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May Layoff part 2
May. 29th, 2023 06:00 amJameson had a dentist appointment early on Thursday morning, poor guy.
I fell back asleep after he left, but woke up right at 8am.
Enjoyed a slow morning of touching base with relatives via email, and kind of organizing my job opportunities so I could analyze all the pros/cons of each...In the middle of which I got an offer for my first choice!!
It's a data entry/transcription job that does contracted work for misc government agencies.
I was referred to the job by
fuzzilla after expressing interest, and owe her MUCH thanks!
This is a far better job than I was expecting to qualify for, and I'm very grateful.
Excited and a bit nervous, but mostly excited to get started!
Anyway, the rest of the morning was nice and slow.
After lunch I repacked my luggage, then finally and with a lot of grumbling tackled the shower.
So Much Scrubbing. But when it was done it was much better, and it won't be as hard to clean when I come back home in a month.
My new iPhone arrived! I immediately put it in its buttered toast case, with the Smuckers jelly phone charm.
I can't believe it all came together so well! Guffawed out loud!
Too funny. I probably won't keep the Smuckers on the phone all the time, because having something dangling from the phone is a bit annoying. But I can add it when I know I'll have my phone out of my pocket for a long time like on a desk or table. And then hopefully I'll have a plate to put it on too. Can't wait to make a call on it!
For dinner we went to a new (to us) place called New York Beer Project.
The food was good, the drinks were excellent. They make their own hard seltzer, and the flavor tonight was Dole Whip. Very yummy.
We had a nice meal and talked about all sorts of things. Like how our 10-year anniversary is coming up. Wow!
I've missed my Jameson :) It will be good to actually be present in each others' lives in a month.
Back home I received my official offer letter from FedWriters, so got to work filling out all of my paperwork for them.
Then set up my new phone while Jameson watched the Cubs. Later on we watched Top Chef together and went to bed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday morning after breakfast I packaged my old phone for trade-in and wrote some letters to grandparents and penpal, spent some time repacking my luggage.
I had my final interview of layoff at Orange County Courthouse (they scheduled the interview yesterday near the end of the business day.) So After lunch I drove all the way downtown. Parking at least was easy, and the massive courthouse was easy to find.
Security got a big kick out of my toast-phone; the first officer did a double take and had a good guffaw. The second officer did a double take and exclaimed, "I thought you were checking a sandwich!"
I found the interview office and waited with two other women.
And waited, and waited.
About 30 minutes later they finally called me into a conference room, where I was seated in front of a panel of four women.
Each one introduced themselves and described their departments...I remember Civil and Domestic, I think the other two were Criminal and Probate. So the reason for the four-person panel was multiple positions available across these four departments, and each department head would evaluate us for where we might be most needed/best suited.
The interview was intense, if only because I was the center of their attention for at least 30 minutes.
They asked lots of situational and scenario questions (i.e. "If you aren't getting along with a coworker, what would you do?") and asked for examples from my past work history ("Describe a time where you dealt with an irate customer.") Typical stuff, but with the questions popping out from four different people and all of them typing away on laptops while I answered...by the time they escorted me back out I was sweating about halfway down my shirt.
Also, no one commented on toast-phone, which I had placed directly on the table.
I think they truly didn't notice it.
They were very intrigued about my circus history though, and wanted to hear about the elephants (everyone does!)
And they were all very pleased about my transcription experience because it showed not only that I had jobs which prioritized accuracy, but also discretion and confidentiality.
Not that it matters because I've accepted another job. But I wanted to interview here anyway, because hopefully they'll keep me on file as "worth considering" in case I need to apply again. The world has become a crazy place, and as an INTJ I gotta have my Plan A, Plan A 2.0, Plan B, Plan B 2.0, etc.
I think it went well, but they were interviewing a LOT of people, so who knows.
Back home I had a snack and chilled, then made air fryer wings for us, one of our favorite treats.
We had a white pizza from Marco's with tomato slices, bacon, onion, and feta, and I got out some balsamic drizzle that made it absolutely fantastic. Got to remember that addition if we order it again.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, I was startled to realize that I am going back on tour in a few days!
I've been so focused on using this layoff to build my little house of cards for when this tour ends.
And I sort of forgot it ain't over yet!
So I hurriedly worked on Foodie Finds for upcoming Thousand Oaks and Milwaukee.
The next several cities are so saturated with amazing restaurants, they're probably ALL going to be two-page recommendation lists.
After that, I swept the pool deck and garage, and ate my Cup Noodles Breakfast for lunch.
Here it is before adding the water:
And after:
And after cooking:
The smell of artificial maple syrup filled the kitchen while it was cooking.
After letting it cool Jameson and I gave it a taste.
Not bad! Obviously still full of weird fillers and loaded with salt.
But it was sweet and salty, nice chewy noodles, and even the freeze-dried egg and sausage bits were decent.
After lunch I went for a walk by myself.
It was sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and only moderately hot for Florida.
I did our usual neighborhood walk, which is about two miles.
In the evening we were invited to join an escape room with some of Jameson's friends!
It was a room meant for eight people, but five people had flaked on Party Planners Paul and Alanie (our two friends).
For those who don't know, Jameson and I are UNDEFEATED at escape rooms.
We've done something like 5-6 escape rooms together and have never lost one.
This one was virus-themed (too soon?) and the goal was to quarantine a facility before everyone inside turned into rabid zombies :p
We had an hour to complete the room (which turned out to be three connected rooms), and the five of us plugged away mightily, getting hung up twice and having to ask for hints.
It was a fun and challenging room, but there were some definite puzzle design issues. The biggest problem was that there were two audio puzzles, one where we needed to hear a series of six different pitches to find a pattern and another where we had to listen to the squeaking of lab rats to get a number sequence. Which was fine, but the room's themed soundtrack--alarms going off, pipes bursting, radio chatter, people zombie-fying--was so loud that all five of us found it really difficult to hear what we needed to solve the puzzles. When you have two ear-trained musicians struggling to hear an audio cue through the racket, it's too loud.
These two puzzles caused the most significant delays in our game. For the lab rat puzzle they actually had to stop our timer and come help us because the keypad we were trying to unlock with the squeak-code stopped working.
The other most notable puzzle issue was our very last clue, the one that we needed to leave the room.
It involved some of the lights on the walls near the ceiling. Before we started the room our attendant SPECIFICALLY said, "No clues will be on the ceiling or above your heads." Literally the LAST puzzle we needed to solve involved these ceiling-adjacent lights, and the room attendants had to verbally give us that hint because we were intentionally ignoring them, as we had been instructed. BOOOOOOO.
Anyway, despite those logistics issues it was still a very fun room and well done overall.
We BARELY won with only 52 seconds to spare!
Considering that the puzzles were designed for eight people and we only had five,
and that the room had only a 22% success rate, I think we did FANTASTICALLY well!
Victory photo:
From there we drove to Player 1, a video game bar.
Jameson & Co had been here several times, but I had not.
You pay a cover charge, and all the games are free to play!
( CLICK HERE for Gamer Bar )
Back home I opened my other Mystery Box purchase: a fortune bag.
It had a cute rubber band-powered butterfly, and a fortune that told me something like "You will enjoy career success but at the potential expense of your relationship." Old news :p
And also, this tarot card:
Yeah, definitely one of the more negative tarot cards you can pull.
But luckily I don't put stock in tarot. And guess what: sorrow and struggle come to everyone.
That's life. I don't need a card to tell me that :)
-----------------------------------------------------
Sunday was a relaxed day.
Jameson had a massage at 11, and while he was gone I attacked the shower one more time with bleach, ran the dishwasher, did a last load of laundry, and made a trip to Publix for a few travel foods because lunch will be on the plane tomorrow.
Literally did nothing else all afternoon except finish Wheel of Time: The Shadow Rising and start Wheel of Time: The Fires of Heaven.
For dinner, Panera, then Jameson went to rehearsal and I went for a sunset walk around the neighborhood.
It was mostly quiet, but a lot more cars than usual because of the holiday and there will probably be some festivities tonight.
------------------------------------------------------
Today I am up early to eat something before Jameson takes me to the airport.
I'm going fairly early because of the holiday weekend, figure I'd better plan for insanity.
It's a 5-hour flight to LAX which will DEFINITELY be insanity, then fighting LA traffic to get to Thousand Oaks.
One month left.
I fell back asleep after he left, but woke up right at 8am.
Enjoyed a slow morning of touching base with relatives via email, and kind of organizing my job opportunities so I could analyze all the pros/cons of each...In the middle of which I got an offer for my first choice!!
It's a data entry/transcription job that does contracted work for misc government agencies.
I was referred to the job by
fuzzilla after expressing interest, and owe her MUCH thanks!This is a far better job than I was expecting to qualify for, and I'm very grateful.
Excited and a bit nervous, but mostly excited to get started!
Anyway, the rest of the morning was nice and slow.
After lunch I repacked my luggage, then finally and with a lot of grumbling tackled the shower.
So Much Scrubbing. But when it was done it was much better, and it won't be as hard to clean when I come back home in a month.
My new iPhone arrived! I immediately put it in its buttered toast case, with the Smuckers jelly phone charm.
I can't believe it all came together so well! Guffawed out loud!
Too funny. I probably won't keep the Smuckers on the phone all the time, because having something dangling from the phone is a bit annoying. But I can add it when I know I'll have my phone out of my pocket for a long time like on a desk or table. And then hopefully I'll have a plate to put it on too. Can't wait to make a call on it!
For dinner we went to a new (to us) place called New York Beer Project.
The food was good, the drinks were excellent. They make their own hard seltzer, and the flavor tonight was Dole Whip. Very yummy.
We had a nice meal and talked about all sorts of things. Like how our 10-year anniversary is coming up. Wow!
I've missed my Jameson :) It will be good to actually be present in each others' lives in a month.
Back home I received my official offer letter from FedWriters, so got to work filling out all of my paperwork for them.
Then set up my new phone while Jameson watched the Cubs. Later on we watched Top Chef together and went to bed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday morning after breakfast I packaged my old phone for trade-in and wrote some letters to grandparents and penpal, spent some time repacking my luggage.
I had my final interview of layoff at Orange County Courthouse (they scheduled the interview yesterday near the end of the business day.) So After lunch I drove all the way downtown. Parking at least was easy, and the massive courthouse was easy to find.
Security got a big kick out of my toast-phone; the first officer did a double take and had a good guffaw. The second officer did a double take and exclaimed, "I thought you were checking a sandwich!"
I found the interview office and waited with two other women.
And waited, and waited.
About 30 minutes later they finally called me into a conference room, where I was seated in front of a panel of four women.
Each one introduced themselves and described their departments...I remember Civil and Domestic, I think the other two were Criminal and Probate. So the reason for the four-person panel was multiple positions available across these four departments, and each department head would evaluate us for where we might be most needed/best suited.
The interview was intense, if only because I was the center of their attention for at least 30 minutes.
They asked lots of situational and scenario questions (i.e. "If you aren't getting along with a coworker, what would you do?") and asked for examples from my past work history ("Describe a time where you dealt with an irate customer.") Typical stuff, but with the questions popping out from four different people and all of them typing away on laptops while I answered...by the time they escorted me back out I was sweating about halfway down my shirt.
Also, no one commented on toast-phone, which I had placed directly on the table.
I think they truly didn't notice it.
They were very intrigued about my circus history though, and wanted to hear about the elephants (everyone does!)
And they were all very pleased about my transcription experience because it showed not only that I had jobs which prioritized accuracy, but also discretion and confidentiality.
Not that it matters because I've accepted another job. But I wanted to interview here anyway, because hopefully they'll keep me on file as "worth considering" in case I need to apply again. The world has become a crazy place, and as an INTJ I gotta have my Plan A, Plan A 2.0, Plan B, Plan B 2.0, etc.
I think it went well, but they were interviewing a LOT of people, so who knows.
Back home I had a snack and chilled, then made air fryer wings for us, one of our favorite treats.
We had a white pizza from Marco's with tomato slices, bacon, onion, and feta, and I got out some balsamic drizzle that made it absolutely fantastic. Got to remember that addition if we order it again.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, I was startled to realize that I am going back on tour in a few days!
I've been so focused on using this layoff to build my little house of cards for when this tour ends.
And I sort of forgot it ain't over yet!
So I hurriedly worked on Foodie Finds for upcoming Thousand Oaks and Milwaukee.
The next several cities are so saturated with amazing restaurants, they're probably ALL going to be two-page recommendation lists.
After that, I swept the pool deck and garage, and ate my Cup Noodles Breakfast for lunch.
Here it is before adding the water:
And after:
And after cooking:
The smell of artificial maple syrup filled the kitchen while it was cooking.
After letting it cool Jameson and I gave it a taste.
Not bad! Obviously still full of weird fillers and loaded with salt.
But it was sweet and salty, nice chewy noodles, and even the freeze-dried egg and sausage bits were decent.
After lunch I went for a walk by myself.
It was sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and only moderately hot for Florida.
I did our usual neighborhood walk, which is about two miles.
In the evening we were invited to join an escape room with some of Jameson's friends!
It was a room meant for eight people, but five people had flaked on Party Planners Paul and Alanie (our two friends).
For those who don't know, Jameson and I are UNDEFEATED at escape rooms.
We've done something like 5-6 escape rooms together and have never lost one.
This one was virus-themed (too soon?) and the goal was to quarantine a facility before everyone inside turned into rabid zombies :p
We had an hour to complete the room (which turned out to be three connected rooms), and the five of us plugged away mightily, getting hung up twice and having to ask for hints.
It was a fun and challenging room, but there were some definite puzzle design issues. The biggest problem was that there were two audio puzzles, one where we needed to hear a series of six different pitches to find a pattern and another where we had to listen to the squeaking of lab rats to get a number sequence. Which was fine, but the room's themed soundtrack--alarms going off, pipes bursting, radio chatter, people zombie-fying--was so loud that all five of us found it really difficult to hear what we needed to solve the puzzles. When you have two ear-trained musicians struggling to hear an audio cue through the racket, it's too loud.
These two puzzles caused the most significant delays in our game. For the lab rat puzzle they actually had to stop our timer and come help us because the keypad we were trying to unlock with the squeak-code stopped working.
The other most notable puzzle issue was our very last clue, the one that we needed to leave the room.
It involved some of the lights on the walls near the ceiling. Before we started the room our attendant SPECIFICALLY said, "No clues will be on the ceiling or above your heads." Literally the LAST puzzle we needed to solve involved these ceiling-adjacent lights, and the room attendants had to verbally give us that hint because we were intentionally ignoring them, as we had been instructed. BOOOOOOO.
Anyway, despite those logistics issues it was still a very fun room and well done overall.
We BARELY won with only 52 seconds to spare!
Considering that the puzzles were designed for eight people and we only had five,
and that the room had only a 22% success rate, I think we did FANTASTICALLY well!
Victory photo:
From there we drove to Player 1, a video game bar.
Jameson & Co had been here several times, but I had not.
You pay a cover charge, and all the games are free to play!
( CLICK HERE for Gamer Bar )
Back home I opened my other Mystery Box purchase: a fortune bag.
It had a cute rubber band-powered butterfly, and a fortune that told me something like "You will enjoy career success but at the potential expense of your relationship." Old news :p
And also, this tarot card:
Yeah, definitely one of the more negative tarot cards you can pull.
But luckily I don't put stock in tarot. And guess what: sorrow and struggle come to everyone.
That's life. I don't need a card to tell me that :)
-----------------------------------------------------
Sunday was a relaxed day.
Jameson had a massage at 11, and while he was gone I attacked the shower one more time with bleach, ran the dishwasher, did a last load of laundry, and made a trip to Publix for a few travel foods because lunch will be on the plane tomorrow.
Literally did nothing else all afternoon except finish Wheel of Time: The Shadow Rising and start Wheel of Time: The Fires of Heaven.
For dinner, Panera, then Jameson went to rehearsal and I went for a sunset walk around the neighborhood.
It was mostly quiet, but a lot more cars than usual because of the holiday and there will probably be some festivities tonight.
------------------------------------------------------
Today I am up early to eat something before Jameson takes me to the airport.
I'm going fairly early because of the holiday weekend, figure I'd better plan for insanity.
It's a 5-hour flight to LAX which will DEFINITELY be insanity, then fighting LA traffic to get to Thousand Oaks.
One month left.
