(Yes, two blog entries in one day. Do I get a gold star?)
It’s been almost impossible not to get caught up in rugby fever these days. Against great odds, England is playing in the Rugby World Cup final this Saturday against South Africa. They are the underdogs for sure, and even if I don’t actually get around to watching the game itself (although I think I just might…even though I don’t really understand it yet) I will be pulling for them. And if they win, I will be cheering as enthusiastically as if I were actually English. Heck – it’s not like they have any American rivals, so who else would I cheer for? 🙂
So here I am, nearly at the end of week 2 of my new job, and I realised I hadn’t blogged about it yet! (Did you catch the UK spelling there?) Most people who actually read this blog will have heard about my new job via other sources of information (hooray for Facebook!) but in the interest of using this space to log significant milestones and events in my transition to life in the UK, I’ll add it here.
The job search process certainly had its frustrating moments. I applied for about a dozen jobs that I saw listed online, mostly at jobs.ac.uk (jobs in higher education), charityjob.co.uk and thirdsector.org.uk.. Some of them I felt more qualified for than others. But from most of them I heard back not a peep. I did get invited to interview for jobs with Westminster Theological Centre and University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business London Campus. But before either of those hiring processes finished, I was offered a job by Ann Pettifor of Advocacy International. James worked with Ann back in 1999-2000 on the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt campaign. When he ran into Ann at Greenbelt this year, she asked him to stop by and chat with her about website help. I tagged along and ended up getting a job out of it!
Technically, I’m doing two different jobs at Advocacy International. I’m working 2 1/2 days a week for Operation Noah as Logistics and Operations Officer. I’m doing things like helping get them set up as a registered charity, hiring new staff, and helping with various other administrative and HR bits. I’m also working one day a week for Advocacy International and will be working on keeping track of contracts with our clients, finding new office space, and who knows what else.
Ann’s goal is that eventually I’ll be working full time on various campaigns that AI is managing, but to fill in the other day and a half per week currently open in my schedule, I picked up some short-term work for Greenbelt. (That’s job #3.) It will only last a few weeks, but hey – it’s another bit of income that I wasn’t getting for sitting around the flat. And it will help pay for our plane tickets back to the States over the Christmas and New Year holidays. Hurrah.
I’m enjoying my work so far. I have terrific colleagues. I’m doing a lot of different things. And I’m discovering that I have indeed picked up a lot of useful knowledge and skills from my past work experience. I am, however, looking forward to getting to the point (a few months down the road, I’m sure) where I actually feel like I know what I’m doing most of the time and am not just making it up as I go along. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the 9:30-5:30 workday (with an hour lunch break), the government-mandated 4.8 weeks of holiday (as of 1st April, 2009, it will go up to 5.6 weeks), and making money in pounds (even though I haven’t actually gotten a paycheck yet).
It’s good to be employed.
