BeMused

So it’s been another few weeks of job hunting, answering ads, taking phone calls, going to interviews…

…and receiving a job offer. Finally. Yesterday I received a call from the HR department of Online Resources, a company that specializes in online banking and bill pay software. The offer was within a couple of grand of what I was making at AOL, so it’s more than likely I’ll be accepting (I might see if I can negotiate a bit higher…never hurts to try at least) and once again I’ll be gainfully employed, complete with benefits and all.

Thank goodness. I was getting worried. I kept having flashbacks to when I was first married…I had been laid off from the title company I worked at and quickly picked up a job delivering pizzas for the cash. Within two weeks, the owner offered me a management position because I’d had experience. The biggest fight of my marriage came out of that offer (even to this day, some 13 years later, it’s still the biggest one), because I didn’t want to take it. I knew it’d be long hours, and 6-7 day work weeks. And it was. I took the job and I never saw my family. The flashbacks I was experiencing were being pressured into shooting for a more permanent and responsible position at the restaurant where I bartend. Bartending is easy. Doing the whole ‘be-responsible-and-be-here-70-hours-a-week’ isn’t. But I’m back at 40 hours a week or so with a company that offers benefits.

Yay.

I received a very cool, albeit belated, birthday present this past Friday. My buddy Scotty came over to play poker Friday night and handed me one of those gift bags and said that he thought I’d laugh at the present, yet still think it was cool.

When I dug through all the tissue paper and uncovered my present, I did indeed laugh. It was a book I’d loaned him sometime back in late August, early September, and quite frankly, had forgotten I’d loaned out. He then told me to open to the title page, and there was the ‘cool’ part he’d mentioned.

The book I loaned him was Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. For those that read Sci-Fi, it’s the third book in the Ender’s Game series, and if you know Sci-Fi, you’re probably familiar with Ender’s Game. And if you’re not familiar with it, you should be! But I digress…Scotty has a friend whose parents know Orson Scott Card. Scotty sent the book to them, and they managed to get Orson Scott Card to autograph it to me personally! How freakin’ cool is that? It says (if you can’t read it), “To Shad - Thanks for sharing my stories with others! Orson Scott Card, 14 Jan 2007″

Again, how freakin’ cool is that? It has to be one of the best birthday presents I’ve received in a very long time. Thanks Scotty!