The New Job - Part One -

I've been unemployed since September 2007 and will finally rejoin working society tomorrow at a new job. I'm excited because it's a job I really want - working with fossils at the Natural History Museum. But I'm also having the usual bit of nerves because starting a new job and a new routine is a change and that's always stressful. But I'm so ready to make this jump forward and it is quite exciting. 

I started my last job on January 31st after a similar bout of unemployment. I was hired full time and scheduled 40 hours a week. But it was the rainiest winter/spring in years and so a lot of the projects that I was scheduled to work at were rained out all the time. This trend lasted months, until midsummer when we got an excavation job and then they wanted us to work overtime for several months straight. In the winter, work was slow again but they managed to find lab work to keep me afloat until field work started up in the spring again. Then you could basically hit a repeat button for the next year and a half, except it wasn't quite as rainy. So my last full time job lasting over 2 1/2 years amounted to probably 1 actual year of full time work and a lot of part time work. Plus I was sent all over California, my schedule changed all the time, and I generally felt frazzled by the uncertainty of it all. I also went deeper into debt, which last time I checked, usually doesn't happen with full time jobs.

In contrast, my new job is at the same building every day; rain or shine, 9 to 5, and I don't even need to take a freeway to get there! Although I am calling it my new job, I am not actually celebrating until I sign the paperwork. Just a precaution. Call it superstition. Well, I need to go knock on some wood so I'll see you later.