Thursday’s Child and the Unhatched Eggs
There was a reason why I wrote this post.
The reason is an incident I’m currently not sure how I will deal with, but that again reassured me that I must be one of the world’s luckiest people.
As you may or may not know I recently finished my training. Also, as you may or may not know we won’t be able to work at the company where we worked as trainees, but they let us stay for three month at full pay to give us some time to find a new job. Also, as you may or may not know, the boyfriend has been unemployed for about two years now, although he is constantly applying for jobs all over the country and has a great resume and references. Also, as you may or may not know the official number of unemployed people in Germany just went over the 5 million mark.
Also, as you may or may not know, I might just be in the position where I have to worry about which job I would like to take.
I sent out one application.
One.
That was about two weeks ago. The reason why I didn’t write about it before and still feel awkward about it now is that I’m kind of paranoid about talking about those things before I am sure about what’s going to happen. I honestly believe that if I tell you that I think I’m going to get that job, they will call me tomorrow and tell me they chose someone else. But I’m working on overcoming that paranoia, so I’m telling you now, although nothing is for sure right now.
So, here’s the story, as detailed as I’m able to at five minutes before midnight.
(So, who else of you loves Paolo Conte? Because I really do. That has nothing to do with the rest of the story, but I love Paolo Conte. Deeply.)
I applied for the job as a software engineer/designer at a company in the healthcare/pharma business. The ad said that they were looking for someone to start in February and I applied in about two weeks ago.
One week after I had sent the application I got the call. They wanted to invite me to a job interview, scheduled to take place a week later. I honestly couldn’t believe it. I mean, my profile fit, but still.
The job interview went well. It was a little bit chaotic and I could see already that taking that job would include working a lot, but I liked the tasks and the fact that they had a lot of international contacts. Also, I’m not a very big fan of the company I currently work at.
Because of my paranoia I didn’t even tell Andreas I had a job interview until the minute I came out the door and called him. I even was a little pissed because the boyfriend had told my mom I had a job interview. I don’t know what it is, but somehow I don’t want the cheering up and crossing fingers. I will spill it all out after, but I don’t like to talk about it before.
The next week we tried to get more information about whether there is chance we can stay at our company longer than the three month. There’s this one guy both Andreas and I worked for during our training and he would like us to work for a big project, but he needs one of the managers to give his approval. At the most we could stay for another two years, but nothing is settled yet.
We met with the guy on Wednesday and basically what he told us was how much he wanted to have us work for the project and that he will do everything to get us to stay as long as possible. He also told us that up to now he hasn’t heard anything from the manager on this subject. Maybe I’m just picky, but I consider a contract a really fine thing.
The same afternoon my boss told me he wanted to talk to me and it turns out that there’s another team where I could work with the option that I could stay longer. Again, nothing is definite and he has to talk to one of the managers first.
Now, today I get the call from the other company and from what I can tell they already decided that I will be the one for them. At least that’s the feeling I got. He told me how much I would earn and that he would like to meet with me again next week with one of the HR guys present to discuss the details. He didn’t say anything about a second job interview or something, so I can only guess that they have already decided.
Now, what the hell am I going to do?
I kind of hoped that the other company wouldn’t call me before next week so that maybe things at my company would be clearer and I would know what I can expect there.
Now everything’s mixed up and I am confused.
Here are the pros and cons (and then I will go to bed).
My company (that means the one I currently work at):
On the pro-side they pay more (at least slightly), I know pretty much what I can expect and how things are organized, I know a few people and Andreas works there and I’m pretty sure that the work wouldn’t be too exhausting. Also, I know that the company isn’t likely to go bankrupt in the near future.
The not-so-good things are that I would be doing a lot of host-programming, mostly COBOL and aside from being not too exhausting it can also be quite tedious. I also don’t like my company too much, so I wouldn’t exactly mind a change of scenery. And I would only get a fixed-term contract.
Apart from that I don’t even know whether I’m going to get a fixed-term contract that extends the three months they promised us. They just told me the chances are good, I haven’t seen a friggin‘ contract yet.
The other company:
On the pro-side the work would be more interesting. I would be able to go a little bit back to internet design and these things. As far as I can tell I would also learn a lot and be able to use my foreign language skills (they told me that part of their decision was based on the fact that I speak French and they need someone who does). And as I said before I wouldn’t mind a change.
On the con-side I know near to nothing about this company. It’s also a small company and I’m not really a small company gal. I’m not good with the whole ‚we-are-one-big-team-and-we-all-like-each-other‘ attitude, and I’m not sure whether this kind of attitude or one of its variants is carefully maintained. They pay a little less, but that’s not really what I worry about. It’s still enough. What I’m worried about the most is the fact that during the so-called ‚Probezeit‘ they can fire me anytime they want and I don’t know enough about the company and the probability that it’s going bankrupt anytime soon.
You can sum it up that way: My company gives me a lot of safety (if I get a fixed-term contract that extends the three months), but I’m not thrilled about the work I would have to do. The other company offers an interesting workfield, but I don’t really know what I’ll be getting into. So it’s fun against safety. A little bit heart agains head. And I like both.
I don’t know yet what to do. I will have to wait until next week anyway. I need a contract to sign and I may just decide that whoever gives me a contract first will win.