Base Hit

You know how often we just keep plodding along with our lives, thinking that we know exactly what we are going to be doing  for the next few months and then life throws us a curveball?  I know you know what I'm talking about.  After all, we all lived through 2020, which was nothing but curveball followed by a change-up followed by a fastball aimed at our head.  Well, life has slowly been creeping back towards normal but I never really recovered my mojo.  The best way to describe it is apathy.  Not depression exactly, but a lack of excitement or interest in the future.  Definitely a lack of taking on any new challenges or dreaming about trying something new (which, if you you go back and read my blog about eleven years ago, is the opposite of how I used to be).  So the summer stretched out in front of me with literally nothing unusual ahead-- no vacations planned this year, no trip to Big Surf (which isn't reopening *sigh*), just shrugging at the possibility of teaching B to drive and prodding J to make some decisions about his future.

Then a curveball showed up, and startled, I swung wildly and actually managed to hit it.

For five years I have edited a newsletter for a prestigious fire protection company (yes, my dad's company, I can brag about his success!)  It's easy work and takes me no longer than an hour a week, except on the rare occasions I write an article of my own for it.  It's not stressful, and it doesn't cramp my schedule at all, since I can fit it in around everything else in my life with ease.  Then my dad called me out of the blue and asked if I would be interested in taking on work as a billing specialist.  The company has so much work getting completed-- which is awesome-- but has gotten terribly behind in getting the work billed.  They haven't been able to hire and retain enough billing employees to keep up.  Since I am already officially employed by the company, and I already understand the industry, and I'm capable of picking up new stuff relatively quickly, it seemed like a great fit.  No pressure, though, my dad said.  If I wasn't interested, no big deal.

I thought about it, talked it over with Terence, and decided that I needed some more information before I committed (mostly about flexibility of the schedule).  My dad said that he would pass me over to the division president.

Now, most people at the company don't know that I am Russ's daughter.  (The long-timers do, of course, because they remember me as a teen and a brand new out of college employee from years ago.)  I've never met this particular company president, and though obviously he knew whose daughter I was, I wanted to make a good impression, come across as a professional.  We set up a meeting by phone in the afternoon, just after I would make it home from the school pickups.  I was hugely nervous-- remember how I hate phone calls with a passion?????--but I spent the drive giving myself a repeating pep talk that I'm a capable, bright, experienced woman, and I could do this.

I did NOT plan on the road closure that blocked us getting home.  Another accident, again, at one of the intersections leading toward our housing development.  Oh crap.  I had ten minutes to get home and now I needed to make a detour that would take at least twenty minutes-- and I had to pee.  Of course.  Because when it rains it pours, right?

We headed in the other direction, and wouldn't you know it?  We ran into a complete traffic standstill on the only other way to get home.  In desperation I made a u-turn, stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom, called Terence to get him to forward the president's contact information from my work laptop to my cell, and stopped at a park to kick my kids out of the car so I didn't have squabbling siblings in the background of my oh-so-very-professional phone interview in my minivan.

All of that, and then as I dialed the president at the planned time of 4:00 on the dot (trying to be professional, right?) I got his voicemail.

Now what?  

Wait at the park indefinitely until he called me back?  Brave the road again and work my way through the traffic, hoping to get home before he called me back?  Head to McDonald's and buy myself some ice cream to calm my nerves???

I chose risking the drive home.  We made it through the traffic backup, and then hit our next delay.  A train crossing the road.  But not just any train.  A couple mile long freight train inching along.  Seriously, I could have walked faster than the train was moving.  You can imagine my anxiety by this point.  Finally--AT LAST-- the train moved past and we were able to get going again.  No sooner had I crossed the railroad tracks then my cell phone started to ring.

Of course.  Murphy's Law in action.

B fumbled around trying to get it for me.  For whatever reason, my hands-free connection was not working.  I ended up pulling off the road, answering the call, and having my interview right there and then, with all my kids in the back of the car.

Even after confirming that I have zero billing experience and I wanted a very flexible schedule with my hours broken up during the day (because I still have to chauffeur my kids around), the president was eager to take me on.  He did terrify me a little bit, because he admitted the process is very complex and new people tend to run for the hills when they see it.  But he promised to start me on the very easiest of projects.

Just like that, I now have another paid job.  And my summer now looks nothing like I planned!