My new year has been really complicated.  You might be rolling your eyes right now, but it's true.

How, you ask? Well,  New Years Eve I saw I had three emails from a company I was interested in working for: An offer letter, a request for additional information and an explanatory email. What makes it so complicated? A couple of things:

First is that I'd requested to be able to give two weeks notice and the offer letter had my start date as pretty much two weeks from the day I got it, counting the two holidays we have this month, but NOT counting the time it takes for them to run the reference and background checks.

Secondly, because of the above, that meant I had to give notice at my current job yesterday. New. Years. Day. I was sick from it all New Year's Eve. I called them yesterday morning (after picking-up my phone and putting it down again a thousand times) to see if I could stop by their house, but reached voicemail at the two numbers I called. My anxiety was at an all time high.  They saw the missed call and called me a while later and I arranged to stop by yesterday afternoon. They called me again to push the meeting back 30 minutes. It was in that call that they asked what it was about. I felt pressured, so I told them (and started crying). We decided to meet a bit later in the day, but I felt a little better that they knew.

The extra twist, and I let my bosses know this, is that I was resigning without actually officially having the new job, because I respect them enough to give them as much notice as possible. I was risking being unemployed in order to do the right thing by them. They really seemed to appreciate that.

Actually, the whole thing went well. They really understood my reasons and didn't want me to quit, but offered to give me a good reference if I needed one. I am grateful to them for that.

When I get the new job officially, I will be working in downtown. I used to hate working in downtown, but having worked in Brentwood, I realized that downtown was much more central and easier to commute to/from. That includes to/from home and getting to/from doctors appointments, etc. Working at my old job, I scheduled my appointments after work and they average 25 minutes from downtown, whereas it takes over two hours to get to Brentwood after my appointments, which I currently have to schedule in the morning.

My new hours will be great, 6:30-3:00. It's a compromise between my old job and the job I have now.    Not hellaciously early (at my old job, I was getting to work at 5am), but not really late (I get to work at 9am now). Being able to leave the office at 3pm will be great. That's when I used to get off work when I was in downtown. The commute will be so much shorter! Right now, my commute to work is 30-35 minutes if traffic is light. Going to downtown earlier in the day, it will be between 10-15 minutes. Currently, my drive home is at least 1 hour (with average traffic...with heavy traffic it's 1 1/2 - 2 hours). With the new job it will be around 20-30 minutes.

I'm sure the new job won't be perfect, nothing is, but there is a lot of potential for advancement that I don't currently have. Plus, it will save my licenses. You're only allowed to be out of the business 2 years before they expire and that clock, for me, runs out at the start of April. Scary part is, I have to get another license within my first 90 days of starting. Fingers-crossed I can do it!!!  I'm not a good test taker, that's for sure. The new license is not optional, so I will have to do whatever it takes to study and pass the exam.

Please send your good vibes my way that I officially get this job! I do not want to be unemployed!!!!