It's...Friday! Friday! Friday!

HOORAY!!!

This is one week that I'm glad is over.

Today could go either way. So, I'm not going to judge it ahead of time. Just see what it brings.

What are you great and wonderful folks doing for the weekend? Anything exciting?

I have to do the shuttle mom stuff tomorrow. But, not like last weekend. This time, it's just 9:00 - 6:00 play practice tomorrow.

So...with all my free time (coughcoughyeahright), I'm going to try to finish plotting Phantom Song, maybe Xuobar, too.

And, then I'm going to coax my beautiful muse (see, I'm flattering her and buttering her up already) out from hiding (There have been some...hmmm...less-than-pleasant...months recently. But things are going to be better now, even if I have to pound them into submission and MAKE them better.) and we're going to get started on Phantom Song for April Fool's. Might work on some other stuff, too.

And, we're suppose to have rain tonight. And tomorrow. Hooray!

Everybody have a good weekend!!!

::HUGS::

To everyone on my FL.

Because you are all so special in so many ways.

And, I just wanted you to know.

This One's Original

I snatched this one from nightwolfwriter. It's kinda fun.

The Ultimate LiveJournal Obsession Test
Category	Your Score	Average LJer
Community Attachment	36.56% There's something special about you. Every once in awhile, one of your topics gets everyone chatting.	22.49%
MemeSheepage	10.53% You fill out forms at work - why should you fill them out for fun?	27.91%
Original Content	50% Using LiveJournal to express a few strong opinions	37.71%
Psychodrama Quotient	12.05% Had a comment taken out of context once or twice	16.74%
Attention Whoring	27.27% You do a little dance whenever someone friends you	20.57%
Take The Ultimate LiveJournal Obsession Test and see how you match up! (By The Ferrett)

Where to Start?

Today was sooooo busy. So much happened. I don't even know where to begin.

Maybe with the fact that I worked almost 10 hours. Just to get everything finished because it was not only month-end, but fiscal year-end, too. Plus, I had to pack boxes of stuff to take with me and then get things ready for someone else to take over the odds and ends tacked onto my job.

In Santa Ana, I'm going to be doing the G/L and everything accompanying it for the company I got transferred from. So, in essence, it's a lot like the job I did before the company was purchased. Also some Sarbanes-Oxley reporting.

They had a pizza party for my last day. :)

I got two cards, one from a friend there and one from everyone. They were nice.

People were lovely. Some folks very sad. Some cried. I think because I was there for them all the way through the other company going under and they knew I'd tell them the truth and they felt more secure as long as I stayed. I think they worry that, with me gone, that means something bad is going to happen. And, that that's why the company moved me.

I tried to reassure everyone. Hope they believe. They'll be okay and I will be back to see them.

And the Verdict is...

I'm not going to be taking the new job.

It all seemed to be going too fast. Too good to be true.

I guess it was, though they still wanted me.

Too much.

I had my first interview on Tuesday night. I had my second--a phone interview--on Wednesday. At that time, they asked if I could go to lunch with them today in order to meet the president of the company and get the job offer. They also wanted me to give them a free day next week to talk to the person who developed their cost acocunting system.

Yesterday, they changed it. They asked if I could go to lunch with the Controller today to meet the rest of the accounting department. The job offer would come later in the day. The HR person would type it up and send it to the agency.

When I got home yesterday, the plans had changed again. They wanted to do a background check. But, they still wanted me to go to lunch with the Controller and the accounting department today.

Knowing that background checks can take a week or more, I expressed concern and told the recruiter that I didn't think it was a good idea for me to take too much time off work because I couldn't quit until they got the background check back and things were final. If I did, I'd have an amount of time without income.

Today, she assured me it would be a quick background check.

However, a problem arose at work. And, today was not only month-end, but fiscal year-end as well. To those of you who are not familiar with the financial world, that's a big deal.

This problem had to be corrected TODAY. It was important.

I called the recruiter to ask if I could reschedule lunch and explained the problem to her. She said no problem, that she'd handle it.

She called back a short while later to tell me that the Controller said NO. Definitely NOT. He would not reschedule it and I WOULD be there today. He said that I owed it to them, that I was theirs now and that since they were going to offer me a job, I had no loyalty or allegience to my current job.

I expressed concern over these statements (and more) to the recruiter and she said she'd run into this before, that it was fairly common.

I told her I'd been working a long time and hadn't run into it before, that I needed to think.

She asked if she could arrange for me to meet them at the restaurant and shave some time off (they wanted me to be gone for two hours), would I go?

I told her yes.

She called back shortly thereafter and told me he said NO. I had to do it HIS way.

So, I thought about it, all the while the BAD vibes growing stronger.

And, I looked at the work I had to do and knew that things had to get done, and I e-mailed the recruiter and told her I was concerned. I told her that my work ethics would not allow me to abandon my current employer while I was still employed by them and that, if I'd been employed by this other company, I would have afforded them the same allegience.

I told her that if that meant I wouldn't get the job, so be it, that I wasn't sure it was the place for me if that was the attitude.

She e-mailed me back a short while later with the message that if I wasn't going to do it their way, they weren't going to hire me. However, she went on to say that she applauded my work ethic and sticking to my guns and doing the right thing. The client, she'd decided, was a bully and was in the wrong.

She then proceeded to tell me that there were several other possibilities through her agency and they would be pleased to represent me to other clients.

For now, I've made my peace with the drive I'm going to have to start next week. Yes, this could change. I could be stressed after I do it. But, I'm starting with an open mind and willing to give it a chance.

I've realized that I could have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I am so lucky he showed his true colors and I was able to make the right choice.

On the Plus Side...

There were some really strange and pleasant things going on at work all day.

Well, I mean, of course, people were nice to me because it was my last day. (I don't mean it to sound like a lot of the people aren't nice to me all the time, cause there are a lot of people nice to me all the time...the regular people I work with.)

But, it was MORE than that.

All morning, I got calls from my boss down in Santa Ana. She just kept telling me how glad she was I'm coming down there next week and making suggestions on how the drive might not be so bad. She told me someone I might be able to carpool with at some point, too.

She told me they'd decided to put me on their payroll instead of keeping me on the division's that I'd been working for, so I could get my check down there without any trouble instead of them having to send it from the old division. (It gets really confusing when you can't name real names, doesn't it?)

THEN...she called to tell me that since I'm going to be on their payroll now, I'm going to be getting a bonus every month that they make their sales goal. And, she said they've NEVER missed their monthly sales goals...EVER.

It's not a big bonus. $100/month. But, still, that's $100 more per month than I have now.

So, I was pleased.

They're letting me set my own hours, as long as I work 8, since they know the drive will be a problem.

I'm going to start by trying 7:00 - 3:30. If that doesn't work, then I'll try 7:30 - 4:00. I hope my first choice works, though. It just depends on getting my youngest to school.

Hmm...there might have been more, but my brain is getting tired and telling me I must sleep.

Of course, now that Dr. Who is on, it's hard to tear myself away from the TV, but...we are taping it. I can watch it tomorrow.

Good night everybody. Sleep well!