So, yes, as hoped, last week, the day after my double interview for two different jobs, the organization I was leaning towards called and said they were preparing an offer (which I then got the next day). Halle-f*cking-lujah.

This was the job where I’d interviewed with practically everyone, and then they called to apologize and say I was one of two really good candidates and they wanted me to interview with the CIO. But the CIO and I really clicked, I thought, and that was probably the clincher.

So I’ll be working as a business analyst on a software team for a non-profit that delivers continuing education and seminars for the legal industry. It’s quite well-known; many people on FB etc. commented that they’d worked with this org. And, to my amusement, two gay friends separately messaged me to tell me that an old ex of theirs works there. (Not the same guy – that would have been really funny.) So those will be interesting conversations once I show up.

I’m taking a pay cut (a significant one, actually), which is not a plus, but you could also turn that around and say, it’s not a pay cut, it’s a pay raise from zero, which is what I’ve been earning for seven months. And it sounds like a really chill place to work, not at all the pressure cooker of the last position. Benefits are great. I’ll be working from home for the foreseeable future: they’re discussing some sort of rotating in-office schedule after Labor Day, but with the understanding that everything’s up in the air. When that’s in place, the commute is easy. (I have not yet been in a situation where I have to wear a mask all day long, but I’m a big boy, I can make it work.)

Oh, I checked: their office has cubicles with high walls. In my last job, we moved from a place with low-walled cubicles to a new setup where everyone just had a piece of a long desk with no walls. So I’ll have a tetch of privacy and places to put up posters and stuff, once that gets going. It’s the little things. The new non-profit does not offer constant snacks and kombucha on tap and free lunches twice a week, but I’m happy to buy my own snacks in exchange for not being micromanaged by a … all right, let’s be kind and not rake that particular person through the mud, especially since they were forced out of that company for their horrible ways. (*performative sadface*)

OK, so yeah, that last job did so much to erode my confidence that I’m sorta kinda worried about this new job – except the more rational parts of me are pretty sure that this is actually a position I can excel at. Just like when I climbed into that Buxton pit in 2012 and wasn’t entirely sure what would happen when I gave my downbeat – despite years of preparation – and then got exactly the results I was hoping for, I suspect that it won’t take long for me to get my groove back.

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I negotiated a slightly later start date with them (two weeks from this Monday) so I could maybe finish my CBAP certificate study and even get the test over with. Even though I’ve been studying for months and essentially understand the material, it had become clear as I took practice exams and used flashcards that the only way to pass this test was to, essentially, memorize the book. Well, not the whole book, but the core first chapters of it. Seriously, some of the questions are so nitpicky that no one would get the answer unless you had completely internalized one particular little throwaway paragraph.

So that was scaring me, but I spent yesterday blitzing a particular chapter and literally reciting to myself the lists of stuff on that topic, and then took a practice exam on that chapter at the end of the day. And I passed it! (over 80%). I also took a more general practice test and got over 80% on three of the six areas. So the blitzing method seems to work and I’ll tackle another chapter starting today. My morning’s kind of shot, though, I have a followup on the root canal at 9:00.

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More on other life stuff in a later post, including gay werewolves.