![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
citysparrowAs most of you have heard by now, I got a job. Yesterday I formally accepted a one-year position as a "Business Analyst" (replacement for someone who is going out on maternity leave) at The Hospital for Sick Children, better known around here as SickKids. I start on Tuesday, right after the Thanksgiving weekend.
I had some misgivings about accepting the job - I mean, in addition to the usual anxiety about whether I am going to be able to do it successfully, etc. It reminds me of the old joke which Woody Allen told in one of his movies: "The food here is terrible." "Yes, and the portions are so small." On one hand I am disappointed to be taking another I.T. job, since I was hoping to be able to get out of I.T. On the other hand, I am distressed that the job is only for one year. Knowing that I will have to go through job-search hell again, no later than a year from now, takes away some of the relief I would otherwise feel. Getting this job postpones, but does not solve, my employment problem.
Still, a one-year reprieve from job-hunting is a tremendous relief. Here I am reminded of another old joke, this one from the 1970s "Six Wives of Henry VIII" show with Keith Michell. It is about someone under sentence of death, who gets a reprieve for a year by undertaking to teach the king's horse to talk. When a friend asks him what good this will do, since he will surely be executed at the end of the year, he says, "I have gained a year, and a lot can happen in a year. I may die. Or the king may die. Or the horse may die. Or -- the horse may talk."
Once I had faxed in my signed contract, I realized that this was going to be my last day of idleness for a long time. The new job is quite parsimonious with time off. I get nine holidays, two weeks' vacation, and 21 hours personal time off - a far cry from the 4 weeks' vacation, plus a week at Christmas, that I used to get at Brown. How to spend my one day of freedom? How better to celebrate rejoining the middle class, than to "shop till you drop"?
So Peter and I set off on a 6-hour orgy of shopping, after which we came home and ordered more stuff on-line. We haven't bought the new washer and dryer yet, but we managed to spend over $1000 anyway (admittedly more than $500 was for needed car repairs, which comes under the heading of "deferred maintenance" rather than riotous self-indulgence). Here's the breakdown:
* a brake job and oil change for the car
* a half-dozen or so used books
* a stack of CDs (this doesn't really count, as it was Peter's birthday present)
* a James Bond movie, a Woody Allen movie, and a miniseries about Queen Elizabeth I with Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, and Hugh Dancy
* lunch at a Thai restaurant, a snack at Tim Horton's, and dinner from Pizza Pizza
* a vacuum cleaner, mop, new toilet seat, and other humble household items from Canadian Tire
* an electric fireplace from Canadian Tire
* tickets to the Toronto Consort (early-music ensemble)
Today promises to be a day of less giddy excitement. I have to go back to Canadian Tire to exchange the ironing board cover, which is the wrong size. We should also follow through on some of our purchases, e.g. install the new toilet seat we bought. An ordinary Saturday, in fact, filled with the ordinary Saturday chores that people do when they have jobs to go to during the week.
Thank God.
I had some misgivings about accepting the job - I mean, in addition to the usual anxiety about whether I am going to be able to do it successfully, etc. It reminds me of the old joke which Woody Allen told in one of his movies: "The food here is terrible." "Yes, and the portions are so small." On one hand I am disappointed to be taking another I.T. job, since I was hoping to be able to get out of I.T. On the other hand, I am distressed that the job is only for one year. Knowing that I will have to go through job-search hell again, no later than a year from now, takes away some of the relief I would otherwise feel. Getting this job postpones, but does not solve, my employment problem.
Still, a one-year reprieve from job-hunting is a tremendous relief. Here I am reminded of another old joke, this one from the 1970s "Six Wives of Henry VIII" show with Keith Michell. It is about someone under sentence of death, who gets a reprieve for a year by undertaking to teach the king's horse to talk. When a friend asks him what good this will do, since he will surely be executed at the end of the year, he says, "I have gained a year, and a lot can happen in a year. I may die. Or the king may die. Or the horse may die. Or -- the horse may talk."
Once I had faxed in my signed contract, I realized that this was going to be my last day of idleness for a long time. The new job is quite parsimonious with time off. I get nine holidays, two weeks' vacation, and 21 hours personal time off - a far cry from the 4 weeks' vacation, plus a week at Christmas, that I used to get at Brown. How to spend my one day of freedom? How better to celebrate rejoining the middle class, than to "shop till you drop"?
So Peter and I set off on a 6-hour orgy of shopping, after which we came home and ordered more stuff on-line. We haven't bought the new washer and dryer yet, but we managed to spend over $1000 anyway (admittedly more than $500 was for needed car repairs, which comes under the heading of "deferred maintenance" rather than riotous self-indulgence). Here's the breakdown:
* a brake job and oil change for the car
* a half-dozen or so used books
* a stack of CDs (this doesn't really count, as it was Peter's birthday present)
* a James Bond movie, a Woody Allen movie, and a miniseries about Queen Elizabeth I with Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, and Hugh Dancy
* lunch at a Thai restaurant, a snack at Tim Horton's, and dinner from Pizza Pizza
* a vacuum cleaner, mop, new toilet seat, and other humble household items from Canadian Tire
* an electric fireplace from Canadian Tire
* tickets to the Toronto Consort (early-music ensemble)
Today promises to be a day of less giddy excitement. I have to go back to Canadian Tire to exchange the ironing board cover, which is the wrong size. We should also follow through on some of our purchases, e.g. install the new toilet seat we bought. An ordinary Saturday, in fact, filled with the ordinary Saturday chores that people do when they have jobs to go to during the week.
Thank God.