It’s been another busy week! Which is one reason why this is going out Sunday afternoon instead of Sunday morning. I wasn’t feeling all that productive yesterday…
My mom left on Tuesday morning, so I had the house to myself again. Of course StarDog and StarCat were very upset and made it clear that I wasn’t good enough. At least SunCat was still on my side…
I had a cat-sitting booked for early in the week, but I’m going to be slowing down on my Rover bookings because…
Job Interviews!
So many. Which is a good problem to have, but it’s also exhausting. I had a phone interview on Wednesday. It must have gone well because the company invited me out for an in-person interview…this week? Possibly? They didn’t really make dates clear. But that means I need to be ready to go.
On Thursday, I had a phone screen for another job (one that would really be like top of my list, so fingers crossed!). They scheduled a follow-up phone interview for this Tuesday. There are two companies I’ve interviewed for where I would take their offer, hands down, no question. This is one of them. And, suffice it to say, they’re both in beautiful, albeit different, parts of the country.
And on Friday, I had a second phone interview with another company. They have a pretty involved job application process, so the next step will be an online skills assessment and then two more rounds of interviews (one of which is in-person).
Again, the moral of this story is that when you have experience, people want you to work for them! And it feels great to know I can be picky about this next career step and choose something that will be a good fit for me. For example, I’ve written quite a bit about my mental health on this blog. Which means that even if a job pays a lot more, if I can’t picture myself happy in that environment, it doesn’t matter. In fact, for a number of these jobs, because of the lower cost of living in their locations, I’m willing to take a pay cut because it would still equate to a relative raise.
Letting People Down
Guys, I have a confession. I am such a people pleaser. I pride myself in getting along with others and being diplomatic in tough situations. But I also never got over the gold star mentality of 3rd grade…A great example of this is Rover. I get so excited when I have a 5-star review (and they have all been 5-stars up till now). And in part, that makes me happy because I know I’m providing the level of service that I hope for with my own pet sitters.
That streak died this week. Not on paper (yet). But because of the last-minute in-person job interview request, I had to make the difficult call to cancel a booking. This was a first-time client, and he had never used Rover before, and given his reaction to the cancellation, I’m not sure he will again… I cancelled the booking a week and a half in advance and explained that I had last-minute work travel come up. The problem was, he wasn’t leaving in a week and a half; he was leaving in two days and had a family member watching his cat for the first week he was gone.
I felt horrible because I was disappointing someone. I mean, it was the right call to make. Career future trumps sub-par paying side gig any day. But I guess I never got over that gold-star mentality, and so having someone blatantly angry with me was highly unpleasant. I’m assuming I have a bad Rover rating coming as well…c’est la vie, I guess.
Given the need for a quick cancellation, I decided to stop taking Rover bookings for the time being. I have two more on my calendar for repeat clients, and I think those will work in my schedule fine, but after that, I’m taking a break. It’s nice to have the extra income to offset pet expenses, but not when it makes me significantly more stressed, and not when I have the possibility of needing to cancel last minute hanging over my head.
De-Stressing
Last week was crazy, so I’ve been trying to relax more this weekend. StarDog went to the dog park on Saturday, which he definitely needed. And then this morning, we drove out to Rock Creek Park to hike. I had to break in some new hiking boots, and we have (shamefully) never been there before. It was great—we hiked 4 miles before the weather got too unbearable, though it was 97% humidity, so I was still sweating bullets. StarDog was not too happy about seeing his first horse, but he handled it like a champ. This evening, I’m going to cook for the week and do some knitting so that I’m relaxed before my interview tomorrow.
I’m glad that things are moving forward, and I’m so ready to start my next chapter, as cliché as that sounds. Hopefully I’ll be moving somewhere awesome very soon, and starting an exciting new job!