Last night I could not sleep. I was wired and awake. I ended up watching a movie until way past midnight, and even then I wasn’t tired. So I hopped on the computer for a bit. Next thing I know it’s 3:00 a.m. and I haven’t even yawned one time.
But I forced myself to go to bed anyway. And once in bed I laid there staring at the clock for over an hour, my mind racing.
Why was I such a mess?
Because after six months of faithfully sending out my resume several times each and every week in the hopes of landing another job, I FINALLY got a call. One single call. A call that filled me with hope and fear.
I didn’t actually speak to the person that called because the call came in while I was at the pool with the kids. So when we got home I called and left a responsive voicemail of my own, asking the HR rep to call me back this morning.
I’ve used our brand new (and awesome) budgeting spreadsheet to calculate a few numbers. Since becoming an freelance-at-home-mom we’ve cut out a lot of things from our monthly expenses. Most of things wouldn’t come back should I re-enter the workforce. We’d still take our trash to the dump rather than pay for trash pickup, for instance. I’ve gotten used to only have 30 channels on our DirecTV so we’d probably leave that the same. We’ve also gotten used to not having TV in the office so I doubt we’d add that back. As such, my salary requirements are slightly different than they were six months ago.
However, since getting laid off and taking the kids out of daycare entirely, I have also said that I will NOT go back to work if the salary I get ONLY covers daycare. Because if that’s all it covers, then there’s no sense in me going back to work. The key is to get a job that offers a salary that allows me to put money back into the coffers for other expenses and bills besides just daycare. If I were to get a job making the exact same salary as I made six months ago, we’d be in great shape consider all the expenses we cut when I got laid off.
But right now I’m nervous about other things – the interview itself, the job location (this company has several locations in the Charlotte area and my hope is that it’s located near my house as opposed to up in the University area), going back to 9-5 after being my own boss for six months and building a decent home freelancing business (albeit not consistently scheduled, and not enough to really contribute significantly to our household expenses, but enough to help stretch out my unemployment benefits that much longer, which is nice), putting the kids back into daycare after having them enjoy the at-home life for a while, and a whole slew of other things that have nothing to do with potential salary and expenses.
The callback from the HR rep will be this morning while the kids are at VBS. I’m hoping to find out as much information as I can (including salary range) so that I can determine if it’s even worth it to interview. I know I can do the job – the job description could have been pulled directly from my resume.
I’ll admit this call from the new place makes me a bit sad, too. I really enjoyed working for The Firm, and Mr. BIL. And even though I knew it wouldn’t happen, I kind of hoped that at some point The Firm would call me back and say, “We made a mistake – would you come back?” I enjoyed that job (and my rapport with Mr. BIL) that much. But I suppose that’s not going to happen, and it’s time to face up to that and move on.
Such a big decision! I’ll pray for direction for you.