Unemployed Life

So, the last few weeks have been kinda frustrating.  Mostly job related.  Lets just say the job I got really didn’t end up being what I expected or “wanted” it to be.  I felt like I was being lead on and being told a lot of things which later on ended up being not exactly straight forward.  I won’t get into it too much, simply because it isn’t mature or professional to talk trash about a company I wasn’t involved in long enough to form a solid opinion on the entire entity.  I should just say I don’t think it’s a BAD company to work for, it just isn’t for me.  That reminds me, I should be able to get $70 of my $100 back for the state background check…. hmmm…

Last time I was laid off from a job (in 2007) I was very fortunate that I found a job no more than a week after being laid off.  It really was like as good as it could be.  I didn’t even have time to file for unemployment at that time.  This time has been a little different.  I’m grateful that Mangrove gave me three weeks of severance, plus paid out my PTO, so we have been alright as far as bills go… but my severance ran out the first week of October (ish) and I started getting stressed by the second week and was forced to file for unemployment.  I got my first payment last week and we were able to pay our mortgage payment for November.  Thank god for Utah State Unemployment.    Not that I ENJOY receiving it, but it’s definitely a blessing.  Makes paying taxes a little less painful when I know I’ve received some help because of it.  I got my second payment today (technically tomorrow, but whatever) so I’m not worried about my car payment next week, or insurance the next week.  It’s only about $385 a week, but it’s enough to cover the bills and that’s all that matters.  I don’t need playing money right now!  lol

I really intended on spending my “free” time as an unemployed person working on my book.  Well, in the past month 1/2 ish that I’ve been unemployed, I’ve managed to finish one chapter.  Yup.  One.  Uno.  Ein.  Une.  You get my point.  Wow, horrible.  You’d think (or, at least I thought) I would have been able to get a FEW chapters done in that amount of time.  Granted I have been studying a lot, for a test I’ll never take… but I can’t even tell you what else I’ve been doing with my time, ’cause I don’t really know.  Sure, I’ve kept the house clean…ish… but still.  UGH!  I can see how people who are unemployed for a long time end up just sitting on their butts watching day-time TV and getting fat, mooching off the state to pay their bills.  It’s a hard funk to get out of.

Skipping ahead to today, because it’s easier and I won’t bore you with rambling about minute details… Of course I’ve been sending my resume off to companies every week because my Unemployment requires me to (and I like to keep my options open), so I sent my resume to a staffing company on Friday morning and about 45 minutes after sending it off, I got a call from them saying that the position I was applying for (a payroll specialist/processing position) was looking to hire someone asap and long story short, he set me up for an interview with THEM (the staffing company) first before they’d refer me to the actual company that is hiring.  So, I met with the staffing company this morning and the interview went really well.  They gave me the basics on the job description and it all went well, so she said they’d send me resume off to the company and they’d call me back to set up a face to face interview with them.  About twenty minutes after I left, I got a call from a guy from the company basically wanting to cover a few things and get more details about me.  We ended up talking for like half an hour and he just seemed WAY cool.  He kept saying “you sound so perfect for this position!” and stuff.  Anyway, long story short (’cause I’ve already told a dozen people, not to mention updated my Facebook status to say all of this same info) they just called me and set up the face to face interview for tomorrow at 2:00!  I’m WAY excited.  The job itself just sounds SO great and pretty close to what I’m used to.  The company is a freight/shipping company and they basically have locations all around the west coast and they need someone to do payrolls for all those locations.  I’m used to doing multi-state payrolls and particularly familiar with west coast states (as far as taxes, etc.) so I just feel REALLY good about it.  The BONUS to this is that they would start me off at $17-$18/hour and after 90 days, considering that they love me as much as I plan for them to, they’d raise me to anywhere from $19-$21/hour.  NO COMPLAINTS HERE!!!!  They also offer full benefits, that the COMPANY pays 100% of, plus 401k and 12% (yeah TWELVE percent) employer match.  WOAH!  The ONLY downside, if I had to list one, is that it’s in Draper.  It would end up being about an additional 20 minute drive than what I was used to driving to American Fork, but I just told the guy “what’s another few exits?”  I think it will be worth it if they offer it to me.  I’m definitely not gonna turn it down because of 20 extra driving minutes.  I’ll probably update tomorrow after the interview and let you all know how it goes!!!   *Crossing fingers*