Last year during Holidailies I focused on holiday stuff. This year, I'm going to focus on job related topics, even if tangentially.  Today's is a ramble down memory lane.

Two years ago, in November, I had A Really Bad Month.  I'd spent the entire year unemployed, despite being so good at knowing and (mostly) doing the right things to network and job search that I was an invited speaker on the subject no less than three times that year.  Unemployment hadn't been extended yet, so I was rapidly running out of money. Thank gods for the generosity of friends.

I was submitting my resume to as many jobs as I could that matched up to my skillset; I wasn't sending it out scattershot, but I was starting to applyto jobs that weren't necessarily a great match.  I'd customize my resume to each job, showing (accurately) how my skills and experience matched the job. But it was tough.  It gets more like a country song later, trust me.

I saw a job description requiring project management, training, and technical writing skills described in a way that seemed like they were looking for someone with my experience. It was a monster board job I found on a Sunday. On Monday I had two phone interviews.  On Tuesday I had the offer. On Wednesday I did the required drug test. On Thursday, I had to euthanize my cat.

She'd seemed ill that weekend, but it got worse. On thursday I took her to the vet, and by that time she'd gone blind. Apparently she had kidney disease.  I could have taken her home ofr a day or two more, but she was very stressed by trips.  So after 16 years together, I held her for the first time without her struggling, between sedation and euthanasia, and that was it.  What should have been a celebratory weekend was Very Tough Indeed. 

Starting the job was bittersweet; I'd come home and look up at the windows, and knowing there was no one there to greet me was rough.  Enter one of those generous friends, who'd offered to 'guarantee' payment with the vet who saw Keely.  She was fostering two feral rescue kittens.  It I met them on Black Friday, and now, two years later, it's about to be our second "anniversary" of living together. 


They are so unlike Keely it's funny; she was a persnickety bitch, not a lap cat, but a frequent 'lump in the bed' because she liked to cuddle under covers.  Plunkett and Macleane are very much cuddle cats, but they have as much Personality as Keely ever had, but they hate being under covers.  It's like living with two pubescent boys, inseparable, bickering, and all around the most obnoxious fun I've had in years. 

So knowing my job is likely ending in January, I'm even more aware that even unhappy changes can still bring Good Things.