Transition (4) The end, a new beginning

5.9.14

 

Today marks the end of my first week at my new full-time permanent job; I am happy to report that the transition is over, well the part that has to do with my career.

 

The moment I decided to let go and let the chips regard my career and life fall where they may, the open happened. I saw a job unlike the ones I had applied to in the past and thought why not and I sent in my application and moved on.

Even though I stopped stressing out about the job, I continued to worry about my finances and having nothing meaningful to do daily. I had had enough of reviewing, learning new skills and keeping up with my industry. I had had enough of networking and redoing my resume. I needed to focus on bring money in to sustain my life, I was not going to let the only thing I had left, good credit get destroy, I wanted to able to pay my bills.

 

This is when I turned to the big guy in the sky and asked what am I suppose to do with my life, why was I here, because sitting in a room in someone’s house with debt and no way to afford the basic necessities was not part of my life plan. I told him that if my job is not ready, he needed to send a temporary one and money for me to sustain my life.

 

On January 31^st, I was craving chocolate cake all day but told no one. Later that evening the owner of the house knocked on my door telling me she brought me some dessert, a normal occurrence on Fridays. I went into the kitchen and found chocolate cake on top of the Friday newspaper insert that list jobs. I took both to my room and as I ate the cake I browsed through the job section. I came upon ad for a company called SourceHov that needed preppers and scanners. The advertisements said they were looking to hire 500 for a 3 to 4 month project and those interested must fill out and application online and go in the next day for an interview. I had plans to be in Albany for that weekend and SourceHov’s, Kingston location was on my way, I was glad I could do both. I figured it will also be a perfect job for me to quit when I get a job in my field.

I was offered a job and decided to start on Wednesday because the Monday I had an interview schedule at my old stomping ground McDonalds.

 

Monday Morning I felt weird. The weather channel was forecasting snow and I was not sure about the McDonald’s interview. Though it was 10 minutes away from my house, unlike SourceHov which was 50mins, I felt apprehensive about going back to McDonalds.

Before leaving the Albany, I called McDonald’s to reschedule to interview, something told me to stay one more day in Albany but I decided against it as it was the beginning of the week and I did not want to disturb my hosts flow.

I got on the road, heading home, thinking that finally I might have the money to fix the heat in my car and do my car inspection the next day as my schedule at SourceHov will be from 6am to 2:30pm, which does not leave much time for car maintenance. 15mins from home, my car started sliding, I saw two mailboxes ahead on the left side of the road and knew I was going to hit them and I did, after hitting them, my car turned facing the other direction, it tried flipping over but didn’t as the right tires were on one side of a snow band and the left was on the road.. As the car continues to move, I yelled help, help and then remembered the break and pulled it. I got out shaking, my body ached, head ached but with no bruises.

 

The next day I was giving a rental car by my insurance company and days later I found out my car was a complete loss, my insurance gave me some money for it and it was back to car shopping, which brought back a new added expense, car payment.

 

A week later, February 10^th, I was speaking with an uncle on the phone regarding the accident when I saw a call coming in from a NYC number, I said goodbye and answer, the call was from MSKCC requesting for me to come for an HR interview.  They wanted me to come on the Thursday, as I hung up the phone, I remembered that Thursday was one of the days forecasted for a 12 inches of snow in my area as well as NYC which is 80 miles away. I decide not to cancel and wait and see if they will. I figured I will leave as early as possible and take the train from Beacon station.

I woke up the day of the HR interview amazed that the only snow on the ground was the half an inch that had fallen from the previous day. I left the house at 6 am; I got to the rental car, after walking 15mins. I started the car to warm it up and decided to clear some of the snow. As I went to get the shovel out of the car, I found all the doors locked; yep I had locked the keys in the car with the car running, spare and all.

 

I did not know who to call, my AAA membership had run out and it was 6:30 am and I did not want to bother anyone. I called out to God for help as I intended to make it to my interview on time. The job had applied for was juicy, this was a position that seemed perfect for my skills, training and career goals, I had to do whatever it takes to get there.

I made a call to the house I was staying, no answer, I called some cell phones numbers, and got no answers, as I trekked back to the house practically running, my phone died. I got to the house and the owner of the house told me she had tried returning my call, she told me to call the police to help me. I did and an hour later I was off. On my way I stopped at a gas station, asked to plug in my phone so that I can turn it back on. I got to the train station to catch the train on time. It was going to get me to the city 3 hours ahead of time...As I tried to buy the ticket the machine would not corporate, I decided to use another. As I bought the ticket the 8:45 train came and went. I got on the 9:15. After about an hour on the train I looked down at my phone to see it ringing; I normally have it on with the ringer off. I answered it was hiring manager, checking to see if I could still make it as every other interviewee had canceled because of the weather. He decided to change the location from 41^st which was closer to the train stop, to the hospital at 67^th street. I said it was okay, as I had plenty of time.  As I looked for my metro card and train map I found 20 dollars. I got to the city; the snow was now a slushy mess but I am happy to report had a great first interview. The manager told me to contact him in a week if I didn’t hear back.

The next Monday I was leaving for work at 4am, 45mins early because of the snow and as I backed out I hit a snow bank putting a dent in the rental car.

 

After a week, I sent an email to the hiring manager as I had not heard back, he responded he hadn’t heard back from the manager and he would follow up. When I got home I received an email asking me to pick a time to come any day during the week. As I discussed this with my land lady, I decided to go on Thursday as snow was on the forecast for  most of the days that week, as I was responding to the message, thank God it was after 5pm, one of my land lady’s grandson, hit a key on my computer and the half email was sent. I could not recall it but had to send an apology and stated that I could come on Thursday at 2pm.

 

That week, I had decided on a PT Cruiser from a mechanic and was to pick it up on Wednesday. I told myself if my own car I would drive to the city if not I will take the train as I did not want to drive the rental car anymore. When Thursday arrived I still had the rental car, I wanted to clean it, fill up the tank as I was driving by car rental office on my way to the train station but I decided to wait until after the interview to do all this...

 

 At about 9:30 whiles on the train, I looked down and saw that I had a miss call from the hiring manager.  He had left a message informing me to not come for the interview as the Finance Manager I was to meet had call in sick. I made it to grand central station, when to the bank, caught the train back, dropped the rental car off nervously and picked up my new car from the mechanic.

 

The following Tuesday, I was sent home early from my job at Sourcehov because they did not have any work for us to do, upset a sent an email to the hiring manager asking if the Finance manager was ok, he responded that he hadn’t heard back and he would follow up. Hours later, he emailed back, wanting to know if I can come the next day at 2pm, I agreed and went in and met with my new boss. That was a great interview, I loved our interaction. It reminded me of a dream I had; in the dream I had an interview with a man in NYC and we were laughing and it had gone greatly.

 

Weeks went by I started getting nervous and I tried my best not to analyze the interview. I kept telling myself that “the job for me is finding me and we will come together in perfect harmony”-a mantra I learned from Nancy Johansson on 12RADIO.

 

On April 1^st I received a call from MSKCC, telling me to come to the same location where I met my current boss, to meet with and administrator on Friday at 12:30 pm. I agreed.  I meet with her, and she informed me that I would know my fate regarding this job within 2 weeks.

On 4/14/14 I got the call from hiring manager, he told me  it was down to me another person and they wanted to move along with my references.  I requested helped from people who had agreed to do it prior. It was tax day and I was worried about one person’s availability as he is a CPA, but as luck would have it he came through by the Thursday. On Friday the 4/18/14 on Good Friday, I got the call; Feeling relieved and accepted their offer. They gave me a start date of May 5^th.

 

Following the offer, I had to make a quick trip to the city to meet with HR and employer health, on the day I was traveling to London, England for my grandmother’s 90^th birthday. Luckily my flight was at 9:30 pm from JFK, so like the trooper I am, I got up at 4am left for NYC around 5:20 am, did my errand, drop off my car in Kingston NY, caught the Amtrak train and made it to JFK for my flight.

 

Now on to other adventure, stay tuned...

 

 

 

 Here are the link to the other transition blogs:

 

Transition 3

Transition 2

Transition 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please check out the New posts on my Healthcare blog..

http://heathcarehappenings.blogspot.com/

Vice president Biden announced $100 millions mental health services plan.

http://heathcarehappenings.blogspot.com/2013/12/great-start-for-access-to-mental-health.html

From : http://heathcarehappenings.blogspot.com/2013/11/increased-and-better-behavioral-health.html

http://heathcarehappenings.blogspot.com/2013/11/increased-and-better-behavioral-health.html

Transition (3) Gifts

Gifts

Yesterday I was doing one of my assessment of my life, wondering if what I do matter, as things around me keeps falling apart. This morning I checked my email and got this note from the administrator of one of my professional organization.

"I just want to take a moment to say thank you for your tremendous help at the Oct 24^th Leadership Event…If it wasn’t for your calm presence and smile during what was a chaotic few hours, I would likely be “laid out on the floor” of the Club that Thursday evening!"

 

I am so eternally grateful to you!  Looking forward to seeing you at an upcoming WHM event.

 

WOW-- I responded thanking her but I will definitely do it again in person, telling her what this means to my life and how it came at the right moment. When I got there she was freaking out indeed, so the first thing I do was say a prayer for everything to work out. I am happy it did, the event was a success.

Here are the link to the other transition posts.

Transition 2

Transition 1

Transitions (2) - Fear, Gratitude, Letting go

10/31/2013

Fear

Fear, whatever it is will become your personal stalker during your time in transition. It sees and knows everything and makes up what it is not sure of. It will be there when you wake up, go to sleep and even in your dreams. If you try to ignore it, it will make faces at you while digging in its heels to letting you know it is here to stay. With fear around being positive and having faith is difficult as it will constantly remind you of all the times things has not worked out as you hoped, it will give you many reasons why things are not working out as you need it to now.

When you notice this fear you going to have to be strong and meet it eye to eye. You are going to have to acknowledge it and its message and then release it. This works wonders. Someone people recommend naming the fear after acknowledging it before releasing it, this I think will help you recognize it when it comes again so showing it the door will be prompt or after five minutes.

 

Gratitude

Being grateful is must during this period. It will be difficult; you will have to dig deep. You are going to question why you must be grateful when the world is closing in on you. To be able to offer gratitude, you will need to step out of your current situation and look at the world around you. If you are having trouble to find something to be grateful for, make a list of the things that is sustaining you at the moment.  Think of the Sun that warms the earth, or the rain that nourishes it, think of water you drink or with which you take a bath, think of anything that makes you smile even for the moment. Think of the people who by their words, action or presence are reminding you not to give up.

Letting go

After you’ve analyze your life, gone within and figured out your goals and dreams, and what you envision for your life, when your what you want and need becomes the same, you are going to want this need now.  You might feel an energy surge that will propel you into the “I must prepare phase”.  You will start doing everything you can to get ready to start accomplishing your goals and living your dreams, but then after all the work you put it, you find that you might have to wait.  You will give up. This is the time when you will need to have faith. You are going to have to call for help, turn to the big guy and put it in his hands. Instead of giving up, you must surrender to God.  Tell him and his helpful angels to take over because when you give up, you are left with nothing. Remember, you are not going through all this for “nothing”.  

 

 Click Here for :Transitions (1)

Transition 3

 

 

Tansitions (1) - The holding Pattern

10/28/2013

The hold pattern

I am in transition they tell me, a holding pattern. I am glad there are words to describe this time period in my life and that someone informed me of it (no joke, it helps a lot and I give thanks and gratitude for this knowledge).  These words have become the flash light that turns off and on, on its own in this dark tunnel that I have been in for almost three years now.  But something tells me I am nearing the end of the tunnel, all my cells in my body are suddenly hyper as they sense the brightness at its end. I should have known this transition awaits me because seven years ago I started this path of self-discovery, what I would not have know  is that it  will lead to  me being plucked out from life as I was living it and put in place that is transforming.

Here is what I wrote three years ago and the height of my self-discovery: “On the part to self-discovery, becoming whole, becoming my authentic self.  For the past couple of years, I have been wondering what I am meant to do with my life, I have the innate feeling that I am meant to be somewhere else doing something more fulfilling, and I am meant to contribute more to the universe than I am current doing. This feeling was the force that got me to apply to business school in 2005 and now five years later, I feel like it is back, urging me to move closer to my destiny.  After grade school it took, what felt like decades for me to find a job, and even then my life hit a wall, all the opportunities that was dangled before me faded; for instance the opportunity to work at the VA hospital disappeared as will quickly as it appeared.” 

 

Now it is three years later, after being laid off from a job that I wanted to leave, and giving up my apartment in a town that I did not enjoy living in, I find myself more certain of what I want for my life professional and personally. In know now that I want to engage more with and in live instead of being just the observer, the investigator.  Before the layoff and the forced move, I was job hunting, looking to leave town but circumstances beat me to it. I dealt with the situation by putting my things in storage and planning a move destination unknown.  All I knew was I wanted to be in an area where it would be easy for me to continue my career interests and give me opportunities to interact more with others. Luckily a friend’s mom staying about 80 miles from an area I was interesting in offered to rent me a room for what I can afford to pay. I accepted and I joined two professional organizations that offered monthly seminars giving me the opportunity to stay connected to my industry happenings and to network, something I had wanted to do whiles working but never got the opportunity to do. Though I was down, I was not going to be knocked out.

I understand myself a lot more now and I feel more equipped to take my place in this world. Although I have found ways to stay involved in my profession, and to earn money for bills, I am still looking for something full-time permanent opportunity that will allow me to put my innate analytical and problem solving skills to use, as I am certain that part of my path, my destiny calls for me to do just that. I know I am on my way; I just spend the summer helping someone launch a home health care business and later I have been seeing opportunities that could be promising... So I am on my way.

 

As they say “when the student is ready the teacher will come” , a teacher, one by the name of Alanis Morissette through her interest in, psychology, Astrology, women empowerment and Spirituality showed up for me when I started my path to self discovery and many has followed since then.  As I learned that I am more than my sun sign (Gemini), I discovered numerology and recently the enneagram. All this personality and psychological tools helped me become my own parent. Using my analytical skills I did a lot of research on the Internet and at book stores. These tools also lead me to the spiritual communities online starting with Hay house radio and now 12Radio where I have met many teachers, supporters and made many friends. With spirituality I learned to tune within for answers, and trust in God and the universe, which you think should be easy for me because I am a 7 life path (the spiritualist) according to numerology, but with my Gemini sun, keeping my mind quite during meditation is a struggle, even with the guided and imagery meditations.

During this period I realized that we are all connected and God has a way of letting us get the messages meant for us. If you miss it the first time, you will definitely get it again. For instance, sometimes when I go to church with my friend’s mom and I will hear the same message I heard during the week on the Radio on church on Sunday and vice versa.  Another thing I have learned during this period is to be more open and trust more and not to be afraid to reach out for help because sometimes the person you reach out to have a message for you. Just recently I was upset because a job that I thought I had did not turn out to be what was promised and even though I do not like calling someone during the work day, I called someone who has been helping with my job search and networking, He told me to email him,  and
after I told him what was happening he wrote “something is meant to be/Happen for you” I smiled and said thank you. Three hours later I got a call from an employer informing me that someone is interested in interviewing me and they will call me to schedule.  Once when this friend told me to have faith, played that message in my head all day, I even dreamt he was offering to take me to church.

Being in a holding pattern, going through transition is not easy. Staying positive will work but not all the time. At times you will feel as if you are in limbo one minute you will be find and the next you will be in despair. Frustration will come, especially if you know and feel that you are doing everything you can to make changes to your situation you know that is needed. Tears will come from nowhere, things that you once enjoyed as hobbies will seem frivolous and pointless. If it is a job you are wanting and can’t find any, you will hate Monday because you are not at work and you will not be looking forward to TGIF as few employers book interviews on weekend. At times you will resent the affirmations and advice that have helped you in the past because all you want to do is move forward. The word patience will be your nemesis. You will question God and life.

For those going through transition, I send you hugs and lots of love. My advice is to just trust and surrender to God but stays focus on your goals and do not give up. Try and stay engage in life and make a list and try to accomplish sometime each day even if it is just cleaning your room. Anything positive that gets your mind off your situation is a gift.

 

More to come…..

 

  Transitions (2)
Transition 3