Closing

I love my job and I love res life. But closing makes me really wonder why...It's lovely to walk outside and hear practically nothing at all. That's the good part of closing. But the physical closing of the buildings is evil and bad. My buildings are not set up for a quick closing process. I won't go into the details, but let's just say that while it took the other RHD's about an hour and a half to close their buildings, I was done in 4 hours. But I'll look at the positive. I get a heck of a lot of exercise when we close. But I am pure exhausted. And cranky. I have upperclassmen. They have been through many breaks. Why can they not remember to sign up to stay over break? Or even worse, why can't they remember to leave the building on time? Why can't they get the concept of "leave your curtains open and your windows locked"? Job security right there. As long as our seniors can't remember how to take out their trash before they leave for a week, I will always have a job.

The job search is kicking into gear! I had a phone interview this week that I thought went really horribly, until at the end when it almost seemed like one guy on the committee was planning on me coming to campus. I hate phone interviews just for that reason. I have no idea what to expect from them now. I have a second interview with WIU this coming week. This is the one I have mixed feelings for, because they pay REALLY well, but don't allow pets. They are working towards creating a pet friendly policy, but there's no guarantee of it. But they pay REALLY well (unless they are one of the evil schools that inflate the salary by adding on what they believe is the value of the apartment and meal plan). I know that we discovered in August that it's not good to not have my doggie, but that job was much different than this one. Anyway, I won't worry too much about it until later in the process. I have another phone interview next week as well. I have four set up at ACPA, and hopefully I'll get a couple more. Job searching is a full time job. And I hate it! Someone just needs to give me a job so I don't have to do this anymore.

My boss did tell me this week that if I applied for my job he would definitely hire me, which is nice. Much better than being "a strong candidate". But for me to stay would be taking the easy way out. It is very tempting to just say, screw this job search stuff and moving and getting used to a whole new system in a whole new town. But I'll never get anywhere by staying here. Sure, if I stay long enough I can move up to the Assistant Director job (assuming I'm the best candidate). But looking at it realistically, while the department right now is a good fit for me, it might not be after Michael leaves. And we already know that the University as a whole is not a good fit right now, and it could get even worse with the new President coming on board in June (or it could get better, i suppose). If I stay any longer it will be hard to find a job elsewhere. Student Affairs is an odd world where if you stay in one place for too long it looks funny. My situation is even weirder because I moved up, and then moved back down. If I stay past this year in my position, it will be hard to explain. Employers will think that I don't have the skill set or I don't have the drive to have more responsibility. So I still do not plan on applying for my own job. I'm confident I can do better.

:)