced that I’m going to be perfectly happy being in an office setting, but I’m looking forward to seeing what it’s all about.
The first hurdle, I think, will be going to the same building, same desk day after day. Retail in itself offers a fair amount of variety throughout the day. You can move around and get a modicum of scenery change. And my latest roles have afforded me to go to different retailers throughout the week, greatly varying the locations and people I’d interact with.
Next will be socializing. I’m not the best sharer of the mundane. And let’s be honest, small talk is the harbor of the mundane. There is nothing wrong with mundane, and I think the word carries more negativity than it should. Mundane is the day-to-day stuff of life. I just am not good at seeing my day-to-day stuff as worth sharing, and I’m terrible at appreciating (or pretending to appreciate) Justin’s anecdote about the amazing grape jelly his wife found at Trader Joe’s last week.
The third adjustment will be the loss of movement. I’ve always had a job that involved moving around and moving other things. Being more sedentary throughout the day might be a struggle for a bit.
But I’m fifty-one now. There are considerations to be well considered. Nora and I have a rhythm that we’ve grown accustomed to. For the entire time we’ve lived together, we’ve both had M-F jobs. Over the past four years, we crafted a lifestyle that takes advantage of being home together most evenings with weekends open. Spending time with Nora is paramount in my mind. We fit together. So the idea of working weekends and nights is very unappealing.
I looked a lot into other “in the field” work. I even accepted a job as a utility locator, which was an M-F schedule. But in the time of waiting on the background check and such to process, this other job came about. Realistically Nora and I will be working until we are sixty-five, do I want to be out in the rain, even at fifty-five locating residential gas lines? Probably not. The job I had, yeah, I could see doing that until I retired, but that wasn’t an option, clearly.
Interestingly, the base pay for this new job is more than I was making. But I brought home more in the past two years than I will move forward. I’d have to do the math to find out what the actual difference will be, but I’m lazy sometimes. But there are trade-offs. I received mileage and a fair bit of overtime previously. Of course I spent a ton more in gas, this new job is 7 miles down the road, closer than all but one of the stores I serviced previously. I’d estimate a fuel cost savings of $3,000-$4,000 per year. And the wear-and-tear on my car will be far less.
It’s a little weird not to be looking for a job now. That’s been my focus for the past twenty-three days. Even over the past week-ish, while waiting on the clearances, I’ve been applying and looking around. Now, suddenly, I find myself on a bit of a vacation. I’ve got a good chore list to tackle, so at least I won’t get bored.
What’s your ideal job?