Author: Mark Alexander

About a week ago I was given notice that as of September 30th, my contract was finally coming to an end and it would be my absolute, absolute last day at my current place of employment. However, because I’d been told this so many times over the last eight months, I took it with a grain of salt and went on about my business, thinking, “Yeah, right.” This past Monday morning however, I received email from my recruiter confirming that after speaking with my boss, my time here was indeed coming to an end.

Well fuck.

Yeah, I know I was making way less money than what I’d been prior to coming here and it was a constant reminder of how woefully under-employed I was, but for the most part—even with the multiple instances of stupid I have witnessed during my tenure—I have genuinely enjoyed working here and realized that I was going to miss my coworkers much more than I ever thought I would.

Even so, as much as the thought of having to go through a job search yet again (not to mention interviewing) left a pit in my stomach, I tried to remain positive. Firstly, since this was not a for-cause or a voluntary termination, securing Arizona Employment Benefits—as meager as they are—while I looked for work wouldn’t be met with the kind of resistance I got from DISH after I left there. Secondly, I tried to keep the attitude that everything happens for a reason, and this was happening now because it was time for me to move onto a new chapter in my professional life.

Well, wouldn’t you know as soon as I wrapped my head around that, accepted it, received a glowing Letter of Recommendation from my supervisor’s boss, and actually started looking forward to having some time off, everything changed.

My boss walked in late yesterday afternoon with a very serious look on his face and his cell phone glued to his ear. I didn’t know who he was talking to, but I overheard, “So this isn’t FTE? Okay, I’ll ask him how he feels about it.”

Next thing I know we were sitting in his office and I was being offered a job; not as an “Imaging Specialist” (my current title), but as a proper Desktop Tech. It would still be a contract position, but unlike my current gig, this one was open-ended and could potentially last years. (There’s a hiring freeze on right now for full-time employees; otherwise they’d offer to hire me outright.)

To be honest, my initial internal reaction—after seeing how things are done around here and dealing with some of the personalities I’d have to interact with on a daily basis as a Desktop Tech—was “Oh hell no!” But almost immediately I remembered this had also been my initial reaction to the offer of employment at Abrazo after contracting there those many years ago—and that resulted in some lifelong friendships being formed and the job itself ultimately becoming the one to which I compared all that followed.

I told my supervisor it sounded interesting, but frankly it would all come down to the money. I’d already applied at two other state agencies where I’d be making significantly more and he was aware of that, so he understood completely, saying that I’d have to discuss those specifics with his boss.

This morning when I arrived at work I sent an email off to the man holding the purse strings asking if we could meet sometime today. Not thirty seconds later my phone rang and the he said, “How about now?”

To sum up, after discussing everything and getting a ballpark salary estimate sometime later, I accepted the offer. My new title and pay grade takes effect Monday even though I’ll still be reporting to the same location and doing the same tasks I have been until they figure out exactly what they’re going to do with me. It still needs to be determined which facility I’ll be based at and who I’ll be paired with—requiring some personnel shuffling—but it looks like I’m set for the foreseeable future and I can finally exhale a bit…