Maine | Snerkology

Tag: Maine

The cobblestone streets of the Old Port, Portland Maine.

Timing

Monday 5/13:

Right now it’s 7:30 on Monday morning. This is the third post that I have written that will have to wait to be published. “Well, I asked for it” and “Disambiguation” are posting on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, so this one will go out on Thursday. Out of respect for my current manager and the company for whom I’ve worked for the past 18 years, no posts about my move to Maine are going out until I’ve spoken with my manager face-to-face. And since I work from home on Mondays, that conversation is going to have to wait until tomorrow (the day before yesterday, by the time this posts).

My need to WRITE about all of this, though, will NOT wait. So perhaps I will just keep adding to THIS post so that eventually real time will catch up with my blog.

Soon I will have the ocean. In moments of panic – the ones that usually occur in the middle of the night while I lay sleepless – I think about having proximity to the ocean once again. And all of the breathing that will ensue once I plunk my butt and my toes in the sand.

11:45: Just got off the phone with my new boss and officially accepted the position. Then I scheduled a meeting with my current boss for 9:30 tomorrow morning to break the news. I also spent some time this morning drafting what will be my “So Long and Thanks For All the Fish” e-mail to my various friends and colleagues. You don’t realize how many people have influenced your life until you try to put together a distribution list for something like this.

Tuesday 5/14:

It’s 8:00 a.m. I meet with my manager in an hour and a half to break the news to him that I’m leaving. I’ve started recognizing the finite nature of a lot of things about my life here in AZ. “The number of times I’m going to walk through these doors is limited to what I can count on my fingers and toes.” “How many more evenings will we lay in this bed, watching this TV, in this room? I wonder what our next bedroom is going to look like?” “I can totally decline that meeting because it’s happening in July and I won’t be here!” “How many more times can I fit in dinner at Espo’s before I leave?”

I read Britt’s post today about how happiness takes guts. It was timely for my day, for our point in life. To quote her:

You are looking, reading, thinking about how to be happier tomorrow than you are today, or happier tonight than you were this morning. Not everyone does that. Not everyone has the courage to go looking. But you do. So I mean it when I say this to you:

I know that you have the courage to be happier.

And it’s a good thing, because you’re going to need it.

Yep.

I’m having a lot of fun mapping out how long it takes to get to certain places from the vicinity of Portland, Maine, and finding all kinds of places I want to explore. Quebec, Montreal, Nova Scotia, Cape Cod, Rockland, Portsmouth, Boston, Montpelier, Isle Au Haut, Martha’s Vineyard… if we wanted to, we could drive to New York City in 5 hours, or Washington DC in 8 hours. Oh, the pictures I will take.

12:20: Well, my meeting with my manager went well. He congratulated me and thanked me for all of my hard work. I’m not sure when he’s going to tell the rest of the group, but the word is trickling out since I posted Well, I asked for it. A few of my fellow AcronymCo employees follow me on Facebook. So the cat is out of the bag.

I had one more meeting after the one I had with my manager, then I met Bill for lunch at Red Robin. I was starving beforehand, and now the food sits like a lump of concrete in my abdomen.

Anxiety wreaks havoc on my digestive system. I’m considering asking for a refill on my Xanax.

I’m going to need to write down a lot of these details as they happen, since I have a feeling that once all of this stuff is behind us and we’ve settled into our “new normal” the details will be extremely blurry. Hell, they seem blurry in the very moment in which I am living them.

Hoo boy.

Wednesday 5/15:

8:30: Just sent my official resignation letter to my manager, and faxed my official acceptance letter to my new company. No turning back now! Not that I wanted to. I have a laundry list of things to get done before my last work day. I want to leave things in good shape for whomever is going to be assigned as my coverage. And yet… ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL I want to is sit and read Explorer’s Guide Maine, which I bought for my Kindle a few days ago. Maine has a LOT of nooks and crannies. It’s going to be awesome to explore. I wonder if I can get a local newspaper to sponsor a weekly “Tourism in your home state” kind of thing? Because it’s weird, but a lot of the native Mainers I know never bother to actually, you know, explore. I certainly didn’t until I moved away and then started coming back every year or two for vacation. And now I want to see All! The! Things!

3:15: Whittled my inbox down from 236 to a respectable 81. I actually managed to be productive, thanks in part to just plugging my earbuds into my head and letting Google Play Music All Access zone me out. I signed up for their free trial. I judge it to be decent thus far. I can actually look up and listen to whole albums without having to buy them.

I just realized I only have two more “work from home” days before I’m done at AcronymCo (Monday the 27th is a holiday). This is a luxury that I think I won’t have at the new company. I’m also losing a week of vacation a year until I’ve been there for seven (or is it five?) years, when I’ll get back to four. And they don’t have sabbaticals every seven years. So, I’m giving up quite a bit of free time by moving to this new job. But it’s WHERE I want to be, so I think that makes up for it. Like I said in this entry,

I will be losing a lot, by leaving this life that I live right now. But I consider it worth it for the things I will gain.

You know what’s weird? I wrote that entry on July 12, 2012. A year and three days later, I’m starting my new job in Maine. My prediction of that entry:

And it’s happening, just about a year from now. The clock is ticking. As soon as I’m finished with my degree, and I only have four classes left. Then I will be eligible for all of those jobs who wouldn’t consider sixteen years of experience equal to a degree. I could apply to those jobs reserved for new and recent college graduates.

Once the job is secured, everything else follows at a rapid pace.

Once the job is secured, I take that gulp and I take that leap.

Hello, gulp. Hello, leap. Right on time.

Mackerel Cove, Bailey Island, Harpswell Maine.

Disambiguation

It’s all worked out that my first day at my new job is on July 15th. I’ll work at AcronymCo until June 7th, and will then be on “vacation” until July 5th. We’ll be in Maine for our vacation from June 11th through the 22nd. Then it’s back to AZ to finish up the moving details. I’ll leave Arizona on July 8th and arrive in Maine on the 12th. The biggest question mark remaining is Bill’s job. He’s going to try to transfer with his current company, but we don’t yet have an answer on whether or not that’s possible. He’ll stay in Arizona until he has a job in Maine. However long that takes. The potential to be separated from one another for an unforeseeable length of time is what is causing me the most amount of anxiety about this whole thing.

It turns out that Amanda wants to rent the house from us, which removes a LOT of the work we were going to have to get done prior to my departure. She’s more than happy to take the house “as is” without the cosmetic improvements we’d need to perform in order to put it on the market. I think it also helps Bill’s anxiety (and mine, too) to know that we still have property in Arizona if everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Which it surely WON’T.

This October would mark the 20th anniversary of my move from Maine to Arizona. I’m excited, and petrified, in equal measures, to be moving back. Anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time knows how much I have wanted to move back to Maine, and for how long I’ve held that dream in my heart. Now it’s here. It’s surreal. It’s wonderful. It’s scary.

I’m leaving AcronymCo after nearly eighteen years of employment (nearly twenty if you count the time spent as a contractor). That’s going to be weird, in and of itself. I KNOW that place. I know everyone there (well, not EVERYONE, but hundreds of people with whom I’ve worked side by side for all of my career). I know all of the in’s and out’s of the company, how it works, what its problems are. I have a rhythm, and a reputation, and tenure. My time at AcronymCo has made the rest of my life possible – gaining the confidence to leave my ex, pursuing my education, meeting and marrying Bill, gaining a wonderful family and two fabulous kids, gifting me with a circle of excellent friends, establishing my home, giving me stability, and providing for all of the wonderful experiences I’ve had over the past two decades. I have nothing but good things to say about my time there, and I will miss many things about it. Not the least of which are all of the friends that I have made along the way.

I’m excited about this new opportunity, though. The discipline – Supply Chain Management – is the same. But the commodities are about as opposite as you can get, and it’s a step upward in my career. I’m going from the semiconductor industry to global food retailing. I’m going from being an individual contributor to a manager. There’s so much ahead of me to learn, and I’m raring to go. I’ve felt for a while now that my career was rather stagnant and I wanted to go in a new direction. That I’m being given this opportunity – no, that I’ve EARNED this opportunity – is a huge boost to my confidence. Back in 2011 I posted about how I wanted to go about achieving my dream. And damn if it didn’t work out almost according to that very plan, with a bit of the aforementioned cart before the horse thing.

We’ve still got a lot of unknowns – Bill’s job and long-term living arrangements being the primary issues. But we ARE smart and we ARE hard working. I’m beginning to believe that we can handle this.

Tiffany
May 15, 2013
goals, Maine, work
changes, goals, Maine, moving, new job, work
1 comment

A great spot for thinking.

Well, I asked for it.

I have a feeling I’m going to be writing a LOT, once these potential changes are put into official motion.

So. A few weeks back, I got online. With a “why the hell not” attitude, I looked on the job boards for a few of the bigger companies in Maine. I found several job postings that were perfect for my experience, my expertise, and my newly-minted degree. I applied to them. Then I kind of put it out of my mind – as if, in a fit of pique (I’d had a bad week at work), I had to enact some form of rebellion to make myself feel better, but without much expectation of success. Except… I heard back from two of the three companies I’d applied to. I had one interview with one company on Monday April 22nd. It went well, but they haven’t contacted me since that initial conversation. I had another interview with the other company on Monday the 29th. It went really well, and I had a second interview with them on Wednesday May 1st. I was the 12th of twelve candidates that they interviewed. I told them they did well to save the best for last.

That interview went really well, too. So, I had ANOTHER interview scheduled for Monday the 6th. THAT interview went exceptionally well. I was told that, even over the phone, after just a few minutes everyone felt like they’ve known me for years.

If (BIG IF) I am chosen and they make an acceptable offer, I’ll be moving to Maine in the very near future.

Holy shitballs.

I’m not going in the order we planned to go in. I should have waited to apply, waited until after we’d sold the house, made some other preparations, were ready to leave at the same time, etc. etc. ad nausium. I just… couldn’t. I felt that if I didn’t apply for those “perfect” jobs, another opportunity wouldn’t come along for a long time. Like it was meant to be, that my boss would piss me off at that exact moment, so that I would log onto those job boards at that exact time, and put myself in the running for those exact opportunities.

So, in a “we’ll make it work, somehow” frame of mind, my thoughts are scrambling to figure out how to pull this off. Bill feels like I’ve put the cart before the horse, and he’s right. He thinks I should have approached this differently, and he’s right. He’s said the timing is off by about six months, and he’s right. He’s also said that we’ll make it work, and sometimes you just have to make the leap. He’s right on that one, too.

IF I’m hired, I’ll have at MOST a couple of months to get things organized and prepare to move myself across the country. We need to make arrangements for the house, and all of our CRAP needs to be gone through, consolidated, organized, donated or otherwise disposed of. We have to get as much done while I’m still here as we can, so I don’t leave Bill alone to deal with all of the details.

Then I’ll drive, by myself (although I’m betting I could get Amanda to go with me, then fly back), with our pickup loaded with the possessions I will need, across the whole entire country. Did I mention by myself? It’s not how I pictured it. In my mind’s eye I saw Bill and I in the cab of a big moving van, pulling out of our driveway and hitting the freeway, dogs panting in the back seat and Zoe yowling her fool head off in her carrier, fraught with the anticipation and excitement of embarking upon this new phase of our life. TOGETHER. But, I’m a cart-putter-in-fronter, so I get to drive my own sweet ass three thousand miles to my Uncle’s doorstep, who has always told me the apartment is open for me to come any time.

Once my own employment is confirmed, Bill will start applying for jobs in Maine – we’re hoping he can just transfer with his company, but the branch in Maine is small so we’re not positive. I pray with all my might that things just magically fall into place, that we’re not apart for more than the bare minimum amount of time it takes to make all of these arrangements. If it’s more than a couple of months I’ll be devastated. Then once he gets a job in Maine, we will finally FINALLY FINALLY be where we want to be, together.

I’m excited. I’m hopeful. I’m scared. I waffle between optimism and pessimism so hard it gives me whiplash.

Gulp.

Well, I did ask for it.

I’m just going to play pretend here, for a minute. I want to write it down and look at it.

Say I get hired this week. We’re heading to Maine on vacation on June 11th and we’re NOT cancelling that, and it’s not possible to move to Maine before vacation. So, my last day at AcronymCo would be June 7th (I’d get paid for vacation and then have my “official” release date on the 28th or so, but the last day I would actually work would be the 7th). We’d vacation from June 11th through the 22nd, then I’d use the week after we get back home to finalize stuff. I’d leave for the drive across the country on Monday July 1st, and it will take five days of 8-10 hours of driving each day to get there, which puts me in Maine on Friday July 5th. Which means my start date at the new company could be as soon as July 8th.

O.o

It would be so WEIRD and so AWESOME to know that at the end of vacation, in just a couple of short weeks I’ll be turning right back around again and heading back. This time for GOOD. I’m going to float above my seat when I cross the bridge over the Piscataqua River, crossing the New Hampshire border and seeing the “Welcome to Maine” sign that greets me with every trip home.

Oh my God, you guys, could this really be happening???

———-

I wrote the above at the beginning of last week. Before I learned that I got the job. I found that out on Friday, then spent the weekend mulling over the details before officially accepting the job yesterday. I told my manager at AcronymCo today.

It’s happening.

Here we go.

Oh my God, you guys, here we go.