The Old Job / The New Job

Well, I keep saying I’m going to write something about why I haven’t written much here for a while. The basics are simple: nearly a year ago now, I found out that I was being let go from a job that I’d had for over ten years.

The reasons given were brutally financial in nature. The department I was with had split the design group into web, video and print sections, and the print section wasn’t profitable. There are reasons behind reasons of course: pixels are free, but paper costs money. Also, the print section had the people with the highest seniority (and therefore salaries). None of which changed the end result: those of us doing print work were on our way out.

The transition to unemployment was very strange for me. I had plenty of warning before my last official day, plenty of time to get a portfolio and resumé together and to start applying for new positions within the University, but the sheer volume of people vying for any job in Michigan meant that I was a tiny drop in a very large pool of applicants.

Still, things weren’t horrible. I had a huge amount of back-vacation stored up (I’m a bit of a workaholic), and the payoff from that helped. Some of my former clients from the old job had freelance work for me – also helpful, although the slow wheels of the Vendor Accounts office have meant that I’m still awaiting payment for some of it.

And, eventually, job interviews started to trickle in from the dozens of submissions I’d made. Some of them better than others. Some more lucritive, some more interesting, any of them better than sitting and waiting and endlessly trolling CareerBuilder, Monster and the State Employment job lists.

Back in February, I had a pair of interviews on the same day for two different departments, both on Central Campus. It was kind of a rough bit of schedule juggling for me to keep things from overlapping (especially when the first one ran long), but I made a favorable enough impression on both groups to get invited back for a follow-up. Again, on the same day.

Eventually though, one of them made an offer, which I accepted. So for a week now, I’ve been learning the ropes and getting to know the people at the New Job. And I may be posting here a bit more now that a major stress point has been removed from my life.